Category Archives: Politics

Everyone’s Main Topic

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Mariner receives many emails from news services, magazines and news analysts. Today, with a rapid fire sort of experience, mariner copied the following quotes from his emails and could have copied many more:

֎ Trump won by speaking directly to voters who had the least experience with democratic institutions… A nation of passive observers watching others make decisions is a nation that will succumb to anger and resentment—witness the United States. [Yoni Appelbaum, journalist]

֎ “Whatever may be tolerated in monarchical and despotic governments, no republic is safe that tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of its citizens equal rights and equal means to maintain them.” [Frederick Douglass, December 1866]

֎ “Human beings are tribal,” says Amy Chua, Professor of Law at Yale Law School. “We’re hardwired that way. We need to belong to groups.” The problem, Chua says, is when tribalism takes over a political system—and that’s just what is happening in America.

In a new video filmed at the 2018 Aspen Ideas Festival in June, Chua explains that, in an unprecedented fashion for America, whites are on the verge of losing their majority status, leading to “destructive political dynamics” that are difficult to curb.

֎A longer article in the Atlantic marked the beginning of tribalism or identity politics to the influence of the Tea Party. Referencing a quote from Adolf Hitler who said early in his political life, “If they stop me early, I will not make it to power; if they don’t act early, they can’t stop me.” The reference alludes to the fragmentation of the citizenry and the government when one clique is allowed to derail normal democratic processes.

– – – –

The disappearance of democracy as a philosophical model producing equality for everyone regardless of tribe has malfunctioned quite dramatically in just 30 years. Today, it is the main topic of writers, thinkers, political practitioners and even many individual citizens.

Who should we blame? Just about everyone from our prominent political and corporate leaders, to Congress, Courts, and especially to the individual citizens who chose not to maintain the American experiment – democracy.

We could blame automation and electronics which make it easier to stay home rather than participating in clubs and civic organizations. We could blame public education for not requiring civics in 12 years of instruction. We could blame capitalism with its tendency to hoard. We could blame the media for championing tribal values, jousting at one another like knights in the lists – thereby creating fake news and alternative news. Each of these examples has, in its own manner, attacked democracy but at the core, it is the public citizen – the electorate. The electorate is Chairman of the Board for democracy.

Above, Amy Chua references an issue deep in this caustic salad bowl: racism. The penchant of the United States to sustain racism is about to turn around and bite the whites in their butts. Certainly a deep and visible characteristic of American culture, the transition may emerge subtlety as a shift toward socialistic governance.

On the other hand, more direct conflict emerges daily between tribes. Consider the following, each one entrenched with an attitude of ‘my way or the highway’:

-Theocratic dominance. The idea that a religion (Christianity???) supersedes state rights. There are several confrontations: abortion, gay marriage, right to deny service because of Christian values and the intent to oppress other religious principles, e.g., atheism, Islam and situational ethics as law (Roe v Wade). Whence the desire for equality?

-Libertarianism and Tea Party conservatism. (Modern libertarians defend the right of productive people to keep what they earn, against a new class of politicians and bureaucrats who would seize their earnings to transfer them to nonproducers.) Government must be kept to an absolute minimum; size and multiplicity are dangerous and unfair to the liberty of individuals to live prosperous, self-managed lives. One can imagine the conflict with a government whose discretionary (transfers to nonproducers) budget is more than half of the entire budget. Harari draws his opinion from this philosophy when he says useless people will not be cared for in the future.

-Progressives. The antithesis of libertarianism. Probably the least wordy description is to borrow Jesus’s words when he says,

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” [Matthew 25:40]

In other words, equal value among everyone – regardless whether they are producers, nonproducers, wealthy, poor, healthy, sick, etc. An interesting reference, Native Americans were progressives in the sense that everyone was cared for. Of course, survival was more of an issue than it is today unless one is truly indigent.

-Conservatives. Share economic and capitalistic views of libertarians but more important is social order. Change is anathema. A good example is the persistence of racism; it is difficult for conservatives to change social order. The same is true of whatever subtribe is important, e.g., having a job is a universal discriminator, what neighborhood they live in, how the church service is run. In mariner’s town, well-kept lawns are an important demonstration of community unity and, if conservatives have anything to do with it, will be sustained into the future.

-Climate Change. This isn’t really a battle between advocates and deniers; it’s a battle between the massive, global investment in fossil fuel and those who want to shut down fossil fuel. It’s all about dollars and profit versus a slow, inevitable impact on the state of all economic and political circumstances. A characteristic of capitalism is greed – take the profit up front, push the overhead into the future.

Mariner can name several more tribal conflicts but already he is on his third page. No doubt readers understand that when tribal values dominate the overall political condition, fragmentation is bound to happen. The Russians understand this even if the US doesn’t. Remember Rodney King? He was right.

Ancient Mariner.

 

Observations

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In reference to mariner’s recent post about cronyism, a report from Politico shows a racial pattern in Congress reflective of older folk who still have pre-civil rights attitudes:

“More than 1,000 top House staffers are white. Out of 1,174 top staffers, 79 are African-American, 45 are Latino, 32 are Asian American/Pacific Islander, one is Native American and four are bi- or multiracial. The report defines top staff as chiefs of staff, legislative directors and communications directors in members’ personal D.C. offices; chiefs of staff, policy directors and communications directors in the top four leadership offices of both parties; and staff directors assigned to full committees.

“This systemic problem matters because Congress cannot effectively create public policy that benefits all Americans if the people making policy decisions don’t look like America,” said Spencer Overton, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The report recommends that House members collect and disclose detailed demographic data on staffers, adopt a rules package in the next Congress that includes measures to increase diversity and inclusion, apply the “Rooney Rule” — interview at least one person of color for each open senior position — in hiring and offer paid internships and fellowships.”

– – – –

Mariner was incensed yesterday when he read that Donald reallocated 10 million from FEMA to ICE – even as a strong hurricane approaches the Carolinas. Mariner should not be surprised; Donald has a public record of disregarding the purpose and designations of different accounts. He drew down all the cash from his casino business, driving it into bankruptcy; he uses a charity account as a revolving door to avoid taxes; he has settled multiple times for fraudulent business practices. Now, he is in charge of dispensing the Federal budget. He and his sycophant cabinet must be gleeful at the opportunity for abuse.

– – – –

Three sources have suggested that the next significant socio-political upheaval in the United States will not be the liberals and the progressives nor will it be African Americans. It will be an emergence of Latinos as a major influence in political change. No authors were able to connect the dots from the present but base their assumptions on demographics in the US and the whole of Central America and South America. At some point the politics of immigration will transition away from Europe and the Middle East and turn to the relationships between nations on North and South America.

It has been speculated for more than a hundred years that a mega nation will emerge on the two continents. Mariner asked Guru about this; he said a lot of current history has to adjust to that circumstance. First the new world economy, China emergence and artificial intelligence all must arrive at that opportunity. Still, within the US there are enough Latinos to launch a shift in politics.

– – – –

Patrick J. Egan of New York University writes that identity politics is beginning to shift in US citizens. What led identity politics heretofore was one’s religion, political party, economic class, and race. However, recent surveys by the General Social Survey, a reliable survey of American attitudes, shows that citizens are modifying their root identities to align themselves with an ‘ism’. Examples are liberalism, progressivism, libertarianism, conservatism, etc. Is this the beginning of the end for identity politics?

Ancient Mariner

 

Contemporary Blood

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Mariner has lamented in the past that our government representatives do not relate to today’s culture. The existential experience of citizens today is not an experience that folks over 60 can have. He coined the term ‘codgerism’ to identify this phenomenon. This is why mariner advocates age limits rather than term limits.[1]

Mariner therefore was pleased with a spread in USA TODAY that presented ten strong women who, if elected, by themselves will introduce contemporary thought in a codger-bound legislature. Topping the youngness statistic, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) and Abbey Finkenauer (IA), ages 28 and 29 respectively, will set records as the youngest Representatives in the House.

Further, Congress may feel a change in priorities as a record number of young nonwhites and nonChristians are running for Congress. Politico reports:

“Congress is poised to look a lot different next year. With primary season winding down this week, Democrats have nominated a record-breaking 180 women in congressional primaries. They’ve also nominated at least 133 people of color and 158 first-time candidates. “White men are in the minority in the House Democratic candidate pool,” Elena Schneider reports. In the 125 districts where the Democratic incumbent isn’t seeking reelection or the Republican-held seat is at risk of flipping, 65 nominees are women, 30 are people of color and 73 have never run for elected office before.”

– – – –

Mariner suggests beyond youthfulness another significant change in legislatures will occur when states begin using the speed and much less expensive methods of mail-in and electronic voting instead of mandating walk-in, in person voting; this is imminent especially at the state level as one solution to international hacking. The Dixie states will be the last to make the change because ID and inconvenient polling centers are a way of sustaining blatant racism.

– – – –

Mariner predicts that not much will be restored or improved by Congress if Donald is not impeached. His cabinet and his executive powers will thwart democratic efforts. This situation is important because the next election is only two years away and progress may not be visible to the electorate.

– – – –

Many controversial issues may be ignored by the Federal Court system because Donald and the GOP have appointed an unusually large number of judges. Jeff Sessions has been busy appointing judges in the special courts under Department of Justice control. In addition, the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will send the bench back into the last century (Judges can be too old, too).

Ancient Mariner

[1] See Coming of Age Past 60, May 6, 2018 for a full lamentation.

Conflict in Purpose

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Mariner never has been able to fully reconcile the split between church and state in the United States. One can make convincing arguments for the authority of either over the other as a foundation for American culture. Each, in its own way, espouses equality; each endorses spiritual reward for compliance with its doctrine – one the New Testament, the other the Constitution.

The United States was begun in the midst of serious conflict between the Anglican (state) Church and several spiritualist sects that saw the role of faith in a different light. In many instances these sects migrated to North America. Their intent was to have the freedom to practice their religion without Anglican constraints. Freedom for any religion was not the intent – only that sect’s interpretation was acceptable; dissenters were burned at the stake, had noses split, were cast out from the community and suffered other harsh punishments during the early decades of settlement. For about half of the colonies, religion was the only law; governments had not formed independently until later.

The ‘state’ side followed early settlers to the US for economic and political reasons. 150 years after the first settlers arrived, a war broke out between Great Britain and France over who would colonize North America (Seven Years War AKA French and Indian War).

Mariner digresses. If the reader seeks more detail about how church and state began in North America, visit a preferred library or search engine.

The specific enigma about which mariner has difficulty is cultural morality. How can a singular national ethos and inclusive human rights be governed by two masters?

Mariner has personal interest in the conflict over abortion because Roe v. Wade didn’t exist in the 1940’s. No doctor would breach Christian decorum to perform an abortion; abortion was performed on the dark side – if one could find it. Mariner’s mother died at age 26 because she had to carry and give birth to a child doctors said she should not have.

To start, let’s read about Deborah Copaken’s life experience:

 

A quote from Deborah Copaken – an advocate to keep Roe v. Wade in place.

The day when you find yourself six weeks pregnant at the age of 17, as I did, is not a joyous day, particularly after doing all the right things, birth-control-wise, including getting yourself fitted for a diaphragm at Planned Parenthood. For one, you can’t have a baby. You’re still a baby yourself. You would (you know, even then) cause permanent emotional damage to a child, in not wanting to have one, never mind that you have neither the skills nor the means to raise one properly. For another, you’ve just been admitted to college, and though you love your high-school boyfriend dearly, you have no idea who you are or what you want out of love or life. Plus, raising a baby in a freshman dorm was never part of your plan. Nor your college’s. And adoption—for you, personally—is out of the question. The pain of handing over your child to another person would, you know, become a lifetime of “Little Green” sorrow.[1]

Your parents drive you to the abortion clinic in Maryland. No one in that car is happy, but everyone is nevertheless grateful for one another’s love and for your right to legally choose this option. The clinic makes you answer a bunch of invasive questions to prove you know what you’re about to do, as if you hadn’t been thinking only about this moment for the past week. You’re awake for the entire procedure, which is painful. You cry a bucket of tears into your saltines in the crowded recovery room after, because it hurts and because you’re still 17, the age of emotional roller coasters under the best of circumstances, which this is not. But not one of those tears can be traced back to shame or to regret over the decision to abort the minuscule embryo of cells inside you. In fact, it was not a “difficult decision.” It was easy: the only rational one, to your mind, to make.

– – – –

Deborah made a decision based on her situation. At that moment, a Federal law, Roe v. Wade, ergo a ‘state’ law rather than a religious one, allowed her to choose an abortion. Some would say Roe v. Wade is an affront to religious freedom.

The question always evaded is, doesn’t freedom of religion mean any religion can practice its unique doctrine and ritual but cannot restrict those who have another religion from practicing their doctrine and ritual? Following the Constitution in principle, the answer is yes. What confuses the dialogue is the total dominance of Christian-based religions versus nationally dominant state law; if other world religions had prominence in the US along with Christianity, ‘freedom’ would be better defined. There are dozens of Christian religions from the snake believers in Appalachia to the Mormons in Utah to… on and on. One of the major variations is the Evangelical Christian; there are enough members – particularly in conservative states – to influence legislators. Opportunistic legislators, which abound today, forego state law (Constitution) to placate those who would restrict not only state rights but other religions as well – thereby violating the Constitution. Unfortunately, legislators aren’t selected for their wisdom and ethic.

There is an unhappy truce for the moment because the Supreme Court is bound by the Constitution. Here is a challenge: would it be legal under the freedom of religion clause for some Islamic sects to eviscerate the clitoris of pubescent girls if this were practiced in the United States? Here is a similar challenge: Does the owner of a slave have the right to inflict torture, starvation, rape or religious practices on that slave? How about circumcision? This is relevant today; thousands, including family members, are held in slave relationships not to mention contemporary slave trading almost entirely with helpless women.

As we ponder these challenges, the core human issue is whether someone can impose bodily modification on another person. Is Deborah a slave? Is Deborah an Evangelical Christian? Is Deborah Islamic? Is Deborah a US citizen? It seems the value is one derived from social morality rather than religious doctrine. National statistics suggest social morality says no one can impose physical conditions on another person.

If one is abiding by one’s Christian doctrine, a case may be made that having an abortion is unchristian; if one is not Christian or is of a variety of Christianity where abortion is not an issue, having an abortion is subject to situational ethics which, typically, reflect cultural expectations.

Brett Kavanaugh, a well-known conservative and Roman Catholic is nominated to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. In an interview today he said, “A woman has a right to have an abortion but the Government doesn’t have the right to pay for it.” This is an excellent example of why mariner is so confused. With us since ancient times, the Byzantine two-headed eagle[2] is still around.

Ancient Mariner

[1] Song by Joni Mitchell; see lyrics at https://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joni+mitchell/little+green_20075262.html

[2] The Emperor of Byzantium wore a crown topped by a two-headed eagle. One head represented his supreme authority over the politics and power of the empire; the second eagle head represented his authority over the Gods, of which he was one himself.

The Future

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֎Yuval Noah Harari

Mariner has mentioned Yuval Noah Harari in previous posts. He is an unusually pragmatic futurist not prone to future utopias, fantasies or whimsy. His main concern, as is mariner’s, is that there will be large numbers of humans who will be useless to society and for which there is no reason to exist and no way to participate in the world of artificial intelligence (AI). How will AI deal with these humans? Mariner highly recommends you read his article.[1] Having finished the article, mariner turned to his wife to describe the future:

Future reality will be like a glove we wear on our hand – but it isn’t our glove and our hand does what the glove tells it to do.”

֎25 percent for every 1 degree Celsius

Using reliable news services and scientific journals, mariner has kept abreast of climate change and the unexpected effects of global warming. Hotter temperatures will, according to a new study in Science, make insects hungrier, which in turn will spread more disease and decimate more crops. For every 1 degree Celsius (about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in global temperature, wheat, corn and rice will be damaged 10 to 25 percent.

֎The Democrats are sailing a ship named ‘Liberalism’ and enjoy good winds as they sail toward November 6 2018. Fivethirtyeight.com, mariner’s reliable oddsmaker gives the Democrats a 7 out of 10 chance to win the House. Mariner’s alter ego Amos is worried that (a) ‘Liberalism’ will lose its favorable wind as the election nears. He is skeptical that the likes of Senator Sanders and Senator Warren are the types that will unify the electorate behind a new liberalism. (b) Donald has left the electorate in disarray; the Trump party and its base will not play nice; the Democrats have their own problems with identity politics; the disemboweled Department of State, Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, and especially the Department of Justice will be unable to provide signs of early progress and reorganization. This inadequacy may run long enough to influence the 2020 Congressional election.

֎By the way, did anyone notice someone named Martin O’Malley stumping in Iowa for Democratic candidates? Turns out he ran against Hillary in the 2016 primary and is a former Governor of Maryland. Hmmm.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/yuval-noah-harari-technology-tyranny/568330/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20180831&silverid-ref=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

The Times – They are A-Changin’

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Mariner found the article below in an old Time magazine. Currently, scientists anticipate 20 billion living humans by the end of the century. If they all live forever and each couple continues having two children, what a fine thing that will be???

Is an Anti-Aging Pill on the Horizon?

By Alexandra Sifferlin

“NAD+ is the closest we’ve gotten to a fountain of youth,” says David Sinclair, co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School. “It’s one of the most important molecules for life to exist, and without it, you’re dead in 30 seconds.”

NAD+ is a molecule found in all living cells and is critical for regulating cellular aging and maintaining proper function of the whole body. Levels of NAD+ in people and animals diminish significantly over time, and researchers have found that re-upping NAD+ in older mice causes them to look and act younger, as well as live longer than expected. In a March 2017 study published in the journal Science, Sinclair and his colleagues put drops of a compound known to raise levels of NAD+ into the water for a group of mice.

Within a couple hours, the NAD+ levels in the mice had risen significantly. In about a week, signs of aging in the tissue and muscles of the older mice reversed to the point that researchers could no longer tell the difference between the tissues of a 2-year-old mouse and those of a 4-month-old one.

Now scientists are trying to achieve similar results in humans…[1]

– – – –

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Indeed so as we enter what looks like it will be civilization’s most disruptive century since the Black Plague. Consider this list:

Climate change – coastal cities around the world will be flooded; much of the temperate zone will become tropical; ocean life will dwindle to a serious degree; penguins and polar bears will be homeless and hungry; environmental stresses will interfere with war; the travesty of climate destruction will test the strongest economies.

Artificial Intelligence – already reducing major job markets and soon will displace many lawyers, family care physicians, financial advisors, mortgage brokers and everyone who performs data entry tasks; public transportation including trains, planes, cars and 18-wheelers will drive themselves (this likely may require making human drivers illegal); AI will interfere with cultural policies about race and religious segregation – simply because identity politics won’t be affordable.

Banking and Finance – Artificial intelligence also will affect the way we relate to income and assets; economies will be influenced by increasingly socialist solutions to solve problems too large and diverse to be addressed by individual national economies or corporations; individual families may not own much directly but will participate in largescale consortiums (think something like Amazon.Com); salaries will be separated from most jobs and distributed directly to citizens. [Yes, this may sound blasphemous to fiscal conservatives but mariner draws this opinion from existing evidence that banks, corporations and governments are thinking about how to manage a future where everyone around the world has instant contact with everyone else and personal assets are managed electronically; ways to bundle housing, payroll, transportation and accessories as a single package; ways to bundle services like health care and education.]

Mariner is concerned that we may simply turn over to others our privacy, independent choices in our lives, even our choice of taste in clothing and other daily interests. Both the book 1984 and the movie Matrix loom as literary shadows if we do not move into this century level-headed and wisely.[2]

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] http://time.com/5159879/is-an-anti-aging-pill-on-the-horizon/

[2] For someone who has given the immediate future great thought, buy the book, We’re doomed, Now what?: Essays on war and Climate Change. by Roy Scranton.

Some Items

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Peter Beinart has written an intriguing article for Atlantic magazine titled “Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt.” From the beginning mariner has been confused by the blind eye of Trump followers who insist that he is not corrupt. Peter provides an insight:

“Trump supporters appear largely unfazed by the mounting evidence that Trump is the least ethical president in modern American history. When asked last month whether they considered Trump corrupt, only 14 percent of Republicans said yes….”

“Once you grasp that for Trump and many of his supporters, corruption means less the violation of law than the violation of established hierarchies, their behavior makes more sense.”

To Donald’s followers, the idea that a woman would become President is untenable. Oddly, they called Hillary corrupt from the beginning. The core realization for us is that Donald’s followers long for the traditional image when men were men (especially white men) and social rank was important. The social changes since Barack became President (talk about a violation of hierarchy) are both socially and economically threatening. Donald’s followers are against cultural change; Donald’s choice of words stirs feelings in his followers that things are being put back where they belong; Donald calls a spade a spade, and so forth.[1]

A forthcoming book titled “How Fascism Works,” by Jason Stanley addresses this phenomenon in detail.

– – – –

Mariner often uses the term ‘class.’ It turns out, upon further reading, that the term class is not well received among those who study such things. Class has so many variables, definitions and criteria that identifying a person within a unique class is virtually impossible. One example that confuses is that a librarian, expected to be more educated and likely have a college degree, is paid only a fraction of what a laborer makes in a factory. Still, there is a line drawn between working with one’s hands and those who do not.

Mariner, like most folks, uses ‘class’ to define economic status; broadly speaking, a lower class, a middle class, an upper class and the absurdly wealthy. The argument is made that Americans are preoccupied with capitalistic comparisons but economic ratings are not reflective of reality. Dollars do not classify a human being by race, sex, morality, intelligence, lifestyle, suppression, criminality, profession, or geography – just to mention a few. In other words, an amount of dollars does not classify the empirical reality of a living human being. Perhaps it may be more accurate to describe individuals by their lifestyle and behavior rather than the number of dollars they have. A frequent observation is made of ‘working class’ individuals who win the lottery for millions of dollars; they don’t change their behavior very much despite the opportunities massive assets may offer. Further, a person may be very wealthy and be President of the United States but behave no differently than a New York City mob boss.

– – – –

Another note from Chicken Little about privacy and data mining by corporations: The Associated Press (AP) asked Princeton University to investigate whether Google continuously tracks your location even if you turn off that option. Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking.[2]

One cannot own one’s life without privacy. Has this item brought us back to the first one that deals with fascism?

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/what-trumps-supporters-think-of-corruption/568147/

[2] https://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20180813&silverid=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

Is there any Room for Capitalism?

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If cancer could grow as large as it desired without harm or imposition to other living organisms, one hardly would notice its highly consumptive nature. Alas, one’s body needs all its space and functions for other purposes. Cancer can’t have free run of the body.

Regarding consumptiveness, capitalism is a lot like cancer. From its inception the American experiment has let capitalism grow at will; for many generations capitalism wasn’t bothering anyone or any systemic functions of economy. In fact, capitalism is what brought the United States to the top of the international arena. But no one noticed how consumptive capitalism was.

It was unbelievably good fortune that Europeans landed on the shores of a virgin continent. There was enough room to spread out to the point that many early colonies had their own flavor of Christianity and variety of government. Entrepreneurs could consume endless virgin forests, endless water, abundant minerals were harbored in the continent’s soil and rock. Blessed by a favorable temperate climate, agriculture had no bounds. Wildlife from shellfish to grizzly bears were more than plentiful. Even before the eastern continent was full, the US acquired the Louisiana Purchase, Texas, the Gadsden Purchase, territory from the Mexican and Spanish cessions, and cut a deal with Britain for the Northwest. The entire Forty-Eight were in place – with no industry, a few native indians, no Europeans, nothing but space, nature’s riches and an ethos based on freedom of everything, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 200 years after the first settlers, land still was in such abundance the government had programs to give away land to those who would claim it.

It would take an unleashed capitalist economy to leverage the virgin riches of the continent. With good timing the Industrial Revolution came along with steam and oil and trains, planes, automobiles, and highways. Consumption of America was feverish and overwhelming compared to normal circumstances in the rest of the world. Even continuous war every few years with other nations would not make a dent in growing GDP. No one noticed the greed and hoarding – necessary side effects of capitalism.

But then, suddenly, the continent was full. 350 million people; no extra land; overcut forests; polluted streams and rivers; overfished lakes and oceans. Still, capitalism raged on with its consumptive behavior funneling more and more resources to the wealthiest capitalists to sustain profits.

Today, the greedy aspects of capitalism are noticed. Corporations merge with corporations just to sustain record profits. But a strange thing happened in the 1980’s: profit was no longer driven by production and labor. Instead, wealth invested in other wealth by using the stock market and a plethora of profit-taking maneuvers engineered by the banking industry and US Federal and state governments. Consumption is so important to capitalism that the United States can no longer afford high concepts like freedom, life, liberty and happiness – they are too expensive because unlimited resources no longer exist. As fewer and fewer resources are available, capitalism is a victim of its own strength: expansion. Profit and assets must continue even without resources. All that is left is the assets of the public. Fringe benefits and salaries suffer; human dignity is unaffordable. Oligarchy and kleptocracy emerge as the pressure mounts to sustain capitalism.

Pure economies of government, capitalism, communism, socialism, and all the derivatives, are not healthy. Left to perform unopposed, any single form of economy will run amok. Any effort at modifying American capitalism will take years of pain in the public sector but they must prevail if a new American ethos is to emerge that will focus on freedom, life, liberty and happiness.

For the next decade or two, capitalism will find profits in computerization. More important to the public sector is that they will be part of the solution. Else, as in the previous post, change will be devastating.

Ancient Mariner

 

What REAL Change is

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The world map might look differently had the Greek volcano Thera not erupted 3,500 years ago (1645 BC) in what geologists believe was the single-most powerful explosive event ever witnessed. Thera dwarfed the atomic bomb. Thera didn’t just blow a massive hole into the island of Santorini – it set the entire ancient Mediterranean onto a different course in history. The legend of Atlantis and the story of the Biblical plagues and subsequent exodus from Egypt also have been connected to the epic catastrophe.

Minoan culture, the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean at the time, crumbled as a result of the eruption, changing the political landscape of the ancient world indefinitely. Environmental effects were felt across the globe, as far away as China and perhaps even North America and Antarctica.

There are no first-person accounts of what happened that day, but scientists can compare it to the detailed records available from the famous eruption of Krakatoa, Indonesia, in 1883. Krakatoa killed upwards of 40,000 people in just a few hours, produced colossal tsunamis 40 feet tall, spewed volcanic ash across Asia, and caused a drop in global temperatures and created strangely colored sunsets for three years. The blast was heard 3,000 miles away.

Thera’s eruption was four or five times more powerful than Krakatoa, exploding with the energy of several hundred atomic bombs in a fraction of a second.

An absence of human remains and valuables like metal suggest that the Minoan residents of Santorini predicted the eruption and the island had been evacuated, but the culture as a whole did not fare as well. The powerful Minoan civilization declined suddenly soon after Thera blew its top. Tsunamis spawned by the eruption would have swamped its naval fleet and coastal villages. A drop in temperatures caused by the massive amounts of Sulphur dioxide spouted into the atmosphere led to several years of cold, wet summers in the region, ruining harvests. The lethal combination overran every mighty Minoan stronghold in less than 50 years.

– – – –

The Black Death, also known as the Great Plague, the Black Plague, or the Plague, was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 200 million people in Eurasia and peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which results in several forms of plague, is believed to have been the cause. The plague created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history.

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The Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives. A change in orbit is expected relatively soon.

The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions released into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year — from January through September, with the exception of June — were the warmest on record for those respective months.

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice each year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 119 billion tons during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade.

Is our twenty-first century civilization facing another REAL change?

Mariner will not speculate on the changes to civilization overall, which will be dramatic, but some effects already have been determined by scientists:

By 2100 worldwide shortages in potable water will be severe.

By 2100 every major coastal city in the world will be flooded.

By 2100 every major agricultural belt will be severely diminished. For example, the average temperature across the US wheat belt will average 104° with no let up during winter.

Take note that these changes are worldwide. How will civilization change? How will concepts like nations and economy and civil liberty change?

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Cultural salve

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An opening allegory: A fine house is built in 1952. Not ostentatious but finely built with a pleasing layout. A family buys the house newly built. They live there until the parents retire and sell it. It is bought by a middle aged couple who turn the second floor into a separate apartment to lease. They retire eventually and sell the house to a real estate person who converts the house to a four-plex. Finally in 2018 the house is condemned.

What happened to this house is common. Two conditions contributed to the demise of this house: the neighborhood slowly changed and the house was used as a source of maximized profit. Neither of these conditions felt it necessary to invest in the wellbeing of the house. No one championed the architectural ethos, the vibrancy of sustaining a solid, appreciated structure. If at the point of condemnation one were to purchase the house for one dollar with an agreement to full restoration, the expense would be exorbitant. The neighborhood as well would need to be changing to a better situation otherwise bulldozing the house would be the only rational decision.

This allegory represents the house of the United States of America since 1952.

Let us assume the electorate will reclaim the US for one dollar and start restoration. There is the same risk in asking the electorate to fix things as a restoration investor has that a profit may be possible – a long shot in either case. Democracy, with all its voting and representation machinations, is not a good approach for this situation. In 2016 some of the electorate were hasty in their judgment and purchased the wrong tool. Without using the power of the vote, what can an individual citizen do?

Similar to a serious burn on the skin, we apply a healing salve. There is no way to remove the skin and do without; we need the skin to heal while we continue to depend on the skin. Unfortunately, salves are not remarkable. The skin must be left in place to heal on its own terms – with the help of the salve.

The salve for our situation as citizens of a burned government is to apply compassion. Compassion, especially for the eager citizen, is not rewarding. But that is the whole point: gratifying ourselves to maximize personal ‘profit’ is what brought us here. In other words, ignoring our house since 1952 has occurred because we did not use compassion to sustain the ethos of our nation.

Continuing with the salve theme, our skin grows dry and flaky and even splits painfully at times. We can’t, for example, lease our feet or move out of our feet – we must seek curative methods. If the electorate does not apply compassion, our nation will continue to flake and split. Without compassion in our daily lives, derision has become commonplace; prejudice is unparalleled between common citizens; class discrimination has become deliberately destructive; most significantly, those who continue to seek maximized profit will lead the nation to be condemned – leaving room for a new international solution to take its place in the world neighborhood.

Most folks don’t like to use compassion habitually. It is easier to scratch the itch of prejudice than to deliberately allow another human to have the primary need, to seek comfort for them in their life rather than seek comfort for one’s self.

Using compassion allows citizens to begin at the foundation, to replace brick by brick the substructure of a growing society, a maturing culture. The nation – a very complex entity – will wobble and waffle its way through our current dysfunction. Without compassion, however, the electorate risks condemnation.

Ancient Mariner