Category Archives: Politics

Life on Earth

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This strictly is a metaphoric, allegoric, analogous, anthropomorphized  post.  So keep one’s imagination and lateral thinking at hand.

The Texas flooding disaster is a tragic, quick, painful experience for many innocent people. It is an example of how Mother Nature will strike out for no good reason – same is true for tornadoes and forest fires. Similarly, the blatant, instant firing of tens of thousands of Federal workers by Donald Trump seems quite similar to Mother Nature’s Texas flood. Both seem vindictive; both were quick and painful; both attacked a large number of people without individual judgment.

Do Donald and Mother march to the same drumbeat?

Their tools are persistent: Mother uses water and intense heat by eliminating or adding too much water or by popping off a volcano or by melting polar ice. Donald uses cash money by building channels of cash flow that flow only in his direction or to those who help him extricate cash from the rest of the population which needs it for their own well being.

But what is the motivation? At the bottom, for both of them, it may be survival. In Mother’s case, she has a bad case of lice. They are dangerous to Mother’s health and a constant itch and tickle. She has taken to harsh baths and showers and a bug spray of methane but the lice continue to exude CO2 which gives her a fever and bad headaches. Also, the lice leave scraped and cracked patches on her skin which kills other desired creatures on her environmental skin.

Donald, too, must survive despite damage to his brain caused by any source such as damaged at birth, parental abuse, peer condescension and bullying – or all of the above. In any case, Donald must survive in spite of his disabilities. He lacks many defenses that assuage life: self-confidence, compassion, communal bonding. Despite “winning” a situation, he is not secure in his confidence. He must win and win again. Where Mother deals with lice, Donald deals with security. Both are looking for survival.

Ancient Mariner

 

Does the reader have a map?

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Sitting in the tunnel with Nosy Mole where it is a lot cooler than outside, mariner received an email from Wayside Gardens. It was a big splash sale with huge price cutting on Hyssop.  “That’s odd,” he said. “I just mentioned hyssop in my last post – and as far as I know, I’ve never seen a sale ad for hyssop before – its an indigenous plant.”

Know the world you live in.

⊗

Here is a short clip from The Atlantic magazine: “Imagine an intersection at which American national security, defense spending, the rise of China, technological innovation, regional conflict, and the future of liberal democracy all meet.” Mariner doubts this intersection has a traffic light.

The old fogies still around remember the last two centuries where global wealth was more abundant and disruption was between selected nations. This century is different. It is not just international bickering, it is way too many people for the environment and way too little resources available from a disappearing biosphere. The global economic stress challenges all forms of government. Then, like hot pepper tossed into a soup, AI is attacking the anthropological role of everything – including Homo.

So, who else is watching old episodes of Lawrence Welk? Homo is on its way to Matrix.

Ancient Mariner

It’s Independence Day!

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As a child for mariner, and perhaps even today, Independence Day was second only to Christmas.  The fireworks, parades, picnics in the park, trips to visit other family members, and the general public attitude provoked energy and social unity.

It is the same today, perhaps without the innocence of the last century. Our nation still is important to us as a source of unity and a source for all the benefits a strong democratic government can provide.

Our America has an illness today. Rather than unity, there is conflict and disparity. America of the people, by the people, seems not to be the instinctive theme today. Who does America belong to? What can Americans believe in for that sense of unity? Certainly America is affected by the troubles of the new century. How can it be healed? America belongs to the citizens. The citizens must heal it.

Celebrate Independence day as the holiday it deserves to be. That would be a good start.

Ancient Mariner

Check the charts

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A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll reveals that 76% of Americans believe democracy is facing a serious threat. That percentage includes 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents and 57% of Republicans.

There are two outcomes: The republicans retain control after Donald or there may be a destructive confrontation between liberals and conservatives. There is another alternative: The votes are out there but to be marshaled for an election, it will take state, county and local campaign energy rather than national campaign energy – which currently belongs to the republicans.

Ancient Mariner

Who are the best replacements for a dead democratic party?

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Everyone is painfully aware of the republican party’s intentions regarding economics, fuel consumption, racial division, political domination using the military, etc. But where is another option? The democratic party is a silent shambles. The power democrats from the last half of the 20th century aren’t powerful anymore. Most of them are moving into retirement. What kind of representatives should we elect to replace them?

Bottom Up Government.  The last several decades have seen the demise of ‘one person, one vote’. Many states arrange political processes that favor one party over the other – the most common is gerrymandering state and local districts; a few states require gubernatorial approval of each Federal election representative. Obviously, it takes more funding to remain competitive even in one’s own state – that. means money replaces local voter influence.

We should select local leaders who would disavow gerrymandering, require rank voting and prevent dark money coming from outside the state. These steps would do a great deal to minimize the current plutocracy.

Economics   Since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the flow of capital has increasingly become ‘trickle down’. It is easier to become richer for the rich and harder for the average citizen to catch a break even versus inflation. According to inflation, the minimum wage should be $22.80. Under today’s administration, all discretionary funding is at risk (discretionary funding is when the government helps citizens with their costs, covering everything from PBS to social security and helpful regulations controlling everything from tax rates to wildlife). Further, large corporations, especially those in computer technology, are not under the control of government regulation and slowly are changing the marketplace to a ‘middleman’ purchasing process where supply and demand do not set market price, e.g., Walmart, Amazon and Temu (online) among many more.

We should elect local leaders who advocate income ceilings for billionaires, restore and improve funding for large issues like medical care, public education and improve Federal Emergency Administration (FEMA) financial support to citizens as global warming threatens homes and communities. Insurance cannot maintain competitive pricing and slowly will back out of coverage due to hazards.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)   Tons of evidence exists from many sources – including tech managers who left the field for moral reasons – that the rule is “if you can do it, do it!”. There is no ethical control over artificial intelligence development. Already there are constant news reports about its effect on children and its hidden manipulations in the marketplace. Scamming grows more widespread. Most neutral scientists agree that there is an eminent confrontation between human politics and AI independence.

We should elect local leaders who understand the intrusion of AI, aka nonhuman influence, into a citizen’s daily life. Primarily, two issues require immediate government control: social ethics and corporate mergers. Generally, this requires a younger candidate who has been exposed to the new AI era and understands it influence.

International Unity   Much of the world is in disarray. Among the wealthiest nations, it is conflict over who will dominate the new age. In moderate nations, the issue is very similar to the retiree who depends heavily on Social Security: “If I lose the source of my primary income, there is nothing left”.  And certainly, in terms of body count, the poor nations are battling for survival at the citizen level. Add to this stress the pressure on religion, theocracies (Arab nations), the shifting weather patterns caused by global warming, the forced migrations of millions and there seems to be nothing in store except Armageddon.

We should elect local leaders who believe in economic integration as a solution to the trembling of world order. The prime example since the second world war is the European Union but the scope is not wide enough. China has a comprehensive strategy called ‘The Belt and Road Strategy’ which integrates trade across most of Asia and includes the eastern side of Europe. Could the U.S. forget racism and work to economically integrate the Caribbean and South America?

Civil Rights   Any constriction on how a citizen lives within the bounds of their humanness induces stress. The worst case is slavery. Today, the right to choose or not choose pregnancy is more a political battle than a medical one. Well rooted in the U.S. is racism – not just blacks but any shade other than Honky White. Add to this dozens of civil constrictions like the current reversal of the right for children born in the U.S. not to have birthright citizenship because their parents were not citizens. The treatment of our citizens is approaching the brutality of the early Persian Empire. Add to racism the severe treatment caused by very distinct and self-absorbed economic classes that is so severe that the poorer classes are bound to remain poor or otherwise short-sheeted for their entire life.

We should elect local leaders who respect humanness, that is, they show empathy and compassion in their speech and behavior. They should tend toward unanimity rather than classism. Their political arguments should never choose confrontation over unity.

Planet-Human Relations   As the current President seeks to further disrupt humanity’s relationship with the biosphere by cutting out solar and wind energy funding, Mother Nature is not amused. Stated briefly, humans have consumed about 70% of the land and imposed livestock grazing to the point that there are 27 cows, sheep, etc. for every displaced wild creature. Now that the weather patterns are causing agricultural hardship and global warming continues to accelerate to the point that New York has to pay attention to rising sea levels, the biosphere has become a political issue. Throw in a planetary overpopulation of 8 billion humans just since 1800, and Mother Nature clearly is taking issue with human behavior. Economic balance is at risk around the world.

We should elect local leaders who intellectually understand that humans have over used the planet’s resources. it must be clear in their rhetoric that everything from FEMA to solar power to water conservation, etc. are the way humans must placate Mother Earth.

YOU   The role of voting as an influence in a slowly changing national culture has changed. All of reality is leaping forward at light speed, forcing rapid adjustments to economics, society and future survivability. This means a casual vote for a familiar name or party every now and then doesn’t work anymore. Every citizen MUST take more interest in government.

Perhaps you should visit a council/state legislative hearing every couple of months. You may learn not only more about the issues but also more about your representatives. If a state or national campaigner stops in your home town, check them out at their event. Read decent, balanced political news in your local paper – even the odd-minded political columnists – maybe even write a letter to the editor about a personal issue. The point is, the job of saving the planet is in your hands.

* * * *

Mariner knows it would take a godlike creature to meet all the recommendations above but do the best you can. If ever there were a time, women may be a better choice than men. He recommends using age as a primary consideration. Finally, VOTE!!!

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

The Gathering

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Mariner writes today from a tribal encampment. It is a gathering of his wife’s family anchored by nine cousins. Events like this allow folks to experience genuine Homo sapiens behavior. There is a restoration of family values, shared experiences and renewed emotional dependencies. There is recognition of those who have passed on.

The reunion is based in a wilderness park. One section of the park has small cabins in a semi-circle which have been used for every reunion, held every five years since 1981. Typically, each cousin rents a cabin and brings their immediate family.

Social and political issues are deliberately suppressed. Conversations often are about catching up on other families’ histories and sharing unusual life events. Each day has a planned event which requires all the attendees to share in preparing a central meal. Families can pursue swimming in the lake, playing golf in the nearby town and have a canoe flotilla on a large river adjacent to the park.

There is a heightened desire to belong and to share; one relative provided enough koozies so that everyone had the same logo.

The reunion has been occurring long enough that it is multi-generational with not just the cousins but their children and grandchildren. Activity definitely is varied and all-consuming. The intense sharing consumes a lot of behavioral energy. After a week, attendees, not being accustomed to such continuous, interactive behavior, may feel it was a restorative experience but they may be relieved that the reunion has come to an end.

. . ;

A reunion today is a critical event. Every family tribe should make every effort to have a reunion because the resultant behavior creates a ‘human’ bonding which is not easily available in everyday life and is rapidly disappearing. This kind of human bonding is anchored in the evolution of the Homo species; it is the biological key to successful economics, politics and mental health.

As late as the 17th century, the economic process still was dependent on large family productivity. A classic example today is the conservative Amish who share building, feeding and sustaining wellbeing. Even religion, while generally Christian, has unique values in each sect. Personal need and survivability came from the local ‘tribe’ comprising several branches of a single ancestral generation. In the U.S, this took the form of family farming and local trades.

Given all the daily interdependency back then, reunions were not too important, usually wrapped around religious or regional holidays. Interdependency as a way of surviving, however, kept the species alive. It has kept the species alive for about 150,000 years.

The world we live in today has, at every turn, encouraged personal independence and discourages the desire to sustain tribal relationships. Ever since trains and tractors broke the tribal need, each further invention has made interpersonal relations less important. Regular readers know mariner’s despise for many of the industrial/computer invasions.

Set up a gathering of your tribe today!

Ancient Mariner

About Baby Boomers

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Some excerpts from The Atlantic magazine:

“Unlike younger generations, they [boomers] have largely been able to walk a straightforward path toward prosperity, security, and power. They were born in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability. College was affordable, and they graduated in a thriving job market. They were the first generation to reap the full benefits of a golden age of medical innovations: birth control, robotic surgery, the mapping of the human genome, effective cancer treatments, Ozempic.

… “But recent policy changes are poised to make life significantly harder for Baby Boomers. “If you’re in your 60s or 70s, what the Trump administration has done means more insecurity for your assets in your 401(k), more insecurity about sources of long-term care, and, for the first time, insecurity about your Social Security benefits,

… “even those with more financial assets may depend on Social Security as a safety net. It’s important to understand that many seniors, even upper-income seniors, are just one shock away from falling into poverty,

… ”Middle-income seniors are also likely to feel the impact of a volatile market. “They tend to have modest investments and fixed incomes rather than equities, so that is the type of wealth that will erode over a high-inflation period,”

… “In the near future, older Americans might find themselves paying more for medical care too. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which has passed in the House but awaits a vote in the Senate, would substantially limit Medicare access for many documented immigrants, including seniors who have paid taxes in the United States for years. The bill would also reduce Medicaid enrollment by about 10.3 million people.”

Mariner remembers when most factory jobs provided a full retirement until the Reagan administration deleted the legislation requiring businesses to do so. He remembers full college tuition for veterans. He remembers when unions had equal political clout to corporations. Viewing those special decades, they really were the peak of good times for workers.

Mariner already posted about the sucking of cash out of the American economy and being stuffed into jammed pockets of the wealthy class. Systemically, this leaves less cash in the public square. More than ever, pay down credit card debt; balance the family budget; don’t gamble; sit down with the family and pretend there has been a ‘cash crash’ – what items, activities and utility-based costs can be reduced or eliminated? Don’t extend long term debt to get by today.

1970 is no longer around.

Ancient Mariner

 

About the Gen Zs

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The Gen Z generation is comprised of children born between 1997 and 2012 or today aged 13 to 28. A number of polls and an associated study have been performed by Walton Family Foundation focused primarily on expectations for the future and the degree for discerning possible career routes. Some general observations:

⊗ High school students primarily trust their parents for guidance about their futures after graduation but also rely heavily on teachers and other school resources.

⊗ Parents are having limited postsecondary conversations, particularly about alternatives to college or a paid job.

⊗ Gen Zs and their parents know relatively little about most postsecondary options.

⊗ Schools are an important resource for postsecondary guidance, but they are not adequately informing or preparing many students.

⊗ Despite limited knowledge and conversations, many Gen Z students are at least somewhat interested in non-college alternatives.

⊗ Most high school students, including seniors, do not feel prepared to pursue their preferred pathway.

Some statistics:

⊗ One in four high school students feel very prepared to succeed in college or
apply for a job, and those who don’t plan to pursue higher education are notably less
optimistic and prepared than their peers.

⊗ 47% of parents — including about one-third of parents of high school seniors — say they are not frequently discussing post graduation plans with their child.

⊗ Only 15% to 25% of parents know a great deal about any other postsecondary option besides college and paid salary positions.

  The plight of Gen Z is like a fish knowing where to go in muddy water. Their useless government is bouncing into a dictatorship; education has been underfunded for decades and does little to prepare a student for the real world; career jobs are not only scarce, whole industries are disappearing in the arts, white color desk jobs, and iterative labor industries like factory work and truck driving; the economy is definitely in trickle down mode. Property in Hawaii is being bought up by billionaires – local citizens are being forced to migrate; job tenure is no guarantee for fringe benefits.

In 1938 the minimum wage was begun at $1.00/hour. Had the minimum wage kept up with inflation, the minimum wage would be $22.35. Today it is $7.25. If the U.S. doesn’t end up as a dictatorship, it definitely will be an oligarchy – with the help of computers.

A Gen Z stands looking across the horizon of this battered society and has to wonder, “What is my role?” . . . “What is there to believe in for a lifetime?” . . . “How will I survive?”

Smoking among Gen Z has been dropping for the last several years; Gen Z are beginning to trade in smartphones for flip phones; marriage and children are being delayed. The future is hitting them in the face.

The ‘ocean of life’ looks pretty stormy right now.

Ancient Mariner

 

Why mariner dislikes smartphones

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Mariner apologizes to readers, family and friends who have heard enough castigation by alter ego Amos against smartphones and associated displacement of human interaction. But he has been challenged (frequently) again. So here is why smartphones are dangerous, then mariner will rejoin Nosey Mole:

Smartphones have a high convenience factor similar to air conditioning and automobiles, that is, it would be difficult to do without them. However, air conditioning and automobiles actually may contribute to improving Homo sapiens behavior. Smartphones will not.

In recent posts mariner has adopted the term ‘social accountability’ to represent the natural need for, dependence on and collaboration with other humans. These behaviors are in line with anthropological and psychological descriptions accepted universally today. Briefly, we are primates, we are mammals, we are capable of imagination.

Hundreds of thousand of years ago, primates were simple forest creatures whose social life did not go far beyond being responsible for supporting offspring until the child could go on its own. It didn’t take long before the mammalian instincts led to herding – yes, just like cows, horses and monkeys. Herding (let’s switch to tribes) is a defensive behavior to achieve several things: sharing threats and defeating them; sharing the burdens of raising offspring; identifying the best behavior to continue to be accepted by the tribe; and to have a realistic understanding of the world around them – a term used in psychology is ‘agency’.

To translate the last paragraph into conversational words, it is important to be engaged continually in interpersonal activity, engage with tribe members to resolve simple matters like food gathering, emotional balance not sustainable in isolation, learning what is currently important to the tribe, and exercising a complex brain to understand what is real and what is fantasy. A failed example today are the few who still believe the world is flat.

What everything written above means is ‘socializing with the tribe is what pulls together and identifies something called ‘reality’. Reality is not just an outside assumption, it also is an assumption of the subconscious brain, which must interpret whether to run, to watch or to take a pee. The tools of tribe association are our emotions, e.g., love, compassion, ritual, defensiveness and survivability. Communication with other humans is mandatory to identify a functional reality.

Mariner has experienced several families where Alexa has more conversation time with a person than their spouse has with them. It is a national news item that teenagers especially have emotional difficulties because the smartphone defines their reality and even tells them what they look like or how they should behave – without validation from the tribe. The smartphone has no ability to educate an individual with respect to their mental and personal reality. Yet it is so tempting that a brother and sister will sit on a sofa and communicate through an emotionless devise rather than actually use their own natural interpretations (AKA reality) based on tone of voice, facial expression, muscular tension or internal brain interpretations.

Another defect of the smartphone is personal isolation. Mariner attended a 100th birthday celebration recently. He sat at a dinner table with six chairs; the other chairs were filled by immediate family to the birthday celebrant. There was vibrant conversation about the times and experiences of the family – except for one person. She never spoke a word, never looked up and had no interaction with her own immediate family. Without interruption, she thumbed her way through an hour and a half of centenary celebration.

A similar dysfunction is the individual who will engage the smartphone at every pause in conversation to ask for detailed information from the smartphone then assuage their ego by expressing unnecessary information.

As to tribe relations, psychologically it is beneficial to acknowledge the tribe and its importance to reality. By doing grocery shopping at a supermarket, unconsciously one is aware that it takes a lot of tribe members to provide food and other essentials, that there is a unified reality that subconsciously builds self confidence and assures safety within the shopper’s reality. Shopping on the smartphone provides no tribe bonding and offers no way to sustain a person’s awareness of the world around them.

Which leads to the greatest danger of smartphones: interpreter of a person’s reality. Readers may recall that Mark Zuckerberg’s fantasy was to have everyone live in an online village designed just for them. Using publicly available data, the kinds of stores, recreational activities and even family members were all available at this online ‘reality’. Mariner can’t avoid saying it – this is identical to the lives buried in caskets in the movie ‘Matrix’.

Is domination by computers inevitable? Bill Gates thinks so. For what it’s worth, mariner does, too.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

We all need new top down awareness

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Especially the world’s governments but that’s another story.

Even more important is that you, me and every individual around the globe must stop living by the daily ethics of life that may have been true forty years ago. Computers are no longer smart typewriters and no longer fantastic libraries; computer technology has created a subhuman species capable of telling us what we should know and what to think. In a few years, computers, as our medical advisors and primary care physicians, will decide whether you continue to live or not. What is scary is that computers already think for themselves – technicians no longer solve ethical positions. Today a majority of stock market trades never see a human mind. Who tells you the truth – Mom or the smartphone?

We must cast aside the romantic image of farming as a rural life style with cute lambs and mooing cows and amber waves of grain and purple mountain majesties above a fruited plain. Worldwide we keep clearing to make room for more farms to make more food. The image of a romantic farm should be replaced by the relentless spread of crops and pastures that already cover two of every five acres of land on Earth, obliterating the wild landscapes that soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Further, it is propelling the worst extinction since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago..

We must look beyond a world made of nations. Any nation, including the US and China, is incapable on its own to stabilize industrial development, international supply chains, artificial intelligence, humanitarian obligations and, importantly – open warfare. At the least, smaller nations, especially in Africa and the Middle East, must adopt a model similar to the European Union. On a global scale, it is time to make war less important than management of the planet and all its human disasters. It is time for one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all – including Mother Earth. It is time for the United Nations to be authorized as the ethical authority – including the right to wage international war.

The ethics of human society must leave behind the age of nationally defined variations of humans; it is of no consequence whether Italian, Brazilian, South African, Indian, Polish, Chinese . . . The issue is eight billion humans and growing. There are only two choices: let the population grow until there is a tragic, horrible collapse of controlled civilization, or take control of birthrates. Sardonically, computers may help us with the population issue. The Dixie style of birth control is simplistic. The following is an extract from a post mariner wrote last April:

“A tremendous change occurred with the industrial revolution: whereas it had taken all of human history until around 1800 for world population to reach one billion, the second billion was achieved in only 130 years (1930), the third billion in 30 years (1960), the fourth billion in 15 years (1974), and the fifth billion in only 13 years (1987).

  • During the 20th century alone, the population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion.
  • In 1970, there were roughly half as many people in the world as there are now.”

Immediately, one grasps the idea that population and natural resources are the two issues that can’t remain under control given the ethical image we carry from the 1970’s. So, are we willing to go the way of the dinosaurs using our homemade asteroid or will humans have the wherewithal to live according to a new top down awareness?

Ancient Mariner