Category Archives: Politics

As Guru prepares for his Flight

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Before Guru leaves on his flight around the world, mariner asked him for a few markers that may be too imminent for a long study of the world’s circumstances. He commented on a few while he dressed in his flight suit:

It was Hugh Kingsmill who said, “A nation is only at peace when it’s at war.” In history, most top-of-the-bunch empires felt this way. With luck, world wars could be behind us as globalism evolves. Nevertheless, today there is a heightened spirit in the world community that longs for a war to resettle things. Clean the closet of old rivalries and international unrest due to major errors in the past similar to the Sykes-Picot treaty that ignorantly redefined borders in the Middle East in 1916. Donald and Kim are a test case to determine whether war is still needed to resettle things.

Around the world, wealth and economic wellbeing are available to fewer and fewer. From somewhere, humanist behavior must readjust the phenomenon of money, how it is assimilated, leveraged, and distributed. This is a looming threat to the United States and other nations where governments turn their head to allow oligarchical culture.

In the long history of Homo sapiens sapiens, an element of tribal sharing has waxed and waned: are all humans worthy of their birthright? Are they to be cared for during stressful times? Conservatives say no and liberals say yes. This is an unresolved philosophical point that may in its own right supersede nationalism, authoritarianism, capitalism and socialism as a form of survival. Today, September 24, 2017, there are 842 million individuals around the world who suffer from malnutrition. That’s 12.5% of the world’s population. We have witnessed the results of prolonged hunger in Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Chad, and more; it leads to war and destruction of any capable government. Recovery does not follow.

As the world moves toward a new global reality, opportunity will exist to pursue both avarice and restitution. The news media does not cover the issue of sharing as a political philosophy but it is a real war of its own.

The last comment from Guru dealt with the role of the United States in the world:

For nearly 200 years, the United States has speculated on similarities with the Roman Empire. Now it is time to speculate on similarities with Ancient Greece as it mastered esoteric reality but simultaneously fades as Rome becomes dominant.

 

Ancient Mariner

 

A Look from Space

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Having Donald in one’s life is like having fleas. Donald is similar to fleas because he is everywhere, in everything, constantly irritating, and a handheld disinfectant is too little too late – that is, erase one flea and two dozen take its place. Consider the content of national news . . .

Also similar to fleas, Donald is a carrier of serious disease. At the moment, a sign of a worldwide contamination is visible. Unfortunately, Donald is like the boy in the plastic bubble, a movie made in the 1970’s about a boy with no immune defenses. Donald’s damaged psyche, racist proclivity and his propensity for immoral behavior are protected from outside criticism by a steel ego and, importantly, by any need for compassion.

Also unfortunate, Donald has become President at a moment when the entire world’s politics, economies, international ethics and order of national prominence all are at a crossroad. Donald, with immense damage to the United States across the board, has pulled the nation out of the world contest and back into an era of nationalism and racism reminiscent of colonialism if not the Civil War itself – in less than 200 days in office.

The effect of Donald for those who want broad perspective on the state of nations and economies is a disabling storm cloud that prevents a view of the horizon. Mariner has commissioned Guru[1] to hire a U2 spy plane to fly at altitudes where fleas cannot survive. What is the state of world humanity vis-á-vis politics and economy? Future posts may dabble . . .

Ancient Mariner

[1] To new viewers, mariner is a composite of three alter egos – Chicken Little, who is frightened by everything; Amos, a permanent critic of everything; and Guru, a futurist and generalist of immensely broad interpretations of everything.

US Isolationism is Suicide for the US – Soon!

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A tip from fivethirtyeight’s (Nate Silver) website:

$31.4 million – – Russian trade with North Korea doubled to $31.4 million in the first quarter of 2017. Reuters found eight North Korean fuel ships that left Russia ostensibly in route to China or South Korea only to change their final destination to North Korea. [Reuters]

It appears sanctions against North Korea are an iffy tactic. North Korea can be held together by Russia and China alone plus their dependent satellite countries.

Mariner does not believe China and Russia will allow Kim Jung Un to fire a nuclear weapon (under normal circumstances, both Kim and Donald are capable of the most impulsive and most disastrous decision at any time). Mariner thinks, however, that Russia can manipulate Donald enough to prevent Donald from picking up the red phone and launching nuclear war.

The ulterior motive of North Korea and its allies is to further diminish the prestige of the US around the world, advance their own agenda of trade and political dominance, and make the Korean Peninsula unified under China’s influence. In this regard, Kim is just a pawn – similar to Donald’s relationship to Russia. Any military action between the US and North Korea will be devastating to South Korea. Geographically, South Korea will be destroyed before the US can launch any preventive strike. Nuclear weapons, in the big picture, would not benefit Asian plans to control Asia and the Pacific all the way to Australia. Having posited this view, never say never.

Donald’s empty bully rhetoric and his foolish go it alone isolationism leave the US standing at the gate as other nations and international groups are off to the races to reorder power structure for the new global society, global economics, and global prestige.

Here at home, several polls show the Democratic Party has lost support from several liberal organizations. One would expect that 2018 would be a windfall election for the democrats. Better pundits and journalists believe the cause is the party’s inability to paint a picture of the immediate future that its followers can follow. Bernie almost pulled off a third party run; will a liberal third party arise in 2018?

Ancient Mariner

Mississippi River – An Insight into Harvey and Global Warming

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A past post spoke of the Mississippi River in natural terms. The River is a vast flood plain worthy of an unrestrained course without canyons, gorges, and other constraints. Typical of many rivers in the Midwest, it is a mud-bottom river that ebbs and flows, expands and contracts, floods and runs low. Its job is to be the drain for excess water from sixteen US States; its main tributaries are great rivers in their own right: The Wisconsin River, Minnesota River, Iowa River, Des Moines River, Illinois River, Missouri/North Platte Rivers, Arkansas River, and Ohio/Tennessee Rivers – among many other secondary tributaries that would add another dozen states to the Mississippi’s flood plain.

If one has the opportunity to visit the River, or better, live near it, one cannot escape an awareness of something that transcends humankind. It is the byproduct of a two million year ice age that ended ten thousand years ago. Even the least interested person readily sees flood plains that reach for miles on both sides. Wildlife depends on the River as much as humans and suffers – if not becomes extinct – when dams, levies, eliminated estuaries and chemicals are forced upon the River. Piling on is the massive abuse by real estate development within the River’s flood plain.

The human violation of a sacrosanct member of the biosphere has a price: the river floods every year, some years more than others. Yet humans are allowed to build homes, factories, roads and estuary-destroying flood walls at great expense to themselves while the River regularly ignores this folly and destroys most of it at great cost to industry, economics, and the private lives of thousands of families. At the delta of the River where it flows into the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana fights an ongoing war with the River from massive fossil fuel plants to the fact that one cannot bury loved ones in the ground – the caskets have a way of rising to the surface in flood conditions.

– – – –

The Mississippi River is an excellent example of how nature ignores the ambitions of Homo sapiens sapiens. True, the River suffers ignoble abuse but continues with its job of draining flood waters from half of the contiguous United States. The River is an example of how nature will have its way regardless of human disrespect. Now Harvey has visited the coast of Texas. The loss of life, industry, possessions, and survival for years to come is on a scale of 10,000 times the conflict along the Mississippi River.

That hurricanes are an expected imposition on life and human ambition is not the issue; the storms are growing larger and stronger according to NOAA statistics. Several storms have set new records in the past three years. Mariner will not engage in the argument about global warming. Science has proven time and again in overwhelming ways that the Earth is warming. Of importance to humans and many other species, are two factors: the temperature of air and water on the planet is rising – the result is increased energy in weather systems – enough to permanently alter jet streams. Secondly, one of the major causes of warming is excessive carbon, which acidifies oceans and retains heat in the atmosphere. Both factors cause the melting of ice and permafrost in the Polar Regions which will raise ocean levels as much as nine feet in this century at a rate of 1-3 inches per year.

Now one can see the similarities between the Mississippi River and ocean fronts: flooding, irrecoverable cost, and humans, being as belligerent and persistent as they are, losing any battle when the biosphere decides to ignore human hubris. Living along the Mississippi, we have experience dealing with the biosphere. It foretells future life along the coasts of the world’s oceans. A future life that will submerge masses of land similar to Florida and includes the two dozen largest cities near ocean fronts, including New York City, Miami and Los Angeles. One can argue that New Orleans has been flooded for some time.

Will our governments respond properly with regulations and zoning? Will capitalism be set aside to accommodate the enormity of the situation?

Ancient Mariner

 

Populism – a Grist Mill for Change

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The United States is not the only nation suffering an interruption caused by populism. Remember Brexit? And Greece, France, Italy, and just about everyone in South America? Don’t forget Ukraine, thrown into civil war by nationalist intentions.

The mariner has been looking into the phenomenon of populism, drawing from several websites on the subject, respected magazines and journals, and a book or two, particularly David Goodheart, a Brit who has received notable accolades for his book, The Road to Somewhere – the populist Revolt and the Future of politics. One may also want to read Ivan Krastev’s Democracy Disrupted: The Global Politics of Protest.

Any reader who has studied history knows that politics, economics and status quo do not want change, e.g., fossil fuel; there is comfort in a well-rooted establishment that provides a modicum of security with some guarantee of regularity. It is inevitable that folks are pushed aside to sustain the status quo. Eventually, enough citizens are dissatisfied with the growing imbalance between the benefactors of the establishment and themselves that what results is an uprising, certainly rowdy and disrespectful in nature. In fact, conflicts have often become wars and on occasion restart the entire culture, noting Denmark’s citizen rebellion that tossed out capitalism and created a socialist state.

Americans are well aware of the populist movement in the United States. Accustomed to a two party political system, a progressive, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump, an advocate of change with no political experience, became the leaders of the populist movement. In the wake of the 2016 election which Donald won, the conservative populists have settled into a conservative group generally referred to as ‘the base.’

Nevertheless, many more citizens still with rebellion in their hearts remain a grumbling presence. Signs suggest there will be another storming of the Bastille in 2018.

Populist response to inequities is more common in democratic societies than in authoritative ones although authoritarian societies have more violent rebellions. The United States, known for its ‘experiment’ of self-governance and citizen freedom, has frequent populist uprisings. The first of significant note – aside from the Revolutionary War – was the Boston Tea Party. Every thirty or forty years since, populist uprisings have been the gearbox to keep governance in line. Within the experience of citizens alive today is the suffragette movement, the labor rebellion, the Great Depression, the Viet Nam war resistance, Civil Rights, and, in real time experience, the job rebellion happening today.

Populist uprisings have a singular purpose: disrupt the establishment. There is no other purpose. The present and future be damned; they are of no consequence. Logic and reason are irrelevant; populism is a battle between emotions and authority. Within a family, populism is a teenager’s rebellion against parental authority. Despite the belligerence, the crassness, the destructiveness, populism is good. It is good because it makes the establishment listen. Petty accommodation, persuasion and doubletalk will not suffice. New definitions of the social order must emerge.

The establishment will defend itself – especially in matters of money and elitism. This may go on for years; the common classes still are rebelling against monetary policies put in place in the 1980’s. Only now have a significant number of citizens felt enough is enough. Sharing wealth, having job security, feeling opportunity, and a sense of a better life ahead are disappearing at an alarming rate – all to sustain the establishment to the exclusion of the greater citizenry. The 2016 election was one of many breaking points; there are many more to come that will, sooner or later, tackle social issues, the definition of citizen rights and a settlement of economic policy in manners of governance; for example, the cost and process of campaigns and elections, minimum wage and redefinition of the term ‘job.’

Back to the populist phenomenon, it evolves from the liberal side of voters. Over decades the working class was the heart of the Democratic Party in the United States and of the Labour Party in Great Britain. In both countries, liberal party workers slowly evolved into successful groups still loyal to the liberal side but slowly became a minority to fellow party members who stayed at lower class labor jobs. It is this lower class of liberals that abandons the ‘elitist’ membership and in the midst of foment becomes populist. An example of this abandonment clearly was present in Hillary Clinton’s campaign for President; Hillary represented the Establishment – the enemy – to the disdain of her own party. The majority, still left of center, flocked to a fellow revolutionary, Bernie Sanders, and left the Democratic Party quite diminished. In a populist mood, many voted for the Republican anti-establishment candidate rather than support their party – the beginning of ‘the base.’

The conservative government clings to the awkward election of Donald Trump. He is their windbreak from populists but his inadequacies are weakening his hold and may serve to lay exposed the wealth-centric philosophy of the Republican Party as the 2018 election approaches.

In Great Britain, populist surge led to a defeat of British participation in the European Union. This is a glaring, visible setback to the strength of Great Britain as a nation. The same disaffection occurred in the US and similarly has damaged the status and leadership of the nation. It is not as visible as the cleaving of Britain from the EU but the US has lost leverage in several international arenas of immediate importance.

This time around, however, populism has become international. Virtually every democratic country around the world is suffering from the same dilemma: struggling economic systems that facilitate the centralization of wealth in a few at the cost of supporting the common citizen.

Donald Trump recognized, in a simple way, that trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and TPP had something to do with job distribution but failed in recognizing that trade agreements are the vehicles through which populism may have a voice in international change and further, trade agreements are the conveyance that will define the global future, whatever it may be.

The future cannot change too much from what populism provokes today. The chasm between have and have not, skilled and unskilled, opportunity and oppressed, will remain and likely increase. Populism can only interfere; it cannot dictate. Especially in an international marketplace, populism will be fragmented. The best populism can do is draw our attention to the misbehavior of power. It is only the gristmill, not the wheat.

Ancient Mariner

Donald has been Busy

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Today’s post is a copy of the Washington Post article about what Donald has undone. The press has under-reported this activity which is as damaging as the absence of legislative progress. It is recommended that the reader not skip through the list; each one has seriously damaging intent and reeks of special interests that intentionally expose risk to US citizens.

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President Trump has repeatedly argued that he’s done more than any other recent president. That’s not true, as measured by the amount of legislation he’s been able to sign. It is true, though, that Trump has undone a lot of things that were put into place by his predecessors, including President Barack Obama.

Since Jan. 20, Trump’s administration has enthusiastically and systematically undone or uprooted rules, policies and tools that predated his time in office. Below, a list of those changes, roughly organized by subject area.

The economy

Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The trade deal would have established a trade partnership between the United States and countries on the Pacific Rim.

Revoked a rule that expanded the number of people who could earn overtime pay.

Reversal of a rule that would mandate that oil and gas companies report payments to foreign governments. The Securities and Exchange Commission will no longer receive this information.

Ended limits on the ability of states to drug test those seeking unemployment benefits.

Revoked an executive order that mandated compliance by contractors with laws protecting women in the workplace. Prior to the 2014 order, a report found that companies with federal contracts worth millions of dollars had scores of violations of labor and civil rights laws.

Repeal of a rule allowing states to create retirement savings plans for private-sector workers.

Cancelled a rule mandating that financial advisers act in the best interests of their clients.

Repeal of a bill that mandated that employers maintain records of workplace injuries.

Killed a rule mandating that government contractors disclose past violations of labor law.

The justice system

Rescinded an Obama effort to reduce mandatory sentences. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered that prosecutors seek the most stringent penalties possible in criminal cases.

Cancelled a phase-out of the use of private prisons.

Reversed a ban on civil forfeiture. Law enforcement officials are now once again able to seize assets from suspects who haven’t been convicted of any crime.

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When will he be gone?

Ancient Mariner

Uncle Sam needs YOU

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Here is some encouraging news: in the 2018 elections, 209 democrats are registered to run for the House of Representatives. This is quite a phenomenon. See past elections in the following chart provided by the Campaign Finance Institute:
Democrats Republicans
2004 22 – 29
2006 48 – 24
2008 57 – 49
2010 40 – 78
2012 42 – 40
2014 45 – 52
2016 44 – 28
2018 209 – 28
The desire to rid our governments of fleas (earlier post) has taken hold. This is a welcome army for reconstruction of failed governments – especially the failed Federal Government. But the party is short on Generals – especially Generals who will articulate the goals, who can instill unity, who can arm the campaigners with the words and common cause that at the moment are missing weapons.
The republicans know they are in a fight in the 2018 elections. However, it is not a level playing field. Gerrymandering alone will defeat democratic campaigns; as will the money, indeed the wealth in many republican coffers. Those of us who consider ourselves unattached to electoral activity must now help our enlisted activists and campaigners. Mariner is reminded of the many efforts by common citizens who supported WWII by collecting string, metal, and gave up many food items in the household; even gasoline was available to civilians only in limited amounts. But American spirit was high – it was the least they could do and do willingly.
Can we raise our spirits to help the political troops? Enthusiasm is contagious. Since Kennedy, there has not been a natural democratic advantage of this magnitude. Perhaps it is the eclipse…
The least we can do is nag fleas with letters and telephone calls. Let them know what legislation is not allowable and what they are bound to do to serve their constituency first – even before their lobbyist managers. Remember the Civilian Defense Corps? It is your time to do what you can do and do it willingly.
Ancient Mariner

It’s Inconvenient

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Has there ever been a time when your pet dog caused a flea invasion of your home? One begins by trying cures that are simple: bug sprays, washing the dog, sending rugs to be cleaned, etc. The manner by which we proceed down this path is measured by how inconvenient the supposed remedy is to our daily routine; each succeeding method requires more inconvenience. The fleas persist. Finally, you are forced to move out of your home for two or three days, incur the cost of inconvenience and the disorientation of driving to work, eating and managing the necessities of life while an exterminator ‘bombs’ your sealed home with flea killer chemicals.

The history of mankind provides evidence that convenience is the primary motivation for invention. One simple example: listening to the radio. One no longer is required to read the newspaper – just listen to the news; one no longer is required to go to the ball park to watch a game – just turn on the radio. Will a smartphone replace becoming educated at an institution? Will a smartphone allow interpersonal communication without the ‘personal’ part? Why visit Mom when you can see her on a smartphone screen? Convenience is a powerful motivator.

Folks, our governments have a flea infestation. Federal, state and local, fleas have replaced statesmen. All the government fleas do is bite us continuously. They bite us to sustain lucrative lifetime careers sponsored by sources that do not have us in mind.

We have tried leaving the issue to special interests like political parties, religious organizations, corporate profiteers and money grubbing interests like banks and oligarchs. This is a convenient method but still the government has fleas.

As a result, you make sure to cast your vote (if you have one) in the next election – that’s not too inconvenient. Somehow, no matter who wins the primary and election, they are fleas. The rare exceptions are such a minority that they have no effect on the state of government.

Now, inconvenience becomes the primary detractor in what to do next. An overlooked inconvenience is to stand behind a publically known statement you made. In today’s interpersonal culture, taking a legitimate stand in a responsible way is a form of inconvenience – different from informal bitching and complaining. The difference is making a telephone call to a flea to officially state your preferences. Talk about inconvenient!

Still faced with a flea infestation, inconvenience may well cause you to give up and become a permanent cynic, have a limit on future wellbeing, and think about moving to another country (chances are that country is worse, not better; Canada doesn’t want you).

A strategy that maximizes convenience is to buy your way instead of suffering inconvenience. For citizens who are satisfactorily endowed, a healthy stipend to your cause can help. Mind you, the word ‘healthy’ was mentioned; whatever your first instinct was, quadruple it.

Hmmm, least inconvenience… Instead of trying to kill one flea at a time, how about joining a group that wants to disrupt an environment that allows fleas to exist. For example, eliminate gerrymandering; that’s a big one! Mariner notes that group participation seems a horrible inconvenience at first but quickly becomes a habit – perhaps it is the experience of talking to actual three-dimensional folks.

Finally, if one has transcended the matter of convenience, consider public speaking, attending rallies and campaigning – even door-to-door.

When one returns home after a flea bombing, flealessness is bliss.

Ancient Mariner

Some Thoughts

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Mariner is a potential customer for switching from standard electrical hookup to solar. He believes it is one of the major constraints to the use of fossil fuels in the next decade and will be a cost saving strategy for typical home owners. Even Goldman Sachs thinks so:

Falling wind and solar costs are set to spur even greater investment in renewable technologies. Goldman Sachs Research’s Alberto Gandolfi forecasts that by 2023, renewables will be able to operate without government subsidies. From there, Gandolfi expects wind and solar deployment to accelerate, reaching $3 trillion over the next 20 years.

Picked up this apropos quote in the Atlantic Magazine:

“You are entitled to your own opinion,

but you are not entitled to your own facts.”

— Daniel Patrick Moynihan

And this one:

“We risk being the first people in history to have been

able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive,

so ‘realistic’ that they can live in them.”

— Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to

Pseudo-Events in America (1961)

And this:

The Colbert Report went on the air. In the first few minutes of the first episode, Stephen Colbert, playing his right-wing-populist commentator character, performed a feature called “The Word.” His first selection: truthiness. “Now, I’m sure some of the ‘word police,’ the ‘wordinistas’ over at Webster’s, are gonna say, ‘Hey, that’s not a word!’ Well, anybody who knows me knows that I’m no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They’re elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn’t true. Or what did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that’s my right. I don’t trust books—they’re all fact, no heart … Face it, folks, we are a divided nation … divided between those who think with their head and those who know with their heart … Because that’s where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen—the gut.”

Kurt Andersen, the author of How America Lost its Mind, says it much better than mariner could:

…And if the ’60s amounted to a national nervous breakdown, we are probably mistaken to consider ourselves over it.

Each of us is on a spectrum somewhere between the poles of rational and irrational. We all have hunches we can’t prove and superstitions that make no sense. Some of my best friends are very religious, and others believe in dubious conspiracy theories. What’s problematic is going overboard—letting the subjective entirely override the objective; thinking and acting as if opinions and feelings are just as true as facts. The American experiment, the original embodiment of the great Enlightenment idea of intellectual freedom, whereby every individual is welcome to believe anything she wishes, has metastasized out of control.

From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams, sometimes epic fantasies—every American one of God’s chosen people building a custom-made utopia, all of us free to reinvent ourselves by imagination and will. In America nowadays, those more exciting parts of the Enlightenment idea have swamped the sober, rational, empirical parts. Little by little for centuries, then more and more and faster and faster during the past half century, we Americans have given ourselves over to all kinds of magical thinking, anything-goes relativism, and belief in fanciful explanation—small and large fantasies that console or thrill or terrify us. And most of us haven’t realized how far-reaching our strange new normal has become.

And this was all true before we became familiar with the terms post-factual and post-truth, before we elected a president with an astoundingly open mind about conspiracy theories, what’s true and what’s false, the nature of reality.

We have passed through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole. America has mutated into Fantasyland.

Back to ‘reality’, On Monday, the President took time away from the lush fairways and greens at Trump National Golf Club, in Bedminster, New Jersey, to tweet insults at Senator Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who had the temerity to suggest that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, should be allowed to continue and complete his investigation. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump again interrupted his break, this time to attend a briefing in the Bedminster clubhouse about the nation’s opioid crisis. He took the opportunity to threaten a devastating nuclear strike on North Korea.

Is this our future?

Ancient Mariner