Author: rjstapleton

LEARNING TO LOOK OUT FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST NUMBER 1

By Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA

Editor & Publisher, The Earthian newsletter   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/,  

According to Eric Berne, MD, the euhemerous of transactional analysis,    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=eric+berne%2C+md      success equals adaptability plus flexibility.  What humans have to adapt and flex to are human group imagos and personalities in chains of ego states.  Shown above is my “Chain of Ego States Diagram,” first published in my article titled “The Chain of Ego States”   https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/036215377800800307  in the Transactional Analysis Journal, vol8, no. 3 (1978).

According to Silvia Baba Neal, a certified transactional analyst in the UK, Berne defined a group imago as   https://www.silviababaneal-psychotherapy.co.uk/blog/2012/09/18/Group-Imago.aspx,   “Any mental picture, conscious, pre-conscious or unconscious of what a group is or should be like.”

This definition covers a lot of ground.  What is a mental picture, whether conscious, pre-conscious, or unconscious?  What is a group for that matter? 

A mental picture of a group would  depend on how a person visualizes things in his or her brain which would be a function of many possible variables, genetic brain architecture and neurological hardwiring, and also subjective messages exposed to in life plus any decisions made about the messages.  Would the picture include colors or wound it be purely black and white?  Would it be accompanied with audio recordings as in some sort of documentary?

Regardless, it seems to me it is fair to say that all people have fantasies, ideas, and pictures in their brains of what groups are and what they are like, based on previous experience.  Berne wrote a book titled Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups,   https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Dynamics-Organizations-Groups/dp/0394172493   in which he discussed not only groups but organizations, that is, groups of groups.

So much for group imagos that have to be adapted to if you want to succeed.  What about personalities that have to be flexed to?  Well, they are the personalities of the people in the groups and organizations you have to work with.  What is a personality?  Well, it’s the way people come across to others.  How many adjectives can you think of to descript someone’s personality?  Cheerful?  Gloomy?  Stingy?  Living?  Conscientious?  Most likely if you really thought about it you could come up with a hundred or more. 

Eric Berne was a great believer in using Occam’s Razor, that is getting to the heart of the matter in the most efficient way possible, using the fewest possible words to get your ideas across, so he comprised all adjectives one might use to describe a human personality into three concepts:  Parent, Adult, and Child.  In other words, does someone have a Parent, Adult, or Child personality or persona?  Or, in a particular moment is s/her coming across as parent-like, child-like, or adult-like?

In transactional analysis (TA) terms flexing to someone’s personality entails trying to please the person by coming across as parent-like, adult-like, or child-like.

To get along you have to go along, not only adapting to the group imagos of people but flexing to their personalities, in groups and organizations.  Transactional analysis gives you concepts and techniques for discerning where you and others are coming from so as to maximize your chances of success in the situation.

What is success?  It seems to me success is a matter of achieving your goals and objectives.  If you want to feel, think, or do something and you do it you’re successful.  The problem is what you want to feel, think, or do may not be what someone else wants you to feel, think, or do, which entails frustration, compromise, not being true to yourself, not getting what you want, especially in groups and organizations.

The first group humans are exposed to in most cases are families, composed of a mother and a father, such as Number 1 in the Chain of Ego States diagram above.

Ego states are states of being including thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, feelings, gestures, body language, and other signals determining how people come across with others in communication episodes, whether parent-like, adult-like, or child-like.  People switch ego states depending on who they are communicating with and what sort of circumstances they are in, whether they are working, socializing, teaching, training, having fun or whatever.  They transmit messages from ego states in themselves to ego states in others in various combinations, parent-parent, child-child, child-adult, adult-parent, or whatever.  The diagram above applies to situations in which there is some sort of authoritarian organization involved, such as parents dealing with children, or bosses dealing with subordinates in a business.  Child-child ego state messages are known as injunctions, since they forbid feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of various sorts.

Script messages are transmitted socially and psychologically, social messages being represented in the Chain of Ego States diagram above by solid lines and psychological messages being represented by dotted lines.  Social messages are verbalized overt auditory messages; psychological messages are covert non-spoken ulterior messages transmitted by body language, emotional states, and after the fact positive or negative stroking as people react to situations and feel and do certain things.

Scripts in families are created automatically when parents transmit various messages to their children from various ego states socially and psychologically, in and out of awareness.  Scripts are life plans generally decided before the age of eight by offspring based on script messages transmitted to them by their parents.  Since parents by and large transmit the same script messages that were transmitted to them before they were eight years old script messages in families can remain intact for many generations.  According to transactional analysts script decisions made before the age of eight have lasting effects determining three general life outcomes:  winner, loser, and non-winner.  These decisions can be redecided and updated later in life but it’s not easy for most people. 

Psychological Child-Child ego state script injunctions are what cause the most trouble for people in their lives.  Script injunctions in most cases are currently inappropriate and ineffective emotional and behavioral requirements logically created by families through time to solve problems or correct injustices in past harsh inhospitable environments that cause problems for offspring in current different and possibly more benign and hospitable environments. 

Opposing, or opposite script messages transmitted by parents can put a child in a Not-OK bind throughout childhood and adolescence, assuming a divorce has not already occurred, causing considerable trouble within a family, since the child cannot please both parents, which can put both parents in Not-OK positions vis-a-vis each other if the child makes a decision about which parent is right, creating Not-OKness in the family system as a whole.  

What many people need is psychological permission to violate and ignore their own psychological outdated obsolete family Child ego state script message Injunctions, not only to increase their own OKness, but the OKness of all the living members of the family system.

I became a certified transactional analyst, a CTA, after passing written and oral comprehensive exams administered by the International Transactional Analysis Association in 1978, after undergoing three years of once a month training, all day Saturday and half of Sunday, at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

I have covered ego states and scripts in my books Business Voyages  and  Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning,  listing common Parent ego state script messages and Child ego state injunctions.  All parents do not transmit the same script messages creating considerable variety among family scripts and outcomes.  Certain life scripts conveniently fit certain roles, jobs, professions, careers, and what have you more than others, providing fresh recruits already trained for job openings, slots, and positions in an economy, which is fine so long as the economy does not change too much.  Unfortunately in recent years in the United States the offshoring of high wage blue collar jobs to foreign low wage countries and the use of more and more automation has rendered many family scripts obsolete. 

Here are some chain of ego states messages I have observed working in organizations and groups as a professor and consultant taken from a passage on pages 187-188 from Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning:

PARENT CHAIN OF COMMAND MESSAGES: Be productive. Work hard. Make money. Be strong. Hurry up. Be firm. Be slow. Be pompous. Be polite. Be serious and reverent. Be silly and irreverent. Walk fast. Use em- phatic hand gestures. Make small talk. Don’t violate the chain of command. Go through channels. Be attractive. Be unattractive. Be short. Be tall. Look harried. Please me. Be perfect. Make the organization look good. Use innocu- ous, euphemistic words. Take your glasses off, and point with them. Wear a pinstriped suit. Dress nicely. Drive a Buick Electra. Play golf. Drink scotch. Cross your legs nonchalantly. Stroll coolly. Have another beer. Have some wine. Don’t wear a tie or dress nicely. Go bowling with the guys/gals. Ride a bicycle. Get a Toyota. Be a nice gal/guy. Act/be old/young.

ADULT CHAIN OF COMMAND MESSAGES: Hiring costs are $100; firing costs are $97. We need 1,000one thousand more units a month to keep up with the present sales rate. Enrollment increased/decreased X percent. X percent of our students /trainees report back that our teaching/training was beneficial to them. X percent of our students think they learn valuable, relevant learning in our classes/courses/programs.

CHILD CHAIN OF COMMAND MESSAGES: Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t be powerful. Don’t feel what you feel, feel what I want you to feel. Don’t be close. Don’t be you, be what I attribute you to be. Don’t belong. Don’t be well or sane. Don’t be sexual. Don’t be intelligent. Don’t be imaginative. Don’t make it. Don’t feel glad. Don’t learn. Don’t achieve. Don’t grow up. Don’t be energetic and confident. D􏰀on’t be spontaneous.

It’s not that easy to take care of Number 1 in life much less everyone else; but given global warming and other problems around Spaceship Earth one can build a case we should at least give the idea some thought.  The capitalist economic system based on the premise that taking care of number one is the highest possible ethical goal is no longer working for most people. 

Are there now more unsuccessful people than successful people?  Based on incomes and wealth alone so it would seem.  If so, what should be done?  One idea is to get involved in Game-free groups to discuss what people might do to become more successful.

Assuming Berne is right, what people need to do is get together and discuss script messages emanating here and yon to develop consensual ideas for adapting and flexing with economic, political, and environmental problems and issues.  A major problem is separating relevant focal points from irrelevant noise in order to comprehend what is really going on.

It will do little good to play AIN’T IT AWFUL, a psychological Game identified and labeled by transactional analystsError! Hyperlink reference not valid. to stroke humans for being innocent helpless Victims of obsolete economic, religious, and political systems manipulated and exploited by rapacious sociopathic Persecutor oligarchs and leaders and their corrupt bought and paid for lackey politicians for selfish gain, however true that might be in reality. 

On the other hand, it will do no good for Earthians to stick their heads in the sand to passively pretend everything is just hunky-dory and swell, with everything coming up roses for everyone, living in small imaginary Candide-like best of all possible worlds, playing a psychological Game labeled GREENHOUSE by transactional analysts, in which players are rewarded with plastic strokes for making nonsensical positive comments about the environment and their lives.

Regardless of the causes of the Earthian plight, it seems to me individual humans should assume responsibility and take action for conserving energy as best they can in their daily lives to reduce greenhouse gases; but especially they should select politicians who will create economic and political policies and actions to correct environmental and social problems on a mass scale.  

An existential question right now is whether humans can learn how to look after everyone, not merely number one, to prevent the extinction of the human species.

In the last six months I have tried to set up a De-Gaming Democracy group as explained in my article, “De-Gaming and Saving Democracy,” here in Statesboro, Georgia, USA, where I live, hoping to engage citizens of various persuasions, whether red, blue, green, or any other color, in discussions of relevant economic and political problems and opportunities to develop consensual realistic approaches to the environmental problems we face, in what I call the Ogeechee Economic Forum meeting the third Saturday of each month, with little success.  So far four participants have shown up.  It appears most people are not interested in, or are afraid of, transacting in a Game-free Adult way in public dealing with environmental, economic, and political problems and opportunities.  Hopefully interest in this forum will pick up.  It seems to me right now that humans all around Spaceship Earth should get busy in Game-free groups right now developing consensual answers for problems threatening their existence as a species.

For more information regarding the use of Transactional Analysis to create better democratic processes read my book Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human LearningError! Hyperlink reference not valid.

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems read free my book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds.

See my article “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc. for some management science ideas on how Earthians might eventually co-construct an economic and political system that is viable and satisfying for everyone.   

Image via Pexels

Going Back to School as a Veteran: Why You Should Do It and Tips for Succeeding

By Lisa Walker

Although it comes with many challenges, going back to school after the military could be one of the best things you do for your career (and life in general). Not only can it help you to transition more smoothly into civilian life, but earning a degree also improves your job prospects and allows you to train and learn in a new industry/field.

However, if you’re thinking about pursuing a college degree as a veteran, it’s important that you prepare and approach it the right way. From knowing your benefits to utilizing resources like effectivelearning.net, here are some practical tips to keep in mind:

Explore your benefits.

As a veteran, you have many more resources to help you in your college endeavors than most civilians do. The Post 9/11 G.I. Bill, for starters, was established to provide funding for veterans pursuing job training and education. If your program of choice is approved under the G.I. Bill, you can receive up to 36 months of benefits. There are also tons of scholarships, grants, and loans available to veterans. Do your research and apply for as many assistance programs as you can.

Turn to online programs.

If you want to save money and add convenience to your life (and who doesn’t?), enroll in an online college. If you pursue an online degree in computer science, for example, you can learn skills that will prove invaluable in the workforce, making you a sought-after professional. Getting a bachelor’s degree in business administration or marketing could also open you up to a wide range of job opportunities.

Think about what you want to do.

Before you settle on the type of degree you will pursue, carefully consider what kind of work you would like to do for the foreseeable future. First, think about the skills you’ve acquired up to this point in your life. While you’ll expand your knowledge and skill set by going back to school, you probably have some natural talents that should be factored into your career choice. Brainstorm ideas, and research fields and niches where your talents would serve you well.

Also, don’t be afraid to try something new. Maybe you went into the military straight from high school. Now, perhaps you have a better idea of what you want to do. Consider your passions, and work toward garnering the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed, whether that means entering a specific industry as an employee or starting your own business.

Start networking immediately.

Networking is critical, no matter what kind of career path you take. And it’s never too early to start. While in school, you’ll have the opportunity to meet a lot of students, professors, professionals, and other people in the community. Make connections, and be intentional about developing relationships. Not only can you learn from others, but having a solid team of people around you can significantly improve your job/business prospects for the rest of your career.

Get help when you need it.

Finally, don’t be afraid to seek help whenever you’re facing challenges. For example, you can find a mentor who can offer guidance and introduce you to people in the industry you’re interested in. SCORE is a free program from the Small Business Administration that connects mentors with new and aspiring small business owners, so it’s a great resource for veterans. They even offer remote sessions via video chat and phone calls, so you can work with someone on your schedule from the safety and comfort of home. It’s also wise to work with a financial advisor if you’re thinking about starting your own business in the future so you can plan and budget for startup costs.

As a veteran, going back to school can help you transition smoothly into civilian life while significantly improving your prospects in the job market. If you decide to go to school, remember to research all of the resources available to you and look into your options with online degrees. Also, factor in your passions, interests, and skills when choosing a career path, prioritize networking, and look for assistance anytime you need it. Following the advice listed here will put you in a better position to succeed — no matter your choice of career.

To find tutoring services or a variety of other educational resources, visit effectivelearning.net today!

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty, Effective Learning Publications, https://www.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications.html 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, October 30, 2020   

THE EARTHIAN is a digest of articles containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about existential states of affairs affecting all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth. Recent relevant articles written and published by intelligent hard-hitting truth-seeking writers in Internet journals about psychological, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs around Spaceship Earth are linked below as sources, following a usual comment by the editor.

“ASK LESS WHAT YOUR NATION CAN DO FOR YOU—ASK MORE WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR SPACESHIP EARTH”

OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW

By Richard John Stapleton

Here’s an email I sent to my Effective Learning Report mailing list in the last two weeks that I also posted on my Facebook page several times:

“FIRE TRUMP! 2020

“Yes, Biden’s a weak and flawed candidate, and he should not have been nominated by dim Dem voters and corrupt DNC insiders rather than Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

“And, it’s too late now for banal subjective arguments and comparisons about lesser evils.

“For whatever it’s worth, however, I will say, this being my own email, I think Trump is the most dangerous of the two. He sees himself as a fascist dictator, as evidenced by his admiration and affinity for fascist dictators such as Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, Kim Jong Un, et. al., plus he’s a narcissist seriously addicted to playing psychological Games. While there’s probability Biden will do harm if elected, it seems to me the probability of Trump doing worse harm is much higher.

“More chickens keep coming home to roost from mistakes made by USian Dem and Repug voters and their federal governments for many decades, and the prognosis is not good.

“Regardless,

“TRUMP’S A WORLD CLASS NIGYSOB PLAYER (and he should be let go)” as shown at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/trumps-a-world-class-nigysob-player/

Which prompted a response from a fraternity brother of mine from our college days at Texas Tech University:

“WHEN YOU FIRE SOMEONE, YOU NEED TO HAVE A REPLACEMENT THAT WILL MAKE THINGS BETTER.

“TRUMP BELIEVES IN THE AMERICA WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE.  HE WORKS TIRELESSLY TO MAKE THINGS BETTER.

“BIDEN, THE CORRUPT, CAREER POLITICIAN, AND HIS RADICAL LEFT CRONIES, DO NOT LIKE THIS AMERICA AND WANT TO MOVE TOWARD CHANGING IT TO A MORE SOCIALIST TYPE COUNTRY!  AND THEY WANT TO BE IN CHARGE OF DIRECTING THOSE CHANGES….WHERE THEY ALONE HAVE THE POWER!

“IT’S NOT ANYMORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT!”

It seems to me right now these two emails exemplify one of the most debilitating problems of USian government—polarization. The country is and has been for decades split almost fifty-fifty between left-wingers and right-wingers, between Democrats and Republicans, causing constant conflict, agitation, and stagnation, if not decline, and no one it seems can do anything about it. The problem has been obvious for several decades and little or no progress has been made correcting it. Biden has made a big deal of this in his speeches this year assuring us he is able to get along with both Dems and Repugs in Washington and he will work for all USians if he is elected. We’ll see.

To my knowledge the polarized attitudes and beliefs have not changed much if any in my adult life. National presidential elections are always about fifty-fifty and senate and house races always seem to result in small numerical differences on both sides of the aisle in congress, thanks to the votes of voters in Red and Blue states.

Consequently, problems don’t get solved, and sanctimonious self-righteous ideologues generally rule the roost with platitudes and politics as usual in the house, senate, presidency, and supreme court, mainly trading favors to get bills enacted and cases decided that will get their side elected again, heedless of the cost of their pork barrel bills for all USians in the long run, and regardless of how much their behavior and unethical sub–optimum decisions increase the budget deficit. And the devil continues to take the hindmost and the good times continue to roll in the short run for politicians and lobbyists.

Assuming a good law is passed, such as the Glass-Steagall Act, sooner or later another side will get enough votes to get rid of it. The military keeps getting bigger and bigger and the courts keep getting more and more political and ideological. The distribution of the national income keeps getting more and more unequal and unfair. Poverty keeps increasing and inequality keeps getting worse. The taxes of large corporations and the elite rich keep getting lower and lower. And the federal budget keeps getting more and more bloated with bigger and bigger yearly deficits, with a larger and larger pile of debt dropped on the USian balance sheet every year. Meanwhile global warming and climate change keep getting worse, more consequential, and more threatening.

Part of the problem is there is no way for anyone to prove what is really right in politics, and not only is “All’s fair in love and war,” all’s fair in USian politics is also true, if your party can change the rules and back out of agreements to suit selfish interests.

In general, what’s true for most people in economics and politics is whatever butters their bread, or, as Upton Sinclair put it, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

We are not only talking about “a man” in this context: Sinclair’s maxim applies to every human, man or woman, adult or child, saint or sinner, all sexes and gender classifications, all humans of any age, all forms of salaries, all forms of daily bread, all forms of security, recognition, status, structures, etc.

Why do people believe what they believe? They are paid to believe it, that’s why. They are paid in many more ways than money, including strokes, or units of recognition, prestige, security, power, structure, acceptance, bonding with like-minded people, satisfying feelings of all sorts, appreciation, love, safety, and many other things. Who knows what the real psychic satisfaction or payoff for anything is in the cases of specific individuals in specific cases?

Most humans are always needy or greedy for something and after being stroked, rewarded, punished, reinforced, and paid over and over again, sooner or later they come to believe the ideas, notions, fantasies, social structures, religions, ideologies, groups, organizations, transactions, time structuring patterns, beliefs, hobbies, social relations, psychological Games, and life positions they have inherited and use are without doubt the way, the truth, and the light, which are by now set in concrete in rock-like heads, almost impossible to change with any kind of facts, data, evidence, reasoning, and arguments. Thus voters stay Repug and Dem; and Red states stay red and Blue states stay blue.

I don’t know how many times lately I have read or heard on my Facebook page newsfeed and elsewhere someone expressing exasperation and consternation about how so and so as intelligent or well educated as he or she is could possibly believe what she or he believes, often not being able to understand how so and so could possibly believe Trump, a chronic liar and Game player, misogynist, ego maniac, narcissist, crook, and whatever else, who favors himself, the elite rich, and the military, is a good president.

Well, I can’t imagine it myself, but I also think I have at least connected in the immediately above paragraphs some of the relevant dots explaining how human beliefs happen and get set in concrete in individual human heads, inexorably and inevitably through time, causing the perpetuation of the USian political polarization problem.

Unfortunately, throughout human history around Spaceship Earth when humans have accidentally stumbled upon optimum political solutions for social and economic problems sooner or later some greedy SOB, group, organization, or government came along with enough brute force power to change them to suit his, her, or their personal beliefs, tastes, interests and greed, set in concrete in their heads, winning elections and fighting wars causing enormous human suffering, which is why I think after all is said and done the only hope for Earthian humans is to sooner than later turn all major decision-making about economics and politics around Earth over to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers working in a new organizational structure similar to what I have called Spaceship Earth, Inc., using organizational processes similar to what smart humans running organizations such as Renaissance Technologies, a quantitative investment management company, now use to “make” billions of dollars.

Human males and females in all countries around Spaceship Earth have proved time and time again to be too weak, dumb, and greedy to take care of all species of flora and fauna, inexorably gradually creating up to now an Earthian ecological crisis that threatens the existence of the entire human species, as thousands of other living species become extinct every year because of habitat destruction, caused by ever–increasing numbers of encroaching needy and greedy humans hungrily devouring Earth’s resources, creating a human population bomb that threatens all species.

Someone asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government on the North American continent he, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et. al. had created. He famously replied it was “A republic, if you can keep it.”

A republic is not a full democracy but it’s freer than a monarchy or a fascist dictatorship.

Not only is freedom not free, as advertisements for the US military remind us: freedom is also grossly unequally distributed.

Freedom in any country is distributed on a continuum from most free to least free—regardless of whether the country is democratic, fascist, monarchist, capitalist, socialist, communist, or whatever. The most free are an elite minority at the top who can do more than all the rest, travel, learn, experiment, whatever, doing about whatever they want to do at any time. The least free are those at the bottom who have to do what they are told, having no power to travel, study, learn, start a business, whatever, being almost totally dependent on getting some sort of job to be dictated to by some sort of boss day in and day out, if they are lucky enough to find and hold a job. The rest of humanity are situated at fine gradients of freedom in between the grossly unequal polar extremes.

In most cases where one is situated on the freedom continuum is a function of her or his accident of birth, not free-will ability, work, or merit. Earthian human life is not fair, or at least it never has been. Maybe there’s hope though. Who knows?

Suffice it to say the USian presidential election process culminating once again next Tuesday, November 3, will provide one more answer for history tests—who became the new president of the US in 2020? Assuming Biden or Trump receive a clear majority of votes the answer could be clear November 3. If not, the country may once again be thrown into an agonizing ordeal of trying to prove with electoral votes who won; and if this does not work, the six ideological Repug judges now on the US Supreme Court could wind up creating the answer their way.

One way or another there will be another right answer for history test questions about the names of US presidents within a month or so from November 3; but no matter what happens there will never be right answers in history books proving the whole process was fair and just, from the primaries through the final verdict.

For more information regarding my use of Transactional Analysis  https://www.itaaworld.org/  to create better discussion groups and democratic processes see my book Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.  https://www.amazon.com/Born-Learn-Transactional-Analysis-Learning/dp/0692584331 

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis see my book   Business Voyages:  Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds   https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810

See my essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc,”  https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/   for some management science ideas on how Earthian humans might eventually co-construct an economic system that is viable and satisfying for everyone aboard Spaceship Earth, making it possible for all humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position. 

This entails humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.

This can be done using linear programming based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

As explained in “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.”   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/  

Flying aboard an airliner about to land at night moving at four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet with cloudy and rainy weather below, which would you rather have landing the plane, the plane’s radar and computer system or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows but clouds and lightning?

I am indebted to Buckminster Fuller for teaching me in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth the metaphor in the above paragraph and planting seeds for other ideas in my essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,” such as computers being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work that machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what he called mind grants. To my knowledge Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.   

For details regarding my transactional analysis and management science qualifications see my RJS Academic Vita at https://www.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita.html.   

TO RESPOND:

As usual this month’s THE EARTHIAN  links and cites as SOURCES recent articles written and published by clear deep-thinking hard-hitting independent writers on various Earthian states of affairs.

Some Game playing goes on in the articles, i.e., a writer is psychologically persecuting, rescuing, or victimizing someone, but it seems to me the writers are generally trying to paint accurate pictures of what they think is really going on.

Unfortunately it seems to me one can build a case politicians spend most of their time playing psychological Games, mostly wasting their time and energy pastiming (bullshitting) and engaging in rituals (shuffling paper, filling out unnecessary forms, attending useless meetings with lawyers and others, and the like). Almost everything done in so-called foreign policy is a move in a psychological Game it seems to me.

It’s not easy, impossible some say, to separate relevant from irrelevant focal points in order to comprehend global cases, systems, and processes, while being inundated with fake news and true facts of states of affairs generated daily around Spaceship Earth, made public on the Internet, and elsewhere, to see what’s really going on, using primarily inductive and analogical reasoning, based on probability, not deductive logic. Almost never can anyone prove with deductive logic that a general proposition about psychological, social, economic, or political states affairs is absolutely true. About the best humans can hope for is to develop consensual answers that are generally acceptable and true based on probability.

It’s better to be honestly wrong than dishonestly wrong. Telling someone something you know is fake as if it were true is worse than telling someone something that’s fake because of genuine ignorance. A good case in point these days is most USians calling FICA insurance premium payments “payroll” taxes. It’s hard to know if sayers calling FICA payments payroll taxes really do not know any better or if they really do know better but are overtly lying about it go along with the crowd to get political brownie points for conforming to a group lie.

It seems to me most lying is lying by omission, people not telling people things they know are true that others need to know. Whether lying by omission is more or less harmful than lying by commission, telling people things you know are false and fake, is debatable, as is proving whether it’s getting easier or harder for most people to know what’s fake and what’s not. Political parties, Earthian governments, and Mainstream media lie by omission with alacrity, information about the Julian Assange case being a case in point.

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways economic and political problems and opportunities in something like the Ogeechee Economic Forum at  https://www.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum.html

go to our RESPONSES page and let us know about them at  https://www.effectivelearning.net/responses.html .

Feel free to respond with comments and criticisms about any of the SOURCES listed below using the RESPONSES post on this blog masthead at the top of this page; but please refrain from making ad hominem attacks. Criticize and correct any of the facts, data, evidence, reasoning, and conclusions in any of the articles; but please refrain from slandering and defaming the characteristics and reputations of the authors illogically using slanderous or defamatory comments trying to prove their arguments and conclusions in their articles are wrong, and yours are right.

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Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, certified transactional analyst, educator, octogenarian emeritus professor of management, writer, editor and publisher.   

SOURCES:

October 29, 2020

A cogent article it seems to me. Say it ain’t so Joe.

“America’s Imperial Expenditures and Escapades Are Stranger Than Fiction,” by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.), ANTIWAR.COM, https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/10/26/americas-imperial-expenditures-and-escapades-are-stranger-than-fiction/?fbclid=IwAR3npyqnULdGjpTcBs46XKDgMbXTi5IUk5hbHzhNVnZL1ZdjkjEVdm7Blu0.

October 29

Scary

“Tsunami Of Empty College Dorms Risks Student Housing Market Implosion,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/tsunami-empty-college-dorms-risks-imploding-student-housing-debt-market?fbclid=IwAR38TXDzUGhGZiC_MkQVkTIEcD7g017lxCLF7b_v6EAvV6UTpfEDdh1fAOY.

October 27

So it seems to me

“Trump’s A World Class NIGYSOB Player (and he should be let go), by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/trumps-a-world-class-nigysob-player/?fbclid=IwAR2HBYWCjQKeJ7jzmEG8Dyej36DPSiRaOswMLt97sXan5xpk3tsVcpmF-9U.

October 27

Sounds logical to me

“Forests as Carbon Preserves,” by George Wuerthner, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/26/forests-as-carbon-preserves/?fbclid=IwAR1d9OiTNDsa2J33IQ8dJzUecLfChneSPGGoTV00AL0emwphTUwdvghhZBA.

October 26

If free enterprise capitalism is so great why can’t the USian govt just let supply and demand set prices for all goods around Spaceship Earth and buy what it needs like everybody else?

“American militarism marches on: No discussion or media coverage of Washington’s war against the world,” by Philip M. Giraldi, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/31126.

October 26

Right as rain

“’Democratic’ Means Social Equality,” by Thomas Mountain, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/26/democratic-means-social-equality/?fbclid=IwAR3npyqnULdGjpTcBs46XKDgMbXTi5IUk5hbHzhNVnZL1ZdjkjEVdm7Blu0.

October 26

More lies and bullshit

“’60 Minutes’ Reveals What Was Really In That Giant Trump Health Care Book,” by Ed Mazza, HUFFPOST, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-health-care-book-60-minutes_n_5f9649d4c5b69b2ad5ac1cd3?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003&fbclid=IwAR3X3Huc-Y3yXaEKrjhZYXDSTHcRREwYlr4E1A3kA5z_nmS5pg6NKEpHk20.

October 26

So much for religions and ethnic freedom and security in Western Asia

“The case for affirming the independence of the Armenian Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabagh, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/31100.

October 25

If all politicians are psychopaths and you should not vote for a psychopath how can you vote at all?

“Remember, education precedes action. Citizens need to the do the hard work of educating themselves about what the government is doing and how to hold it accountable. Don’t allow yourselves to exist exclusively in an echo chamber that is restricted to views with which you agree. Expose yourself to multiple media sources, independent and mainstream, and think for yourself.”

“Don’t vote for a psychopath: Tyranny at the hands of a psychopath,” by John W. Whitehead, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/31123.

October 24

So it seems

“Opinion: King Kong Trump Losing His Grip,” by Maureen Dowd, THE NEW YORK TIMES, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/opinion/sunday/trump-losing-his-grip.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR2jDm8Uxk2tgKKJ_lnYS_3Ynd3S1LwN3T1lsk8hRuVa2f7GQIp0ZhzMgk8.

October 24

This is not anti-intellectualism; it’s truth-denying no matter what, nihilistic rockheads protecting their make-believe dream worlds to further their idiosyncratic interests and fantasies.

“Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/23/wrecking-america-how-trumps-lawbreaking-and-lies-betray-all/?fbclid=IwAR1jQ3atH_3DP76e10YOJz6COdE5D7zsqoYTTF2T1hCH-qhxdQySPiT4Fks.

October 24

Yes, authoritarian nihilists out to steal everything they can get their hands on in the short run

“Trump Isn’t Spewing Random Nonsense—He’s Consistently Authoritarian,” by David Renton, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-isnt-spewing-random-nonsense-hes-consistently-authoritarian/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2tRiXbvtKR-BMP2Ge3Bhb4xX3s2Yrt73gtKMHJWfoHIYVQn2MqDQcv284.

October 24

Tradeoffs everywhere

“The Fed Saved the Economy but is Threatening Trillions of Dollars Worth of Middle-Class Retirement,” by Allan Sloan, ProPUBLICA, https://www.propublica.org/article/the-fed-saved-the-economy-but-is-threatening-trillions-of-dollars-worth-of-middle-class-retirement?fbclid=IwAR2ufY8OaBA2UlKf541thbq74EejOzRqxFZkDlcYIn5AIhmNJLBiUSQj3pc.

October 23

Right as rain

“Jimmy Carter: The U.S. is an ‘Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery’,” by Jon Schwarz, THE INTERCEPT, https://theintercept.com/2015/07/30/jimmy-carter-u-s-oligarchy-unlimited-political-bribery/?fbclid=IwAR2cxnpZnAk19doUmlJiy1HxnYTAONAqifOXjc06wCaQwSPdiRldGvjvpjg.

October 22

Who doesn’t. Both sides are now playing the psychological Game YES, BUT YOU ARE MORE SCREWED UP THAN I AM.

“Rabobank: We Approach Tonight’s Debate With Trepidation,” Michael Every, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/every-approach-tonights-debate-trepidation?fbclid=IwAR14WneXye_O8eBxGrDKboE_7Vx9tHyUHf67EI1fgx7KPxs7esI-JGkfXzY.

October 22

Great article. Factual and cogent analysis by a great investigative journalist. Could not agree more.

“The Guardian’s silence has let the UK trample on Assange’s rights in effective darkness,” by Jonathan Cook, JONATHAN COOK.COM, https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-10-21/the-guardians-silence-has-let-the-uk-trample-on-assanges-rights-in-effective-darkness/?fbclid=IwAR1vf3excGd8vYwM7eZQrcbauGSisXZFzTkrGdb7s2-4mWnthpRlAt84K9c.

October 22

“Scientific advice on resource allocation is best handled by generalists with a comprehensive view on health. Disease experts wish to capture public attention and sway resource allocation decisions in favour of the disease of their interest. We referred previously to the principles of guidance on health by the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), cited as “We make independent decisions in an open, transparent way, based on the best available evidence and including input from experts and interested parties. Support from disease experts is crucial in delivering opinion, scholarly advice and evidence to a team of independent general scientists. But this team should independently propose decisions to policy-makers and be held accountable for them.”

“The World Health Organization in 2011 Warned Against a ‘Culture of Fear’,” by Jeffrey A. Tucker, AMERICAN INSTUTE OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, https://www.aier.org/article/the-world-health-organization-in-2011-warned-against-a-culture-of-fear/?fbclid=IwAR1mPepqvnlaXcUmos78oTCdlCSUNeAqE4gGHWdezy8tuzUx6uUu062PN2Y.

October 22

Three cheers for the Bolivians. Great article by Glenn Greenwald

“Bolivians Return Evo Morales’s Party to Power One Year After a US-Applauded Coup,” by Glenn Greenwald, THE INTERCEPT, https://theintercept.com/2020/10/19/bolivia-returns-evo-morales-party-to-power-one-year-after-a-u-s-applauded-coup/?fbclid=IwAR2sM1qTY6XsPa8gx7YFaR9JzOCKY3d7pasE08Ftw4sEoWObv1WhTQaPbVg.

October 20

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Joe Biden’s Boosters Wrote His Prodigal Son’s Entire Resume,” by Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations, https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/10/16/joe_bidens_boosters_wrote_his_prodigal_sons_entire_resume_125616.html?fbclid=IwAR1AwegJEt8wrsnZd39IsipJ7NMlBs_Gx_VO-biFohVPcT6towNo1sWhkeg.

October 20

Ugh

“Traces of coronavirus found on frozen seafood packaging in China,” by Jesse O’Neal, NEWYORKPOST, https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/traces-of-coronavirus-found-on-frozen-seafood-packaging/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR1mPepqvnlaXcUmos78oTCdlCSUNeAqE4gGHWdezy8tuzUx6uUu062PN2Y.

October 20

Say it won’t happen here

“Brazil militias control more than half of Rio: Study,” AFP, YAHOO.COM, https://news.yahoo.com/brazil-militias-control-more-half-214150208.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb.

October 18

Seems right as rain to me. Way to go Pepe Escobar

“Potus Punk vs. Dem Dementia,” by Pepe Escobar, STRATEGICCULTURE, https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/10/15/potus-punk-vs-dem-dementia/?fbclid=IwAR1D9D21qlyJRzqOq62iSG9_dve2saPoooqhKgIRH5sIm1d6wIMMxyDxY60.

October 18

Like sitting on the Titanic blissfully ignoring the fact the ship is sinking?

“The ‘Titanic’ Analogy You Haven’t Heard: Passively Accepting Oblivion,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/titanic-analogy-you-havent-heard-passively-accepting-oblivion?fbclid=IwAR2CJzZQt3d9-MNnY7LFuhpC-zG_iS-WDMbzdTVUBvf2ZeWovRFiP8WM7FQ.

October 18

So how long can the Fed Reserve keep buying stock with funny money to make the stock market go up, or stay up?

“Outside of Tech, There Has Been Zero EPS Growth in the Past 12 Years,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/outside-tech-there-has-been-zero-eps-growth-past-12-years?fbclid=IwAR1yQyDZaKe60UQEBFvu5T3eZPSlq83NbvfCRtPfCpNg3dRmAXQCKrQyJwQ.

October 17

Say it ain’t so Joe

“The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It,” by Gabriel Rockhiss, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/16/the-u-s-did-not-defeat-fascism-in-wwii-it-discretely-internationalized-it/?fbclid=IwAR0AiUWsc8VDahXbQlw7VTv1QQ0uBvnbGxC5hk5NE5h0qOjVVP-n9UkdeN8.

October 17

Living on borrowed time?

“US Budget Deficit Triples To Record $3.1 Trillion in 2020 As US Spends 90% More Than It Collects,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/budget-deficit-hits-record-21-trillion-fiscal-2020-us-spends-90-more-it-collects?fbclid=IwAR3RlaglE9cma4hQY0qczzDBLkZq-t01vHcN9Kwa6VMEnzr8B1JcghQ4OoU.

October 14

Say it ain’t so Joe, but this time it might be true.

“Fed Vice Chair Makes “Shocking” Admission: Fed May Never Be Able To Stop Manipulating The Market, by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fed-vice-chair-makes-shocking-admission-fed-may-never-be-able-stop-manipulating-market?fbclid=IwAR1yQyDZaKe60UQEBFvu5T3eZPSlq83NbvfCRtPfCpNg3dRmAXQCKrQyJwQ.

October 14

The whole heroic dramatic process does seem hokey, getting over the whole thing in about a week, good as new again like superman, etc.

“Michael Moore claims Trump might be faking Covid diagnosis,” by Graig Grazioni, INDEPENDENT, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/michael-moore-donald-trump-fake-coronavirus-b750245.html?fbclid=IwAR2Ez_etRQtcyOS6goq5jkd96-ZUXB49aeddddYiQTXSBuXK6DVUme2wes8.

October 14

Only question seems to be how long it will take to hurtle there if serious changes are not made.

“Earth is hurtling toward a catastrophe worse than the dinosaur extinction,” by Andrew Glikson, MIC, https://www.mic.com/p/earth-is-hurtling-toward-a-catastrophe-worse-than-the-dinosaur-extinction-30602151?utm_term=share&fbclid=IwAR0nLl8W24bi9rHeTWutl8HgursViBMnfSjUqe-5Zw3dAEvihaDSVfS3skY.

October 14

Fat chance

“Dozens Of Amy Coney Barrett’s Notre Dame Colleagues Call For Halt To Nomination,” by Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, HUFFPOST, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/notre-dame-faculty-letter-amy-coney-barrett_n_5f861f12c5b6e9e76fb83530?ncid=engmodushpmg00000003&fbclid=IwAR1QX_pHFB65Lj4_yoTlcsOBce4d-36qBxl_G9inVCnzFMSJakiCcAouPGA.

October 13

Surely it’s not this bad

“Exclusive: America’s true employment rate,” by Felix Salmon, AXIOS, https://www.axios.com/americas-true-unemployment-rate-6e34decb-c274-4feb-a4af-ffac8cf5840d.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1fBQ_TrP4cohZoMrZUiQuLu8rx8rQtpPq-Z0aJ6VJ6AZjcX3QPyd-FbvI.

October 13

Not your ordinary article about how to get rich

“The Frustrated Money Manager: Vatican used charity funds to bet on Hertz credit derivatives,” by Ben Hunt, EPSILON THEORY, https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-frustrated-money-manager/?utm_campaign=website&utm_source=ET%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&fbclid=IwAR0sdZW4ofOAvm-XmVc18DwPzuKkgsKUex7421vmvxNhbqQjGQeZvvgb21k.

October 13

Scary assessment by Ralph Nader

“Expected Contervailing Forces to Trumpism are Failing,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/13/expected-countervailing-forces-to-trumpism-are-failing/?fbclid=IwAR1-ou8THzw3b0H-a6sXJi6y2JMjUYl-t1DlrUtrtg0bOMdcjcsS5psqs18.

October 13

Yes, it was a roller coaster afternoon emotionally

“Disappointing Football Games and A Loser’s Lamentation,” by Richard John Stapleton, Effective Learning Report, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-disappointing-football-game-and-a-losers-lamentation/?fbclid=IwAR2fbt6j59vnrLdEvJzXlA2-deeJNRLZbE2wwo7G561ofitq8f3-NuFW0dI.

October 12

Afraid he’s right

“How We Institutionalized Incompetence,” by Charles Hugh Smith, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/bailout/how-we-institutionalized-incompetence?fbclid=IwAR3EmoEdDTKpS_1aYP5CEYCPzqmxJnzwnZ9meli0c0ISYuvtpT4KtYE_8v8.

October 12

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Fascism: Now You See It, Now You Don’t!,” by Gabriel Rockhill, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/12/fascism-now-you-see-it-now-you-dont/?fbclid=IwAR1unwLAXzcBGJMWdEiWDxB-rT_kfAFDxiZC-om0D1k6iDYHMVjclEcka0A.

October 12

Say it ain’t so Joe

“The Nuclearization of American Diplomacy,” by Michael T. Klare, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/12/the-nuclearization-of-american-diplomacy/?fbclid=IwAR1ljxm71XIFf0IFQ67hkeXmVoY7-gw8Upi1x6PjeUKL5Hl0gYMfevEim7g.

October 12

So it seems

“Noam Chomsky: Trump is Willing to Dismantle Democracy to Hold On to Power, by C.J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-trump-is-willing-to-dismantle-democracy-to-hold-on-to-power/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR31VIQVCJpPZCMbuKDTR22zvhnqQxADY58CeAXkdOlfC_ABT6RjCHcFR_M.

October 8

One of the most pervasive and debilitating psychological Games extant aboard Spaceship Earth

“YOU STARTED IT—A Psychological Game Causing Major Trouble Aboard Spaceship Earth,” by Richard John Stapleton, Effective Learning Report, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/you-started-it-a-psychological-game-causing-major-trouble-aboard-spaceship-earth/?fbclid=IwAR38KlE9CTgZ9Azsq1j0U1G0xHJcuN4kennhc4Gk25TivdUJ0QqFXSHDWBg.

 

By Richard John Stapleton

After watching and thinking about Donald Trump’s Town Hall meeting last night, it seems to me white supremacy is not the biggest issue in this presidential race. It’s human superiority in general.

At issue is whether Trump or Biden are superior enough to serve as president of the United States. Trump’s told us he’s a stable genius, and we now know his parents gave him four hundred million dollars.

You might think you were superior too if your parents gave you four hundred million dollars. You might even think you were superior enough to be president of the United States.

A lot of people think Donald Trump is superior, but is he superior to leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Albert Einstein? Definitely not, but does he know what is going on better than anyone else that could be president of the US right now, by virtue of learning what he has learned throughout his life experience?

He has psychological nuances and mannerisms that obviously work for enticing votes. He has a sophisticated New York accent he uses to interject voice inflections and intonations to express superlatives at the end of sentences, and within parenthetical phrases, such as, “and it will be wonderful,” or “beautiful”, that apparently a lot of people find appealing and consoling.

Donald Trump has a body type, however artificial his hair and the color of his face, that must remind some people of past heroes and great deeds. He has a limited but effective vocabulary he uses to communicate psychological messages that convince many people he is superior, that is also effective for communicating messages that encourage his followers to think they too are superior, because of their ethnicity, their religion, and their cultural beliefs, regardless of how impoverished or poorly educated they might be.

He’s a world class winner playing psychological Games, especially playing NIGYSOB, NOW I’VE GOT YOU, YOU SOB, which enables him to act out as president his business and reality show plots and climaxes, primarily hiring and firing people and being the boss.

But he’s still a would-be emperor wearing no clothes, all hat and no cattle, as I used to say back in Texas when I was growing up.

His anger and fear were more apparent than usual in his first and possibly only 2020 presidential debate with Biden, and in his Town Hall meeting last night. Anger is the primary psychological cause of NIGYSOB playing, along with a desire to be superior, to be one-up.

What’s he angry about? Like a lot of people he’s probably angry about the problems he had as a child dealing with psychological messages and requirements laid on him by his parents and the way his life has turned out up to now, and what might happen to him from here on.

While NIGYSOB players mainly come across socially as Persecutors and Rescuers, they also consider themselves Victims psychologically. Trump complained about the “maniacs” that had been trying to ruin his presidency for three years in his last town hall meeting. It’s hard to feel sorry for someone like this considering how little sympathy he has shown for millions of others.

Now he too is worried about getting fired.

Has Donald Trump done a good job serving as the chief executive of the United States government and serving as the commander in chief of the US military?

I don’t think so.

FIRE TRUMP! — 2020

_________________________________________

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, certified transactional analyst, octogenarian emeritus professor of management, educator, writer, editor, and publisher

By Richard John Stapleton

I am convinced the art of politics around Spaceship Earth now and always has been based on a psychological Game I have named YOU STARTED IT in which politicians, militaries, citizens, subjects, and voters act out roles on a Drama Triangle composed of Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims, switching about from time to time from one role to another, depending on which person, interest group, identity group, organization, or nation they are dealing with, feeling sanctimonious and self-righteous attacking, threatening, sanctioning, and possibly destroying the other because the other attacked or threatened them first.

One can build a case the YOU STARTED IT psychological Game builds employment and makes the elite rich richer in all countries and provides a form of entertainment for the masses. Many humans consider fighting in wars as Rescuers and Persecutors for Victims to be more heroic, exciting and exhilarating than staying at home doing boring routine work.

YOU STARTED IT playing under capitalism necessarily entails zero-sum competition and non-winner outcomes among individuals, groups, and organizations, including nations, and precludes Earthian humans from establishing I’m OK—You’re OK life positions.

Love does not make the Earthian human world go round: Insatiable greed—for stimulation, recognition, structure, money, and power—is the prime driver.

How much longer humans will survive aboard Spaceship Earth remains to be seen if they continue playing psychological Games at their historical levels. If global warming and climate change does not do them in nuclear bombs will. Both threats are increasing by the day. The increasingly severe droughts and wildfires of 2020 are a wake-up call that most humans are ignoring. Economic and political troubles are also increasing around Spaceship Earth, especially in the US. The same causes and forces that caused WWII have recurred, becoming stronger by the day, especially in the US, thanks to humans playing YOU STARTED IT at all levels.

The Covid plague and USian presidential boss Don Trump are probably the most serious threats facing Spaceship Earth at the moment. The plague—Trump or no Trump—could cause a severe Earthian economic depression and many millions of premature human deaths. Trump is now playing YOU STARTED IT with China and others using the Chinese govt handling of the Covid-19 disaster as a pretext. He would destroy democracy in the US if he starts a civil war playing YOU STARTED IT with what he calls the radical left in the US. He has poured gasoline on fires of hate in tweets and in speeches at racist rallies. His Mussolini-like demeanor, posturing, belligerence, and bullying in the first and possibly only presidential debate of 2020 was telling. Let’s face it: he wants to be a fascist dictator, to better Rescue his Victim followers and supporters, and to better Persecute their enemies on one of the most dramatic Drama Triangles of all time. He’s one of the most addicted drama addicts of all time on national and international stages.

His personal fate is now in the hands of his Covid-19 infection that he probably brought on himself trying to prove what a tough guy he is by not wearing a mask, probably causing Covid-19 infections among his supporters and followers who copied his idiotic leadership behavior.

The Julian Assange trial in England is also telling. USian and British governments, despite their imperialist actions around Spaceship Earth squelching democracy and freedom for others, playing YOU STARTED IT persecuting enemies to rescue their victim citizens, have historically been among the most democratic and ruled-by-law countries internally for their own citizens and subjects. Both countries have espoused free speech and truth-telling. They have also probably practiced it more than most countries, which is not saying much. Both countries strongly believe in keeping secrets from their subjects and citizens.

The Assange trial has not received much coverage in USian mainstream media. Was it squelched? You be the judge.

The main issue in the Assange trial is free speech, more specifically whether Earthian investigative reporters have a human right to tell the truth about the secrets of governments, including the US govt. Up to now the precedent in the US has been that they do, if they can get the facts. If Assange loses the precedent will change and investigative reporters all around Spaceship Earth could be reduced from truth-tellers to mere lackeys of fascist states.

If Assange loses the first trial in England he still has two appeals left in England before a final decision to extradite him to the US is made. If he loses three trials there it’s possible the English government will still decide not to extradite him to the US. If he is extradited to the US he faces a harsh sentence if convicted of whatever it is the US Govt finally decides to charge him with.

For doing what? Telling the truth about war crimes of the US government.

Also at issue in the Assange case is whether so-called Great Britain is really a great independent nation or is merely a vassal of the so-called United States. 

As reported by investigative reporters Craig Murray, John Pilger, and Alexander Mercouris the integrity of the Belmarsh trial has been suspect from the beginning because of the way it has been conducted. For one thing it’s sited in an isolated courtroom almost impossible for the public to access, and few reporters are allowed. Assange inhumanely has been forced to sit in the courtroom in a glass cage, barely able to hear what is going on. Some have called it a show trial and have accused the judge of being biased, establishing arbitrary short time limits for defense presentations, not allowing certain evidence, and what have you.

The oral testimony of expert witnesses has not only been cut short but entirely excluded in some cases, the judge having decided to only accept written testimony from some expert witnesses that is simply read into the court proceedings. One such expert witness has been Noam Chomsky, a professor, the truth-teller laureate of the US in my opinion, whose books and writings on US imperialism have been suppressed in USian mainstream media. His written testimony read into the Assange trial record is posted below in an article by Craig Murray.

The case of United States v. Julian Assange in England has not gone well for the US govt’s lawyers. They have submitted two superseding indictments and are having problems proving just what crime it is Assange committed. An underlying issue is whether he is being tried and persecuted for political, not legal, reasons.

Courtenay Barnett, a British lawyer practising in the Caribbean, has published several articles in the Effective Learning Report explaining the Assange case, reposted below as sources for this article.  

If justice is not served in this case democracy will have been mocked and both the UK and the US will have been pushed backward, back toward serfdom and fascism.

Benjamin Franklin, a major force behind the writing of the USian government Constitution, was asked by someone on a street in the 18th Century what kind of government he, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et. al. had created on the North American continent after rebelling against the English hereditary monarchy. He famously replied that it was “A republic, if you can keep it.”

He also said the former British colonists fomenting the rebellion had better unite and hang together in support of the new republic, otherwise “We shall all hang separately.”

A republic is not a full democracy but it’s freer than a monarchy or a fascist dictatorship.

Human life all around Spaceship Earth would become less free if the new precedent in the Assange ordeal becomes law, since citizens or subjects of all countries could then theoretically be imprisoned in the US for disclosing secrets of the USian government.

For Assange such a change could result in cruel and inhumane punishment. Experts in sources such as those posted below have estimated if Assange, an Australian, is extradited to the US he could receive a sentence of up to 175 years in solitary confinement in a USian maximum security prison for disclosing Wikileaks files.

Unfortunately, not only is freedom not free; it’s unequally distributed in all walks of life.

Freedom in any country is distributed among the population on a continuum from most free to least free—whether the country is democratic, fascist, monarchist, capitalist, socialist, communist, or what have you. The freest are an elite minority at the top who can feel, think, learn, and do about what they want to, much more than all the rest, having many options in adult life. The least free are those at the bottom of the human hierarchy who have to feel, think, and do what they are told, having but one option in adult life outside of prisons, getting some sort of job, if they’re lucky, to do the bidding of some sort of boss day in and day out. And then there are all the rest situated at myriad gradients of freedom between the two polar extremes of the continuum.

In most cases where one is situated on the freedom continuum is a function of her or his accident of birth, not free-will ability, work, or merit. Earthian human life is not fair, or at least it never has been. Maybe there’s hope though. Who knows?

Suffice it to say the next month of USian history, up to the 2020 presidential election November 2, will be interesting, probably disgusting, and possibly terrifying.

For more information regarding my use of Transactional Analysis  https://www.itaaworld.org/  to create better discussion groups and democratic processes see my book Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.  https://www.amazon.com/Born-Learn-Transactional-Analysis-Learning/dp/0692584331

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis see my book   Business Voyages:  Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds   https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810

See my article “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc,”  https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/   for some management science ideas on how Earthian humans might eventually co-construct an economic system that is fair, viable, and satisfying for everyone aboard Spaceship Earth, making it possible for all Earthian humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position. 

This would entail Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.

This can be done using linear programming based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

as I explained in “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.”   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/ . 

Flying aboard an airliner about to land at night moving at four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet with cloudy and rainy weather below, which would you rather have landing the plane, the plane’s radar and computer systems or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows but clouds and lightning?

I am indebted to Buckminster Fuller for making it possible for me to read in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth the metaphor in the immediately above paragraph and for planting seeds for other ideas in my essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,” such as computers and AI robots being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work that machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what Fuller called mind grants. To my knowledge Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.   

For details regarding my transactional analysis and management science qualifications see my RJS Academic Vita at https://www.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita.html.   

Unfortunately it seems to me one can build a case Earthian politicians spend most of their time playing psychological Games, mostly wasting the rest of their time and energy pastiming and engaging in rituals (shuffling paper, filling out unnecessary forms, attending useless meetings and rallies, and the like). It seems to me almost everything consequential in both domestic and foreign policy in all countries entails moves in a psychological Game, i.e., Rescuing, Persecuting, or Victimizing individuals, groups, or organizations in some way, which it seems to me is why completely unemotional AI robots and supercomputers could do a better and fairer job calculating the wins, losses, and tradeoffs involved in global decisions than imperfect, untrustworthy, limited, emotional, immoral, unethical humans, such as most of the presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and monarchs of some 200 nations now delineated aboard Spaceship Earth, especially the current president of the US, so as to create policies and systems that would maximize the chances of survival of the Earthian human population in the long run.

It’s not easy, impossible some say, to separate relevant from irrelevant focal points in order to comprehend global cases, systems, and processes, while being inundated with fake news and true facts of states of affairs generated daily around Spaceship Earth, made public on the Internet, and elsewhere, to see what’s really going on, using primarily inductive and analogical reasoning, based on probability, not deductive logic. Almost never can anyone prove with deductive logic that a general proposition about psychological, social, economic, or political states affairs is absolutely true. About the best humans can hope for is to develop consensual answers that are generally acceptable and true based on probability.

It’s better to be honestly wrong than dishonestly wrong. Telling someone something you know is fake as if it were true is worse than telling someone something that’s fake because of genuine ignorance. A good case in point these days is most USians calling FICA insurance premium payments “payroll” taxes. It’s hard to know if sayers calling FICA payments payroll taxes really do not know any better or if they really do know better but are overtly lying about it go along with the crowd to get political brownie points for conforming to a group lie. FICA payments are premium payments for a retirement insurance policy.

It seems to me most lying is lying by omission, people not telling people things they know are true that others need to know. Whether lying by omission is more or less harmful than lying by commission, telling people things you know are false and fake, is debatable, as is proving whether it’s getting easier or harder for most people to know what’s fake and what’s not. Political parties, Earthian governments, and Mainstream media lie by omission with alacrity, information about the Julian Assange case being a case in point.

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways economic and political problems and opportunities in something like the Ogeechee Economic Forum at  https://www.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum.htm go to our RESPONSES page and let us know about them at  https://www.effectivelearning.net/responses.html .

Feel free to respond with comments and criticisms about any of the SOURCES listed below using the RESPONSES post on this blog masthead at the top of this page; but please refrain from making ad hominem attacks. Criticize and correct any of the facts, data, evidence, reasoning, and conclusions in any of the articles; but please refrain from slandering and defaming the characteristics and reputations of the authors illogically using slanderous or defamatory comments trying to prove their arguments and conclusions in their articles are wrong, and yours are right, starting more YOU STARTED IT psychological Games.

SOURCES:

October 4, 2020

Here is John Pilger’s opinion of the Assange ordeal.

“Pilger says Assange hearing a Stalinist show trial,” Independent Australia, BIG NEWS NETWORK, https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/266586309/pilger-says-assange-hearing-a-stalinist-show-trial.

October 2

What next?

“Here Are 6 Ways Trump’s Covid Diagnosis Will Change the Campaign,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/here-are-6-ways-trumps-covid-diagnosis-will-change-the-campaign/.

October 2

Must reading for understanding the Assange ordeal.

“Assange Hearing,” by Craig Murray, CRAIG MURRAY.ORG, https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/assange-hearing/?fbclid=IwAR36P2oS74xqzFnjzkwb159ubauHe0_COGKRWQ6z0QfzJdOSYd4y0yH_mYc.

October 1

Here is a detailed scholarly account of the trial. A good read

“LETTER FROM LONDON: The Surreal US Case Against Assange,” by Alexander Mercouris, CONSORTIUM NEWS, https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/28/letter-from-london-the-surreal-us-case-against-assange/?fbclid=IwAR27L2sTxWHvwpZzYJbVLlW_7UhUMRd3vZ-GJq9PT9w_gN2tgUd56Y7kZEk.

September 25

An interesting twist in the Julian Assange case

“The lion’s share of today’s Old Bailey proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition trial was spent on battles over mental health and dire risk. The prosecution continued its attempt to minimise the dangers facing Assange were he to be extradited to the United States for 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the defence has its case on Assange’s fragile mental health well plotted, the prosecution is hoping that witnesses such as Dr Nigel Blackwood, consultant psychiatrist with the National Health Service, will punch holes in the argument. They will certainly hope for better efforts than those made by their own witnesses, Seena Fazel, a psychiatry professor who seemed too professionally tentative to land firm blows against Assange’s diagnosis for Asperger’s syndrome, or dismiss the health risks facing him in the US prisons system.”

“Assange on Trial: Mental Health, Managed Risk and Publication Chronologies,” by Binoy Kampmark, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/25/assange-on-trial-mental-health-managed-risk-and-publication-chronologies/?fbclid=IwAR3d7zbvfr_nLX4CShEUNi9FcPApZOH-r9ftDNTJp91HyYp3JpMzmDK-OQY.

September 19

Right. Don’t extradite Assange.

“Pepe Escobar On The Assange Trial: The Mask of Empire Has Fallen, Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pepe-escobar-assange-trial-mask-empire-has-fallen?fbclid=IwAR370z6Fa2i6B1wxuIlkJNdCx29HFy6T7V-4dHJlV2nZ59O_qduc68M38po.

September 12

Here is another cogent article by Courtenay Barnett, in which at issue is whether the UK and the US are already functioning fascist states joined at the hip or still have some hope as independent democracies.

“A Speech for Julian Assange,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-speech-for-julian-assange/?fbclid=IwAR2j6aZn92FO4Ebn8BF-MQ-eeBjywLBdw2hVsnxRTgdV6zxPhGCS2lMTBM4.

September 3

What now?

“NSA Surveillance Program Exposed by Snowden was Illegal, Rules Appeals Court,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/nsa-surveillance-program-exposed-by-snowden-was-illegal-rules-appeals-court/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3Kp4JWTpIexIvFzTiAagWsdFK0J-dq7QuV0J29gk1tMarOvfBWfcnhzjI.

April 19, 2019

So it is

“Assange — A Dangerous Precedent,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/assange-a-dangerous-precedent/.

April 10, 2019

The Assange trial is a moral, as well as legal, issue.

“Julian Assange — Revisited,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/julian-assange-revisited/. 

________________________________________

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, certified transactional analyst, educator, octogenarian emeritus professor of management, writer, editor and publisher

THE EARTHIAN, Number Nineteen, Effective Learning Publications, 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, October 4, 2020   

THE EARTHIAN is a digest of articles containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about existential states of affairs affecting all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth. Recent relevant articles written and published by intelligent hard-hitting truth-seeking writers in Internet journals about psychological, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs around Spaceship Earth are linked below as sources, following a usual comment by the editor.

“ASK LESS WHAT YOUR NATION CAN DO FOR YOU—ASK MORE WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR SPACESHIP EARTH”

OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW

By Richard John Stapleton

I am convinced the art of politics around Spaceship Earth now and always has been based on a psychological Game I have named YOU STARTED IT in which politicians, militaries, citizens, subjects, and voters act out roles on a Drama Triangle composed of Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims, switching about from time to time from one role to another, depending on which person, interest group, identity group, or nation they are dealing with, feeling sanctimonious and self-righteous attacking, threatening, sanctioning, and possibly destroying the other because the other attacked or threatened them first.

One can build a case the YOU STARTED IT psychological Game builds employment and makes the elite rich richer in all countries and provides a form of entertainment for the masses. Many humans consider fighting in wars as Rescuers and Persecutors to be more heroic, exciting and exhilarating than staying at home doing boring routine work.

YOU STARTED IT playing under capitalism necessarily entails zero-sum competition and non-winner outcomes among individuals, groups, and organizations, including nations, and precludes Earthian humans from establishing I’m OK—You’re OK life positions.

Love does not make the Earthian human world go round: Insatiable greed—for stimulation, recognition, structure, money, and power—is the prime driver.

How much longer humans will survive on Earth remains to be seen if they continue playing psychological Games at their historical levels. If global warming and climate change do not get them nuclear bombs will. Both threats are increasing by the day. The increasingly severe droughts and wildfires of 2020 are a wake-up call that most humans are ignoring. Economic and political troubles are also increasing around Spaceship Earth, especially in the US. The same causes and forces that caused WWII have recurred, becoming stronger by the day, especially in the US, thanks to humans playing YOU STARTED IT at all levels.

The Covid plague and USian presidential boss Don Trump are probably the most serious threats facing Spaceship Earth at the moment. The plague—Trump or no Trump—could cause a severe Earthian economic depression and many hundreds of thousands of premature human deaths. Trump would destroy democracy in the US if he starts a civil war. He has poured gasoline on fires of hate in tweets and in speeches at racist rallies. His Mussolini-like demeanor, posturing, belligerence, and bullying in the first and possibly only presidential debate of 2020 was telling. Let’s face it: he wants to be a fascist dictator.

His fate is now in the hands of his Covid-19 infection that he probably brought on himself trying to prove what a tough guy he is by not wearing a mask, probably causing Covid-19 cases among his supporters and followers who copied his idiotic leadership behavior.

The Julian Assange trial in England is also telling. The US and England, despite their imperialist actions around Spaceship Earth squelching democracy and freedom for others, have historically been among the most democratic and ruled-by-law countries internally for their own citizens and subjects. Both countries have espoused free speech and truth-telling. They have also probably practiced it more than most, which is not saying much. Both countries strongly believe in keeping secrets from their subjects and citizens, as the Assange case shows.

The Assange trial has not received much coverage in USian mainstream media. Was it squelched? You be the judge.

The main issue in the Assange trial is free speech, more specifically whether Earthian investigative reporters have a human right to tell the truth about the secrets of governments, including the US govt. Up to now the precedent in the US has been that they do, if they can get the facts. If Assange loses the precedent will change and investigative reporters will be reduced from truth-tellers to mere lackeys of fascist states.

If Assange loses the first trial in England he still has two appeals left in England before a final decision to extradite him to the US is made. If he loses three trials there it’s possible the English government will still decide not to extradite him to the US. If he is extradited to the US he faces a harsh sentence if convicted of whatever it is the US Govt finally decides to charge him with.

For doing what? Telling the truth about war crimes of the US government.

Also at issue in the Assange case is whether so-called Great Britain is really a great independent nation or is merely a vassal of the so-called United States. 

As reported by investigative reporters Craig Murray, John Pilger, and Alexander Mercouris the Belmarsh trial has been suspect from the beginning because of the way it has been conducted. For one thing it’s sited in an isolated courtroom almost impossible for the public to access, and few reporters are allowed. Assange inhumanely has been forced to sit in the courtroom in a glass cage, barely able to hear what is going on. Some have called it a show trial and have accused the judge of being biased, establishing arbitrary short time limits for defense presentations, not allowing certain evidence, and what have you.

The oral testimony of expert witnesses has not only been cut short but entirely excluded in some cases, the judge having decided to only accept written testimony from some expert witnesses that is simply read into the court proceedings. One such expert witness has been Noam Chomsky, a professor, the truth-teller laureate of the US in my opinion, whose books and writings on US imperialism have been suppressed in USian mainstream media. His written testimony read into the Assange trial record is posted below in an article by Craig Murray.

In general the case of United States v. Julian Assange in England has not gone well for the US govt’s lawyers. They have submitted two superseding indictments and are having problems proving just what crime it is Assange committed. An underlying issue is whether he is being tried and persecuted for political, not legal, reasons.

Courtenay Barnett, a British lawyer practising in the Caribbean, has published several articles in the Effective Learning Report explaining the Assange case, posted below as sources for this issue of The Earthian.  

If justice is not served in this case democracy will have been mocked and both the UK and the US will have been pushed backward, back toward serfdom and fascism.

Benjamin Franklin was asked by someone in the 18th Century what kind of government he, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et. al. had created on the North American continent after rebelling against England. He famously replied that it was “a republic, if you can keep it.”

A republic is not a full democracy but it’s freer than a monarchy or a fascist dictatorship.

Human life all around Spaceship Earth would become a little less free if a new precedent is set with the Assange ordeal that citizens or subjects of all countries can be imprisoned in the US for disclosing USian classified secrets.

For Assange such a change could result in a cruel and inhumane punishment. Experts in sources such as those posted below have estimated if Assange, an Australian, is extradited to the US he could receive a sentence of up to 175 years in solitary confinement in a USian maximum security prison.

Unfortunately not only is freedom not free; it’s unequally distributed in all walks of life.

Freedom in any country is distributed among the population on a continuum from most free to least free—whether the country is democratic, fascist, monarchist, capitalist, socialist, communist, or what have you. The most free are an elite minority at the top who can feel, think, learn, and do more than all the rest, having many options in adult life. The least free are those at the bottom of the human hierarchy who have to feel, think, and do what they are told, having but one option in adult life outside of prisons, getting some sort of job, if they’re lucky, doing the bidding of some sort of boss day in and day out. And then there are all the rest situated at myriad gradients of freedom between the two polar extremes of the continuum.

In most cases where one is situated on the freedom continuum is a function of her or his accident of birth, not free-will ability, work, or merit. Earthian human life is not fair, or at least it never has been. Maybe there’s hope though. Who knows?

Suffice it to say the next month of USian history will be interesting, probably disgusting, and possibly terrifying.

For more information regarding my use of Transactional Analysis  https://www.itaaworld.org/  to create better discussion groups and democratic processes see my book Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.  https://www.amazon.com/Born-Learn-Transactional-Analysis-Learning/dp/0692584331 

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis see my book   Business Voyages:  Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds   https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810

See my article “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc,”  https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/   for some management science ideas on how human Earthians might eventually co-construct an economic system that is fair, viable, and satisfying for everyone aboard Spaceship Earth, making it possible for all Earthian humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position. 

This would entail Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.

This can be done using linear programming based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

as I explained in “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.”   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/ . 

Flying aboard an airliner about to land at night moving at four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet with cloudy and rainy weather below, which would you rather have landing the plane, the plane’s radar and computer systems or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows but clouds and lightning?

I am indebted to Buckminster Fuller for making it possible for me to read in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth the metaphor in the above paragraph and for planting seeds for other ideas in my essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,” such as computers and AI robots being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work that machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what Fuller called mind grants. To my knowledge Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.   

For details regarding my transactional analysis and management science qualifications see my RJS Academic Vita at https://www.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita.html.   

TO RESPOND:

As usual this month’s THE EARTHIAN  links and cites as SOURCES recent articles written and published by clear deep-thinking hard-hitting independent writers on various Earthian states of affairs.

Some Game playing goes on in the articles, i.e., a writer is psychologically persecuting, rescuing, or victimizing someone, but it seems to me the writers are generally trying to paint accurate pictures of what they think is really going on.

Unfortunately it seems to me one can build a case politicians spend most of their time playing psychological Games, mostly wasting their time and energy pastiming (bullshitting) and engaging in rituals (shuffling paper, filling out unnecessary forms, attending useless meetings with lawyers and others, and the like). Almost everything done in so-called foreign policy is a move in a psychological Game it seems to me.

It’s not easy, impossible some say, to separate relevant from irrelevant focal points in order to comprehend global cases, systems, and processes, while being inundated with fake news and true facts of states of affairs generated daily around Spaceship Earth, made public on the Internet, and elsewhere, to see what’s really going on, using primarily inductive and analogical reasoning, based on probability, not deductive logic. Almost never can anyone prove with deductive logic that a general proposition about psychological, social, economic, or political states affairs is absolutely true. About the best humans can hope for is to develop consensual answers that are generally acceptable and true based on probability.

It’s better to be honestly wrong than dishonestly wrong. Telling someone something you know is fake as if it were true is worse than telling someone something that’s fake because of genuine ignorance. A good case in point these days is most USians calling FICA insurance premium payments “payroll” taxes. It’s hard to know if sayers calling FICA payments payroll taxes really do not know any better or if they really do know better but are overtly lying about it go along with the crowd to get political brownie points for conforming to a group lie. FICA payments are premium payments for a retirement insurance policy.

It seems to me most lying is lying by omission, people not telling people things they know are true that others need to know. Whether lying by omission is more or less harmful than lying by commission, telling people things you know are false and fake, is debatable, as is proving whether it’s getting easier or harder for most people to know what’s fake and what’s not. Political parties, Earthian governments, and Mainstream media lie by omission with alacrity, information about the Julian Assange case being a case in point.

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways economic and political problems and opportunities in something like the Ogeechee Economic Forum at  https://www.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum.htm go to our RESPONSES page and let us know about them at  https://www.effectivelearning.net/responses.html .

Feel free to respond with comments and criticisms about any of the SOURCES listed below using the RESPONSES post on this blog masthead at the top of this page; but please refrain from making ad hominem attacks. Criticize and correct any of the facts, data, evidence, reasoning, and conclusions in any of the articles; but please refrain from slandering and defaming the characteristics and reputations of the authors illogically using slanderous or defamatory comments trying to prove their arguments and conclusions in their articles are wrong, and yours are right.

I have no desire to sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit donations for THE EARTHIAN, but I would like to sell more books. If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN and would like to reciprocate go to our Effective Learning Publications page and purchase one or more copies of my books at   https://www.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications.html  .

FOR A FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THE EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT AND THE EARTHIAN: Email rjstapleton@bulloch.net and enter the word Subscription on the subject line.     

Feel free to forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian any way you see fit.  

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, certified transactional analyst, educator, octogenarian emeritus professor of management, writer, editor and publisher.   

SOURCES:

October 4, 2020

Here is John Pilger’s opinion of the Assange ordeal.

“Pilger says Assange hearing a Stalinist show trial,” Independent Australia, BIG NEWS NETWORK, https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/266586309/pilger-says-assange-hearing-a-stalinist-show-trial.

October 2

What next?

“Here Are 6 Ways Trump’s Covid Diagnosis Will Change the Campaign,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/here-are-6-ways-trumps-covid-diagnosis-will-change-the-campaign/.

October 2

Must reading for understanding the Assange ordeal.

“Assange Hearing,” by Craig Murray, CRAIG MURRAY.ORG, https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/assange-hearing/?fbclid=IwAR36P2oS74xqzFnjzkwb159ubauHe0_COGKRWQ6z0QfzJdOSYd4y0yH_mYc.

October 1

Here is a detailed scholarly account of the trial. A good read

“LETTER FROM LONDON: The Surreal US Case Against Assange,” by Alexander Mercouris, CONSORTIUM NEWS, https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/28/letter-from-london-the-surreal-us-case-against-assange/?fbclid=IwAR27L2sTxWHvwpZzYJbVLlW_7UhUMRd3vZ-GJq9PT9w_gN2tgUd56Y7kZEk.

October 1

Why can’t greedy humans stay in their own territories? A good read about the complexities of this culture.

“Pakistan’s Mughal Syndrome,” by L. Ali Khan, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/01/pakistans-mughal-syndrome/?fbclid=IwAR1GVaX9ShQWEaSqmN63ZIe6acFf8f2LE5VhFnNmjHwTZ9Ac0coK1mnl71I.

October 1

Way to go

“Conservative operatives Jacob Wohl, Jack Burkman charged in Michigan in connection with false robocalls,” by Zack Budryk, THE HILL, https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/519235-conservative-operatives-charged-in-michigan-in-connection-to-false?fbclid=IwAR03wEQ2jY7kiZsfmjcWUUUvCeelPiidi7cl-x4f9ZIM7Yss-jYHrMb0Mhk#.X3aQuAjSUzI.facebook.

October 1

Whoopee

“Copper, Crude, Crypto, & Credit Clobbered As Stimulus Hopes Fade,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/copper-crude-crypto-credit-all-crumble-stimulus-hopes-fade?fbclid=IwAR26nHHVl5uMPWGQ4ioEzHSBOUk7o8ZKepiaeHXNlvDWpoa-IRWcQkra1fw.

October 1

Say it aint so Joe

“Americans Burn Through A Staggering $742 BN In Annualized Savings as Stimulus Fades,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/americans-burn-through-staggering-724bn-annualized-savings-august-stimulus-fades?fbclid=IwAR26nHHVl5uMPWGQ4ioEzHSBOUk7o8ZKepiaeHXNlvDWpoa-IRWcQkra1fw.

October 1

Insane

“Gallup Finds Majority Of Americans Believe Trump Will Win Re-election,” by Megan Brenan, GALLUP.COM, https://news.gallup.com/poll/321347/trump-pre-debate-job-approval-highest-may.aspx.

October 1

So they were

“Disappointing football games and a loser’s lamentation,” by Richard John Stapleton, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/30903.

October 1

Sad

“Boundless Dying Trees,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/29/boundless-dying-trees/?fbclid=IwAR2JW60aMgF75u8hsgyY9PEbxRFFztjHYR8t1DnOQJWbtCDKHLZWQ6M1AaM.

October 1

A good grasp of the situation

“Trump’s Taxes: A Thousand Scandals in One,” by Jon Schwarz, THE INTERCEPT, https://theintercept.com/2020/09/28/donald-trump-taxes/?fbclid=IwAR0B0gw98MgwgH_qCGFnor7i8Z6Tlxx38WPQ-sUBpI7aGgxSC8SzWkVwRQY.

September 30

As the plot thickens

“London Court Hears Details of CIA Plot to Poison Julian Assange, Steal DNA From Family Members,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/london-court-hears-shocking-details-cia-plot-poison-julian-assange-steal-dna-family?fbclid=IwAR3srhakZ5OVs3Y1eEiEgipCJ8zXeG6Iy1ySBuRHvOHk4DZ9N_xL0_jDNmU.

September 30

Agree

“Chamath Palihapitiya Slams Airline Bailouts: ‘Giving More Money to These CEOs Is Idiodic and Dumb’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chamath-palihapitiya-slams-airline-bailouts-giving-more-money-these-ceos-idiotic-and-dumb?fbclid=IwAR2DicfEY9UbulK0gokXdVd527wSIKtE9ew5K0NHnylQ0-DFZmoGsEQMQzE.

September 20

Say it aint so Joe

“Civil War Two,” by James Howard Kuntsler, DAILY RECKONING, https://dailyreckoning.com/civil-war-two/?fbclid=IwAR1tGfJjX-i14L1Tz2EG3HP6D7TkRVsbsDuP5DGuJ7ZL8YPwebzdzweekNM.

September 29

Easy come Easy go

“Over the span of eight years, 15 traders at the biggest US bank caused losses of more than $300 million to other participants in precious metals and Treasury markets, according to the court filings. JP Morgan has admitted responsibility for the traders’ actions. The three-year DPA will allow the bank to walk away from the scandal – and two counts of wire fraud – so long as it self-reports any future violations.”

“JPM Pays Record $1 Billion Fine; Admits Spoofing of Gold and Treasuries,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/jpm-pays-1-billion-fine-settle-allegations-traders-rigged-precious-metals-treasury-markets?fbclid=IwAR0JnE0JCB3osmdLuzZmg0PTrnQfD0HfcSFuy2OPFd6FBhRoDCExoOLewC4.

September 29

Hope it aint so Joe

“Most people go through life not questioning the motivations of their political, financial, economic and religious leaders. They naively believe they have achieved their positions of power because they have earned it through hard work, intellectual superiority, and moral authority. Most people are not sociopaths. They are just trying to steer around the potholes of life, raising families, earning a living, finding some enjoyment, leaving a positive legacy and trusting those in positions of power are looking out for their best interests”

“THE ONLY THING SYSTEMATIC IS THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA,” Adminstrator, BURNING PLATFORM, https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/09/28/the-only-thing-systematic-is-the-destruction-of-america/?fbclid=IwAR1l57JSKRv_7O9oGZXsnUeiTzU9i5U3ftLT8lBv8izXKBsHB_eum6ZT7Ik.

September 29

So much for going out and having fun anymore.

“The Most Miserable Place On Earth: Disney Firing 28,000 Workers,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/most-miserable-place-earth-disney-firing-28000-workers?fbclid=IwAR3VHMOqeOcBQWCmqvKpkTV5xR2rBIVlIaaEutjPfn6eMxp5tOdcj0kkaK8.

September 29

A bleak picture

“Helicopter Money And The End of Taxes,” Charles Hugh Smith, OFF TWO MINDS BLOG, http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/09/helicopter-money-and-end-of-taxes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FRzFQ+%28oftwominds%29.

September 29

Goes without sayin’

“A Stark Graphic of Why to Vote,” by Ludovic Picard, RJS FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

September 28

Afraid this is right.

“A Despairing, Albeit Mercifully Brief, Rant,” by Chris Wright, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/28/a-despairing-albeit-mercifully-brief-rant/?fbclid=IwAR1l57JSKRv_7O9oGZXsnUeiTzU9i5U3ftLT8lBv8izXKBsHB_eum6ZT7Ik.

September 28

Got to hand it to him. His getting up in the morning, getting his face painted and his hair fixed, and then going out in public to spout more of his bullshit requires a unique talent, a talent most moral and ethical USians his age could never develop. Right after he got elected, or maybe when he was running in 2016, I distinctly remember him saying on TV, “Most people are too moral and ethical to make any money.”

“Trump’s ‘biggest fear’ is ‘massive’ IRS bills and potential tax fraud charges, says Michael Cohen,” by Hunter Walker, YAHOO.COM, https://news.yahoo.com/michael-cohen-says-massive-irs-bills-and-potential-tax-fraud-charges-are-trumps-biggest-fear-165358561.html.

September 28

Yes, there are loopholes for the rich. Why are they there? They were passed into law by legislative lackeys of the rich whom the rich paid to do it. And look what happened. The US has a $3 trillion Fed budget deficit this year, and it’s going to get much worse, largely thanks to Repuglican tax cuts for the rich since 1980, boosted significantly again by Trump to get reelected.

“President Trump’s tax returns show he has company: How rich Americans avoid taxes,” Nathan, USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/09/28/trump-tax-returns-tax-avoidance-strategies/3563685001/?fbclid=IwAR3o5vuOJ8pRqoNxmJQjPwUd9QEHp8ENgRvpr_fc7yKte8rMJa6EKfb9czE.

September 28

A fraud pure and simple. How anyone could vote for this escapes me.

“Trump literally can’t afford to lose the election,” by Peter Weber, THE WEEK, https://theweek.com/articles/940021/trump-literally-cant-afford-lose-election?fbclid=IwAR2SeQitFLvliQWJfolnsN6AOnx6F6cd9wswlQSM-zvpewmvOecDoIPKPR4.

September 28

Yes, it was a let down.

“Disappointing Football Games and A Loser’s Lamentation,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-disappointing-football-game-and-a-losers-lamentation/?fbclid=IwAR2AhCfdtyBspeIRV7DDjMYlWl2JVjK_U_UOYqkhQmXBBWvCTatpR1fNQMI.

September 28

If Trump did no wrong and if all large corporatons carry on like this, what does this say about the USian capitalistic system?

“NYT Publishes 10,000 Word Summary Of 29 Years Of Trump Tax Returns; President Calls it ‘Totally Fake…,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nyt-publishes-10000-word-summary-20-years-trump-tax-returns-president-calls-it-totally-fake?fbclid=IwAR12QWKcCeqXvuKRj27_V7tMZPtUCd5DRt0C9BLrUOvf3RWOX3y55oPibxo.

September 27

I had Scotch Irish/English ancestors living in Texas when it was a nation. I was born and raised in Texas. I always thought my ancestors moved to Texas to get away from slavery in the south. It never occurred to me a reason they rebelled against Mexico was because Mexico had outlawed slavery in 1829. I documented some of this in my book Business Voyages.

“The Real Texas,” by Annett Gordon-Reed, GETPOCKET.COM, https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-real-texas?utm_source=fbsynd&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2BBLa3WTSkUEKkxtKNsMGjV-ah2rPtP7FIs9O-tG2HuEC9OXNJFeyWgnY.

September 26

Wow. Now we can have a real live grown up Barbie Doll with seven children as a Supreme Court justice. She supposedly has a great legal mind. I have yet to see any credible evidence of that great legal mind, but she does have a pretty face.

“Top of Trump’s list to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Meme, FEMINIST NEWS, https://www.facebook.com/feministnews.us/photos/a.110963062584254/1317188655295016/.

September 26

Wow, now here is something new, first time I at least ever saw or heard of this happening on a street. We’re living in a brave, and frightening, new world.

“’Shoot on sight’: Boston Dynamics robot dog spotted on city street triggers fear – and defensiveness,” RT QUESTION MORE, https://www.rt.com/news/501750-boston-dynamics-spot-robot-fear/?fbclid=IwAR2RL-AMFCfCjN3_kMLRTLTYI_iNokX9i7Cr_ZegcZuh8EIw02LK6vnKISA.

September 26

Say it aint so Joe

“Sinophobia, Lies and Hybrid War,” by Pepe Escobar, THE SAKER, http://thesaker.is/sinophobia-lies-and-hybrid-war/.

September 26

Shows optimal solutions for capitalism, mainly small businesses, small farms, and trade unionism.

“Two Capitalisms: a Challenge to Democratic Socialists, Social Democrats, Progressives and Welfare State Liberals,” by Mike Miller, COUNTERUNCH.ORG. https://www.counterpunch.org/author/swubet4/?fbclid=IwAR3fJ4GizawAplNQro-7bD6atx3wioqvPUpp6nMuYNC0XqKgQ11S9Wzo76E.

September 25

No surprise

“Trump Lied to Heartland Workers,” by Chuckie Denison, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/25/trump-lied-to-heartland-workers/?fbclid=IwAR3CHCE8gXVVuzOyuG8ExeZQRCW6ymsRjMA9BxX4zE6jBN-zcnoFmEb2EzI.

September 25

Sounds about right

“Ten Ways 2018 Brought Us Closer to Climate Apocalypse,” by Dahr Jamail, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/ten-ways-2018-brought-us-closer-to-climate-apocalypse/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR37VsdOxA1faT5114KoaY3FDzAupM9g3odcsEbtOYnuVYtirE4hd2dJthA.

September 25

If trump and Pompeo wanted to make the US a great enemy for Iran, Russia, and China, they also made those countries great enemies for the US for quid pro quo return, making sure the top leaders of all countries involved win playing the cards they were dealt in the psychological Game “They Started It,” played universally in all times and places by aggressive greedy Earthian leaders of countries, making sure the top leaders and militaries of countries retain can increase their perks, power, and privileges within their countries vis a vis underlings in their own countries, in the short run, regardless of long run consequences.

“Provocation on the High Seas: U.S. Naval Adventures Near the Shores of Russia, China and Iran,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/25/provocation-on-the-high-seas-u-s-naval-adventures-near-the-shores-of-russia-china-and-iran/?fbclid=IwAR0mkVlmicxVJkv63XnrvhVteM8isvo9i85QRj1_l_IkssdaOpGDglAOYbU.

September 25

Say it aint so Joe

“Protests Erupt as Cops Escape Charges for Killing Breonna Taylor in Her Home,” by Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, TRUTHOUT, Democracy Now, https://truthout.org/video/protests-erupt-as-cops-escape-charges-for-killing-breonna-taylor-in-her-home/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0p7XjlA9Tepf9VMyQtGSM8A0oDA3klug_uGX12ciBoXp0Kjss9vbrb1UY.

September 25

Insanity

“Archbishop Vigano: Trump faces ‘biblical challenge’ against ‘demonic forces of…New World Order’,” by Douglas Ernst, WASHINGTONTIMES.COM, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/24/archbishop-vigano-trump-faces-biblical-challenge-a/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR3nzPSYKEqz-bgHNNflxbxg3etW3tNJaiocXzMZ7Zgq7aI_-2MMz7lvYS0.

September 25

So much for capitalism and free enterprise as destroyed by the US

“Iranian Tanker Loads Venezuelan Crude For Sale Abroad As US Threatens Seizure,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/iranian-tanker-loads-venezuelan-crude-sale-abroad-us-threatens-seizure?fbclid=IwAR0uOQL3hYQ25Wkt4chkYiwcyA12ydwpZaP9v2kH6UQ6FyN5auaaiTwN228.

September 25

Notice the size of the Gross National Product of supposed arch evil enemy Russia. Why Russia is considered such a threat escapes me. It is about the size of Spain in terms of GNP. All about nuclear bombs I suppose.

“The $88 Trillion World Economy In One Chart,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/88-trillion-world-economy-one-chart?fbclid=IwAR0ob3UoFmMImiWAUAchOg8bqbR7wJy08iMOv_jQck6EPuv9SwUjNrAfKUY.

September 25

An interesting twist in the Julian Assange case

“The lion’s share of today’s Old Bailey proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition trial was spent on battles over mental health and dire risk. The prosecution continued its attempt to minimise the dangers facing Assange were he to be extradited to the United States for 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the defence has its case on Assange’s fragile mental health well plotted, the prosecution is hoping that witnesses such as Dr Nigel Blackwood, consultant psychiatrist with the National Health Service, will punch holes in the argument. They will certainly hope for better efforts than those made by their own witnesses, Seena Fazel, a psychiatry professor who seemed too professionally tentative to land firm blows against Assange’s diagnosis for Asperger’s syndrome, or dismiss the health risks facing him in the US prisons system.”

“Assange on Trial: Mental Health, Managed Risk and Publication Chronologies,” by Binoy Kampmark, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/25/assange-on-trial-mental-health-managed-risk-and-publication-chronologies/?fbclid=IwAR3d7zbvfr_nLX4CShEUNi9FcPApZOH-r9ftDNTJp91HyYp3JpMzmDK-OQY.

September 24

Say it aint so Joe

“Will Michele Flournoy be the Angel of Death for the American empire?,” by Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J S Davies, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/30865.

September 24

Well said, but left out any mention that all leaders of large powerful countries aboard Spaceship Earth play the psychological Game “They Startred It” in which they justify military expenses to preserve their own perks, privileges, and power within their own countries who tell underlings in their own countries such action is necessary to rescue them from heinous persecutors in other countries and such underlings should be grateful to have powerful rescuers such as themselves to take care of them. Unfortunately it seems there really is a lesser evil this time in the US election, much as i hate to say it; Biden. Trump is a genuine monster with a high probability of causing monstrous harm not only to the US but Spaceship Earth if he stays in office four more years.

“Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils: a Vicious Circle,” by Sasan Fayazmanesh, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/24/voting-for-the-lesser-of-two-evils-a-vicious-circle/?fbclid=IwAR2Ecn5-yN8F6CoqXzqYMTpBH0-TrFcxvlWEyFJht03CxYr0PzVAGWwfgFs.

September 24

This article like most does not mention the biggest problem, the population bomb. The Earthian human population will also have to be reduced through natural peaceful attrition, natural deaths exceeding natural births. No more than one child per woman would be a good place to start.

“Greenwashing Capitalism Won’t Heal the Planet,” by Collective 20, Covering Climate Now, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/greenwashing-capitalism-wont-heal-the-planet/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0oKWwQxkDdWdtBtpg34gfXYEVZUILTET8vKIIx5AS15hKb4ddd7pTsaWY.

September 24

Yuk

“West Coast Wildfires Underscore Ominous Global Trend: Forests Are Dying,” by Peter Montague, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/west-coast-wildfires-underscore-ominous-global-trend-forests-are-dying/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3smMDKtfq2mukzG7f3I7A17MbM7JSLUvNwsqbeORmDX-K5y9tEzXu4iGU.

September 24

Yes

“Civilization Requires Collective Common Sense,” by Victor Davis Hanson, PJ MEDIA, https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/2020/09/24/civilization-requires-collective-common-sense-n960418?fbclid=IwAR3i0l28yiRdGZgSZd2tetVzM8hWWsSTdtMNV4mKT3P9RQb2s2gSdNwHuj4.

September 23

Scary alright

“Bernie Sanders Sounds Alarm on a Trump ‘Nightmare Scenario’,” By Sydney Ember, NEW YORK TIMES, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/us/politics/bernie-sanders-trump-nightmare-scenario.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR1bxRdVV9Y3GHVIsGI3_8zBuqpBI-UJ2uDj7WQVZT7tkZfvjK5vZUBf_8U.

September 22

Trump’s labeling people anarchists is just more of his own projection. He’s an anarchist himself.

“We Live in a Potemkin Autocracy Now,” by Derek Thompson, THE ATLANTIC, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/trump-feudal-lord/616429/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share&fbclid=IwAR3smMDKtfq2mukzG7f3I7A17MbM7JSLUvNwsqbeORmDX-K5y9tEzXu4iGU.

September 22

A good report

“Trump;s caudillismo support among wealthy Latin American expatriates,” by Wayne Madsen, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/30842.

September 22

Scary

“Budget Office Releases Terrifying Long-Term Debt Forecast,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/budget-office-releases-latest-long-term-debt-forecast-and-its-terrifying?fbclid=IwAR3_0_rA5hG5qhAecuBfiZ_RczLuM6XPzw5Vb0KjxkzfRcZZEzQhezJ5Q50.

September 21

Yuk. Seems biomass also has problems.

“Europe Drives Destruction of US Forests in the Name of Fighting Climate Change,” by Dana Smith, Truthout, https://truthout.org/articles/europe-drives-destruction-of-us-forests-in-the-name-of-fighting-climate-change/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3uD9y_vdF4Kk435WoABtmdmWK_C9HoEB5WTKzr00GZu4dKpUowNNMAgPc.

September 21

Great graphic

“The Scientific Method and the Trump Method,” by Mary Beth Wells, RJS Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

September 21

Want to go back to not-so-merry old England?

“Why Britain is more geographically unequal than any other rich country,” THE ECONOMIST, https://www.economist.com/britain/2020/07/30/why-britain-is-more-geographically-unequal-than-any-other-rich-country?fbclid=IwAR3cyVyx0DyD-Gnb3uDCT1d2i0BtPsglmNqi0Of3EB6phd0B6C2GUY9xuhU.

September 21

Agree

“Edward Snowden Deserves a Pardon,” by David S. D’Amato, AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH, https://www.aier.org/article/edward-snowden-deserves-a-pardon/?fbclid=IwAR0Lb3TkGtNWeNJ5MyXpAry4xfmXqTm1s42y5c42B2QGZP1J49bsLuxLEZI.

September 21

Here is another cogent article by Courtenay Barnett, in which at issue is whether the UK and the US are already functioning fascist states joined at the hip or still have some hope as independent democracies.

“A Speech for Julian Assange,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-speech-for-julian-assange/?fbclid=IwAR2j6aZn92FO4Ebn8BF-MQ-eeBjywLBdw2hVsnxRTgdV6zxPhGCS2lMTBM4.

September 21

Generally agree with Charles Hugh Smith about this.

“The Bill for America’s $50 Trillion Gluttony of Inequality is Overdue,” by Charles Hugh Smith, CHARLESHUGHSMITH.BLOGSPOT.COM, https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-bill-for-americas-50-trillion.html?fbclid=IwAR2EDYJOc0vn2i-mGUBWEiCuVJOi6HBuM_WnvSahXzKucg7tElufP5dum-I.

September 21

Paul Street could be right about this.

“For Real Resistance: The Fascist Trump-Barr Regime Can’t Simply Be Voted Out,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/18/for-real-resistance-the-fascist-trump-barr-regime-cant-simply-be-voted-out/?fbclid=IwAR2LvWEaixnJviKfbapNn6F4IDgQno8FHDHuzPVoOTc_EYPVIiZ9pBP47e4.

September 20

Say it aint so Joe

“Secret Documents Show How Criminals Use Famous Banks To Finance Terror and Death,” THE FINCEN FILES, Thoousands of secret suspicious activity reports offer never-before-seen picture of corruption and complicity – and how the government lets it flourish, by Jason Leopold, Anthony Cormier, John Templon, Tom Warren, Jeremy Singer-Vine, Scott Pham, Richard Holmes, Azeen Ghorayshi, Michael Sallah, Tanya Kozyreva, and Emma Loop, BUZZFEED.NEWS, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks?origin=shp&fbclid=IwAR17gCVnDRefimQcjG648FdFI2tQkkecx4IacHDOl-0D-rQsFpFmHzsfOBw.

September 21

Insanity

“Iran’s Rouhani Vows ‘Crushing Response’ After Pompeo Declares Restoration of All Sanctions,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/irans-rouhani-vows-crushing-response-after-pompeo-declares-restoration-all-sanctions?fbclid=IwAR3ggKM8H7v1ZoKVxsV5aefkj6vrhX7PKqr9JMCyjDD-R9e95aw9SHT9csk.

September 19

Amazing how Internet business expanded.

“Amazon Keeps Spreading Across America, Plans 1000 Warehouses in Suburban Neighborhoods,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/amazon-keeps-spreading-across-america-plans-1000-warehouses-suburban-neighborhoods?fbclid=IwAR3jYLWESwCCNYqueeRUH7d0j0zAryhiCylumagyX5I8Qkv6o4d-DZNraN0.

September 19

Major corporate profit making media have gone from trying to paint accurate pictures of general truth relevant for everyone to publishing target market content focusing on segments of society, telling the segment what it wants to feel, see, hear, and know, positively stroking naturally existing isolated and polarized world views, ideologies, and lifestyles within society, thereby further encouraging and reinforcing them, thereby engendering more and more hubris, chauvinism, and hate.

“The Post-Objectivity Era,” by Matt Taibbi, SUBSTACK.COM, https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-post-objectivity-era-00f?fbclid=IwAR0A4w39mhreY5ZKVCDYrWc9xXAgJv8UNVntQ5n2ULdL9qEBGZAMEh18C8Q.

September 19

Did not know that.

“Commoners in ancient Rome occasionally exercised a social strategy called secession plebis, or secession of the plebs,” by Matthew Iverson, RJS Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

September 19

Right. Don’t extradite Assange.

“Pepe Escobar On The Assange Trial: The Mask of Empire Has Fallen, Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pepe-escobar-assange-trial-mask-empire-has-fallen?fbclid=IwAR370z6Fa2i6B1wxuIlkJNdCx29HFy6T7V-4dHJlV2nZ59O_qduc68M38po.

September 19

Pathetic excuse for a human being. McConnell has done nothing but obstruct humane ideas for improving USian society for at least eleven years, vowing to oppose and tear down any constructive thing Obama advocated and did, such as the ACA. The man is bought and paid for by his rich corporate donors. His only principle is doing what his corporate paymasters have told him to do. He has not done one constructive thing in the Senate I am aware of.

“Following Ginsburg’s death, McConnell says Trump’s nominee will get a vote on the Senate Floor,” by Ted Barnett, CNN.COM, https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/ruth-bader-ginsburg-death-live-updates/h_9e6aca4e5bbcfe34faeee3c3efbca90c?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_content=2020-09-19T01%3A06%3A40&utm_term=link&fbclid=IwAR0Yft2v2Gu2O5HIGmUL7McurjONQkYf72jvxKUcIWBZWcKBO7-bhYsVuTs.

September 18

This article provides a good overview of what has happened since the great recession of 2008. The Fed Reserve was used to restore the US economy using monetary policy, pumping as much funny money into the system as necessary to restore stock, bond, and housing markets, while pursuing goals of full employment and two percent inflation, which never happened. The so-called full employment Trump crowed about a year a so ago he said he singlehandedly created for workers did not include workers who had given up looking for work, and most of the new jobs were low paying jobs. Thus not enough new spendable money was put in the hands of consumers to bid up the price of goods, and thus inflation stayed low, below two percent. thus the rich got richer and the poor got worse off, albeit supposedly employed, which is where the US is now. Trump by decreasing the taxes of the rich and increasing military expenses and providing stimulus money to fight the Covid plague has managed to increase the US budget deficit to three trillion dollars this year, which is peanuts compared with what will happen if the same Fed Reserve and US govt policies continue unabated. How much funny money and deficit spending can you create without igniting hyperinflation? Well apparently quite a bit for a while if you keep reducing the disposable income of the poor making inflation not happen because they can’t buy very much. How long the poor will put up with this machination before Trump or some other president gets the “insurrection” Trump has been running his mouth about lately?

“Kashkari Explains Why He Dissented Against The FOMC’s Decision,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/kashkari-explains-why-he-dissented-against-fomcs-decision?fbclid=IwAR2IHzXE2myP1TdFlgwkxlX2g3YFhVqciJkSrY1BOizcwzURS73oTResyiU.

September 18

How politicians like McConnell do it I don’t know. Must be almost devoid of empathy for all people.

“Millions of Children Go Hungry as Mitch McConnell Blocks Stimulus Bill,” by Miles Ludwig, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/millions-of-children-go-hungry-as-mitch-mcconnell-blocks-stimulus-bill/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2Ktp-NPa63MUKxpIazbS1_4oHgJvAbJyeCb2GdlxFR6bo8iDvf8wBaA0Q.

September 18

More than you probably want to know from a very prolific writer.

“Roaming Charges: Smoke on the Water, Lies Burning in the Sky,” by Jeffrey St. Clair, COUNRTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/18/roaming-charges-smoke-on-the-water-lies-burning-in-the-sky/?fbclid=IwAR1OHQWaFEquKnXOFjIUgJ3_WdelLvmYTFYsGB5dGNHk58f3HEA4XHVy5jo.

September 18

Hear Hear

“Trump Accused Howard Zinn of ‘Propaganda’ but Zinn was right about US History,” by Amy Goodman, TRUTHOIUT, https://truthout.org/video/trump-accused-howard-zinn-of-propaganda-but-zinn-was-right-about-us-history/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3lowz1AJa3lnvv27oMHroXMwHfZPy-HfAsaOYH8PdxCDoLFTHbxhTgmq8.

September 18

A trillion here a trillion there, pretty soon you are talking about real money, to paraphrase Irv Dirkson back in the 1960s who talked about a billion here and a billion there; but today it’s not all real money, a big chunk of it is Fed Reserve funny money, created out of thin air by punching digits into Fed Reserve computers and calling the resulting numbers money, with which to buy US treasury bills and notes to generate cash to pay the bills of the US govt, such as military bases in eighty or so foreign countries, and to prop up stock and bond markets, and maybe to stimulate the economy for poor folks some, and such. The longer this spending and tax cutting binge goes on the more debt piles up, at an exponential rate.

“Stocks Drop to Session Lows After Pelosi Says She Is Sticking to $2.2 Trillion in Stimulus Bill Demand,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/stocks-drop-session-lows-after-pelosi-says-she-sticking-22-trillion-stimulus-bill-demand?fbclid=IwAR0NfSdlzAVt6dksGikM8gCBaPNPUoTUC527T6W8AU_U6vJ1NxVfzrC4bkE.

September 18

Yuk

“Polls: Support For BLM Falls Further; Americans See ‘Protests’ As Riots, Believe There is a War on Police,” by Steve Watson, SUMMIT NEWS, https://summit.news/2020/09/18/polls-support-for-blm-falls-further-americans-see-protests-as-riots-believe-there-is-a-war-on-police/?fbclid=IwAR2BTabPiSUxBIQh7i6qn08pCDF0Jpb9nrHOoEOolBZWJP_mr4f1gtQbu5s.

September 17

Say it aint so Joe, Seems hopeless, no way to win, Unfortunately all govmints and militaries around Spaceship Earth know how to play the psychological Game “They Started It” pointing out the heinousness of what their enemies did to extract more resources from their own countries to increase their own perks, privileges, money, and power at the expense of we the people of Spaceship Earth. Seems no way out of the Game. The end result? Maybe human extinction.

“A Post-Coronavirus economy Can No Longer Afford to Put the Pentagon First,” by Mandy Smithberger, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/17/a-post-coronavirus-economy-can-no-longer-afford-to-put-the-pentagon-first/?fbclid=IwAR3IPih6Bhw7PfXNCQ-kPKjmegi7eG6tdygiCr8aWaZyGGFXbVzju5yM2n4.

September 17

Yuk. Say it aint so Joe. Sad and scary.

“Aligning Ignorance With Bigotry: Trump Attempts to Rewrite History,” by Henry Giroux, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/17/aligning-ignorance-with-bigotry-trump-attempts-to-rewrite-history/?fbclid=IwAR1MLy2eJz8AV-SLiU5sIZ-xEs4JAPcKN1s3CGtgD1D3uWc1YkaAfy-ixkw.

September 17

Say it aint so Joe

“US Cops Are Treating White Militias as ‘Heavily Armed Friendlies’,” by Kristian Williams, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/us-cops-are-treating-white-militias-as-heavily-armed-friendlies/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR09aTeROguD1fDg0LNpFCjL_hYc8O2P-BsfJT2sxx9IwUcqLlez7ErZZDg.

September 17

How bout that? Emoluments anyone?

“Trumps Properties Billed Taxpayers $1.1 Million for Secret Service Rentals,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-properties-billed-taxpayers-1-1-million-for-secret-service-rentals/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0M3ZqCjdeoOFjmp-zyu04bsfu12ZXiNwkd18rB7hnMcajs5XeMQpJxDiE.

September 17

Managing Walmart

“Walmart Announces Pay Raises for 165,000 Hourly Workers As It eliminates Their Quarterly Bonuses,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/walmart-announces-pay-raises-165000-hourly-workers-it-eliminates-their-quarterly-bonuses?fbclid=IwAR2FxDE5Q2MR-_6rPyMHHRQ2saBS2f441_nHtc_eSdFjMvD_FCm5A5KCfbk.

September 17

Say it Aint So Joe

“More than 380,000 Applied For A Job At Amazon in One Day,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/more-380000-applied-job-amazon-one-day?fbclid=IwAR3uPOEPyRvGtOZ9orB_3u5K5_jwjglok4NQFTSoCZW-ZDf8jIu0bPn2Nn8.

September 17

How wonderful

“’Alone in the World’: US Vows ‘Full’ Iran Sanctions, Snapback Begins Saturday Morning,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/showdown-un-us-vows-full-iran-sanctions-snapback-begins-saturday-morning?fbclid=IwAR323PRIT3_jnH5COI8uACU_7EIMdvW0tETcRbeZ7VG4Wm2D8Gf6yr5WeTM.

September 17

Who gives a rip about Russian meddling? So what. What real difference does it make? Russia is not even in the USian league as an economic competitor. Putin may be a ruthless dictator internally in his own poor unproductive country in control of nuclear weapons, but externally he’s an adept public relations expert doing a good job of manipulating USian mainstream media, politicians, and maybe a few voters. Mainly he’s another useful idiot to play “They Started It” with by USian leaders bent on preserving and increasing their own personal perks, privileges, money, and power flowing from lower taxes and/or larger shares of the money taken in and created annually by the US govt .

“Facebook Moves to Censor Internal Debate As More Employees Quit in Protest,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/showdown-un-us-vows-full-iran-sanctions-snapback-begins-saturday-morning?fbclid=IwAR323PRIT3_jnH5COI8uACU_7EIMdvW0tETcRbeZ7VG4Wm2D8Gf6yr5WeTM.

September 17

The Fed Reserve has been injecting more funny money into the stock market rigging and propping it up. How permanent is QE or quantitative easing that is the question. Most of the rise lately in the stock market has been in tech stocks such as Apple, caused by retail buying in addition to Fed Reserve funny money. The Covid plague has been good for tech stocks. The more humans get locked in their houses and apartments the more they want and need electronic devices to get basic needs met, causing tech stocks to be insanely overvalued based on general business policy. The more you know about historical business policy the crazier and scarier Earthian finance seems. Humans are now living in uncharted economic water.

“A Fed ‘Apple’ A Day…Leaves You Broke,” by Bill Blain, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/apple-day-makes-you-broke?fbclid=IwAR2AJ01yLj6L_Nzo9zfY2lob-VppZ68RNkfSxEKxsTqT4lFemnVoEL6fbB4.

September 17

The best reason for voting for Biden I have read.

“’A Matter of life and death’: After 175 years, Scientific American Backs Biden,” by Jessica Corbett, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/30802.

September 17

Somethin’ to think about

“How to become the ultimate progressive,” by Jack Balkwill, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/30797.

September 17

Not only are tech billionaires not necessarily geniuses, their fortunes are a function of luck, being at the right time and place to get monopoly control of software necessary to do something a lot of people need or want, such as the MS-dos operating system required for most PCs, to generate untold millions of dollars of free cash flow that enables you to buy not only other bright software ideas written by others but also hire genius software designers and programmers to exploit and embellish the monopoly software you already have.

“Why Don’t They Call You a Genius” You Don’t Have a Billion Dollars,” by Sam Pizzigati, COUNERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/16/why-dont-they-call-you-a-genius-you-dont-have-a-billion-dollars/?fbclid=IwAR0NfSdlzAVt6dksGikM8gCBaPNPUoTUC527T6W8AU_U6vJ1NxVfzrC4bkE.

September 16

This sector of the USian economy is booming.

“US Pushes Unprecendented 7 Major Weapons Systems Sales To Taiwan At Once,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-pushes-unprecedented-7-major-weapons-systems-sales-taiwan-once?fbclid=IwAR01LdzFU9jgu4Kb9C9OVhuZ2k_vzWt6IZtFGMy4kyVEX6OrxmoytllgGAk.

September 16

Sad overview of small business in the US, the sector of the economy we enjoy most on a daily basis.

“Yelp Reveals 60% Of Business Closures Are Now Permanent,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/yelp-reveals-60-businesses-closures-are-now-permanent?fbclid=IwAR0s8u1sa0ZqM-52T03WTxoorp9d5F6sePMCHAgcY6RWJrEuA0Rjq6hNXC8.

September 16

Yuk

“Trump vs. The Military Industrial Complex: Military Coup Danger escalates,” by Matthew Ehret, THE SAKER, http://thesaker.is/trump-vs-the-military-industrial-complex-military-coup-danger-escalates/?fbclid=IwAR0EBKJAEy0rSN19piBh5EfrUSq03F6hgDLX8ivsWPscg0ounPa5tahD308.

September 16

I almost never post stuff from Fox So-Called News, but this does contain an interesting video interview of Li-Ming Yan, the virologist who supposedly fled. Fact checkers have found there is some fake news in the post, but what about the body language of the young Chinese virologist who has MD and PhD degrees. If it’s fake she’s a good actress.

“EXCLUSIVE: Chinese virologist accuses BVeijing of coronavirus cover-up, flees Hong Kong,” by Barnini Chakrabotty and Alex Diaz, FOX NEWS, https://www.foxnews.com/world/chinese-virologist-coronavirus-cover-up-flee-hong-kong-whistleblower?fbclid=IwAR3M7z6hNB8NT83lqmTN14tEwvIO77LYN9dyXVuAePLjFKI_MItHEkLFkVA.

September 15

Ominous

“God, Guns, Bats, and Patriotism,” by Mike Hastie, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/15/god-guns-bats-and-patriotism/?fbclid=IwAR05w5Vd3PaKizDUMLgbfNMUD1zxW0XCTpIfA-REvon4ePmBPbE5nYDFGos.

September 15

Say it aint so Joe

“America’s War on Terror is the True Cause of Europe’s Refugee Crisis,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/15/americas-war-on-terror-is-the-true-cause-of-europes-refugee-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR0U4FiwaZTuZhVwmcd3uPa9eXWQlK38egJzO-0DJgpATP0cBdOnSIG54YQ.

September 15

More “They Started It” psychological Game playing to increase the perks, privileges, and power of political and military leaders at the expense of we the people of Spaceship Earth. Part of the psychology of course is that the leaders would have you believe they are doing it to Rescue you from other Persecutors, be you Greek, Turk, USian, or whatever.

“US & Greece Hold Joint Tank Drills Near Turkish Border: Greek Media,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/greece-us-hold-tank-drills-near-turkish-border-greek-media?fbclid=IwAR2o2mQMgPmn_yuqxCeoGlzbXx4vLo_qFXdY1VxWxO82ljivwv5WgZ2_ytc.

September 15

Another good way to play “They Started It” so all militaries can consume a larger share of Earthian resources.

“’A Friend is in Trouble’: Lukashenko Urges Putin To Prepare Armies To Resist External aggression,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/friend-trouble-lukashenko-urges-putin-prepare-armies-resist-external-aggression?fbclid=IwAR00Xesga1t6ErO3YtLBak63Uj4_xz8-bSP0tdjHQs6wjIxiiHQawlAP0Fc.

September 15

Nationals are caught between a rock and a hard spot.

“Multinationals and Oil Companies are Imposing Their Greed on the People of Mozambique,” by Vijay Prashad, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/14/multinationals-and-oil-companies-are-imposing-their-greed-on-the-people-of-mozambique/?fbclid=IwAR0zR2G9nh57A8QlM8Bl_oHZWZ9rxkE4g6jwAdpcphcLzzcTjp8RWmtIHgo.

September 14

A fine kettle of fish.

“Living in the World of the Late John Frankenheimer,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/14/living-in-the-world-of-the-late-john-frankenheimer/?fbclid=IwAR1rJCYljhmwdTMMFzIzMXp599LAa16GKzb5PVTmdXgFJpOMaV5zLUftd4U.

September 13

I have agreed more than I have disagreed with Paul Craig Roberts. This post seems unbelievable, but one thing’s for sure: Roberts has no compunction about telling it like he sees it. He worked in the Reagan administration as Undersecretary of the Treasury and knows more about how the USian govmint really works than most folks.

“America’s Color Revolution,” by Paul Craig Roberts, PAUCRAIGROBERTS.COM, https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/09/12/americas-color-revolution/?fbclid=IwAR3eKTYn2w_YPPbjvYgqFO-TkE4DR2EnziQsOCuuOgmPGxiLpNaIgfQAWTE.

September 12

Here is another cogent article by Courtenay Barnett, in which at issue is whether the UK and the US are already functioning fascist states joined at the hip or still have some hope as independent democracies.

“A Speech For Julian Assange,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-speech-for-julian-assange/?fbclid=IwAR0r5eYVpirUesIXekKYqhkk1AyrPSnhPBOze6gQmZrDlKiwNebcppGDMTY.

September 12

Sad indeed. The quality of life for many millions has been seriously degraded.

“A Farewell Letter From An Independent Restaurant Owner,” by Heather Lalley, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/bailout/farewell-letter-independent-restaurant-owner?fbclid=IwAR2hSm-XuVyCNujj43ecIqJGyKD3SprLM2pw5_rZ9QssVU1h1gMlzqlfIbc.

September 11

Way to go Trump

“Budget Deficit Hits Record $3 Trillion As US Spends 100% More Than It Collects YTD,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/budget-deficit-hits-record-3-trillion-us-spends-100-more-it-collects-ytd?fbclid=IwAR1SCAqtRsakQzxBOA_gpex-GO5GJJ0blxveoPCKZVwDMKg-Ll8htHTLtKs.

September 11

Interesting perspective on govt borrowing and funny money by a great economist.

“The U.S. is Borrowing Its Way to Fascism,” by Richard D. Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/11/the-u-s-is-borrowing-its-way-to-fascism/?fbclid=IwAR3Xe22VJqwnAVE6rb9l4ZUD9KkcAT0UhPKwyXqP4m63kJIcSenzhgZXNJY.

September 10

Unbelievable video of the situation in the west with Amy Goodman and an environmental researcher. Enough Trump, Trump, Trump. It’s time to get real about climate change.

“We Must Tell the Truth About California Fires — This is Climate Change,” by Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/video/we-must-tell-the-truth-about-california-fires-this-is-climate-change/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1YaYOzvTwlIc7VwSTcL2HM2-BQJr02JA2c5mWs-y1KZQ7UAh-lNQyQlbQ.

September 10

Unbelievable. If true it should be stopped. whatever happened to separation of church and state in the US? If these priests don’t have to pay income taxes like everybody else then let them keep their mouths shut about political matters. It’s one thing for religionists of any sort to believe anything they want to believe, but it’s another matter to try to cram their beliefs down the throats of everyone else in the form of secular laws and executive orders. Large churches like large business corporations are not citizens with free speech, or at least should not be, as was the case in the US before the Citizens United US Supreme Court Case of 2010, in which five right wing US supreme court judges decided large corporations were citizens with free speech, and therefore could spend as much money as they wanted bribing us senators and representatives and presidents to lower their taxes and enact legislation in their favor. Face it, most religions and large corporations are not democratic. They are authoritarian fascist organizations.

“WATCH: Priest warns US voters: ‘You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat’,” by Doug Mainwaring, LIFESITE, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/watch-priest-warns-us-voters-you-cannot-be-catholic-and-be-a-democrat?utm_content=bufferf5cf9&fbclid=IwAR1TDoVQm7Cy6sAQtY3uaX1_LYhhDyLYZVGmo2JFJGrP7PGpEgpbOUHCIQU.

September 10

Shows China has good common sense.

“What Possible Disruption is Coming That Requires China To Start Massive Stockpiling Of all Possible Commodities” by Michael Every of Rabobank, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/what-possible-disruption-coming-requires-china-start-massive-stockpiling-all-possible?fbclid=IwAR3Xe22VJqwnAVE6rb9l4ZUD9KkcAT0UhPKwyXqP4m63kJIcSenzhgZXNJY.

September 9

Yep, it’s Trump, Trump, and more Trump. Almost nothing but Trump counts in the phantasmagoria of USian reality show consciousness in mass media and social media.

“The Heat is Definitely On,” by Evaggelos Vallianatos, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/09/the-heat-is-definitely-on/?fbclid=IwAR3zGvEM_TrQOltRnI_HQUsgo6rceiUrr6Fk_prdrRuvjy9diCv-uG7xUzE/

September 9

I do not agree with all of Paul Street’s recommendations here but I agree with his assessment of the dangers we face.

“Trump Law, Trump Order and the Danger Ahead,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/09/trump-law-trump-order-and-the-danger-ahead/?fbclid=IwAR2ddPrNeFz-mlEILkatmsSBlmoSMkMxM8vvMclK4KQqO4KLXyUAf1_uWNY.

September 9

Johnson and Trump seem cut from the same mold, Yet Johnson does not seem as threatening as Trump regarding the probability of a fascist coup. The UK it seems to me is inherently more democratic than the US, especially regarding the matter of getting rid of the top leader of the country. It is much easier for Brits to get rid of a British prime minister than it is for USians to get rid of a USian president, who thanks to the US constitution is almost guaranteed a four year stay in office once put in office, even if he did not win a majority of votes in the presidential election that put him in office, thanks to the anti-democratric USian electoral college enshrined in its constitution.

“U-Turns Galore in Tory Britain,” by Kenneth Surin, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/09/u-turns-galore-in-tory-britain/?fbclid=IwAR3vT8k4ZnBCtbssGW5KMyyjQVQAwjkpG2wepvV7B97l2MP1dhmVLrgjc_w.

September 9

Ta-Nehisi Coates is right when he states that, “Instead of nonviolence being the ethic demanded of protesters, what if it was the ethic demanded of the state?… If nonviolence is such a beautiful way of living, I think we should imagine that for the state. I think it’s actually worth doing.”

“Trump’s ‘Law and Order’ Rhetoric is a Rallying Cry for State Violence,” by Henry A. Giroux, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-law-and-order-rhetoric-is-a-rallying-cry-for-state-violence/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3CFiZXC4DCysTLpUIz-nc63bo5T6F7_EMh7-CAG_vuq-0QyL_NK8MdceE.

September 9

As if the major purpose of the US govmint is to raise money for the USian military.

“House Approves $740 Billion Pentagon Budget While Millions Can’t Afford Rent,” by Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/house-approves-740-billion-pentagon-budget-while-millions-cant-afford-rent/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2W5AwoB_jiHcPax4VumegWrFvWmP4F3pYYcjPCGFrEqh1oSR_Van4aTio.

September 9

Probably so

“UN Chief: Humanity is ‘Doomed’ if Nations Don’t Cooperate on Climate Soon,” by Kelly Macnamara, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/un-chief-humanity-is-doomed-if-nations-dont-cooperate-on-climate-soon/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3vT8k4ZnBCtbssGW5KMyyjQVQAwjkpG2wepvV7B97l2MP1dhmVLrgjc_w.

September 9

Contains an excellent documentary on how fascism got started in Nazi Germany. A must watch and listen to.

“The Story of Fascism: Rick Steves’ Documentary Helps Us Learn from the Hard Lessons of the 20^th Century,” Current Affairs, History, OPEN CULTURE, http://www.openculture.com/2020/09/the-story-of-fascism.html.

September 9

Hard to believe

“A robot wrote this entire article. Are you scared yet, human?”  THE GUARDIAN, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR1ae7ptZwd7lh93VxdFyFNB9YUuTCmeyr8Xsg78EVlLBhkAqMgQmAtaM4k.

September 8

Trump supporters are geniuses with very high aptitude for willingly suspending disbelief.

“Several boats sink at Trump parade n Texas Lake,” by Reuters Staff, REUTERS, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-boats-idUSKBN25X00S?fbclid=IwAR0-fEj7AIQY0E2rwq2g0wORhlkofCMx2JuJv4kGXmLJCTCAozCoSf10McU.  

September 8

Is the US now the boss of Spaceship Earth?

“U.S says Iran must leave Syria, Russia can stay, but allies keep the oil,” by tom O’Connor, NEWSWEEK, https://www.newsweek.com/us-says-iran-must-leave-syria-russia-can-stay-allies-keep-oil-1529826?fbclid=IwAR0oYiHQFRIc_3P8a8K22R6jQJ81IpO2eb88q9qJQhggB8-s12fV25y7ylI.

September 8

Sad

“’Horrifically Catastrophic’; Report Finds So-Called US War on Terror Has Displaced as Many as 59 Million People,” by Jake Johnson, COMMON DREAMS, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/08/horrifically-catastrophic-report-finds-so-called-us-war-terror-has-displaced-many-59?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter.

September 8

Churches have no business trying to influence political races. If they want to influence political elections let them give up their tax exemptions.

“Catholics rally to have 5,400 Masses offered for President Trump,” by Anthony Murdoch, LIFE SITE, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholics-rally-to-have-5400-masses-offered-for-president-trump?utm_content=bufferb74da&fbclid=IwAR2eqc-tfX367Ise3x2iAu7eYyaXBPvWOoahWpmb1uWMCfwsArmVdYPTlBw.

September 7

Ironically here’s a Labor Day speech from a US president who never did a day’s work of labor in his life.

“’Biden is a stupid person’: Trump goes on the attack in Labor Day Speech,” by Chris Sommerfeldt, DAILY NEWS, MSN.COM, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-is-a-stupid-person-trump-goes-on-the-attack-in-labor-day-speech/ar-BB18NvOe?fbclid=IwAR2Vzc5yDR1P0I-J3GIBvdjXumABptiOLOzSn9FsvysukM09Od7M-DxyxDo.

September 7

Either way, have govmints discovered a way to negate the law of supply and demand? Upon which all logical economic theory is based?

“Rabo: While Everyone is Handing Out Stimulus To Prop Up Demand; China Has Been Propping Up Supply,” by Michael Every, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rabo-while-everyone-handing-out-stimulus-prop-demand-china-has-been-propping-supply?fbclid=IwAR2PjX4rmpp7lSDWwSG9SSI6amHwHzpxZ1CgDOJg4NbXb5fmr9LxPbH1rzs.  

September 6

Not the smartest thing the dim Dems ever did.

“Why Dems Are Choosing Biden—A Transactional Analysis of Usian Politics,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-dems-are-choosing-biden/?fbclid=IwAR1WreOCzd5ohcseurn40q3mqTvNgRhhmiUqjcBaq4kPa2B6Htu9UwxryYQ. 

September 6

No end of Games can be played by the top military leaders of the US and Russia to increase their personal power, perks, and privileges and garner a larger share of their respective govmint budgets, easily paid for in the US by Fed Reserve funny money. How much does it cost to fly these things per hour in fuel costs alone?

“The Pentagon Has ‘Staged’ Black Sea B-52 Interepts As An ‘Intelligence trap’ For The Russians,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-has-staged-black-sea-b-52-intercepts-intelligence-trap-russians?fbclid=IwAR1cqVe8gMqMUs6XgDDDV4ssYXsvPi5yDdCgyiTCv2Q4c4sbnkiGFhBy5DY.

September 5

Interesting article. Agree and disagree with parts of it. Agree Switzerland has an excellent system of government, maybe the most democratic aboard Spaceship Earth. Disagree the US could copy them given its development. Disagree there are only two general alternatives facing Spaceship Earth, totalitarianism and socialism or freedom and capitalism. There is also the possibility of freedom and socialism and totalitarianism and capitalism, aka fascism, and all sorts of mixed systems in between extreme forms of the basic categories used in this article, such as free enterprise for small businesses and regulated nationalized or pseudo nationalized large corporate socialism, my favorite possibility.

“Standing At A Crossroads,” by Claudio Crass, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/standing-crossroads?fbclid=IwAR0SWlUfLxaxPHOzmgb5YU-GICVZKuZ-2RGauO55ST9twbcpLba3TBstmlg.

September 4

This is another insane Trump idea.

“In Illegal Reelection Stunt, Trump threatens to Defund NYC and Other Cities He Deems ‘Anarchist’,” by Jon Queally, Commn Dreams, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-threatens-to-defund-nyc-and-other-cities-he-deems-anarchist/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR229rAvaNY2Hp3fUp2wOkuMR4Z6O49z3Tn9LEqJtckTNqYC2QPT9C0gQeo.

September 4

A threat alright.

“China to ‘Gradually’ Sell 20% Of Its US Treasury Holdings, May Dump It All In Case of ‘Military Conflict’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/chinas-state-media-strongly-teases-nuclear-option-dumping-all-us-bonds-extreme-case?fbclid=IwAR251Md69v8jXJDcUD2ny8WOOQenytMtQJmzG84uEX9nnxulI0D8qwccW74.

September 3

What now?

“NSA Surveillance Program Exposed by Snowden was Illegal, Rules Appeals Court,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/nsa-surveillance-program-exposed-by-snowden-was-illegal-rules-appeals-court/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3Kp4JWTpIexIvFzTiAagWsdFK0J-dq7QuV0J29gk1tMarOvfBWfcnhzjI.

September 2

Pompeo playing “They Started It” psychological Game with China

“Pompeo Unveils Extensive New Restrictions On Chinese Diplomats in US,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pompeo-unveils-extensive-new-restrictions-chinese-diplomats-us?fbclid=IwAR2UU5AtPxrpiBvotTRBXZ1hYbIlLJEeamFLtTFMgOKskjH_QVZ0pnxAWMI.

September 2

Top leaders of all countries playing the psychological Game “They Started It” to preserve and expand their own personal power, perks, and privileges within their own countries, a dangerous Game possibly leading one day to human extinction.

“Buchanan: Where Will All These War Games Lead?” by Patrick Buchanan, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/buchanan-where-will-all-these-war-games-lead?fbclid=IwAR0xSvD4v38MkaQjk7FMkWeJgKuj9RXeSDWXrPyZPLZ7FdWDU_ZN1IjhDew.

September 2

Yes, socialistic organizations entail more democratic procedures than capitalistic organizations.

“Eugene Debs. Believed in Socialism Because He Believed in Democracy,” by Shawn Gude, JACOBIN, https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/eugene-debs-democracy-antiwar-canton?fbclid=IwAR2hEaimsRCHsp4I1oM5cfDKmo-Rqc-BeDkul8ZJuwL3DkteOpF-E95_1g4.

September 2

Whoever would have thought it.

“’We Just Passed A Guy In A Jet Pack,’: FBI Investigating After Pilots Report Sighting At 3,000 Feet,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/we-just-passed-guy-jet-pack-fbi-investigating-after-pilots-report-sighting-3000-feet?fbclid=IwAR0qk8Q4yUozz5L10mcVo1Mx-anQHUdb1haKj5raVSmMYtN5L51Ran2g99g.

September 1

So it seems

“Trump’s playbook written by fascists like Juan and Eva Peron,” by Mark Gruenberg and John Wojcik, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/30717.

September 1

Large corporations are fascist dictatorships, not democracies, no doubt about that.

“The New Class War of the Managerial Elite,” by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/31/the-new-class-war-of-the-managerial-elite/?fbclid=IwAR1cWV_UbFvOAmK7e0Ny2DRuFsBMz8swPIwWAH9hMWcLM-jMT1z3Vv4D9z0.

September 1

“A Festival of Distortion,” by Richard C. Gross, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/31/a-festival-of-distortion/?fbclid=IwAR1gwnTULqMrWAhn4f8g9hYoqSXPE4m08rXhUD13Fb2s3gVe4P9i7I6ErSM.

August 31

Yep

“Trump is Laying the Groundwork to Reject the Results of the Election,” by Sasha Abramsky, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-laying-the-groundwork-to-reject-the-results-of-the-election/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0pjjIOhXX6hC3tbeVu9CDHOZXEvLKrHMKPRRMzdluElrl5NkpNWnetBZg.

April 19, 2019

So it is

“Assange — A Dangerous Precedent,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/assange-a-dangerous-precedent/.

April 10, 2019

The Assange trial is a moral, as well as legal, issue.

“Julian Assange — Revisited,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/julian-assange-revisited/. 

 

By RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON

It’s Saturday, September 26, 2020, 8:22 pm EST and I just watched the Texas Tech University/University of Texas football game on TV, Channel 10, Fox Sports, played at Lubbock, Texas.

Texas Tech has not been a super-star winner at anything I know of in sports. Last year they had a great basketball team almost winning a national championship. But in football they have never been a national winner, despite having promise, year after year. As I recall Tech beat Texas last year, for the first time in history, and I thought it was going to happen again today, but it didn’t in one of the most improbable games I ever saw, or played in.

I was according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal the youngest and smallest Class A high school starting quarterback in the US in 1954, the second highest scorer in Class A high school football on the South Plains of Texas in 1958, all district four years in high school basketball, among other things, at Frenship High School at Wolfforth, Texas, ten miles southwest of Texas Tech.

Tech was behind at halftime after being ahead at the start of the game, so I assumed as usual they would fade away in the second half. After a nap I woke up surprised to learn they were ahead. They led by one touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

And then, amazingly, one of Tech’s running backs got loose on a long run putting them ahead two touchdowns, as if the Texas defense let him loose, after being surrounded by Texas tacklers, increasing Tech’s lead to either 15 or 16 points.

And then the Texas Tech coach, or someone on Tech’s coaching staff, with two minutes and forty eight seconds remaining, as I recall, decided to kick a strange kickoff, a high lofting kick that landed on about the forty yard line of Texas, where Texas took possession. It’s possible the Tech kicker somehow flubbed this kickoff, but I cannot see how. Seems to me it had to have been done on purpose. I also used to kick kick-offs in high school. Why in hades Tech didn’t kick the ball into the Texas end zone, which would have wound up on the twenty-five yard line with Texas in possession amazes me. Trying to burn a few seconds off the clock I suppose.

Well, anyway, to make this sorry story short, with about two and one-half minutes remaining in the game and 15 or 16 points behind Texas scored two touchdowns and tied the game at 56-56, having to score in the process at least one two-point extra point to tie the game, and recover an on-side kick-off, which they accomplished with an on-side kick-off after the ball passed through the hands of a Texas Tech receiver who could have recovered it. And then they proceeded to win the game in overtime. It was as if the Texas offense in the last two and one-half or so minutes magically got about three times better than they had been and the Tech defense got about fifty percent worse than they had been.

It’s commonly known that national political races in the US between dim Dems and repugnant Repugs are now manipulated and rigged as much as corporate money can buy, but before now I never thought college or any kind of amateur sports might be rigged. But now, thanks to this University of Texas/Texas Tech University football game of 2020, and the 2020 USian presidential race, I am beginning to wonder.

Surely the powers that be in collegiate and TV finance are not now so desperate for revenue that they are manipulating college football games to make them more exciting and exhilarating.

I am not accusing anyone of rigging the Texas Tech/Texas game but the weirdities and improbabilities of this game did make me wonder. Maybe the Covid plague and social distancing visible in the stands had something to do with it.

I have a grandfather who managed the chemistry lab at Texas Tech and a father who studied agronomy there, and I have three degrees from Tech. I was a member of a social fraternity at Texas Tech, Phi Gamma Delta. I sat in the stands for Texas Tech football games when I was in high school seriously impressed by the grandeur of the players, coaches, bands, and fans.

For all I know Texas Tech has never beaten Texas in football. I have watched one or two Texas Tech football games each year on TV for the last fifty years. Because of writing this comment, it came to me that Tech beat Texas last year. Is that right? I believe it is.

In another exciting, exhilarating, improbable football game this Saturday I watched the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana University-Lafayette on ESPN beat the Georgia Southern Eagles of Statesboro, Georgia. I taught management in the business school at Louisiana Lafayette in 1969-70 after finishing my doctorate at Texas Tech, moving on to Georgia Southern in the summer of 1970, where I taught management thirty-five years, retiring in 2005. Georgia Southern won four national championships in football during my tenure as a GS professor.

My wife and I are now living our last days aboard Spaceship Earth within the confines of the beautiful Georgia Southern University Golf Course six miles south of Statesboro. My cheering, yelling, and cussin’ in our great room watching the Texas Tech and GA SO Univ games did no good this football Saturday, a surreal afternoon of frustrated desires.

______________________________________

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, is a certified transactional analyst, octogenarian emeritus professor of management, educator, writer, editor and publisher  

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By COURTENAY BARNETT

One speaks in glowing and glorious terms in praise of liberty, the Rule of Law and in the most expansive way of enjoying freedom and rights and civil liberties for the fulfillment to live life itself. 

Journalists speak and write of liberty, the Rule of Law and in the most expressive ways – of life itself. 

We live in unprecedented times where the internet permits each of us access to the world. Quite literally anyone with internet access has a voice which if used, and all the more,  if used effectively, can speak to and impact the world. Julian Assange is the subject of this speech for he did express himself through the instrument of his wikileaks journalistic publications. And so be it, for that is what one holds dear as a right and expects to be afforded by reliance on the concept of freedom of expression. Publication of the truth should be a virtuous deed – should be. 

So, what did happen to Julian Assange? 

He was virtuous and he was innovative in the way he went about expressing and exposing various truths to the world. He spoke truth to power and all the way to the most powerful. America is but one country amongst many in the world – but, America also happens to be the most powerful country in the world. Britain at one point in time, in the not so distant past, laid claim to possessing the world’s largest ever Empire and is now superseded by America. How do these two countries then enter Assange’s story?  

Julian Assange exposed wrongdoings of both individuals and nation states and some of those exposures involved the wrongdoings of the United States of America, by factual and  accurate exposures such as arrest and imprisonments without a right to trial; tortures conducted  in the Guantanamo prison; drone strikes on civilians in Waziristan, Pakistan;  effecting of  extraordinary rendition ; war crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq of US troops knowingly and willfully slaughtering civilians; reneging on Article 9 of  the UN Convention Against Torture:- 

“states parties shall afford one another the greatest measure 

of assistance in connection with criminal proceedings brought in 

respect of any of the offences referred to in article 4, including the 

supply of all evidence at their disposal necessary for the proceedings.” 

– and more. All true – but America did not like that exposure of the truth. So, why not apply the Rule of Law to determine where Assange’s wrong resided, if indeed he was wrong, and then punish him according to law. Well, in point of law and stated simply, they can’t with any conscionable consistency do so. No less an authority than the US Supreme Court has so concurred. It is not mere guess work, but actual legal fact, that the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers had engaged in essentially illicit activities to obtain the Pentagon Papers and having so done published the said classified documents to educate and inform the American public about wrongdoings effected in their names during the period of the Vietnam War. Was that wrong? No! That is what journalists do as an essential and necessary and important part to their profession as journalists. They inform and provide the public with the truth. Did the laws of America permit that exposure? Indeed,  by reference to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America that right is enshrined. Thus, the New York Times case was decided  in favour of freedom of speech.  

Therefore, in publishing harsh truths and having revealed facts about ‘American civilization’ as so practised – did Julian Assange break American law? Not if one considers clear precedent as regards what the highest court in the US has already confirmed to be the case that not only do journalists have the protection of the US Constitution – but the public has a right to know the truth. Therefore, what is the extradition application from the UK to the US of Assange for trial in essence all about? 

It is about the US hegemonic monster baring  raw fangs of power and also about telling a vassal state, the UK, that there is to be full conformity  with the monster’s wishes – however, illogical, unreasonable, inconsistent with precedent or simply grossly and manifestly unjust and contrived the extradition application is. Yet, the country which gave birth to the Magna Carta has willingly become a supplicant to the demands, wishes and desires of the US. So much so that Assange, finds himself being placed in a prison, Belmarsh, (previously termed the “British version of Guantanamo Bay” ) which exists to imprison category A male prisoners who are the UK’s worst and most serious terrorist offenders. Beyond that, the British justice system has so compromised and literally rubbished its own justice system to satisfy and ensure via a ‘show trial’ that every wish of the US is being steadfastly and subserviently complied with – that the Assange case debases much that is otherwise good and desirable under British justice properly applied. Should I be doubted then consider the following, and pay special attention to the reports on the 6^th and 7^th days of the proceedings in the Old Bailey:- 

JULIAN ASSANGE – REVISITED

Your Man in the Public Gallery: the Assange Hearing Day 6

Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 7

________________________________________

COURTENAY BARNETT is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for over thirty years, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. He has published several articles in the Effective Learning Report. He lives and works in the Caribbean

By COURTENAY BARNETT

I have an interest in economics – so I read various economists’ articles and commentaries. One such economist is Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. I do not necessarily agree with his dominant points of view, but I am still interested, from a technical point of view in his analysis of economic issues of the day. Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Ronald Reagan administration and was and is a supply-side economist. 

Roberts also makes commentaries on a number of prevailing social issues of the day, which brought him to the issue of the death of George Floyd. While I summarise and make selective reference to his commentary, I believe it only fair that he can be read in his own words ( see below – first link).

In his article Roberts provides a link to the official Medical Examiner’s Report which, interestingly, does not cite asphyxia as the cause of George Floyd’s death. Asphyxia, of course, is defined as deprivation of oxygen to the body which leads to either unconsciousness or death. Also, it refers to suffocation – so the person might very well say, when still conscious, “ I can’t breathe”.   So, let us reason on:-

“ The title says that the ability of the police to deal with Floyd was complicated by Floyd’s undergoing cardiopulmonary arrest …”.

“ Note the extensive heart disease that Floyd had…” ( he goes on to list same).

“ No life-threatening injuries identified” ( very interesting observation this one – to which I shall return).

“ A press release was issued from Hennepin County that lists ‘Manner of death: Homicide.’ This is a puzzle. Homicide is not supported by the medical examiner’s report.”

Let me stop there ( you can read Dr. Roberts  full  article below at the  first link). What I shall now do is make light then get serious. I am not a stranger to arguing cases of murder.

Let us say that a wife is a heavy smoker and a very heavy drinker ( i.e. she ingests two licit substances in excess on a regular basis). She and her husband have an altercation. The dispute escalates into physical violence. The husband grabs the wife by the neck and squeezes tightly. As he squeezes, all is caught on video. The wife is heard repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” The wife is seen to collapse about 9 minutes after the husband first held her neck. She is shortly thereafter pronounced dead.

I am retained to defend the husband on a murder charge. The case is presented and it is time for the defence to address the jury and I rise and say:-

“ Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution has argued that my client committed murder. I am stating categorically to you that he did not. I take you directly to the Medical Examiner’s Report which states, “ … that the ability of the ( Defendant) to deal with ( his wife) was complicated…”; “ Note the extensive heart disease that ( the wife) had”; “No life-threatening injuries identified”.  In the annals of murder trials – this shall be the shortest address on record, for by reference to the medical report – simply stated the only correct verdict I suggest to you as I appeal to your intelligence and sense of justice is a verdict that – my client did not commit murder.  I rest my client’s case in your capable and just hands.”

Now – I accept that Dr. Paul Craig Roberts did not utter the words above – but he might as well just have done so. So, why does he think in the way he does? I shall go wide to come narrow to the point that he is a well educated White Southerner from Georgia. I do not for a moment suggest that all White, well educated persons from Georgia are inclined to think and conclude as Dr. Roberts did. But, I shall share a couple of true experiences and you can then draw your own conclusions.

The man from whom I learned the effective application of law in complex international legal cases: As still a young lawyer in my twenties I had the opportunity to work in International law Chambers in London. The man under whom I worked was exceptionally helpful to me. I learned a lot of my skill set in that arena from him and remain grateful to this day. He later became a commercial Judge in England and is now retired. My loyalty is such that I do not call his name. We became friends and he visited me in Jamaica with his family on vacation. Once he invited me to stay with him on a visit to London and the story I share here relates to that stay.

There was a case of the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher wanting to prevent publication of a book entitled ‘Spy Catcher’, written by a retried MI6 agent named Peter Wright. Wright had included some information in the book which Thatcher found embarrassing and she wanted to silence and stop publication in Australia and elsewhere. My friend informed me of a dramatised version of the trial in Australia, faithful to the court proceedings records, which was being broadcast at the time I was staying with him. So, as lawyers, we sat together in his living room and watched the TV and a dramatic portion of which was the cross-examination conducted by Wright’s Counsel, Malcolm Turnbull, who grilled the official representative of Her Majesty’s Government. Turnbull’s thrust was that nothing was new in the book and that all the details which were opposed by Thatcher had previously been cleared by HMG for that and other books by other authors, had been published and had not been deemed to be in contravention of the UK’s Official Secrets Act. When Turnbull was finished the official, quite frankly, seemed quite stupid in respect of the questions being raised ( see the Guardian on point below). Now, to my point:-

My friend: “Didn’t Sir ( so and so) stand up brilliantly under cross-examination?”

 I was taken aback by the comment for the opposite was quite the truth. So, why did he say that? I never replied to him on the point, but did fully understand – White, English, Conservative English pride – my side is never stupid and cannot be seen to be wrong. See: Guardian commentary below.

The next instance I reference was a hearing on the death of the African activist in South Africa under Apartheid, Steve Biko. The lawyers for the deceased Biko brilliantly brought out, by way of cross-examination of the Apartheid authorities and jailers that Biko had been tortured and killed. The official Apartheid medical records directed attention to a hunger strike and ‘suicide.’

By reference to the two instances cited above, in the US in the year 2020, I must therefore ask three  questions:-

1. Is it the medical report upon which we must rely but not ask – if there is a knee of a heavy set man placed on a human being’s windpipe for 9 minutes – is the proximate cause of death asphyxia – or – is it as Dr. Roberts and the Medical Examiner would have us believe?
2. Is it that George Floyd had decided to commit ‘suicide’ and was fortunate and got a little extra assistance from a police officer the day he died?
3. Or, is it that in the US in 2020 there is a repressive state which, as in Biko’s case, displays a failure of the government-employed doctors to analyse in a manner which is rational and medically credible and consistent with the known evidence?

__________________________________________

P.S. I well and truly give Dr. Roberts a ‘gold medal’ for this comment in his article:-

“ As far as I can ascertain, these are the prescribed procedures. The reason for Floyd being kept on his stomach is that “fentanyl’s effects include nausea.”

See “The Medical Examiner’s Report of George Floyd’s Death,” by Paul Craig Roberts – at PaulCraigRoberts.org – at  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/07/08/the-medical-examiners-report-of-george-floyds-death/  .

See “From Spycatcher to prime minister: the Malcolm Turnbull I knew,” by Richard Norton-Taylor, THE GUARDIAN, at

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/14/malcolm-turnbull-spycatcher-lawyer-prime-minister .

__________________________________________

COURTENAY BARNETT is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for over thirty years, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. He has published several articles in the Effective Learning Report. He lives and works in the Caribbean