Will Don Trump’s Hamartic Script Enmesh Us All Before His Story Ends?

By Richard John Stapleton

Donald J. Trump, a USian son of a German-descended father and a Scottish-descended mother, after graduating from college with suspicious test scores and grades is given an inheritance of over four hundred million dollars and an organization known as The Trump Organization to play with in real estate schemes of all sorts, including gambling casinos.

Don Trump later becomes the star of a nationally-televised reality show called The Apprentice in which he is scripted as a billionaire real estate tycoon who spends his time hiring and firing ambitious people who want to work for his organization. The show consists of banal sit-com-like conversations in episodes in which underlings discuss ideas with the boss designed to take in more money for the boss, who owns the place, that often culminate with Trump resolutely and self-righteously spewing “You’re fired!”— thereby producing entertaining drama for millions of hypnotized television viewers.

Over the years, Don Trump loses millions of dollars of his inheritance in the real world in fraudulent and legal ventures, resulting in several bankruptcies, but supposedly many triumphs, according to Don, that propel him into billionaire status in the real world. Almost no one outside his inner circle knows for sure whether he ever had one billion dollars in net worth since financial statements compiled by certified public accountants were not made public by his ethically-challenged mafia-like Trump Organization.

An aging Trump, who admired Adolph Hitler and read his writings, having separated from the reality show TV business, got bored with hiring, firing, and bossing real lackeys and employees in his Trump Organization, so he decided to run for President of the United States as a Republican.

Lo and behold, he wins the Republican primary election of 2016 against seasoned Republican politicians such as Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. In televised debates he cows down antagonists using barely literate crime boss words, sentences, and concepts, having learned his lines and nuances well through experience during his Trump Organization and Apprentice reality show days. No matter what his opponents in debates argued, Trump could concoct a short terse inane rebuttal that would appeal to viewers of the Republican debates, just as they appealed to viewers of his Apprentice reality show, proving his political viewers, like his reality show viewers, would believe and lap up almost anything he said because of the way he said it.

After losing the general presidential election to Hillary Clinton in 2016, he won the USian Electoral College vote, and the USian presidency, because of the way elections in the US are structured by the US Constitution, giving voters in Republican Red states, where Trump’s reality show viewers were in a majority, more power per vote than the per-vote power of voters in Democratic Blue states.

Thus, at age 70 Trump becomes the USian president, with no political experience, because of his early “success” playing a billionaire in a television reality show, since millions of Republican voters in Red states had been hypnotized by Trump watching his nationally-televised Apprentice reality show, who admired his crime boss lingo and schtick, and who therefore voted for him as USian president.  

The aging Trump then begins his career as president of the United States using the same crime boss personality, group imago, and script he used in his reality show, and in real life bossing The Trump Organization, now seeing all USians and Earthian humans as he saw his millions of reality show viewers and Trump Organization lackeys and employees.

He came across on national and international political stages much as he did when he was a real estate con artist and billionaire tycoon on TV, as a flashy tough blunt brave boss, creating and projecting an aura of personal power and superiority.

He expected his US government subordinates to react to him as his Trump Organization lackeys and his scripted reality show lackeys had. Most of his government hires flexed and adapted to his personality, group imago (the way saw the world), and script messages; but some did not. After hiring the Chairman and CEO of Exxon-Mobil as Secretary of State, the now-Secretary of State blurted out in public, “He’s a f—— moron.” Trump as usual fired him. How many other Trump hires had enough net worth to risk telling the truth about their boss?

Since USian presidents have a lot of power appointing a lot people to do government jobs and a lot of people want government jobs, Trump over four years in his first and so-far only term found a lot of people willing and able to adapt and flex to his personality, group imago, and script, as his lackeys did in his Trump Organization and in his reality show, including three judges for the USian Supreme Court, that he stacked to a 6-3 Republican advantage, proving truth is almost as scarce in political and legal milieus as it is in TV reality shows.

Trump becomes one of the worst presidents of USian history, with no documented betterments for citizens except large tax cuts for the elite rich and significantly increased spending for the USian military, thereby significantly increasing the ominous USian budget deficit and debt, producing an administration that was mostly sound and fury with no systemic or existential accomplishments, featuring Trump as the star of the show every day.

Running for a second term, he loses the general election of 2020 to the aging addled good ole boy Democrat Joe Biden, but refuses to admit he lost and accuses enemies of stealing the election, while manipulating everything he can after the election to overturn the election results, including inciting an insurrection against the USian government January 6, 2021 to prevent the USian Congress from approving the results of the presidential election. After finally being forced to vacate the USian White House he took with him US documents containing information classified and marked top-secret that he showed to cronies at his Mar a Largo “fort,” a crime for which he is indicted by the US Justice Department in 2023.

After losing the 2020 election and refusing to peacefully leave office he creates and manipulates several action scene episodes, recorded and videotaped in some instances, featuring him threatening and trying to intimidate elected government officials into changing vote counts so he could stay in office, coming on strong in one-on-one mano-to-mano encounters applying a heavy dose of his time-tested crime boss demeanor and schtick. He is investigated for having committed USian crimes while acting out these machinations.

He is found liable by a jury for battery in a civil case in which he paid E Jean Carroll $5 million in damages, $2 million for sexual abuse and $3 million for defamation.

His Trump Organization is convicted of tax evasion.

Showing no signs of remorse for what he has done, the now 77-year-old Trump entertains, enchants, titillates, and inflames his still-hypnotized reality show audience in person at political rallies around the country, running for USian president again in 2024, still conning supporters out of millions of dollars in political donations, who say they will vote for him again. He is has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars from his followers and donors from various sources — trinkets, red baseball caps, t-shirts, baseball cards with his picture on them, donations, speeches, etc. —  since leaving the White House. 

Despite his abysmal record as a politician, he is the front runner among Republican prospects for president in 2024. He still struts and swaggers around free at rallies wearing a red baseball cap with the letters MAGA printed across the front, Make America Great Again, wearing a white shirt, red tie, and a blue suit, coming across psychologically on stage like a P.T. Barnum and Bailey circus performer in the greatest show on Earth. 

In reality he’s an inverse Robin Hood wearing wolf’s clothing, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, saying little if anything about how he, specifically, would make America great again if he became president again, more than likely not having a clue about what he would do specifically to make this happen. At least the first time around in 2016 he told his hypnotized followers he would build a wall across the southern border of the US to keep out immigrants to make America great again. He did build a bit of this wall when in office, but the immigration problem is as bad or worse now as it was in 2016, and he seems to have forgotten about his great wall.

If he gets elected again there is a significant probability he could start choosing the same sorts of paths taken by fascist dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, ordering mob violence, this time to steal resources by force from Earthian humans defined as enemies, to make America great again, in wars against other countries or in pogroms against demographic groups inside the US, possibly leading to genocidal or democidal crimes against humanity.

His credulous hypnotized adoring loyal ecstatic fans now enjoy his real reality show in rallies, videos, and social and mainstream media. Very likely no one outside his still-operating secret Trump Organization, and possibly a few inside lawyers and bankers, knows how wealthy Trump is now, since most likely no one in published media has yet seen a balance sheet audited by certified public accountants using generally-accepted accounting principles showing his true wealth position. His rhetoric all along about being a billionaire, like his make America great again rhetoric, may have been a hoax.

On the other hand, while he he was probably the worst USian president in history, most likely he has taken in more money from followers and supporters as a loser former president than any other former president.

The 80-year-old Democrat President Joe Biden is becoming increasingly senile and no announced Democratic candidate for president seems likely to beat Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary. While they have not announced their intentions to run in the 2024 Democratic primary, Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are seasoned Democratic presidential prospects with good records. If only the USian political system would allow relatively equitable presidential candidates to win….

Trump could get elected USian president again in 2024.

His horror movie-like life script now contains language about his cultish followers using mob violence to rescue him if he is convicted of committing federal crimes such as his insurrection January 6, 2021 in the USian capitol building. He has recently told his hypnotized fascist cult members he wants to change the laws of the US after he is reelected in 2024 so he can deport from the US all citizens who were born here who believe in communism; and it’s a good bet he would also like to deport, fire, or disappear anyone unwilling or unable to adapt and flex to his authoritarian personality and his fascist group imago and life script. His role model, Adolph Hitler, would be proud.

There are two basic types of management systems for organizations, fascist and democratic. Fascist organizations are run top-down by a strong man and his cronies at the top. Democratic organizations are run bottom-up by a majority at the bottom.

There are three basic types of economic systems: capitalism, socialism, and communism. Capitalism is where everything is owned and run by individuals and corporations, for the good of owners. Socialism is where most everything is owned by individuals and corporations but run by governments for the good of the people. Communism is where everything is owned by the people and run for the people.

These possibilities pose six general combinations of mixed systems that now exist in various degrees in various countries—fascist capitalism, fascist socialism, fascist communism, democratic capitalism, democratic socialism, and democratic communism, none of which could be proved best in all circumstances for all Earthian humans; but, according to Trump, in his finite wisdom, only fascistic capitalism should be allowable in the US, and maybe anywhere aboard Spaceship Earth.

Regardless of the consequences for all Earthians, antihero Don Trump is determined to show all Earthian humans he can get away with doing whatever he wants, for life, center stage, in the Earthian human psychodrama.

You like freedom? If so, you don’t want to vote for Trump for president of the US in 2024.

BACKGROUND SOURCES:

2023

“Donald Trump Speaks at Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference,” Faith and Freedom Conference, 2023, Washington, D.C., a C-Span Video, https://www.c-span.org/video/?528898-1/donald-trump-speaks-faith-freedom-coalition-conference

Former President Donald Trump, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, delivered the keynote address at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s 2023 policy conference in Washington, D.C. He focused most of his remarks on his time as president, touting anti-abortion policies his administration backed and his conservative appointments to the Supreme Court and other lower courts. He also talked about his recent federal indictment, saying his popularity among supporters had only grown since his arraignment.

July 6, 2023

“Donald Trump Wants to Deport US Marxists, ‘That Grew Up Here,’” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/07/06/donald-trump-wants-to-deport-us-marxists-that-grew-up-here/?fbclid=IwAR2MN6VEk1i9XEnCVwnSfwq43wThKd4Nr9t-K54_WWAJed9A5LDgpV23zwA.

“Probably the stupidest and creepiest thing I’ve run across in all my years as a radical US American socialist and communist is the Trumpenleft. By the Trumpenleft I mean among other things all the very disproportionately white and male left-identified so-called socialists who accused me and other anti-fascist radicals of supposed hysterical Trump Derangement Syndrome and who mocked and otherwise attacked us for making the elementary observation that Donald Trump is a fascist – and who idiotically accused us of being in cahoots with the dismal, dollar-drenched Democrats for having the basic historical and social- and political-scientific integrity to identify and call out Trump and Trumpism for what they are: fascist.

“I’ve dedicated three or four book chapters and numerous essays and interviews to showing exactly how and why Trump, Trumpism, the Trump base, the Trump presidency, and now the Trump ex-presidency are fascist. Not “populist.” Not merely “conservative.” Not simply “extremist.” Nationalist but not just nationalist. Nativist but not merely nativist. Racist but not merely racist. Sexist but not only sexist. Authoritarian but not just authoritarian. No, all of that and more. Fascist, cultist, and eliminationist, potentially genocidal if you ask me, determined to overthrow what’s left of bourgeois democracy and constitutional rule of law and to substitute for the rule of law the rule of raw power and men in the ironic name of law and “order.”

— Paul Street

September 27, 2022

“Dr Bandy Lee warned five years ago that Trump was dangerous. She’s more worried now.” — THE INDEPENDENT

Psychiatrist Bandy Lee works with gang leaders and maximum security offenders. When Donald Trump ran for office, she noticed frightening similarities and warned the world. Much of her predictions have come – or are coming – true. Now, she’s worried about America’s ‘demise’,” by Shelia Flynn, THE INDEPENDENT,

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bandy-lee-trump-doctor-election-b2176369.html

1991

Jacobs, A. (1991). Aspects of Survival: Triumph over Death and Onliness. Transactional Analysis Journal. 21(1). 4-11.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1177/036215379102100102

“This article describes the universal (beyond nation, philosophy of life, and leader) reasons for the German Holocaust, specifically, the relationship between the atrocious Ideological/Enslaving Master and his or her Followers. Two script payoffs for this kind of Master are described: a moment of triumph over death and a moment of onliness, or ultimate aloneness, achieved through the deaths of many other people. The exaggeration and joining of these two human needs produce the psychological basis for genocide and holocaust.” — Abstract — Transactional Analysis Journal

I (RJS) got to know Alan “Jake” Jacobs at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1975-1978 where he and I took some training and participated as presenters learning and applying the new science of transactional analysis, recently invented by Eric Berne, MD. We were transactional analysis colleagues for many years. Jake was haunted by stories about his recent family members who had perished in Nazi gas chambers in Germany and this motivated him to do some rigorous research into the nature and causes of genocide. He took trips to Germany to personally inspect and photograph the Nazi death camps. His research produced the above-cited Source article that he published in the Transactional Analysis Journal, for which he received an Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award.

According to his research, documented in “Aspects of Survival,” 150,000,000 Earthian humans were killed in democidal and genocidal actions by governments around Spaceship Earth during the 20th Century, and the question still is, can it be stopped? One of Jake’s conclusions in his “Aspects of Survival” article is that fascist dictators are pursuing what he calls onliness when they commit their democidal and genocidal crimes against humanity.

Jake died at age 87, July 30, 2022. Here is a video of his celebration of life service giving details of his achievements and his well lived life.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Alan+%22Jake%22+Jacobs#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:dc409f66,vid:Oq8Z_NqZMwc.

Hopefully citing Alan Jacobs’s “Aspects of Survival: Triumph over Death and Onliness” as a Source for this article will help memorialize his outstanding contributions to the I’m OK—You’re OK movement of the 20th Century.

About the author of this article

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-GAMER™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively GAME-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-GAMER would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-GAMER™. The psychological GAME roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Be it noted that Stapleton sat in the same circle in the same kind of chair as students, and the De-GAMING rules also applied to him. If the Classroom De-GAMER™ landed on him he had to lay out the case just like any other student and discuss what was the problem, what were the alternatives, and what he recommended.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

Stapleton has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic GAME-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological GAMES from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-GAMER” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning, management systems, and business policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department in the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-GAMER randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened GAME-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-GAMER™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK GAME-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation system he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (July 10, 2023) been cited as a reference in 88 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eleven new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

Stapleton’s latest book is As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to share this article any way you see fit.

 

 

 

THE EARTHIAN  —  41     

THE EARTHIAN, Number Forty-One, June 18, 2023, Effective Learning Publications, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, Richard John Stapleton, Writer, Editor & Publisher, Copyright 2023, All Rights Reserved

ASK MORE WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR ALL EARTHIANS—TO REDUCE THE PROBABILITY OF EXTINCTIONS—CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE (GWCC) AND/OR MILITARIZATION AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROLIFERATION (MNWP)

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

1 — Observations and Analyses of Current Earthian Human Existential States of Affairs by Earthian Humans Stationed around Spaceship Earth Cathecting all Ego States Feeling, Thinking, and Writing

2 — A Posting by a Hypothetical Exonexus Observer from a Planet Beyond the Earthian Solar System

3 — On the Need to Co-Construct a Sustainable Long Run Earthian Political-Economic-Management System

4 — A Democratic Earthian GAME-Free Case Method Teaching and Learning Process for Producing Democratic Discussions, Learning, and Policy Formulation Around Spaceship Earth

AN EARTHIAN ELDER SPEAKS

“So, I guess what I’m saying is that, as we can establish that the earth is a sphere, and thus finite, then growth in your population and artifacts must have limits. And, your lack of a social-economic system to recognize those limits is leading us all to disaster.” — KOKO

See and read more about KOKO, the gorilla who knew over 1,000 words, at

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=167997996125986&set=a.115689438023509

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESKTOP COMPUTER KEYBOARD

There may be thousands of dead planets in our Universe that were once inhabited by human-like creatures that lived, evolved, and learned on their planets in learning processes resembling the learning processes of Earthian humans, who through eons on their planets learned how to develop lethal weapons like Earthian nuclear bombs and complex industrial processes requiring burning fossil fuel who became extinct because of what they were caused to learn and develop through natural evolutionary cause-effect chains. The same sort of thing could happen to Earthian humans if they do not quickly in cosmic time learn how to satisfy their social, psychological, economic, political, and biological needs in significantly improved social, psychological, economic, political, and military systems that do not require or entail the burning of carbon-based fuel or the decision-making of ordinary and sometimes demented Earthian humans in fascist organizations.

I’m not for “overthrowing” the existing economic and social order with another revolution or civil war. I’m for evolving a better one, peacefully, ASAP. How to bring that about is the question. Violent revolution is not the answer it seems to me. All-out war destroys the existing economic and social order, but it is not a solution. Up to now fascist oligarchies have risen from the ashes of wars to evolve the same sort of top-down dysfunctional tyrannies as those that just got torn down, which are in turn also ultimately destroyed. GWCC and MNWP in the current age may have caused conditions that could preclude the possibility of Earthian economic and social orders rising from ashes if another world war happens, since Earthian humans may have been rendered extinct. — RJS

1 — Observations and Analyses of Current Earthian Human Existential States of Affairs by Earthian Humans Stationed around Spaceship Earth, Cathecting all Ego States Feeling, Thinking, and Writing

June 18, 2023

Say it aint so Joe

“Special federal Trump prosecutor Jack Smith looks stern, anxious, and less than happy as he goes about his duties of indicting the United States’ forty-fifth president, the first actual fascist (see my book This Happened Here on the Trump presidency and world view) to sit in the White House.

“It makes sense. His job comes in a nation where tens of millions of demented and disproportionately armed Amerikaners believe anything their orange-hued Fuhrer says, no matter how preposterous and vile (see this soul-chilling “P”BS segment on two recent focus groups with Iowa Trump voters). Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump could very well become president again in 2025, whereupon Smith might be well advised to take up residence in another country, as would many others, including the present writer.

“The Malignant One has called Smith a “maniac,” a “lunatic,” a “Soviet-style thug” and other choice names. It has even called out Smith’s wife by name, putting her life in danger.

“A Gentlemen’s Agreement

“It’s hard to imagine that the milquetoast centrist Merrick Garland relishes his new role as the first US Attorney General to oversee the prosecution of a former US president. He is a member of the US ruling class and there’s long been a ruling class gentleman’s agreement about prosecuting US presidents and former presidents: you don’t do it since the “commander in chief” of the giant and mass murderous US Empire regularly commits grave crimes – and must always feel free to commit such crimes – in the execution of his duties. The agreement has been honored again and again, as when Gerald Ford infamously pardoned Richard Nixon for his deranged Watergate skullduggery (which only scratched the surface of Nixon’s crimes against humanity at home and abroad) and when Barack “Look Forward Not Backwards” Obama (himself a blood-soaked war criminal) deigned to investigate his wife’s good buddy George W. Bush for epic war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the epically fraudulent, truth-negating, mass-homicidal, and illegal invasion of Iraq – still the biggest crime of the century.

“Fascist Dictatorships are One Thing Abroad and a Different Thing at Home

“The problem for Jack Smith and Garland and the state-level prosecutor Fanni Willis (Fulton County, Georgia) is that Herr Donald has left them with no choice but to make novel exceptions to the gentleman’s agreement. Trump tried to criminally overthrow previously normative bourgeois electoral democracy and constitutional rule of law, establishing himself as a de facto fascist strongman and “president for life” within the imperial homeland itself. US -backed Third World Fascist dictatorships abroad are one thing; trying to set up a fascist tyranny in the self-described homeland and headquarters of global freedom and democracy – “the beacon to the world of the way life should” (then Republican US Senator Kay Bay Hutchinson in the fall of 2002[1]) – is quite something else.” — Paul Street

Read the article in full with all links energized below …

“No Choice but to Indict Trump: Why a Gentlemen’s Agreement Had to be Broken, by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/16/no-choice-but-to-indict-trump-why-a-gentlemens-agreement-had-to-be-broken/?fbclid=IwAR1uzL6mvNIkGZvJkxzvYsUSyS5IRXZQDR1t_9yiYlJ75xDji0SNpApxY1c.

June 17

Say it aint so Joe

“It should be obvious that the two greatest greenhouse gas producers, China and the United States, will rise or fall (as will the rest of us) on the basis of how well (or desperately poorly) they cooperate in the future when it comes to the overheating of this planet. The question is: Can this country, or for that matter the world, respond in some reasonable fashion to what’s clearly going to be climate terror attack after terror attack potentially leading to dystopian vistas that could stretch into the distant future?” — Tom Engelhardt

“Living on a Smoke Bomb of a Planet,” by Tom Englehardt, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/16/living-on-a-smoke-bomb-of-a-planet/?fbclid=IwAR2ED5aut680UP-1NlShxAl_Uyary8vJb9KaqtrzeKnBjtaFOwWuuc0fji0.

June 15

“Framing themselves and Trump as Victims and Rescuers, most Trumpian supporters feel justified in Persecuting adversaries in a Drama Triangle.

“Start a civil war against whom?

“Playing GAMES is one thing. Shooting people is another.” — RJS

“How Many More Episodes of this Trumpian Psychodrama Will There Be?,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-many-more-episodes-of-this-trumpian-psychodrama-will-there-be/?fbclid=IwAR1E3GRpe8e3adsXCYa7_oRpg_CC74ox5qX7y92KEeVsp0q8t_URFJNhz2E.

June 14

Makes sense

“Austerity and Illusions: The Debt Ceiling Deal,” by Peter Lavenia, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/09/austerity-and-illusions-the-debt-ceiling-deal/?fbclid=IwAR3DCPGsdkkG1KcJn5SJ9QngPeLuhhDzPSuJL2ZNR7oIG8zzgj4hpKz2kiI.

June 15

Say it aint so Joe.

“Annals of the Ukraine War: Year Two,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUJNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/09/ukraine-war-only-gets-worse/?fbclid=IwAR1YTl5kT4884876RZxmyXSsgfYXxEyF8itl0MpK5BgiCrNujGcQyJq0jDs.

June 15

Why pay attention to this when the Trumpian reality show is much more interesting?

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Isaac Cordal’s Art Calls Viewers to Confront Fascism,” by Henry A. Giroux, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/where-theres-smoke-theres-fire-art-exhibit-calls-viewers-to-confront-fascism/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1xXNrwVesNDJp98CzQnyODNZ59uIG0wzHRK2Wl68qSFd7ylVUznLi_dgw.

June 15

Say it aint so Joe

“Dead Fish and Flesh-Eating Bacteria at the Beach Are Warnings From a Warming Ocean,” by Mike Ludwig, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/dead-fish-flesh-eating-bacteria-at-the-beach-are-warnings-from-a-warming-ocean/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3uqhdbredyJ8vY6fVha3n-wM8yiITnDIqF87SBf0KLX-Wx673KwfUOGiU.

June 15

Somethin’ to think about

“Dennis Kucinich,” by John D. Rachael, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10224869545222139&set=gm.6393138150745981&idorvanity=534997559893432.

June 13

How Many More Episodes of the Trumpian Reality Show Do We Have to Endure?

Earthian humans are again confronted with a probability, albeit a low probabilty, hopefully, of mob violence in a major country, the US, the so-called exceptional shining democratic country on a hill among all the countries of Spaceship Earth, caused by a significant percentage of the country’s population, who apparently do not value the rule of law of the US, or the values of all its citizens. These malcontents frame themselves as Victims and Rescuers, but they are primarily Persecutors, willing to do serious harm, apparently, to those who oppose them, via mob violence and brute force if necessary to win their psychological GAMES. According to the Rescuer/Persecutor lady demagogue below in the article below, 75 million Trump supporters, most of them armed N.R.A. card-carriers, will make sure Trump is not sent to prison if he is convicted for doing what he has been ethically and legally indicted for doing. According to the article below, some of Trump’s supporters are thinking about starting a civil war to Rescue Trump if he is convicted, escalating their psychological GAMES to the tissue-tearing level. Framing themselves and Trump as Victims and Rescuers, they feel justified in Persecuting adversaries in a Drama Triangle inside the US. Start a civil war against whom? Do these potential internal aggressors against the USian government think they could defeat the USian military in another insurrection attempt? Such a war would be suicidal for them, millions of innocents would be killed, and the once-dreamed-about exceptional shining country on a hill would no longer exist. Please, let Earthian humans be freed from this Trumpian reality show psychodrama in the US, before it’s too late. This GAME is fun no more. — RJS

“Trump Supporters’ Violent Rhetoric in His Defense Disturbs Experts,” DNYUZ, https://dnyuz.com/2023/06/10/trump-supporters-violent-rhetoric-in-his-defense-disturbs-experts/?fbclid=IwAR1yHSGBCAsinAc8rdDXHYVBaNHRLminLaNAWHNeGxhDil9t9tkG69qG6j4.

June 11

Could not agree more

“EDUCATION: THE PATH FROM COCKY IGNORANCE TO MISERABLE UNCERTAINTY,” by Mark Twain, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=652884576867458&set=a.464916115664306.  

June 10

LET’S YOU AND THEM FIGHT

“US Announces New $2.1 Billion Weapons Package For Ukraine,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-announces-new-21-billion-weapons-package-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR2mGmwDQhDAZAEZo-cDvY25dhYvev7u0w3rzVrlDfOAmGECCFNIlQdEPKY.

June 9

“Having watched the news and consistently seen former President Donald Trump featuring, I woke up this morning in a reflective frame of mind. I asked myself – who in my lifetime was the most problem stricken and/or incompetent and/or simply dumb President the US has had. I decided that a gold medal – a silver medal – and a bronze medal could be assigned to the ‘successful’ candidate.” —Courtenay Barnett

“Is Trump His Own Worst Enemy,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/is-trump-his-own-worst-enemy/?fbclid=IwAR2T0kv6JGUWqHEYjm4yT3Qj2iamlkMEZGmbSGE8qXGEPMZrm6OAscaOsKA.

June 8

Interesting insightful article on the Ukrainian situation, that more and more is looking like an enigma wrapped in an enigma, created by mainstream media to serve the interests of the USian deep state, NATO, and a pretty fascist-like Ukraine

“First There Were Neo-Nazis, Then There Were No Nazis, Then There Were,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/first-there-were-neo-nazis-then-there-were-no-nazis-then-there-were?fbclid=IwAR0HsbKqQSl2M7zIBhNxlk7Tt0jlqeeNGeXb4IwKI7umxjv2imbInnFbg-c.

June 7

Down memory lane

“That’s Me, Number 37, Second Row from Bottom, Fourth from Left, According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal Probably the Youngest and Smallest Class A High School Starting Quarterback in the US in 1954, 13 years old, 110 pounds, and 5’3” Tall,” Richard John Stapleton, https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=6379906632030929&set=a.717465464941769.

June 7

Interesting perspective

“Letter from London: Is London Now a High-Value Target (HVT)?,” by Peter Bach, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/07/letter-from-london-is-london-now-a-high-value-target-hvt/?fbclid=IwAR0imBWeJe4tVgG5VlFQD-fA_SpFw3cICBE053FERfEMplqZv9pxWrAIGGg.

June 7

Another excellent article by a great economist, Richard Wolff

“The World Economy Is Changing—the People Know, But Their Leaders Don’t, by Richard D. Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/07/the-world-economy-is-changing-the-people-know-but-their-leaders-dont/?fbclid=IwAR1Wbs3T98TV1BB8ArlJfh6QpYiMhhSG4Qi0iMJEqA-OKKDYf_AojsxLVC0.

June 7

For how much longer can this go on? Here’s a good article about USian economic, political, and military policies in the Caribbean, that are similar to USian policies implemented in numerous underdeveloped countries. – RJS

“From 1957 until 1971 the U.S. government worked through Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his private military force, the Tonton Makouts. Duvalier’s security force murdered over 60,000 Haitian leftists in the 14 years that “Papa Doc” was in power. These merciless killers, who were officially called the Volunteers for National Security, persecuted, disappeared, exiled, tortured and massacred a generation of Haiti’s most courageous and brightest daughters and sons.” —Danny Shaw

Read more…

“As US Considers Reoccupying Haiti, History Shows Occupation Is the Root Problem”, by Danny Shaw, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/as-us-considers-reoccupying-haiti-history-shows-occupation-is-the-root-problem/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0LIk1JfhqqYZQKAF7sgK2bOQyvrOeP_KvCoOCdLu-j9H72F5_e62vqZ8w.

June 7

Oh no, Putin, the evil one, did it himself, don’t you know

“Kiev’s Long-Run ‘Last Resort’ Plan To Blow-Up The Kakhova Dam Exposed,” by Tyler Durden, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kievs-long-term-last-resort-plan-blow-kakhova-dam-exposed?fbclid=IwAR0eaGTp8_RxgTl0HaGlcFrLrabfj5wDKx1yNp-QsNvMFK-Xstykux-1wCo.

June 6

Cornel West enters the fray. He has some good ideas, but he also has this to contend with:

“West’s decision to run drew positive reviews from some progressives, such as former Ohio state senator and longtime Sanders ally Nina Turner, who tweeted, “Elevate this thing Dr. West.”

“But it also inspired blowback from others, such as longtime Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who asked, ‘WTF?! Does Cornel West really want to help the GOP nominee win—the way Ralph Nader helped G.W. Bush defeat Al Gore in 2000?’

“’Ego trips can come at a heavy price, Cornel,’ added Tribe. ‘Please stop this foolishness, before you really hurt the things you care to help’.”

Read more…

“Cornel West’s Presidential Run Is Already Shaking Up the 2024 Race,” by John Nichols, THE NATION, https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/cornel-west-2024-presidential-campaign/?fbclid=IwAR15NkBxsaueylub9_t2guNZvdqKGiItoUlvkDa9Hz0icNYkunK4JMGjFpI.

June 5

This is a story about two kinds of lies: Trump lying about his not possessing classified US government documents in his Mar a Largo “fort” and Trump lying in a recorded statement that was aired on CNN about the existence of a classified document in his possession that might have been fake. It’s a story about a liar’s pants on fire.

Read more…

“Trump Invents a New Way of Lying,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/trump-invents-a-new-way-of-lying/?fbclid=IwAR1reJ9xJWfz30hQkw0DquE2rf1ycAY2S_9CXoe4MAGH8ORFqD6KFjJT0Ao.

June 5

Say it aint so Joe

“Gangster Capitalism and the Politics of Fascist Education,” by Henry Giroux, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/05/gangster-capitalism-and-the-politics-of-fascist-education/?fbclid=IwAR2adPKWrZoCP7iFukyO8QrNkzQamwTmHjHIOTT9V4bNNurOWQhRgpWeGOk.

June 5

A sad state of affairs. Nader tells it like it is

“Reverse the Accelerating Warfare State Before It’s Too Late,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/05/gangster-capitalism-and-the-politics-of-fascist-education/?fbclid=IwAR2adPKWrZoCP7iFukyO8QrNkzQamwTmHjHIOTT9V4bNNurOWQhRgpWeGOk.

June 4

Sounds about right to me

“The Mainstream Media’s Unwillingness to Challenge U.S. Militarization,” By Melvin Goodman, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/02/the-mainstream-medias-unwillingness-to-challenge-u-s-militarization/?fbclid=IwAR0wN-rtelBxBpyxp5Fg-WOd0RMQXa4N8q_utr9WPiYcw9-PnmAQdDd8d0E.

June 4

Please, let this new kind of recycling plant in France work

“Solar panels—an eco-disaster waiting to happen?,” by Daniel Gordon, BBC NEWS, https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-65602519?fbclid=IwAR1SZ4ZSHnhsalnquqGm3uKCo_5Bae6Q3JiOSIr1SGLitgoLd4LfUVv2HdQ.

June 3

Trump Invents a New Way of Lying

This is a story about two kinds of lies: Trump lying about his not possessing classified US government documents in his Mar a Largo “fort” and Trump lying in a recorded statement that was aired on CNN about the existence of a classified document in his possession that might have been fake. It’s a story about a liar’s pants on fire.

The lying episode started during Trump’s last week in office as USian president caused by the possibility of a war being started against Iran so Trump could stay in office. Pentagon chief of staff General Milley was apparently worried at the time that Trump might try to do this, and Trump said in the statement aired by CNN after leaving office that Milley was thinking about invading Iran as proved by a document he waved or flapped in his hand, so listeners could hear the sound the paper made as it was flapped, proving a paper document existed. Trump said he could not show the document to them because it was classified, thereby proving he knew he possessed after leaving office a sensitive classified US government document that could not be shared because it would pose a national security risk.

The Jack Smith investigation subpoenaed the CNN-aired document, prompting Trump’s lawyers to reply that they could not furnish the document to the investigators because they could not “find” the document, raising questions such as whether the paper Trump held and flapped about in the recorded statement contained classified information, or was it a fake classified document containing no relevant information, just a new way of lying invented by Trump to cover his ass about thinking about invading Iran to give him an excuse to declare martial law during his last week in office as a last resort to remain USian president indefinitely?

Or was it a real classified document that Trump or his lawyers burned or shredded after it was aired by CNN, having figured out by then that the existence of the document put Trump in a light as bad or worse than he was in had the document not existed?

If so, Trump’s lawyers are now not technically lying about not being able to “find” the document that Trump flapped around in the recording so listeners could hear the sound caused by the flapping, thereby proving he at least had some sort of paper in his hands. The basic facts of this case were discussed on MSNBC June 2, 2023.

The most sickening piece of this sordid insane story is the implication that Trump and General Milley likely did consider the possibility of Trump trying to start a war against Iran to keep himself in office his last week in office, which would have been treason against the US and a crime against humanity.

The story may boil down to he said—he said, but it seems to me any communication between Trump and Milley about the US invading Iran to keep Trump in office happening during Trump’s last week in office, leaked to the public, would have been a security risk for the US and Spaceship Earth.

How any Earthian human could now consider voting into office again as USian president in 2024 the sociopathic Earthian human Trump, after having been exposed to his lies, misdemeanors, probable crimes, and threats, almost every day, for over six years, as a sitting and former USian president, wasting millions, if not billions, maybe trillions, of dollars, is unfathomable! – RJS

“New evidence in Trump case bolsters two sets of charges,” by Rebecca Beitsch, THE HILL, https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/4032637-new-evidence-in-trump-case-bolsters-two-sets-of-charges/?fbclid=IwAR1K94itnSSchQKHyww_5Qco9qnuxWhgTA9IOE_6exRQQ2R3Vb-uk0otG6I.

June 3

Read my article on how congressmice play the psychological Game DEBT CEILING to rake off more revenue for themselves, in “How Governments Waste Their Time”, at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-governments-waste…/ for more background on this story – RJS

“Stockman Slams Speaker McCarthy’s ‘Rotten Deal’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/stockman-slams-speaker-mccarthys-rotten-deal?fbclid=IwAR1CF-_Rb9PeqiPAsdiHLafFzGArRXk8XYnyQfRHeHboLySQWzHj-zljkKg.

May 31

Sounds like a good idea to me

“Peace Dollars: Putting Our Economic House in Order,” by John Rachel, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/31/284513/?fbclid=IwAR1reJ9xJWfz30hQkw0DquE2rf1ycAY2S_9CXoe4MAGH8ORFqD6KFjJT0Ao

May 31

Shows how screwed up things are all right

“11 Signs That Global Conflict Could Soon Spiral Completely Out of Control,” by Michael Snyder, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/11-signs-global-conflict-could-soon-spiral-completely-out-control?fbclid=IwAR1CF-_Rb9PeqiPAsdiHLafFzGArRXk8XYnyQfRHeHboLySQWzHj-zljkKg.

May 31

Earthians are in a hell of a mess

“5 Things I Truly Don’t Understand About The ‘Inevitable Energy Transition’,” by Jude Clemente, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/5-things-i-truly-dont-understand-about-inevitable-energy-transition?fbclid=IwAR1PETGExK1c6Od4TYcbCfSIC31pvhRFnQrQ5IK27zY9Vq3O1WgKkkmJd5g.

May 28

Say it aint so Joe

“US Builds New Base in Northern Syria, Signaling Indefinite Occupation,” ANTIWAR.COM., ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-builds-new-base-northern-syria-signaling-indefinite-occupation?fbclid=IwAR2zj7wGBWdU9yZtSjKSMHxZe4Ir1zM8xbFoJ1dkUqvmOXm6HgBj5v-xpgE.

May 27

Irrelevant to Repug cultists

“Democrats are Better for Your Wallet,” Albert Bodt, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10223426865674909&set=a.10201279127075286.

May 27

Here’s two smart women telling it like it is

“Irish politician Calls Out Western Countries For Funding War in Africa,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-IjhP0cPws.

May 27

Say it aint so Joe

“Why Are US Military Personnel Heading to Peru?,” by Nick Corbishley, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/why-are-us-military-personnel-heading-peru?fbclid=IwAR27R2FV2naAXYWbwRd1Pu50S0B63tbos2IjFtTYdBhQw7eby9G-RnbThpA.

May 26

And yet the Repugs have the audacity to call themselves conservatives

“Who caused the federal deficit-increasing process?,” by Larry Bee, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10221751154118657&set=a.1740881972432.

May 26

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.” — Matthew 24:6

English Standard Version of the Christian Bible

This statement is probably more relevant today than it was when it was created. Assuming it’s true, there is no hope of eliminating wars and violence in general among Earthian humans and no hope of Earthian humans not being rendered extinct by GWCC, global warming and climate change, and MNWP, militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation.

Hopefully, it’s not true.

Maybe Earthian humans will accidentally be caused to develop ways and means of existing indefinitely.

Regardless, here are my thoughts of today about the causes of wars and violence.

Seems to me the basic cause of wars and violence is Earthian humans in groups and organizations who became a relatively uneducated, impoverished, and discounted underclass who think their only path to fame and fortune is to slaughter a relatively educated overclass, who enslave themselves to more educated imaginative sociopathic fascist leaders who lead the underclass slaughtering an overclass, as in extreme cases such as these listed by Robert Higgs at this website: https://www.goodreads.com/…/691409-anarchists-did-not… —RJS

“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve to death millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill millions of Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese people; they did not kill more than 500,000 members of the Indonesian Communist party, alleged party sympathizers, and others; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia, murdering one fourth of the country’s population; they did not kill as many as 200,000 Mayan peasants and others in Guatemala; they did not kill more than 500,000 Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus in Rwanda; they did not implement US and Allied trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children; they did not launch one aggressive US war after another. In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.” – Robert Higgs

“How not to stamp out terrorism,” by Arundhati Roy, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10222276873611462&set=a.3620616074756.

May 25

Repugs have been merrily and gleefully lying about their plundering nihilistic ways since Ronald Reagan’s time in 1980. Reagan taught them it’s ok to lie and extract all the federal funding they can for themselves, by simultaneously cutting taxes for the elite rich and increasing military spending, because the USian government is the problem, he said. The Reagan government tripled the USian federal debt in eight years, increasing its debt from $1 trillion to $3 trillion, from 1980-1988, while writing the immoral, unethical script used by USian Repug politicians ever since. Yes, they’ve been trying to destroy the egalitarian fabric of USian culture, not caring about conserving or enhancing anything except the wealth and power of the elite rich who finance their campaigns. As more or less ordinary USians posing as big shots in Washington they are also out to increase their own meager wealth, power, and fame, not caring one whit about the welfare of all USians, the real owners of the country. Their current behavior dealing with the latest DEBT CEILING psychological Game in Washington shows the depth of their avarice and depravity. Read more about the USian DEBT CEILING Game in links on posts on this page. —RJS

“No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen,” by Linda Bailey, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10222375237118997&set=a.10203288256796418.

May 22

Say it aint so Joe

“Former Top Official: Huge Portions of Pentagon Budget Goes to Defense Contractor Price Gouging,” by Shaon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/former-top-pentagon-official-reveals-brazen-defense-contractor-price-gouging/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1ZzmFmgB-OIHJ5_REsOfoHr8kjT5zG_vQ3Xa0QL_kPnfiFPHqEIQNciBA.

May 22

Say it aint so Joe

“The GOP Would Rather Hold Hungry Families Hostage Than Tax the Wealthy,” by Sasha Abramsky, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/the-gop-would-rather-hold-hungry-families-hostage-than-tax-the-wealthy/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2zj7wGBWdU9yZtSjKSMHxZe4Ir1zM8xbFoJ1dkUqvmOXm6HgBj5v-xpgE.

May 21

After they say hello after they get elected new Earthian governments mostly structure their time busying themselves conducting pastimes, rituals, procedures, and ceremonies, and playing GAMES, wasting most of their time and energy in entropic time structuring instead of doing real work; a minuscule fraction of their time is structured conducting work activities that might solve systemic and existential problems.

Most likely former USian Repug president Trump’s surprise switc…

See more

“How Governments Waste Their Time,” by Richard John Stapleton, MEDIUM.COM, https://medium.com/@richardjohnstapleton/how-governments-waste-their-time-6627c7888745.

May 21

People play psychological Games in general to get structure, stimulus, and recognition. If you grew up in a family with NIGYSOB-playing parents in order to get along in the family system you had to learn to tolerate NIGYSOB playing, and it’s likely you too became a NIGYSOB player, having learned how to do it from your parents.

All normal Earthian humans like to be liked, recognized, and paid-attention-to, and negative strokes are better than no strokes at all.

Getting atten…

See more

“How Governments Waste Their Time,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-governments-waste-their-time/?fbclid=IwAR18Jk-a6JHckT_rk2TY-lEGECb9OizC0dK7Tlgs02Olea0imsxYKcNIeyE.

May 17

And yet the Repugs say they are the conservative ones. If so what are they conserving? Certainly not the long run economic viability of the US. This picture does not include Repug president Ronald Reagan, the grandfather of Repug slash and burn fascist tactics, who tripled the USian federal debt during 1980-1988, originating the insane Repug practice of simultaneously cutting taxes for the elite rich and increasing military spending, aka trickle-down economics, that never wor…

See more

“U.S. Federal Deficit by President,” by Kona Lowell with Diana Grazia, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10227009367037950&set=a.1155701130533.

May 17

Causation, Correlation, or Coincidence?

“Happily sitting on the front porch smoking a pipe,” by Philo Thoughts, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=798102305018123&set=a.643405673821121.

May 17

Raising-the-debt ceiling-time in the USian congress is when congressmice come out to play when the cat president is weakest, trying to siphon money from the USian federal govt real and funny money revenue stream for their selfish hides, threatening to plunge the USian economy into chaos for everyone, playing DEBT CEILING.

It’s quite a Game these chaps play.

DEBT CEILING is an all-encompassing variant of the transactional analysis psychological Game called COPS AND ROBBERS t…

See more

“Debt Ceiling,” by Richard John Stapleton, MEDIUM.COM, https://medium.com/@richardjohnstapleton/debt-ceiling-7b803d3569b5.

May 17

Guns don’t kill people according to some people. According to some people people kill people by pulling the triggers of guns. What does this picture tell you about USian people?

“Last Year, Handguns Killed,” by Cameron D. Denson, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158549547952621&set=a.434580107620.

May 17

Say it aint so Joe

“The US Still Spends More on Its Military Than 144 Nations Combined,” by Ashik Siddique, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/17/the-us-still-spends-more-on-its-military-than-144-nations-combined/?fbclid=IwAR1o5VEX0b_f1tFAUAsDaZSbM4ID5pZZBnZzLisBfSwO35dKFEcuPede3zg.

May 17

Say it aint so Joe

“A New Report Finds That the ‘War on Terror’ Led to More Than 4.5 Million Deaths,” by Connor Echols, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/a-new-report-finds-that-the-war-on-terror-led-to-more-than-4-5-million-deaths/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3tImc-mp7bFZK9FakTEj4jwqATDd1cf5eUr75KFxVyGV2Zcx_hzAs1Xro.

May 16

DEBT CEILING is an all-encompassing variant of the transactional analysis psychological Game called COPS AND ROBBERS that entails supposed good-guy Rescuers incessantly trying to catch and punish supposed bad-guy Persecutors while seeing themselves as Victims.

Playing DEBT CEILING causes the USian Federal debt to increase more in the year following the year in which it is played than in other years because the Victim cat, the president, cannot veto unnecessary pork barrel de…

See more

“Debt Ceiling,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/debt-ceiling/?fbclid=IwAR16pCXCwZdxb1A7QJlKzLsfZSYG-pP7iOMlo6aDzMSbT7Bb3-0JUJGPHBc.

May 15

Say it aint so Joe

“Travels Through ‘the Trumpocene’: Jeff Sharlet’s Dark Take on Our Fascist ‘Condition’,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/12/travels-through-the-trumpocene-jeff-sharlets-dark-take-on-our-fascist-condition/?fbclid=IwAR3YBRbhA3uvty1_yt4Vxxx5Chd1HRabxCcqNoQIIdoNAktTa7YxZ6dH814

May 14

Marianne Williamson is running for US president. I could not agree more with what she says here

“Marianne Williamson rips Biden’s refusal to debate: ‘Voters should decide-4ever News,” https://4ever.news/marianne-williamson-rips-bidens-refusal-to-debate-voters-should-decide/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.

May 13

Afraid Ottenberg’s right

“Beltway Mediocrities Bumble Toward Armageddon,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/12/beltway-mediocrities-bumble-toward-armageddon/?fbclid=IwAR3YBRbhA3uvty1_yt4Vxxx5Chd1HRabxCcqNoQIIdoNAktTa7YxZ6dH814.

MAY 8

Sounds about right to me

“The Fascists’ Playbook,” by James C. Nelson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/08/the-fascists-playbook/?fbclid=IwAR2Byqlgz8rVW1PVWT5ap-5NfdIP-XnrF96QA_YiG1Q01MRF4sqZVfYiapk.

May 8

Say it aint so Joe

“RFK, Jr.: CIA ‘Definitely Involved in The Murder’ of JFK,” by Steve Watson, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rfk-jr-cia-definitely-involved-murder-jfk?fbclid=IwAR0fsrDXJXl06kXiPmjSk59EogvTDwmoH2S5LwKcxBklsc5iHGNaXh8yerg.

May 6

Very dumb. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to contribute, and be entitled to the necessities of life, but not to recognize different levels of achievement would be disastrous for all of society in the long run, or so it seems to me. The problem of course is that rewards in society are often not a function of achievement. The wealthy are often rewarded year after year merely because of being wealthy.

A teacher can cause three times more learning to occur among class members per class session by rearranging those chairs below into a circle classroom layout around the perimeter of the room, sitting in one of those chairs just like any other class “member”, and discussing democratically what was supposed to be learned, assuming class members can read before the discussion starts whatever it was the teacher would orally say standing behind his/her lectern to “students” passively sitting in their chairs in their places in the militaristic row and column classroom layout, trying to stay awake and remember what the teacher said to pass true-false and multiple choice tests. Numerous former class members of mine told me throughout my 35-year teaching career that they had forgotten ninety percent of what they had memorized for tests two weeks after the course was over.

To maximize learning a Classroom De-Gamer™ should be used to randomly select a class member to start the discussion. The teacher should keep his/her mouth shut for the entire session if it is obvious the relevant points of the discussion material have been discussed and most of the class members comprehended it, if class members have no questions about something they could not understand on their own.

Read my book Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning for more detail explaining why the above is generally true. The book can be read free on any device at amazon.com. –RJS

“’Equity’ And The Race to The Bottom,” Jack Miller, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/equity-and-race-bottom?fbclid=IwAR1PcrAWdhfnFWZvFre5t3u8eznZOGZVCPOc7nH0o-cJNgM3BoCImWPFNAE.

May 5

Here’s some significant truth-telling by Bruce E. Levine about the mental health industry.

“While researchers have not linked any psychiatric condition to neurobiological variables, there are many links between these conditions and socioeconomic variables. Results from a 2013 national survey, issued by the U.S. government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provide extensive evidence that unemployment, poverty, and involvement in the criminal justice system are highly associated with depression and suicidality.

“Moreover, in the late 1990s, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study revealed a powerful relationship between childhood trauma (including physical and emotional abuse) with later adult emotional difficulties and behavioral disturbances. An alienating and dehumanizing society such as ours that creates extensive anxiety, powerlessness, resentment, and rage is a society that creates adults who, in their interactions with children, have little frustration tolerance; and this lack of frustration tolerance makes abuse and trauma of children more likely—resulting in the adverse childhood experiences that create later adult emotional difficulties and behavioral disturbances.

“The ruling class could not care less whether psychiatric treatment consists of bloodletting, lobotomy, electroshock, SSRI antidepressants, or psychedelic microdosing. As long as the “ruling idea” of society is that our emotional difficulties and behavioral disturbances are caused by our medical defects, this keeps us diverted from just how much shit we have to eat in order to survive and how extraordinary our good luck need be for us to find joy.

“As Marx stated, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas,” and you would have to be an especially stupid member of the ruling class not to see the value of the “ruling idea” that emotional suffering and behavioral disturbances are the result of medical individual defects—and not the result of a society that is a good deal for the ruling class but is alienating and traumatizing for many of the rest of us.”

Bruce E. Levine, a practicing clinical psychologist, writes and speaks about how society, culture, politics, and psychology intersect. His most recent book is A Profession Without Reason: The Crisis of Contemporary Psychiatry—Untangled and Solved by Spinoza, Freethinking, and Radical Enlightenment (2022). His Web site is brucelevine.net

“Once Radical Critiques of Psychiatry are Now Mainstream, So What Remains Taboo?,” by Bruce E. Levine, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/05/once-radical-critiques-of-psychiatry-are-now-mainstream-so-what-remains-taboo/?fbclid=IwAR2ChQtuIcWGFxG4Mo12_txACvM8rt7Qt9jeTCB_jSCcYCqYSovlofE3ICk.

May 5

Sounds almost as bad as the Roman emperor Nero who allegedly drank wine and fiddled as Rome burned around him. Trump plays golf and dines at Mar-a-Largo instead as his Rome burns. His only forbidden pleasure, crime, or sin up to now is apparently drinking alcoholic beverages. Or is it Trump is more like the sadistic misogynistic Roman emperor Caligula?  — RJS

“’You Can Do Anything’: Trump, Rape, Fascism, and the Ruling Class,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/05/you-can-do-anything-trump-rape-fascism-and-the-ruling-class/?fbclid=IwAR3G2-dtuFU7Q3UM3-Q9eNDP_ZoiKbRGrqR6JHlZucad4JPiMmqL0kwCXGE.

May 5

Want to know what’s wrong and what to do about the economy? Read more…

“Monopolies Cause Inflation, While Fed Chairman Powell Blames Workers,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/05/05/monopolies-cause-inflation-while-fed-chairman-powell-blames-workers/?fbclid=IwAR3JqS1rN_Lw6LOEZaQCcJP2CfMh1PT_htderwkdpFFHZkfNCQOPlVkDNU8.

May 4

When the cat’s away the mice will play

Raising-the-debt ceiling-time in the USian congress is when congressmice come out to play when the cat president is weakest, trying to siphon money from the USian federal govt real and funny money revenue stream for their selfish hides, threatening to plunge the USian economy into chaos for everyone, playing DEBT CEILING.

It’s quite a Game these chaps play.

Basically, it’s an all-encompassing variant of the transactional analysis psychological Game called COPS AND ROBBERS that entails supposed good guy Rescuers incessantly trying to catch and punish supposed bad guy Persecutors while seeing themselves as Victims.

Playing DEBT CEILING causes the USian Federal debt to increase more in the year following the year in which it is played than in other years because the cat, the president, cannot veto unnecessary pork barrel demands for more spending by congressmice and their supporters without causing the USian government to default on its debt.

There is no such thing as a USian debt ceiling. It’s just a temporary number concocted to exist for a while that will have to be raised again with a new round of DEBT CEILING Game-playing when the actual USian federal debt expands up to that toothless number, disingenuously called a debt ceiling, because doing otherwise would be disastrous.

The USian federal debt would expand less over time as matters now stand if USian congressmice would stop playing their disingenuous debt ceiling Game. They are socially saying they are imposing their debt ceiling process to make it harder for congressmice to increase the USian budget deficit and debt, when they are psychologically doing it to make it easier for them to increase the deficit and debt, to enrich themselves in the short run, regardless of the consequences for USian citizens in the long run.

As matters now stand, the USian government has no choice but to keep on kicking its budget and debt can of worms down the road every time the new so-called debt ceiling number is reached—until all hell breaks loose—if significant changes are not made in its economic-political-military modus operandi.

— RJS

“Progressives Slam McCarthy’s ‘Pro-Starvation’ Plan to Use Debt Ceiling to Cut Food Stamps,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/mccarthy-slammed-for-pro-starvation-agenda-to-force-cuts-to-food-stamps/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR30RiFcS6bY831_kXYwDwLwR9aAi1s874F0Zshn2ej09eHraO2vFRzEXVs.

May 4

Here’s some pros and cons of RFK, Jr for president

“Breakfast with Chad: The RFK Enigma – Fair Observer,” by Peter Isackson, FAIR OBSERVER, https://www.fairobserver.com/business/breakfast-with-chad-the-rfk-enigma/?fbclid=IwAR05K5th9dVtHLw9XcTpVEcKmFhap2tvMZqRJQbvuWEUMxTjbt-PjLqSKkE.

May 4

Not good for sure

“’The fiscal recklessness of the last decade has been like watching a horror movie unfold,’ Druckenmiller, who once was George Soros’ chief strategist and now runs his own Duquesne Family Office, said in a speech Monday at the USC Marshall School of Business.

“In a follow-up email to Bloomberg, he said he hopes the US government doesn’t go into default, ‘but honestly, all this focus on the debt ceiling instead of the future fiscal issue is like sitting on the beach at Santa Monica worrying about whether a 30-foot wave will damage the pier when you know there’s a 200-foot tsunami just 10 miles out.’

“According to Bloomberg, Druckenmiller’s comments are similar to the ones the billionaire investor gave a decade ago during a tour of 14 university campuses, when he encouraged students to pay attention to ballooning federal deficits that he believed – correctly – would bankrupt future generations.” —Tyler Durden

“Druckenmiller On America’s Debt Crisis: ‘It’s Like Watching A Horror Movie Unfold’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/druckenmiller-americas-debt-crisis-its-watching-horror-movie-unfold?fbclid=IwAR3_v26eDmyXkSc0_GnfJ7fIHBZqXc0gGCkLqwJ0JT-4XwDfkiVW6GRzkso.

2 — A Posting by a Hypothetical Exonexus Observer from a Planet Beyond the Earthian Solar System

Earthian humans are enthralled, manipulated, and in various degrees controlled by their leaders in some two hundred countries aboard Spaceship Earth. Leaders became leaders because of being caused to be leaders by concatenations of unbroken cause-effect chains resulting after our universe started evolving some thirteen billion years ago in the infinity of time and space.

(You might think this post is the same as it was in The Earthian —40, but it’s not. It contains some polishing and new paragraphs)

Leaders are generally products of the same sorts of differentiated configurations of cause-effect chains as differentiated followers and members in differentiated countries. All Earthian humans are doing what they were caused to do in their daily lives starting at birth.

Earth as a planet was formed about 4.5 billion years ago and has undergone innumerable transformations in the meantime. Humanoid creatures have been aboard Spaceship Earth for some two million years, and they too have undergone numerous evolutionary changes, as have other Earthian species.

Unfortunately, Earthian humans have now reached a precarious and dangerous stage in their evolution as biological creatures. After slowly evolving more and more accurate, complex, and powerful understandings, technologies, and ways of life for two million years on Earth, during the last two hundred years Earthian humans evolved new technological devices at exponential rates that enabled them to increase the overly-fecund Earthian human population of Earth so much that they now threaten not only to destroy their own existence as a species aboard Spaceship Earth but also the existence of most other species alive on Earth.

Keeping eight billion or so Earthian humans alive on Earth has required so many goods and services to be produced to satisfy human biological and psychological needs and wants and so much carbon-based fuel to be burned to produce the goods that the climate of Spaceship Earth has been altered by carbon dioxide gas released into the Earthian atmosphere in large-enough quantities to cause extra heat to be trapped on Earth causing the mean Earthian temperature to increase at a yearly rate that threatens to destroy Earthian human life as it now exists, within centuries, if not decades.

Unfortunately, Earthian humans cannot determine exactly how long this catastrophic scenario will take to unfold, even after an Internet search, since Internet information sources show average Earthian temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit and use different base years, different assumptions about causes of rates of change, and changing rates of change in calculating average Earthian temperature.

However, one can build a case based on available Internet data that it will take over 35 years for the mean Earthian temperature to rise enough to cause the Earthian polar ice caps to melt causing enough sea level rise to displace billions of Earthian humans living on sea coasts and to cause enough decrease in food production to cause billions of Earthian humans to starve—if Earthian humans do not significantly change in the meantime their life scripts, technological processes, and political and economic systems.

On the other hand, one can build a case that GWCC has already caused serious degradations in the quality of Earthian life. The recent forest fires covering much of Canada causing New York City and much of the Northeast to be engulfed in a thick orange haze causing serious breathing problems is a recent dramatic case in point.

Earthian humans have developed technological knowledge that has enabled them to produce over 10,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy human life aboard Spaceship Earth if dropped and detonated on defined enemies around Spaceship Earth, as they have the capability to do.

Dangerous escalations in the Ukraine-Russia War, fomented and aggravated by the United States and NATO, could cause the outbreak of World War III that could cause nuclear weapons to be used.

Earthian countries dependent on fossil fuel energy in the short run are pitted in a zero-sum struggle for control of oil and gas supplies around Earth, with the two largest military nations on Earth possessing over ninety percent of the nuclear weapons now threatening one another in a war they started in a minor country, a pawn in their Earthian game of chess, a tissue-tearing psychological GAME in this case called KING OF THE MOUNTAIN by Earthian humans, caused by egoistic leaders and top members of the two countries who are primarily concerned about maintaining and enhancing their personal power, wealth, prestige, lifestyles, and legacies.

Top leaders of Russia fighting in Ukraine with non-nuclear weapons so far have publicly declared they will fire and detonate nuclear weapons if necessary to prevent their being defeated and humiliated in the war/GAME started in the minor pawn country of Ukraine by the US, NATO, and Russia. Hopefully this is just a bluff in another reincarnation of the Earthian human psychological GAME called CHICKEN.  

As dangerous as this psychological high-stakes GAME-playing is, most Earthian humans find it stimulating, interesting, patriotic, heroic, and so forth in their nightly news, a release from the normal grind of their boring and banal daily routines and rituals, and their pastimes, jobs, activities, and intimacies.

The new war GAME in the minor country is a helluva way to generate strokes, aka units of recognition, to get attention, to get recognized, stimulated, and affirmed, now that some Earthian human strokes, nuclear strokes, have become so powerful they can cause the elimination of all Earthian human strokes forever.

The probability of a MNWP catastrophe at any time has significantly increased in recent years because of GAME-playing.

3 — On Co-Constructing a Sustainable Long Run Earthian Political-Economic-Management System

Establishing democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth as recommended in the Effective Learning Publications novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases might develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that might help save Spaceship Earth. These ideas would filter up to randomly-selected humans who would count the consensual answers to make necessary changes. Consensual tactics, strategies, and policies would then be developed around Earth for dealing with the computerized Spaceship Earth management system, operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming and supercomputers.

Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming to implement bottom-up recommendations of millions of members in discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Each member of the group in charge of the codes for the magnum computer system would serve limited terms. These members would not vote or decide what to do. They would see to it that the computer system implemented the consensual answers of millions of Earthian humans from all walks of life, as determined by honest, free, fair, and frank democratic GAME-free discussions in democracy chapters all around Spaceship Earth, as explained and shown in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

The overall objective would be to manage the system in such a way as to maximize the lifetime satisfactions of all Earthian humans, as well as all other species of life aboard Spaceship Earth, while insuring the indefinite functioning of all Spaceship Earth ecosystems.

Necessary moral and ethical requirements and constraints would be programmed into the Magnum Management System that Earthian humans at the top would be obliged to obey. If changes should be made in the moral and ethical codes in the overall program they would be made in the Earthian democracy chapters. Alternative solutions would be tabulated and analyzed using statistical techniques such as factor analysis to discern consensual solutions among thousands of members in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth.  

This Magnum Computerized Management System would require a strict system of security controls like the current codes of nations possessing nuclear weapons, hopefully providing security several magnitudes more secure than current nuclear codes, to make sure a madman could not get in control of any aspect of the Magnum Spaceship Earth Management System.

A management system such as this would by many factors improve previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically allowed egotistical, greedy, power mad, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian fascist leaders to make existential decisions, such as deciding to start a war, that affected the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history.

A tough lesson for Earthian humans to accept propositioned in Effective Learning Publications books is that everything that happens in human states of affairs is either predetermined or accidental and therefore individuals are not to blame or praise for what happens in human states of affairs. This is easier to swallow after accepting that believing and acting otherwise will support and perpetuate the I’m OK—You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled, sabotaged, and undermined Earthian humans since time immemorial, making losers out of most of them.

About the only way significant numbers of Earthian humans can be caused to be significantly changed psychologically and socially by others is through democratic face to face discussions in honest serious and rigorous dialectical, dialogical, analogical arguing about facts using reasoning of all kinds, in many encounters over relatively long periods of time. Thinking Earthain humans can be changed in significant ways through ordinary conversation is a pipe dream. The current so-called democratic political system used in the US is a case in point. Yes, USians can vote for the candidate of their choice, a so-called citizen who in almost all cases will not use free will deciding how to vote, who will vote as told by party bosses who determine the position of a political party. Almost all significant political decisions in the US are predetermined by cause-effect chains causing party leaders to decide whatever they decide about issues.

What is considered natural, unnatural; normal, abnormal; right, wrong; ethical, unethical; righteous, sinful; worthy, unworthy; or sane or insane by a particular Earthian human is caused by information lodged in her/his brain caused to be lodged there by the concatenation of infinite cause-effect chains causing her/him to exist and slowly inch through the Earthian worm hole of existence inexorably tunneled out for her or him by her/his specific unbroken infinitely-regressing cause-effect chains inexorably-progressing throughout his/her infinitesimally short cosmic life, regardless of how Bad, OK, or Good that luck or fate might be as judged by any Earthian human; and all Earthian humans must keep on inching forward in their worm holes as best they can dealing with inevitable problems and opportunities caused to exist at that stage in their unique tunnels, as they are knocked around like balls in a pin-ball machine, as events inevitably and/or accidentally happen in their so-called real worlds, and in their subconscious and conscious minds, however Bad, OK, or Good their inherited Luck might have absolutely been, which cannot be proved, however easy it might be to relatively estimate.

Free will on their part has little or nothing to do with what they feel, think, decide, or do at a particular moment in time.

It follows that changing the life scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of the unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, while considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space. A life script is a program determining what an individual Earthian human will do in a particular worm hole of reality, such as a legislature; and the script itself is caused in the overall infinite cause-effect process as outlined above.

According to biological constructivists, cited in Business Voyages, Earthian humans are closed systems that will not or cannot change unless forced to change by force majeure events. They will conserve as long as they can their original sources of biological, psychological, social, religious, cultural, economic, and political satisfactions. As psychiatrists and clinical psychologists know, their patients or clients cannot change their fundamental psychological and social programming in the short run even if they want to.

The democratic decision process invented and shown in As the Rooster Crows covered the learning of forty group members in six monthly six-hour sessions. No pretense was made in the novel that anyone’s mind was changed about any issue discussed in any session of the process. Democracy group members in As the Rooster Crows were randomly selected among all walks of life among the population, and every member of the group had an equal chance to start the discussion of any session by answering Three Reality Questions: What is the problem? What are the Alternatives? What do you recommend?

All sessions of the group meetings were videotaped and recorded. After a session ended all aspects of the discussion, including all comments of all members, were digitized, computerized, and analyzed. Supercomputers using algorithmic programming and statistical techniques such as factor analysis would then discern consensual answers among the group members, which would be included with those of thousands of members in recommended democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Per the overall plan recommended in the novel, composite recommendations would then be implemented by a computerized Magnum Earthian Management System. There was no voting at any level of the democratic system.

For more information on the use of Transactional Analysis  https://www.itaaworld.org/  to create better discussion groups and democratic processes read Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=born+to+learn++richard+john+stapleton#imgrc=6JdwDPzcAQ1kSM%253A

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

https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing-ebook/dp/B002GP76TA?ref_=ast_author_dp

Read free “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 Earthian humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position. 

Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=as+the+rooster+crows+earthian+okness+increases#imgrc=ZY7nv3jiN9jMCM%253A

 This recently-published novel shows how to conduct a new kind of seminar invented and coordinated by Rout Logger, the protagonist of the novel, that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction that requires participants in a seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle.

The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late.

When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s beak to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen.

The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.  

Forty participants from all walks of life were paid $5000 monthly for participating in weekend seminars conducted in central city hotels in various cities randomly selected around the US. If randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment the participant had to define what s/he thought was the most important problem facing Spaceship Earth, present alternatives, and make a recommendation for change.

What s/he said would then be discussed by members of the group on a free-flow first come-first serve basis. It was against the law of the seminar to interrupt speakers or raise hands to get permission to speak. Discussions lasted until they ran out of steam with most issues covered. The results of the discussions would be published to the wealthy donors financing the process and the Earthian public.

Rout Logger was convinced most Earthian humans would not volunteer to participate in this sort of seminar to merely help save Spaceship Earth from GWCC and/or MNWP using their Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Free Child Ego States, given the reality that their life time and energy was already programmed and consumed with various forms of withdrawal, rituals, pastimes, psychological GAMES, activities, and intimacy in their unique tunnels of reality, as they acted out their inherited life scripts; so they were paid $5000 per month to participate in a GAME-free, Adult-Adult democratic seminar that would require them to honestly discuss existential problems with forty other participants from disparate walks of life, if they were randomly selected by the spinning Truther Rooster as the Leader of the Moment.

Some Details of the Magnum Management System

According to Effective Learning Publications books, achieving Earthian human sustainability entails such things as Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition (natural deaths exceeding births) 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, assuming sufficient quantities of non-human clean energy can be discovered and developed using mind grants.

The general algorithmic matrix algebra form below can help bring this state of affairs about,

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi,

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

This mathematical formulation might one happy day develop for Earthian humans power in economics loosely analogous to the power of E=mc2 in physics. This formulation, Max or Min CjXj, subject to, AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi, is a general form of the linear programming model, which has been around for many years in management science, operations research, and linear algebra courses.

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi symbolizes knowledge that gives the Earthian human species about as much potential power to perpetuate itself as Albert Einstein’s formula E=mc2 symbolizes knowledge that gives the Earthian human species the power to exterminate itself.

The main reason why delegating the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI programs and magnum computers would be a good idea is that magnum computers and algorithmic AI programs do not get greedy and power hungry or play psychological GAMES. Thus far in Earthian human history most leaders and rulers atop large organizations such as nations have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological GAMES, acting out selfish greedy ego trips, hogging all the power, money, strokes, stimulation, and recognition they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies, leaving the hindmost to their underlings. Whatever their limitations and possible threats, algorithmic computer programs and super computers are not egotistical, greedy, and power-hungry.

Riding aboard an airliner about to land at night traveling at four hundred miles an hour at thirty-five thousand feet with clouds, rain, wind, and lightning below, what would you rather have figuring out the path, speed, and angle of descent of the aircraft for touch-down, the plane’s auto-pilot, radar, and computer system or the human pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows below but clouds and lightning?

Thanks to Buckminster Fuller for providing the above airplane-landing metaphor in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, first published in 1969, and for planting seeds for other ideas in the essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,” published in the Effective Learning Report, such as computers being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what Fuller called mind grants. Fuller said unemployment all around Spaceship Earth could be eliminated overnight with mind grants. Buckminster Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.   

Most Earthian humans like to win BALANCE SHEET psychological GAMES, to feel superior and lord it over others, regardless if Spaceship Earth is going to hell in a handbasket around them because of global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP), regardless of how much they have failed in other areas of their lives, and regardless of how heinous were crimes and misdemeanors they may have gotten away with in the process of amassing their riches, since they were saved, as it were, by taking in and controlling more almighty monetary units than other lesser mortals, saved, hallelujah, as if by Jesus, who forgave them their sins.

If you want to learn more about transactional analysis, such as Ego States, Scripts, and psychological GAMES, read Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.

Most Earthian humans know what it is to be egotistical, but they have little understanding of how specific human egotistical manifestations, such as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states, can be used to control and manipulate human behavior for nefarious ends.

One of the biggest egotists of Earthian human history, a narcissist, playing BALANCE SHEET psychological GAMES, is Donald Trump of the US. He is also a world-class liar and loser playing BALANCE SHEET, and he might go to jail for it.

Trump psychologically told voters and bankers using his Parent ego state he was extorting votes and money from he was a stable genius and billionaire who could pay them back for their votes and loans. How many billions worth of a billionaire he was he never said, at least not to voters, arithmetic not being his strong suit; but it now appears it’s possible he’s no billionaire at all, using generally-accepted accounting principles and real market values, which he has refused to show since walking onto the USian political stage for the 2016 presidential election. It’s possible he’s no kind of naire at all, not even a millionaire, having liabilities that exceed the market value of his assets, being close to bankruptcy.

It now appears as shown in recent public posts that Trump, his loyal Trump Organization lackeys, and his chosen loyal family members lied to bankers about his net worth to get loans, proving once again that “All that glitters is not gold.”

P.T. Barnum is said to have proved there’s a sucker born every minute. If so, Trump has proved there’s a sucker born every second, in high and low places.

If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN, go to the Internet or any walk-in bookstore around Spaceship Earth and purchase or order one or more Effective Learning Publications books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the latest and probably most engaging Effective Learning Publications book, including an overview of USian economic history, including the Trumpian affair. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at Amazon.com for immediate unrestricted digital reading on any device as a Kindle book for $4.99. You can read it free at Amazon in a restricted KDP option.

For short run policies and strategies for dealing with USian economic and political problems read free the platform of my FreeFairProgressParty at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty/.

4 — A Democratic Earthian GAME-Free Case Method Teaching and Learning Process for Producing Democratic Discussion, Learning, and Policy Formulation Around Spaceship Earth

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-GAMER™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively GAME-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-GAMER would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-GAMER™. The psychological GAME roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Be it noted that Stapleton sat in the same circle in the same kind of chair as students, and the De-GAMING rules also applied to him. If the Classroom De-GAMER™ landed on him he had to lay out the case just like any other student and discuss what was the problem, what were the alternatives, and what he recommended.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic GAME-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological GAMES from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-GAMER” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management systems, policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department in the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-GAMER randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened GAME-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-GAMER™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK GAME-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (April 7, 2023) been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

His latest book is As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to share this article any way you see fit.

 

HOW MANY MORE EPISODES OF THIS TRUMPIAN PSYCHODRAMA WILL THERE BE?

By Richard John Stapleton

Earthian humans are again confronted with a probability, albeit a low probabilty, hopefully, of mob violence in a major country, the US, the so-called exceptional shining democratic country on a hill among all the countries of Spaceship Earth, caused by a significant percentage of the country’s population, who it seems do not value the rule of law of the US, or the values of all its citizens.

These malcontents frame themselves as Victims and Rescuers, but they are primarily Persecutors, willing to do serious harm, it seems, to those who oppose them, via mob violence and brute force if necessary, to win their psychological GAMES.

According to the Trumpian Rescuer/Persecutor demagogue in this article, 75 million Trump supporters, most of them armed N.R.A. card-carriers, will make sure Trump is not sent to prison if he is convicted for doing what he has been ethically and legally indicted for doing. According to the article, some of Trump’s supporters are thinking about starting a civil war to Rescue Trump if he is convicted, thereby escalating their psychological GAMES to the tissue-tearing level.

Framing themselves and Trump as Victims and Rescuers, most Trumpian supporters feel justified in Persecuting adversaries in a Drama Triangle.

Start a civil war against whom?

Playing GAMES is one thing. Shooting people is another.

Do these potential internal aggressors against the USian government think they could defeat the USian military in another insurrection attempt?

Such a war, an attempted coup, would be suicidal for them, millions of innocents could be killed, and the once-dreamed-about exceptional shining country on a hill might no longer exist as a Democratic Republic. It would become a Fascist Republic.

Please, let Earthian humans be freed from this GAME-infested Trumpian reality show psychodrama before it’s too late.

SOURCES

“Trump Supporters’ Violent Rhetoric in His Defense Disturbs Experts,” DNYUZ, June 10, 2023, https://dnyuz.com/2023/06/10/trump-supporters-violent-rhetoric-in-his-defense-disturbs-experts/?fbclid=IwAR35M8wi6b0Tmkkqopq1vMA_-E7S6ezknU2-x68XeZjAbjP8upAzl0_pkd4

Berne, Eric. The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups. New York: Grove Press, 1963.

Berne, Eric. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. New York: Grove Press, 1970a.

Berne, Eric. What Do You Do After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny. New York: Grove Press, 1970b.

Stapleton, Richard John. De-Gaming Teaching and Learning: How to Motivate Learners and Invite OKness. Statesboro, GA: Effective Learning Publications, 1979.

Stapleton, Richard John. Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds. Statesboro, Georgia: Effective Learning Publications, 2012.

TECHNICAL NOTE

Eric Berne achieved fame with his best-selling book, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. In it, he defines a psychological Game as follows:

“An ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or “gimmick.” Games are clearly differentiated from procedures, rituals, and pastimes by two chief characteristics: (1) their ulterior quality and (2) the payoff. Procedures may be successful, rituals effective, and sometimes profitable, but all of them are by definition candid; they may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may be sensational, but is not dramatic. Every (psychological (emphasis added)) game, on the other hand, is basically dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting quality (Berne, 1970a).”

Games such as football, basketball, poker, and chess are games with a little g. They are honest and overt. Everybody knows the rules and referees make sure the fair rules are impartially imposed on all players.

The basic formula for psychological GAMES (Berne, 1970a) is :

Con + Gimmick = Response -> Switch -> Cross -> Payoff.

Two sets of complementary transactions are going on at once—a spoken social level overt set and a psychological level non-verbal covert set.

A transaction in this context is an exchange between two or more people caused by transmitting messages from one person to another along transactional vectors from one ego state to another. In this context there are three types of ego states: Parent, Adult, and Child.

Feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and strokes are exchanged. These exchanges cause changes in the OKness levels of people. OKness means what it says. People are OK, not Great, about themselves and others in varying degrees, ranging from OK to Not-OK.

GAMES entail grandiosity and/or discounting. People may be considered “great”, grandiosity; and they may be considered “worthless,” discounting.

In general, Games take place outside the awareness of the Adult Ego State, which unfortunately means Game players do not know they are playing Games. They have been playing Games for so long they think Game-playing is just natural.

The Con is the basic invitation the Game starter throws out; the Gimmick is some trick or bait, that causes the responder, sometimes referred to as the “mark,” to respond and get hooked, much like a trout rising to take a fisherman’s artificial fly.

Once the responder is hooked, after a series of Adult transactions, which may require a minute or so, or several days, or perhaps months, or years, surprises will occur.

The Game starter and responder will switch roles—Persecutor, Rescuer, or Victim—from whatever role they started with to a different role, and the Game starter will begin to cross the original Adult-Adult transactional vectors with Parent-Child crosses.

One of the most common psychological Games identified by transactional analysts played by Earthian humans in general is called NIGYSOB, NOW I’VE GOT YOU, YOU SOB, and for sure it is one of the most common Games played in governments.

Move 1 in a NIGYSOB Game will be concerned with some Adult-sounding faults, mistakes, or deficiencies the Game starter has detected.

At move 1 the starter says something to the effect that such and such is a problem, which may be true. The responder in response to move 1 will then ask what specifically is wrong, etc. Several transactions may then happen at the Adult level dealing with what appear to be Adult data and information in back and forth transactions on Adult-Adult complementary stimulus-response transactional vectors.

At the same time the above transaction is happening socially, another unspoken transaction is happening between the Parent Ego State of the Game starter and the Child ego state of the Game responder at the psychological ulterior level. The Parent-Child non-verbal message is an angry variant of “It’s your fault, kid, and you’re badly out of line.” The Child-Parent response is a variant of “Don’t give me a spanking, who cares, etc.”

In a few minutes, or perhaps, days or weeks, or years the Game starter will decide the Game responder has been securely hooked, and now it’s time to go for the Payoff.

At payoff-time the Game starter will switch from Rescuer to Persecutor and move the social level message away from the Adult data, the issue, or the problem after cathecting, or turning on, a heavy Parent ego state. At this stage of the Game the starter at the social level will cross the previous Adult-Adult transactions with a heavy overt verbal Parent-Child transaction that lets the responder know socially in various ways, means, and words that “Now I’ve got you, you SOB.”  

The psychological Payoff for a NIGYSOB starter is a feeling of triumph or being “one up.” The payoff for the Game responder in a NIGYSOB Game will to feel humiliated and dejected, and perhaps rejected. The Game starter psychologically wanted all along to feel superior and reign supreme. A major reason NIGYSOB players play NIGYSOB is to feel justified in venting their anger, which they have pent up inside themselves.

Some people go through these antics on an over-and-over again basis. I think many people assume that all people are NIGYSOB players, since “one-up” Game playing is so widespread. In order to gain psychological satisfaction from playing NIGYSOB as a responder, you need to be a KICK ME or COPS AND ROBBERS player. Some Earthian humans psychologically gain satisfaction from being manipulated, debased, or discounted.

People play psychological GAMES in general to get structure, stimulus, and recognition. If you grew up in a family with NIGYSOB-playing parents in order to get along in the family system you had to learn to tolerate NIGYSOB playing, and it’s likely you too became a NIGYSOB player, having learned how to do it from your parents.

If you were lucky enough to have grown up in a healthy functional family in which all family members had permission to freely use all three ego states when appropriate you probably grew up with a healthy functional personality and life script and you will have little need to play psychological GAMES. You can get your needs met in healthy ways without having to constantly strive for attention and recognition by trying to lord it over others or get richer or prove how smart, right, powerful, and sexy you are, as do people like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other pathological entrepreneurs and politicians.

In the TA world, Money, Power, Sex, Smarts, and Righteousness are known as the “Five Deadly Organizational Sins,” sometimes referred to as the Pernicious Pentagonal Paradigm of Organizational Perversity, leading to all sorts of corruption.

Unfortunately, a high percentage of Earthian humans grow up in relatively dysfunctional families and cultures, being deprived of or denied healthy script messages and permissions in childhood and adolescence. It’s obvious Trump grew up in a relatively dysfunctional family, as his niece, a credentialed psychologist, has discussed at length in her published book.

Almost all Earthian humans like to be liked, recognized, and paid-attention-to and negative strokes are better than no strokes at all.

Getting attention and strokes, or units of recognition, is the main reason people play Games. Be it noted that playing Games as a politician in a government is one of the surest ways of getting lots of strokes. In general, the more extreme the politician the more strokes s/he gets. Trump got and gets more strokes some days playing Games in politics than normal Earthian humans get in a lifetime conducting ordinary pastimes, rituals, and activities. Yesterday, June 13, 2013, the day Trump finally got booked on criminal charges by the federal government, was such a day for Trump.

There are positive, negative, conditional and unconditional strokes. Conditional strokes, such as receiving good or bad grades in school, or receiving awards in sports for being the highest scorer on the team, are earned and merited. Positive and negative unconditional strokes are bestowed and inflicted on others just because they are liked or disliked.

Other psychological Games often played in governments are MINE’S BETTER; BLEMISH; GEE, YOU’RE WONDERFUL SUPPORTERS; AIN’T IT AWFUL, GREENHOUSE; DO ME SOMETHING; I’M ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU; IF ONLY IT WEREN’T FOR YOU; YOU STARTED IT; and, the most deleterious Game of all, LET’S YOU AND THEM FIGHT.

Psychological Game-playing happens in all organizations—families, churches, schools, small businesses, large corporations, and governments. They are one of several ways of structuring, or spending, time.

Eric Berne in his book What Do You Do After You Say Hello: The Psychology of Human Destiny (Berne, 1970b) said you can spend most of your time engaged in Withdrawal, retiring into your cave, talking to yourself inside your own head researching and creating things; Pastimes, small talk, gossip, talking about sports, hobbies, etc. with others; Rituals, reciting the same things over-and-over again with others, performing mental and physical movements required for eating, drinking, sleeping, praying, worshiping, teaching, following precedents, etc.; Activities, doing things in the real world, working, creating, changing things, solving problems; Playing Games, structuring your time trying to take advantage of others and make fools out of them; and Intimacy, transacting with others in Game-free ways, joyously and honestly feeling, thinking, communicating, and having fun after cathecting Free Child Ego States.

Time structuring possibilities are ordered in the above paragraph from low to high based on the likelihood of them producing strokes if conducted. How they will be conducted in what proportions is determined by the way individuals and organizations were scripted throughout their lives in the evolutionary cause-effect chains causing their personas, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors to happen.

Some transactional analysts believe it’s possible for Earthian humans and organizations to change their time structuring patterns and life scripts by somehow acquiring better script messages than those that naturally happened.

Believers in free will would probably think this should be easy. Believers in compatibilism might think it might or might not be possible. Strict determinists would think it’s just a pipe dream.

I became a certified transactional analyst in the 1970s preparing myself to do a better job of teaching organizational development in a business school and consulting with organizations in the real world. I was successful in some cases, but most organizations were not interested in what I had to offer as a TA consultant. Unfortunately, in my opinion most organizations around Spaceship Earth are more in need of organizational development work now than they were in 1980. It seems to me USian culture was more open to new learning in the 1960s and 1970s than it is now, having become more and more anti-intellectual, authoritarian, intolerant, fascistic, revanchist, and violent, starting with the USian Repug Reagan government in 1980. Seems to me the need for well-functioning governments around Spaceship Earth is greater now than ever.

Regardless, it seems to me governments are the best hope for eradicating the two modern horsemen of the apocalypse: GWCC, global warming and climate change, and MNWP, militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation. Unfortunately, these existential threats are not psychological Games.

The USian political system and government, and most Earthian governments, it seems to me, are cesspools of Game-playing. Earthian humans running them structure most of their time playing Games and conforming to script messages in pastimes, rituals and procedures dealing with constituents, politicians, political parties, voters, bureaucracies, large corporations, and other countries that are generally out to control and consume more than their fair share of finite Earthian resources.

After they say hello after they get elected new Earthian governments mostly structure their time busying themselves conducting pastimes, rituals, procedures, and ceremonies, and playing Games, wasting most of their time and energy in entropic time structuring instead of doing real work in the environment; a minuscule fraction of their time is structured conducting work activities that might solve systemic and existential problems.

Most likely former USian Repug president Trump’s surprise switch and cross January 6, 2021 in the USian capitol building attempting to take over the USian government as a fascist dictator were moves in one of the biggest NIGYSOB Games of Earthian human history, leading to what he hoped would be a glorious payoff.   

About the Author

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-Gamer™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively Game-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-Gamer would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-Gamer™. The psychological Game roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Be it noted that Stapleton sat in the same circle in the same kind of chair as students, and the De-Gaming rules also applied to him. If the Classroom De-Gamer™ landed on him he had to lay out the case just like any other student and discuss what was the problem, what were the alternatives, and what he recommended.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (April 7, 2023) been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

His latest book is As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to share this article any way you see fit.

IS TRUMP HIS OWN WORST ENEMY?

By Courtenay Barnett

Having watched the news and consistently seen former President Donald Trump featuring, I woke up this morning in a reflective frame of mind. I asked myself – who in my lifetime was the most problem stricken and/or incompetent and/or simply dumb President the US has had. I decided that a gold medal – a silver medal – and a bronze medal could be assigned to the ‘successful’ candidate.

First, President Nixon sprung to mind. However, on reflection I changed my mind because he faced serious legal problems then he resigned. Simple enough.

Next, in the dumb category Gerald Ford came to mind. It was said of him that he must have taken too many blows to the head for reason of not wearing a helmet during the days he played American football.

Next, I thought of George Bush Jr. but he did not qualify for when you are dumb and acknowledge and know that you are dumb then that will not qualify you for a medal versus a person who is but does not recognize that he is.

So who?

Finally, I thought of Donald Trump – same one – the one and only Donald Trump. But, I refused simply to hand out any medal unless he was first found to be truly deserving. So, I started a check list and then outlined ( not in any chronological sequence) the points of merit for Trump.

E. Jean Carroll

Well, for years a lady said that Trump had raped her. Finally she took the allegation to court and Trump kept making denials. Eventually, the jury decided in her favour and awarded US$5m against Trump.

Well – how dumb can you be in relying on a defence of denial but you do not actually go to court and make the denial in your defence?

Anyway, the jury already had evidence to hold on to – separate and apart from what the lady directly told them from the witness box. Trump had said that a man should just grab ‘em by the P……. So, they concluded that was just what he did to the lady.

Tax returns

Not myself an expert in the US Presidency nor a Presidential historian, nevertheless I think that I am accurate in saying that all Presidents before Trump made financial disclosures and declarations of their financial status at time of taking office – inclusive of IRS disclosures.

Well, Trump applies his own law to himself and refuses to make the necessary disclosure. So, the court  compels the disclosure.

But, the frying pan leads into the fire. The low ending of the IRS returns to pay minimum taxes and the high ending of the value of the same collateral ( buildings/properties) raises the spectre of fraudulent declarations.

Now, the prosecutor is after Trump and there are huge further implications beyond having already been convicted on one aspect of the tax issue.

 Election issues

Trump, having tried to be re-elected and failed is not satisfied so decides to make more problems for himself.

Trump claims that the election was stolen and takes his allegation(s) to court in the most dramatic way. The night before the first case Giuliani announces on CNN that he is going to court in the morning to prove the fraud. Giuliani is asked by the Judge as the first question whether the case is an election fraud allegation case. Giuliani promptly answers ‘no’. Why did he do so? As a lawyer he knows that if he brings a case which is ‘frivolous and/or vexatious’ then he can be cited for contempt with further implications of imprisonment – so he plays safe. Case dismissed. And so too are a total of about 60 election cases brought to establish election fraud.

To make matters worse, Trump had alleged that the voting machines were the mechanical vehicle used to effect the fraud. Well, the main election machine company sues and wins in a significant amount for the false allegation made. In fact settlement was made to avoid significantly more damages and costs at the end if a trial had followed through to conclusion.

Now, that was really smart – wasn’t it?

Just find the votes

So, on one hand Trump claimed that votes were stolen/lost from him; on the other hand Trump wanted the Georgia Secretary of State to find just 11,000 plus more votes to win the election.

Then, in attempting to have that fraud effected Trump finds himself in trouble with the law.

My, my, this guy Donald Trump must be super smart.

Retention of classified government documents

Trump, if not anything else is unique.

All other Presidents at end of term have returned the government’s classified documents. Trump is different because he can just classify and declassify by just thinking about it – and that is what he actually said. Gee – a magician accompanied by all his other proven accomplishments.

A contempt, fine if not other legal charges seem to be the end game. Quite impressive.

What next….?

At this stage I think that I have enough facts to award the medals.

Most problem stricken — Donald Trump — Gold

Incompetent  — Donald Trump —  Silver

Dumb President  — Donald Trump — Bronze

If I have been inaccurate and/or unfair in any way – please promptly inform why so.

______________________________________

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 almost fully forty years, has been arrested for defending his views, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. 

TRUMP INVENTS A NEW WAY OF LYING

By Richard John Stapleton

This is a story about two kinds of lies: Trump lying about his not possessing classified US government documents in his Mar a Largo “fort” and Trump lying in a recorded statement that was aired on CNN about the existence of a classified document in his possession that might have been fake. It’s a story about a liar’s pants on fire.

The story started during Trump’s last week in office as USian president caused by the possibility of a war being started against Iran so Trump could stay in office. Pentagon chief of staff General Milley was apparently worried at the time that Trump might try to do this, and Trump said in the statement aired by CNN after leaving office that Milley was thinking about invading Iran as proved by a document he waved or flapped in his hand, so listeners could hear the sound the paper made as it was flapped, proving a paper document existed. Trump said he could not show the document to them because it was classified, thereby proving he knew he possessed after leaving office a sensitive classified US government document that could not be shared because it would pose a national security risk.

The Jack Smith investigation subpoenaed the CNN-aired document, prompting Trump’s lawyers to reply that they could not furnish the document to the investigators because they could not “find” the document, raising questions such as whether the paper Trump held and flapped about in the recorded statement contained classified information, or was it a fake classified document containing no relevant information, just a new way of lying invented by Trump to cover his ass about thinking about invading Iran to give him an excuse to declare martial law during his last week in office as a last resort to remain USian president indefinitely?

Or was it a real classified document that Trump or his lawyers burned or shredded after it was aired by CNN, having figured out by then that the existence of the document put Trump in a light as bad or worse than he was in had the document not existed?

If so, Trump’s lawyers are now not technically lying about not being able to “find” the document that Trump flapped around in the recording so listeners could hear the sound caused by the flapping, thereby proving he at least had some sort of paper in his hands. The basic facts of this case were discussed on MSNBC June 2, 2023.

The most sickening piece of this sordid insane story is the implication that Trump and General Milley likely did consider the possibility of Trump trying to start a war against Iran to keep himself in office his last week in office, which would have been treason against the US and a crime against humanity.

The story may boil down to he said—he said, but it seems to me any communication between Trump and Milley about the US invading Iran to keep Trump in office happening during Trump’s last week in office, leaked to the public, would have been a security risk for the US and Spaceship Earth.

How any Earthian human could now consider voting into office again as USian president in 2024 the sociopathic Earthian human Trump, after having been exposed to his lies, misdemeanors, probable crimes, and threats, almost every day, for over six years, as a sitting and former USian president, wasting millions, if not billions, maybe trillions, of dollars, is unfathomable!

About the Author

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-Gamer™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively Game-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-Gamer would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-Gamer™. The psychological Game roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (April 7, 2023) been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

His latest book is As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to share this article any way you see fit.

HOW GOVERNMENTS WASTE THEIR TIME

By Richard John Stapleton

When the cat’s away the mice will play.

Raising-the-debt ceiling-time in the USian congress is when repugnant Repug and dim Dem congressmice come out to play when the cat president is weakest, trying to siphon money from the USian federal government real and funny money revenue stream for their selfish hides, threatening to plunge the USian economy into chaos for everyone, playing DEBT CEILING.

It’s quite a Game these chaps play.

DEBT CEILING is an all-encompassing variant of the transactional analysis psychological Game called COPS AND ROBBERS that entails supposed good-guy Rescuers incessantly trying to catch and punish supposed bad-guy Persecutors while seeing themselves as Victims.

Playing DEBT CEILING causes the USian Federal debt to increase more in the year following the year in which it is played than in other years because the Victim cat, the president, cannot veto unnecessary pork barrel demands for more spending or tax cuts by bad-guy Repug and Dem congressmice and their supporters without causing the USian government to default on its debt.

There is no such thing as a USian debt ceiling. It’s just a temporary number concocted to exist for a while that will have to be raised again with a new round of DEBT CEILING Game-playing when the actual USian federal debt expands up to that number, disingenuously called a debt ceiling, because doing otherwise would be disastrous.

The USian federal debt would expand less over time as matters now stand if USian bad-guy congressmice would stop playing their disingenuous DEBT CEILING Game. Rescuer bad-guy congressmice are socially saying they are imposing their debt ceiling process to make it harder for Persecutor bad-guy congressmice to increase the USian budget deficit and debt, when they are psychologically doing it to make it easier for themselves to increase the deficit and debt, to enrich themselves in the short run with more pork barrel spending or tax cuts, regardless of the consequences for Victim USian citizens in the long run.

As matters now stand, the USian government has no choice but to keep on kicking its budget and debt can of worms down the road every time the last so-called debt ceiling number is reached—until all hell breaks loose—if significant changes are not made in its economic-political-military modus operandi.

Eric Berne achieved fame with his best-selling book, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. In it, he defines a psychological Game as follows:

“An ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or “gimmick.” Games are clearly differentiated from procedures, rituals, and pastimes by two chief characteristics: (1) their ulterior quality and (2) the payoff. Procedures may be successful, rituals effective, and sometimes profitable, but all of them are by definition candid; they may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may be sensational, but is not dramatic. Every (psychological (emphasis added)) game, on the other hand, is basically dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting quality (Berne, 1970a).”

Games such as football, basketball, poker, and chess are games with a little g. They are honest and overt. Everybody knows the rules and referees make sure the fair rules are impartially imposed on all players.

The basic formula for psychological Games (Berne, 1970a) is :

Con + Gimmick = Response -> Switch -> Cross -> Payoff.

Two sets of complementary transactions are going on at once—a spoken social level overt set and a psychological level non-verbal covert set.

In general, Games take place outside the awareness of the Adult Ego State, which unfortunately means Game players do not know they are playing Games. They have been playing Games for so long they think Game-playing is just natural.

The Con is the basic invitation the Game stimulator throws out; the Gimmick is some trick or bait, that causes the responder, sometimes referred to as the “mark,” to respond and get hooked, much like a trout rising to take a fisherman’s artificial fly.

Once the responder is hooked, after a series of Adult transactions, which may require a minute or so, or several days, or perhaps months, or years, surprises will occur.

The Game stimulator and responder will switch roles—Persecutor, Rescuer, or Victim—from whatever role they started with to a different role, and the Game stimulator will begin to cross the original Adult-Adult transactions with a heavy Parent-Child cross.

One of the most common psychological Games identified by transactional analysts played by Earthian humans in general is called NIGYSOB, NOW I’VE GOT YOU, YOU SOB, and for sure it is one of the most common Games played in governments.

Move 1 in a NIGYSOB Game will be concerned with some Adult-sounding faults, mistakes, or deficiencies the Game stimulator has detected.

At move 1 the stimulator says something to the effect that such and such is a problem, which may be true. The responder in response to move 1 will then ask what specifically is wrong, etc. Several transactions may then happen at the Adult level dealing with what appear to be Adult data and information in back and forth transactions on Adult-Adult complementary stimulus-response transactional vectors.

At the same time the above transaction is happening socially, another unspoken transaction is happening between the Parent Ego State of the Game stimulator and the Child ego state of the Game responder at the psychological ulterior level. The Parent-Child non-verbal message is an angry variant of “It’s your fault, kid, and you’re badly out of line.” The Child-Parent response is a variant of “Don’t give me a spanking, who cares, etc.”

In a few minutes, or perhaps, days or weeks, or years the Game stimulator will decide the Game responder has been securely hooked, and now it’s time to go for the Payoff.

At payoff-time the Game stimulator will switch from Rescuer to Persecutor and move the social level message away from the Adult data, the issue, or the problem after cathecting a heavy Parent ego state. At this stage of the Game the stimulator at the social level will cross the previous Adult-Adult transactions with a heavy overt verbal Parent-Child transaction that lets the responder know socially in various ways, means, and words that “Now I’ve got you, you SOB.”  

The psychological Payoff for a NIGYSOB stimulator is a feeling of triumph or being “one up.” The payoff for the Game responder in a NIGYSOB Game will to feel humiliated and dejected, and perhaps rejected. The Game stimulator psychologically wanted all along to feel superior and reign supreme. A major reason NIGYSOB players play NIGYSOB is to feel justified in venting their anger, which they have pent up inside themselves.

Some people go through these antics on an over-and-over again basis. I think many people assume that all people are NIGYSOB players, since “one-up” Game playing is so widespread. In order to gain psychological satisfaction from playing NIGYSOB as a responder, you need to be a KICK ME or COPS AND ROBBERS player. Some Earthian humans might psychologically gain satisfaction from being manipulated, debased, or discounted.

People play psychological Games in general to get structure, stimulus, and recognition. If you grew up in a family with NIGYSOB-playing parents in order to get along in the family system you had to learn to tolerate NIGYSOB playing, and it’s likely you too became a NIGYSOB player, having learned how to do it from your parents.

All normal Earthian humans like to be liked, recognized, and paid-attention-to, and negative strokes are better than no strokes at all.

Getting attention and strokes, or units of recognition, is another major reason people play Games. Be it noted that playing Games as a politician in a government is one of the surest ways of getting lots of strokes. In general the more extreme the politician the more strokes s/he gets. Trump got and gets more strokes some days playing Games in politics than normal Earthian humans get in a lifetime conducting pastimes, rituals, and activities. He thrives on drama strokes; he’s a stroke addict.

There are positive, negative, conditional and unconditional strokes. Conditional strokes, such as receiving good or bad grades in school, or receiving awards in sports for being the highest scorer on the team, are earned and merited. Positive and negative unconditional strokes are bestowed and inflicted on others just because they are liked or disliked.

Other psychological Games often played in governments are MINE’S BETTER; BLEMISH; GEE, YOU’RE WONDERFUL SUPPORTERS; AIN’T IT AWFUL, GREENHOUSE; DO ME SOMETHING; I’M ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU; IF ONLY IT WEREN’T FOR YOU; YOU STARTED IT; and, the most deleterious Game of all, LET’S YOU AND THEM FIGHT.

Psychological Game-playing happens in all organizations—families, churches, schools, small businesses, large corporations, and governments. They are one of several ways of structuring, or spending, time.

Eric Berne in his book What Do You Do After You Say Hello: The Psychology of Human Destiny (Berne, 1970b) said you can spend most of your time engaged in Withdrawal, retiring into your cave, talking to yourself inside your own head researching and creating things; Pastimes, small talk, gossip, talking about sports, hobbies, etc. with others; Rituals, reciting the same things over-and-over again with others, performing mental and physical movements required for eating, drinking, sleeping, praying, worshiping, teaching, following precedents, etc.; Activities, doing things in the real world, working, creating, changing things, solving problems; Playing Games, structuring your time trying to take advantage of others and make fools out of them; and Intimacy, transacting with others in Game-free ways, joyously and honestly feeling, thinking, communicating, and having fun after cathecting Free Child Ego States.

Time structuring possibilities are ordered in the above paragraph from low to high based on the likelihood of them producing strokes if conducted. How they will be conducted in what proportions is determined by the way individuals and organizations were scripted throughout their lives in the evolutionary cause-effect chains causing their personas, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors to happen.

Some transactional analysts believe it’s possible for Earthian humans and organizations to change their time structuring patterns and life scripts by somehow acquiring better script messages than those that naturally happened.

Believers in free will would probably think this should be easy. Believers in compatibilism might think it might or might not be possible. Strict determinists would think it’s just a pipe dream.

I became a certified transactional analyst in the 1970s preparing myself to do a better job of teaching organizational development in a business school and consulting with organizations in the real world. I was successful in some cases, but most organizations were not interested in what I had to offer as a TA consultant. Unfortunately, in my opinion most organizations around Spaceship Earth are more in need of organizational development work now than they were in 1980. It seems to me USian culture was more intellectual and open to new learning in the 1960s and 1970s than it is now, having become more and more anti-intellectual, authoritarian, intolerant, fascistic, revanchist, and violent, starting with the USian Repug Reagan government in 1980. Seems to me the need for well-functioning governments around Spaceship Earth is greater now than ever.

Regardless, it seems to me governments are the best hope for eradicating the two modern horsemen of the apocalypse: GWCC, global warming and climate change, and MNWP, militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation. Unfortunately, these existential threats are not psychological Games.

The USian political system and government, and most Earthian governments, it seems to me, are cesspools of Game-playing. Earthian humans running them structure most of their time playing Games and conforming to script messages in pastimes, rituals and procedures dealing with constituents, politicians, political parties, voters, bureaucracies, large corporations, and other countries that are generally out to control and consume more than their fair share of finite Earthian resources.

After they say hello after they get elected new Earthian governments mostly structure their time busying themselves conducting pastimes, rituals, procedures, and ceremonies, and playing Games, wasting most of their time and energy in entropic time structuring instead of doing real work; a minuscule fraction of their time is structured conducting work activities that might solve systemic and existential problems.

Most likely former USian Repug president Trump’s surprise switch and cross January 6, 2021 in the USian capitol building attempting to take over the USian government as a fascist dictator were moves in one of the biggest NIGYSOB Games of Earthian human history, leading to what he hoped would be a glorious payoff.    

READING:

Berne, Eric. The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups. New York: Grove Press, 1963.

Berne, Eric. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. New York: Grove Press, 1970a.

Berne, Eric. What Do You Do After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny. New York: Grove Press, 1970b.

Stapleton, Richard John. De-Gaming Teaching and Learning: How to Motivate Learners and Invite OKness. Statesboro, GA: Effective Learning Publications, 1979.

Stapleton, Richard John. Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds. Statesboro, Georgia: Effective Learning Publications, 2012.

“McCarthy Warns Biden Could ‘Bumble’ Into First Default in US History,” Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, April 17, 2023, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mccarthy-warns-biden-could-bumble-first-default-us-history?fbclid=IwAR2PAedtXePpfWt1XoJ7lRAd2Y4wqI88C0h1YxH112slAxYJvVtyh1_btGQ.

About the Author

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-Gamer™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively Game-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-Gamer would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-Gamer™. The psychological Game roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (April 7, 2023) been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

His latest book is As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to share this article any way you see fit.

DEBT CEILING

By Richard John Stapleton

When the cat’s away the mice will play.

Raising-the-debt ceiling-time in the USian congress is when congressmice come out to play when the cat president is weakest, trying to siphon money from the USian federal govt real and funny money revenue stream for their selfish hides, threatening to plunge the USian economy into chaos for everyone, playing DEBT CEILING.

It’s quite a Game these chaps play.

DEBT CEILING is an all-encompassing variant of the transactional analysis psychological Game called COPS AND ROBBERS that entails supposed good-guy Rescuers incessantly trying to catch and punish supposed bad-guy Persecutors while seeing themselves as Victims.

Playing DEBT CEILING causes the USian Federal debt to increase more in the year following the year in which it is played than in other years because the Victim cat, the president, cannot veto unnecessary pork barrel demands for more spending or tax cuts by bad-guy congressmice and their supporters without causing the USian government to default on its debt.

There is no such thing as a USian debt ceiling. It’s just a temporary number concocted to exist for a while that will have to be raised again with a new round of DEBT CEILING Game-playing when the actual USian federal debt expands up to that toothless number, disingenuously called a debt ceiling, because doing otherwise would be disastrous.

The USian federal debt would expand less over time as matters now stand if USian repugnant Repub and dim Dem bad-guy congressmice would stop playing their disingenuous DEBT CEILING Game. Rescuer bad-guy congressmice are socially saying they are imposing their debt ceiling process to make it harder for Persecutor bad-guy congressmice to increase the USian budget deficit and debt, when they are psychologically doing it to make it easier for themselves to increase the deficit and debt, to enrich themselves in the short run with more pork barrel spending or tax cuts, regardless of the consequences for Victim USian citizens in the long run.

As matters now stand, the USian government has no choice but to keep on kicking its budget and debt can of worms down the road every time the last so-called debt ceiling number is reached — until all hell breaks loose — if significant changes are not made in its economic-political-military modus operandi.

Eric Berne achieved fame with his best-selling book, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. In it, he defines a psychological Game as follows:

“An ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions, often repetitious, superficially plausible, with a concealed motivation; or, more colloquially, a series of moves with a snare, or “gimmick.” Games are clearly differentiated from procedures, rituals, and pastimes by two chief characteristics: (1) their ulterior quality and (2) the payoff. Procedures may be successful, rituals effective, and sometimes profitable, but all of them are by definition candid; they may involve contest, but not conflict, and the ending may be sensational, but is not dramatic. Every (psychological (emphasis added)) game, on the other hand, is basically dishonest, and the outcome has a dramatic, as distinct from merely exciting quality (Berne, 1970a).”

Games such as football, basketball, poker, and chess are games with a little g. They are honest and overt. Everybody knows the rules and referees make sure the fair rules are impartially imposed on all players.

The basic formula for psychological Games (Berne, 1970a) is :

Con + Gimmick = Response -> Switch -> Cross -> Payoff.

Two sets of complementary transactions are going on at once — a spoken level overt set and a psychological level non-verbal covert set.

In general, Games take place outside the awareness of the Adult Ego State, which unfortunately means Game players do not know they are playing Games. They have been playing Games for so long they think Game-playing is just natural.

The Con is the basic invitation the Game starter throws out; the Gimmick is some trick or bait, that causes the responder, sometimes referred to as the “mark,” to respond and get hooked, much like a trout rising to take a fisherman’s artificial fly.

Once the responder is hooked, after a series of transactions, which may require a minute or so, or several days, or perhaps months, or years, surprises will occur.

The Game starter will begin to cross transactions, and the starter and responder will switch roles — Persecutor, Rescuer, or Victim — from whatever role they started with to a different role.

One of the most common psychological Games identified by transactional analysts played by Earthian humans in general is called NIGYSOB, NOW I’VE GOT YOU, YOU SOB, and for sure it is one of the most common Games played in governments.

Move 1 in a NIGYSOB Game will be concerned with some Adult-sounding faults, mistakes, or deficiencies the Game starter has detected in the Game responder.

At move 1 the starter says something to the effect that such and such is a problem, which may be true. The responder in response to move 1 will then ask what specifically is wrong, etc. Several transactions may then happen at the Adult level dealing with what appear to be Adult data and information in back and forth transactions on Adult-Adult complementary transactional vectors.

At the same time the above transaction is happening socially, another transaction is happening between the Parent Ego State of the Game starter and the Child ego state of the Game responder at the psychological ulterior level. The Parent-Child message is an angry variant of “You’re seriously out of line, kid.” The Child-Parent response is a variant of “Don’t give me a spanking, who cares, etc.”

In a few minutes, or perhaps, days or weeks, the Game starter will decide the Game responder has been securely hooked, and now it’s time to go for the Payoff.

What the starter will do at payoff-time is switch the social level message away from the Adult data, the issue, or the problem and move into a Parent ego state. At this stage of the Game the starter at the social level will cross the previous Adult-Adult transactions with a heavy Parent-Child transaction that lets the responder know in various ways, means, and words that “Now I’ve got you, you SOB.”

The Payoff for a NIGYSOB player is a feeling of triumph or being “one up.” One of the main reasons NIGYSOB players play NIGYSOB is to feel justified in venting their anger, which they have pent up inside themselves. The payoff for the Game responder in a NIGYSOB Game will to feel humiliated and dejected, and perhaps rejected.

Some people go through these antics on an over-and-over again basis. I think many people assume that all people are NIGYSOB players, since “one-up” Game playing is so widespread. In order to gain psychological satisfaction from playing NIGYSOB as a responder, you need to be a KICK ME or COPS AND ROBBERS player. Yes, some Earthian humans psychologically enjoy being manipulated, debased, and discounted.

People play psychological Games in general to get structure, stimulus, and recognition. If you grew up in a family with NIGYSOB-playing parents in order to get along in the family system you had to learn to tolerate NIGYSOB playing. All normal Earthian humans like to be liked, recognized, and paid-attention-to, and negative strokes are better than no strokes at all.

Other psychological Games often played in governments are MINE’S BETTER; GEE, YOU’RE WONDERFUL SUPPORTERS; BLEMISH; AIN’T IT AWFUL; GREENHOUSE; DO ME SOMETHING; I’M ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU; YOU STARTED IT; IF ONLY IT WEREN’T FOR YOU; and probably the most dangerous government Game of all, LET’S YOU AND THEM FIGHT.

Psychological Game-playing goes on in all organizations — families, churches, schools, small businesses, large corporations, and in governments. They are one of several ways of structuring, or spending, time. Eric Berne in his book What Do You Do After You Say Hello: The Psychology of Human Destiny (Berne, 1970b) said you can spend most of your time engaged in Withdrawal, retiring into your cave, talking to yourself while researching and creating things in your own head; Pastimes, small talk, gossip, talking about sports, hobbies, etc.; Rituals, doing the same things over-and-over again, eating, drinking, sleeping, praying, worshiping, teaching, acting out ceremonial roles in governments, etc.; Activities, doing things in the real world, working, creating, changing things, solving problems; Playing Games, structuring your time trying to take advantage of others and make fools out of them; and Intimacy, transacting with others in Game-free ways, joyously and honestly feeling, thinking, communicating, having fun by cathecting Free Child Ego States.

I became a certified transactional analyst in the 1970s preparing myself to do a better job of teaching organizational development in a business school and consulting with organizations in the real world. I was successful in some cases, but most organizations were not interested in what I had to offer applying transactional analysis concepts and techniques. Since about 1980 USian culture became increasingly anti-intellectual, having little interest in abstract concepts and techniques. Unfortunately, today organizations around Spaceship Earth are more in need of organizational development work than they were in 1980, especially governments, since governments have more power, resources, and responsibility than other organizations for eradicating the two modern horsemen of the apocalypse: GWCC, global warming and climate change and MNWP, militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation. These existential threats are not psychological Games.

Unfortunately, the USian political system and government, and most Earthian governments, are cesspools of Game-playing. Earthian humans running them structure most of their time playing Games and conforming to scripted precedents in pastimes, rituals and procedures dealing with constituents, politicians, political parties, voters, bureaucracies, large corporations, and other countries that are generally out to control and consume more than their fair share of finite Earthian resources. After they say hello when they get elected they mostly waste their time busying themselves in trivial personal time structuring.

READING:

Berne, Eric. The Structure and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups. New York: Grove Press, 1963.

Berne, Eric. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships. New York: Grove Press, 1970a.

Berne, Eric. What Do You Do After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny. New York: Grove Press, 1970b.

Stapleton, R. J. De-Gaming Teaching and Learning: How to Motivate Learners and Invite OKness. Statesboro, GA: Effective Learning Publications, 1979.

Stapleton, R. J. Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds. Statesboro, Georgia: Effective Learning Publications, 2012.

“McCarthy Warns Biden Could ‘Bumble’ Into First Default in US History, Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, April 17, 2023, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mccarthy-warns-biden-could-bumble-first-default-us-history?fbclid=IwAR2PAedtXePpfWt1XoJ7lRAd2Y4wqI88C0h1YxH112slAxYJvVtyh1_btGQ.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-Gamer™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively Game-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-Gamer would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-Gamer™. The psychological Game roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (April 7, 2023) been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian—39 anyway you see fit.

 

A LIST OF POSTINGS IN THE EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT SINCE SEPTEMBER 2016

Would you like to increase Earthian human OKness? If so, read the three Earthian Empowerment Systems books provided in the EES post below and set up your own EE discussion group where you live.

EARTHIAN EMPOWERMENT SYSTEMS     AUGUST 26, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/earthian-empowerment-systems/

HOW THE RICHEST EARTHIAN HUMANS GOT RICHER AND THE POOREST GOT POORER AFTER 1980     MARCH 13, 2024     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-the-richest-earthian-humans-got-richer-and-the-poorest-got-poorer-after-1980/

THE EARTHIAN — 43     FEBRUARY 27, 2024.     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-report/.

LIFT ME UP, MY LEGS, SO I MIGHT WALK SOMEWHERE IN A STRAIGHT LINE JANUARY 20, 2024     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/4948-2/

WHO ARE THE LEGITIMATE HEIRS OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL-PALESTINE?     DECEMBER 31, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/who-are-the-legitimate-heirs-of-the-land-of-israel-palestine/

THE EARTHIAN — 42     DECEMBER 1, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-42/

THE USIAN TRUMPIAN/REPUGLICAN DILEMMA     SEPTEMBER 30, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-usian-trumpian-repuglican-dilemma/

WEST IS BEST     SEPTEMBER 12, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/west-is-best/

MY YEAR TEACHING ON USAF NATO BASES     AUGUST 21, 2023    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/my-year-teaching-on-usaf-nato-bases-1982-83/

THE ORDEAL OF TRUMPISM     AUGUST 18, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-ordeal-of-trumpism/

WILL DON TRUMP’S HAMARTIC SCRIPT ENMESH US ALL BEFORE HIS STORY ENDS?     JULY 8, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/will-don-trumps-hamartic-script-enmesh-us-all-before-his-life-story-ends/

 HOW MANY MORE EPISODES OF THIS TRUMPIAN PSYCHODRAMA WILL THERE BE?     JUNE 14, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-many-more-episodes-of-this-trumpian-psychodrama-will-there-be/

THE EARTHIAN — 41     JUNE 20, 3023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-41/

IS TRUMP HIS OWN WORST ENEMY     JUNE 9, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/is-trump-his-own-worst-enemy/

TRUMP INVENTS A NEW WAY OF LYING     JUNE 6, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/trump-invents-a-new-way-of-lying/

HOW GOVERNMENTS WASTE THEIR TIME     MAY 19, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-governments-waste-their-time/

THE EARTHIAN — 40      APRIL 7, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/4399-2/?fbclid=IwAR305XMHvsp5WbaloFpOTbS7wRIurCqvOv4h0v7M1EQ6wXQV_lkGaM6oJLM

Why Words, Pictures, and Numbers Cannot “Prove” What the Truth “Is” in Dangerous Cases      April 3, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-words-pictures-and-numbers-cannot-prove-what-the-truth-is-in-dangerous-cases/

THE EARTHIAN — 39     MARCH 21, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-39/

THE TROUBLING USIAN ECONOMIC MODUS OPERANDI     MARCH 10, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-troubling-usian-economic-modus-operandi//

THE EARTHIAN — 38     FEBRUARY 24, 2023    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-38/

THE EARTHIAN — 37     FEBRUARY 6, 2023   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-37/      

THE EARTHIAN — 36    JANUARY 4, 2023     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-36/

COULD TELEVISING VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY’S SPEECH IN THE US HOUSE IGNITE WWIII?     DECEMBER 23, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/4294-2/

THE EARTHIAN — 35     DECEMBER 2, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-35/

SPACESHIP EARTH AND THE US ARE IN SAD SHAPE     NOVEMBER 16, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/spaceship-earth-and-the-us-are-in-sad-shape/

WHY LARGE POWERFUL POLITICAL PARTIES ARE EVIL     OCTOBER 27, 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-large-powerful-political-parties-are-evil/?fbclid=IwAR0oqmloyPCixQzS2JYQjbboKTkGE-MFz1PwRbdQHQRXITIAX-5PU2xGAaY

THE EARTHIAN — 34     OCTOBER 24, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-34/

THE EARTHIAN—33    SEPTEMBER 28, 2022    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/4205-2/

THE EARTHIAN — 32     AUGUST 25, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-32/

A KIRKUS REVIEW: AS THE ROOSTER CROWS EARTHIAN OKness INCREASES     JULY 8, 2021  https://blog.effectivelearning.net/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases/

THE EARTHIAN — 31     JUNE 24, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-31/.

WAR IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL GAME     JUNE 5, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/wars-are-psychological-games/?fbclid=IwAR1Qc1FUyG6on-l5r15Ng4Zljezrx0zH5k7RRB0Y5gusckip4bQ6fx62LyA

EARTHIAN HUMANS EXPERIENCE LESS OKNESS     MAY 24, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/earthian-humans-experience-less-okness/

THE EARTHIAN — 30      MAY 20, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-30/        

THE EARTHIAN — 29     APRIL 19, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-29/

RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS IN THE UKRAINE SHOWDOWN     APRIL 15, 2022     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/relevant-international-economic-considerations-in-the-ukraine-showdown/

THE EARTHIAN—28     MARCH 28, 2022   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-28/.     

THE EARTHIAN — 27     FEBRUARY 14, 2022      https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-27/     

JULIAN ASSANGE’S ENDURING LEGAL SAGA      DECEMBER 16, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/julian-assanges-enduring-legal-saga/.

THE EARTHIAN  —  26     DECEMBER 4, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-26/.

THE EARTHIAN—25     OCTOBER 4, 2009     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-25/

THE EARTHIAN—24     JULY 30, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-24/

AS THE ROOSTER CROWS EARTHIAN OKness INCREASES     JUNE 9, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases/

THE INHERENT IRONY IN THE PALESTINIAN/ISRAELI STRUGGLE     MAY 24, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-inherent-irony-in-the-palestinian-israeli-struggle/

AMERICA IS NOT A RACIST COUNTRY     MAY 12, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/america-is-not-a-racist-country/

THE EARTHIAN—23     MAY 11, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-23/

THE EARTHIAN — 22     MARCH 22, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-22/

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS TUTORING     MARCH 5, 2021 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/transactional-analysis-tutoring-3/

THE EXEMPLARY USIAN IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF 2021 MORPHED INTO A TRAGEDY OF WRONGDOING      FEBRUARY 14, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-exemplary-impeachment-trial-became-a-tragic-event/

ROUT LOGGER’S GROUP:  TO SAVE SPACESHIP EARTH —INTERNET EPISODE SIX     FEBRUARY 1, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-internet-episode-six/

A TRANSACTONAL ANALYSIS OF EARTHIAN HISTORY — PART ONE     JANUARY 22, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-transactional-analysis-of-earthian-history-part-one/

PRESIDENT BIDEN AS SEEN FROM A HUMBLE PERSON’S PERSPECTIVE FROM THE CARIBBEAN.     JANUARY 22, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/president-biden-as-seen-from-a-humble-persons-perspective-from-the-caribbean/

THE EARTHIAN — 21     JANUARY 5, 2021     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-21/      

HOPEFULLY THIS IS THE LAST STRAW FOR TRUMP ON HIS WAY OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE     NOVEMBER 29, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/3222-2/

JOE BIDEN: WAR OR PEACE?     NOVEMBER 16, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/joe-biden-war-or-peace/

ELR EDITOR’S GENEALOGICAL SCRIPTING      NOVEMBER 15, 2020 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/stapleton-genealogy/

ELR EDITOR’S ACADEMIC VITA     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/

THE UniDesk™     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-unidesk/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING COMPANY     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-company/

STAPLETON LEARNING COMPANY     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/stapleton-learning-company/ 

EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ 

GAMES EDUCATORS PLAY     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/games-educators-play/

FAIR TEACHER EVALUATIONS     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher-evaluations/

BUSINESS VOYAGES ARCHIVES     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/business-voyages-archives/

FreeFairProgressParty     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty/

THE EVOLUTION OF SPACESHIP EARTH, INC.     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc-3/

DE-GAMING AND SAVING DEMOCRACY     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/de-gaming-democracy/

OGEECHEE ECONOMIC FORUM      NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS TUTORING     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/transactional-analysis-tutoring-2/

RESPONSES     NOVEMBER 15, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/responses/

THE EARTHIAN — 20    OCTOBER 31, 2020    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-20/     

TRUMP’S A WORLD CLASS NIGYSOB PLAYER (and he should be let go) OCTOBER 17, 2020      https://blog.effectivelearning.net/trumps-a-world-class-nigysob-player/

YOU STARTED IT—A PSYCHOLOGICAL GAME CAUSING MAJOR TROUBLE ABOARD SPACESHIP EARTH    OCTOBER 8, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/you-started-it-a-psychological-game-causing-major-trouble-aboard-spaceship-earth/.

THE EARTHIAN — 19    OCTOBER 4, 2020    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/3031-2/

DISAPPOINTING FOOTBALL GAMES and A LOSER’S LAMENTATION    SEPTEMBER 28, 2020    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-disappointing-football-game-and-a-losers-lamentation/

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS TUTORING    SEPTEMBER 23, 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/transactional-analysis-tutoring/

A SPEECH FOR JULIAN ASSANGE    SEPTEMBER 12, 2020.    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-speech-for-julian-assange/

GEORGE FLOYD REVISITED THROUGH LEGAL EYES    AUGUST 30,2020    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/2952-2/

NUCLEAR WEAPONS — WAR AND PEACE     AUGUST 26, 2020.    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/nuclear-weapons-war-and-peace/

THE EARTHINAN — 18     BEST SELLER    AUGUST 9, 2020.    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-18/ 

IS TRUMP EVIL?       JULY 29, 1020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/is-trump-evil/  

THE GROUP TO SAVE SPACESHIP EARTH—INTERNET EPISODE FIVE     JULY 2029     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/is-trump-evil/  

A 4TH JULY ESSAY ON STATUES, MEANING IN THE ANGLO-AMERICAN WORLD AND HISTORICAL FACTS     BEST SELLER     JULY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-4th-july-essay-on-statues-meaning-in-the-anglo-american-world-and-historical-facts/

AN INTERNET CONVERSATION ON REPARATIONS AND STATUES     JUNE 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/an-internet-conversation-on-reparations-and-statues/

THE GROUP: TO SAVE SPACESHIP EARTH     JUNE 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-episode-four/

THE EARTHIAN—17     BEST SELLER     JUNE 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-17/

A TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL STATES OF AFFAIRS AROUND SPACESHIP EARTH     BEST SELLER     JUNE 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-transactional-analysis-of-economic-and-political-states-of-affairs/

ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR THROUGH A TA LENS     JUNE 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-transactional-analysis-of-economic-behavior/

THE EARTHIAN FORUM—16    MAY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum-16/

A CRISIS WITHIN CAPITALISM     BEST SELLER     APRIL 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-crisis-within-capitalism/

WHY DEMS ARE CHOOSING JOE BIDEN—A TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS OF USIAN POLITICS     BEST SELLER     MARCH 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-dems-are-choosing-biden/

THE GROUP—TO SAVE SPACESHIP EARTH—EPISODE THREE     APRIL 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-episode-three/

CRASH—VIRUS—CRISIS     MARCH 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/crash-virus-crisis/

PLAYING “CHICKEN” WITH US DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE OWNERS     MARCH 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/playing-chicken-with-us-democratic-national-committee-owners/

TRUTH, LIES AND REALITY     FEBRUARY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/truth-lies-and-reality/  

THE EARTHIAN FORUM—15     FEBRUARY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum-15/

THE GROUP: TO SAVE SPACESHIP EARTH—EPISODE 2     JANUARY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-part-1/

THE REAL CAUSES OF THE US FOREVER WARS     JANUARY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-real-causes-of-the-us-forever-wars/

THE EARTHIAN FORUM—14     JANUARY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum-14/

A TRUE END OF YEAR HOLIDAY STORY THAT JUST HAPPENED ON THE INTERNET     DECEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-true-end-of-year-holiday-story-that-happened-on-the-internet/

IS TRUMP GUILTY? AN INTERNATIONAL LAWYER’S PERSPECTIVE     DECEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/is-trump-guilty-an-international-lawyers-perspective/

THE BRITISH ELECTION – 2019     DECEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-british-election-2019/

A STRATEGY FOR ACTUALLY DRAINING THE POLITICAL SWAMP OF SPACESHIP EARTH     DECEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-strategy-for-actually-draining-the-political-swamp-of-spaceship-earth/

WHY LARGE POWERFUL POLITICAL PARTIES ARE EVIL     BEST SELLER     OCTOBER 2019        https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-large-powerful-political-parties-are-evil/

THE EARTHIAN FORUM—13     NOVEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum-13/

STOP BELIEVING IN FREE WILL TO CAUSE  PEACE ABOARD SPACESHIP EARTH     OCTOBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/stop-believing-in-free-will-to-cause-peace-aboard-spaceship-earth/

OCTOBER OGEECHEE ECONOMIC FORUM HOUR     SEPTEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/october-ogeechee-economic-forum-hour/

WHAT LAW: WHO BREACHED? – US – IRAN – AND THE WEST     SEPTEMBER 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/what-law-who-breached-us-iran-and-the-west/

THE EARTHIAN FORUM—11     AUGUST 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum/

THE EPSTEIN DISGRACE IN THE EARTHIAN INTERNET FORUM OF MORALS  AND ETHICS—AN ALLEGORY     AUGUST 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-epstein-disgrace-in-the-earthian-internet-forum-of-morals-and-ethics-an-allegory/

AN INTERNATIONAL PRAYER FOR PEACE     AUGUST 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/an-international-prayer-for-peace/

WHAT NOBODY MENTIONED IN THE MUELLER INTERVIEW     JULY 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/what-nobody-mentioned-in-the-mueller-interview/

THE EARTHIAN—10     JULY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-10/

A STORY: THE GLOBAL ‘OLD MAN’     JUNE 2020     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-story-the-global-old-man/

IRAN – WAR: ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN; A DISASTROUS LEAP FOR HUMANKIND     JUNE 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/iran-war-one-small-step-for-man-a-disastrous-leap-for-humankind/

A GRADUATES’ BRIEF GUIDE FOR DEALING WITH INEVITABLE FAILURES    JUNE 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/iran-war-one-small-step-for-man-a-disastrous-leap-for-humankind/

NO IT’S NOT TIME TO BREAK UP FACEBOOK     JUNE 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/no-its-not-time-to-break-up-facebook/

THE EARTHIAN—9      MAY 2019      https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-9/

THE BASIS FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ‘RATIONAL’ GLOBAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC POLICIES     MAY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-basis-for-president-trumps-rational-global-political-and-economic-policies/

ASSANGE – A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT     BEST SELLER     APRIL 2019 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/assange-a-dangerous-precedent/.

THE EARTHIAN—8     APRIL 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-8/

JULIAN ASSANGE – REVISITED      APRIL 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/julian-assange-revisited/

THE GOLAN HEIGHTS-VENEZUELA-AND THE RULE OF LAW     BEST SELLER     MARCH 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-golan-heights-venezuela-and-the-rule-of-law/  

LEARNING TO LOOK OUT FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST NUMBER 1     MARCH 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/learning-to-look-out-for-everyone-not-just-number-1/

SERMON: CALL OF THE WILD-AND THE RULE OF LAW     MARCH 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/sermon-call-of-the-wild-and-the-rule-of-law/

SERMON: LESSONS FROM MY MOTHER – FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP     FEBRUARY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/sermon-lessons-from-my-mother-for-president-trump/

THE EARTHIAN—7     FEBRUARY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-7/       

A SERMON: GOVERNOR NORTHAN – VICTOR – VANQUISHE3D AND THE REST OF US     BEST SELLER     FEBRUARY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-sermon-governor-northam-victor-vanquished-and-the-rest-of-us/

THE MAD-DOGS OF NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS – US AND RUSSIA     FEBRUARY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-mad-dogs-of-nuclear-armaments-us-and-russia/

WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?     JANUARY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/what-are-friends-for/

THE EARTHIAN—6     JANUARY 2019     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/1480-2/

PROBLEMS WITH THE DEEP STATE     DECEMBER 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/problems-with-the-deep-state/

A TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS OF TRUTH     DECEMBER 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-transactional-analysis-of-truth/

THE EARTHIAN—5    DECEMBER 2018      https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-5/       

HOW TO USE EDUCATIONAL ONLINE TOOLS TO ENTERTAIN KIDS ON A RAINY DAY     NOVEMBER  2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-to-use-educational-online-tools-to-entertain-kids-on-a-rainy-day/

ONE MORE TIME: “PAYROLL TAXES” ARE NOT TAXES!     NOVEMBER 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/one-more-time-payroll-taxes-are-not-taxes/

THE EARTHIAN—4     OCTOBER 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-4/

WHENCE WE CAME, WHITER WE GO     BEST SELLER     OCTOBER 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/from-whence-we-came-whither-we-go/

THE EARTHIAN—3     BEST SELLER     SEPTEMBER 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-3/

THE EARTHIAN—2     BEST SELLER     AUGUST 2018    https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-2/

FIRST OGEECHEE ECONOMIC FORUM     JULY 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/first-ogeechee-economic-forum/

THE EVOLUTION OF SPACESHIP EARTH, INCORPORATED     BEST SELLER     JULY 2018     JULY 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/

THE EARTHIAN—1     JULY 2018 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-1/

DE-GAMING AND SAVING DEMOCRACY     JUNE 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/1126-2/

DEFAMING THE WORLD’S FASTEST HUMAN     JUNE 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/defaming-the-worlds-fastest-human/

SERMON—REFLECTIONS ON WAR     JUNE 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/sermon-reflections-on-war/

THE CLASSROOM DE-GAMER     JUNE 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-classroom-de-gamer/

SERMON—MY CIVILIZING MISSION     JUNE 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/sermon-my-civilising-mission/

SERMON—EAST JERUSALEM: A CAPITAL PROVOCATION     BEST SELLER     MAY 2018      https://blog.effectivelearning.net/1078-2/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST     BEST SELLER     MAY 2018     MAY 2918https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-digest-may-2018/

MAKING SENSE OF THE NO-DEAL IRAN DECISION     MAY 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/making-sense-of-the-no-deal-iran-decision/

SYRIA’S PLIGHT WITH THE US     MAY 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/syrias-plight-with-the-us/

RACISM, RATIONALIZATONS AND RESENTMENTS     BEST SELLER     APRIL 2018       https://blog.effectivelearning.net/racism-rationalisations-and-resentments/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST     BEST SELLER     APRIL 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-digest-april-2018/

BR’RE TRUMP BURROWED UP IN HIS WHITE HOUSE BRIAR PATCH     BEST SELLER     APRIL 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/brer-trump-burrowed-up-in-his-white-house-briar-patch/

A SERMON OF TWO BLUNDERS     APRIL 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-sermon-of-two-blunders/

TODAY’S SERMON: HOPE FOR AMERICA     MARCH 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/todays-sermon-hope-for-america/

THE PHOENIX PROGRAM, MY LAI AND THE “TIGER CAGES”     BEST SELLER     MARCH 2018        https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-phoenix-program-my-lai-and-the-tiger-cages/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST—MARCH 2018      MARCH 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-digest-march-2018/

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP     MARCH 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/an-open-letter-to-president-trump/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST—FEBRUARY 2018     FEBRUARY 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-digest-february-2018/

A FOOTBALL GAME AIN’T NO WAR, BIG DADDY     JANUARY 2018     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-football-game-aint-no-war-big-daddy/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST     BEST SELLER     NOVEMBER 2017          https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-digest-november-2017/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST—OCTOBER 2017     NOVEMBER 2017 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-digest-january-2017/

1968, INTELLIGENT LIFE AND THE LUNAR LANDING     OCTOBER 2017 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/1968-intelligent-life-and-the-lunar-landing/

BUSINESS SKYLAB CONFERENCE     OCTOBER 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/business-skylab-conference/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT UPDATES—SEPTEMBER 2017     SEPTEMBER 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-report-updates-september-2017/

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON POLITICS     SEPTEMBER 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/further-thoughts-on-politics/

AN INSPIRING EDUCATIONAL MEETING IN THE COUNTRY CLUB NEAR STATESBORO, GEORGIA     SEPTEMBER 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/an-inspiring-educational-meeting-in-the-country-club-near-statesboro-georgia/

RACIST GAMES IN A VENOMOUS CULTURE     BEST SELLER     AUGUST 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/racist-games-in-a-venomous-culture/

PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PAST AND PRESENT COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (WITH POSTSCRIPT)     BEST SELLER     AUGUST 2017       https://blog.effectivelearning.net/president-trump-and-past-and-present-cognitive-dissonance-with-postscript-2/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT UPDATES—AUGUST 2017     AUGUST 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-report-updates-august-2017/

LET’S YOU AND THEM FIGHT     AUGUST 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/lets-you-and-them-fight/

WHY HEALTHCARE SHOULD BE MANAGED AS A NATURAL MONOPOLY     BEST SELLER     JULY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-healthcare-should-be-managed-as-a-natural-monopoly-2/

EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT UPDATES JULY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-report-updates-july-2017/

CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS VS. FREETHINKERS     APRIL 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/conservatives-and-liberals-vs-freethinkers/

DEMOCRATIC DISCUSSIONS:  STORIES ABOUT FACT, FICTION, GOOD AND EVIL: PART FIVE     APRIL 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/democratic-discussions-stories-about-fact-fiction-good-and-evil-part-five/

ANOTHER GREAT ARTICLE BY DAVE LINDORFF IN COUNTERPUNCH     APRIL 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/yet-another-president-commits-the-ultimate-crime-of-launching-a-war-of-aggression/

DOING BUSINESS UNDER THE SUN: STORIES ABOUT FACT, FICTION, GOOD AND EVIL; PART FOUR     BEST SELLER     FEBRUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/doing-business-under-the-sun-stories-about-fact-fiction-good-and-evil-part-four/

A 2017 FORECAST: STORIES ABOUT FACT, FICTION, GOOD AND EVIL, PART THREE     FEBRUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-2017-forecast-stories-about-fact-fiction-good-and-evil-part-three/

DECLINING SMALL BUSINESS START-UPS     FEBRUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-small-business-population-is-shrinking/

TRUMP WON!  HILLARY LOST!     JANUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/trump-won-hillary-lost/

GREETINGS FROM STATESBORO, GEORGIA     JANUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/greetings-from-statesboro-georgia/

JOHN CHUCKMAN’S COMPREHENSION: STORIES ABOUT FACT, FICTION, GOOD, AND EVIL, PART TWO     BEST SELLER     JANUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/john-chuckmans-comprehension-stories-about-fact-fiction-good-and-evil-part-two/

THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM:  STORIES ABOUT FACT, FICTION, GOOD AND EVIL, PART ONE     JANUARY 2017     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-smartest-guy-in-the-room-stories-about-fact-fiction-good-and-evil-part-one/

HOW SPACESHIP EARTH MIGHT EVOLVE     DECEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-spaceship-earth-incorporated-might-evolve/

TOWARD THE CREATION OF SPACESHIP EARTH INCORPORATED     DECEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/toward-the-creation-of-spaceship-earth-incorporated/

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR WAKING UP FROM THE AMERICAN HIGHTMARE     DECEMBER 2016       https://blog.effectivelearning.net/recommendations-for-waking-up-from-the-american-nightmare/

AD HOMINEM FAKE NEWS ON FACEBOOK AND ELSEWHERE     NOVEMBER 2016   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ad-hominem-fake-news-on-facebook-and-elsewhere/

WORKER-OWNED ENTERPRISES: A LONG-TERM SOLUTION?     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/worker-owned-enterprises-a-long-term-feasible-solution/

BOTH THE DEMO AND REPUB PARTIES ARE NOW CORRUPT, OBTUSE, AND IRRELEVANT     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/both-the-demo-and-repub-parties-are-now-corrupt-obtuse-and-irrelevant/

THE BEST THING TO DO NOW     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-best-thing-to-do-now/

THE HIGH CALLING OF TEACHING     NOVEMBER 2916     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-high-calling-of-teaching/

SOME COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE AMAZINGLY SMART, UNDERSTANDING, AND RESPONSIBLE     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/some-college-students-are-amazingly-smart-understanding-and-responsible/

OPTIMIZING THE FAIRNESS OF STUDENT EVALUATIONS     BEST SELLER     NOVEMBER 2016       https://blog.effectivelearning.net/optimizing-the-fairness-of-student-evaluations/

SAY IT AIN’T SO JOE: I’M AFRAID IT IS KID, TRUMP WILL BE PRESIDENT OF THE US     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/say-it-aint-so-joe-why-jill-stein-should-be-elected-president-of-the-us/ 

HOW TO USE AND PERCEIVE THIS BLOG PAGE     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/how-to-use-and-perceive-this-blog-page/

A POST ABOUT IRELAND TELLS IT ALL     NOVEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-post-from-ireland-tells-it-like-it-is/

JILL STEIN MAKES A POWERFUL CASE FOR REAL CHANGE, JUST IN TIME     OCTOBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/jill-stein-makes-a-powerful-case-for-real-change-just-in-time/

ANOTHER WOMAN RUNNING FOR US PRESIDENT IN 2016, GLORIA DE RIVA     OCTOBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/another-woman-running-for-us-president-in-2016/

JOIN THE FREEDOM, FAIRNESS, AND PROGRESS PARTY     OCTOBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/join-the-freedom-fairness-and-progress-party/

ON THE NEED FOR BETTER JUDGMENT IN US POLITICS—A DEVIL’S ADVOCATE SPEAKS     OCTOBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/join-the-freedom-fairness-and-progress-party/

EXTREMISTS IN STATE GOVERNMENTS     OCTOBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/extremists-in-state-governments/

ANOTHER GREAT ESSAY BY ONE OF THE GREATEST ESSAYISTS OF OUR TIME     BEST SELLER     OCTOBER 2016       https://blog.effectivelearning.net/another-great-essay-by-one-of-the-greatest-essayists-of-our-time/

ONE HELL OF A GOOD ESSAY     OCTOBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/one-hell-of-a-good-essay/

AN INTERESTING OVERVIEW OF US HISTORY     SEPTEMBER 2016      https://blog.effectivelearning.net/an-interesting-overview-of-recent-us-history/

SO YOU’RE THINKING OF VOTING FOR TRUMP     SEPTEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/so-youre-thinking-of-voting-for-trump/

DR. JILL STEIN ENTERS THE DEBATE     SEPTEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/dr-jill-stein-enters-the-debate/

RECENT POST     SEPTEMBER 2016     https://blog.effectivelearning.net/t-of-the-printing-and-typesetting/

THE ROOT OF OUR TROUBLES     BEST SELLER     SEPTEMBER 2016       https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-root-of-our-troubles/   

THE EARTHIAN  —  40     

THE EARTHIAN, Number Forty, April 6, 2023, Effective Learning Publications, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, Richard John Stapleton, Writer, Editor & Publisher, Copyright 2023, All Rights Reserved

ASK MORE WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR ALL EARTHIAN HUMANS—TO MINIMIZE THE PROBABILITY OF EARTHIAN HUMAN EXTINCTION—CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE (GWCC) AND/OR MILITARIZATION AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROLIFERATION (MNWP)

 AN EARTHIAN ELDER SPEAKS

“So, I guess what I’m saying is that, as we can establish that the earth is a sphere, and thus finite, then growth in your population and artifacts must have limits. And, your lack of a social-economic system…

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https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=167997996125986&set=a.115689438023509

AN EARTHIAN HUMAN TELLS IT LIKE SHE THINKS IT IS, WHICH IT PROBABLY IS…

To scale the pinnacles of corporate, political or military power in the United States requires certain rigid deficiencies of character, specifically the absence of compassion, decency and humanity. In their personal lives, powerful individuals may possess these qualities, but as an elite class, they lack them utterly. How else to explain the abandoned cruelty of U.S. foreign policy since 1945, the wars, with napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam, depleted uranium and white phosphorus in Iraq, the massive bombing campaigns that destroyed 85 percent of all buildings in Korea, to say nothing of the deliberate destruction of Iraq and Vietnam, the millions upon millions of dead all over the planet, the regime changes, setting countless countries back, developmentally, decades, even centuries, and installing fascist rulers throughout what used to be called the Third World?

True, a president, four-star general or corporate chieftain can be a nice guy, somebody you’d like to have a beer with, someone who’s polite, cultured, agreeable. But to get to where they got in this system, they did things that are unforgi

Read more…

“Human Destiny in Ukraine,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/07/human-destiny-in-ukraine/.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

1 — Observations and Analyses of Current Earthian Human Existential States of Affairs by Earthian Humans Stationed around Spaceship Earth, Cathecting all Ego States Feeling, Thinking, and Writing

2 — A Posting by a Hypothetical Exonexus Observer from a Planet Beyond the Earthian Solar System

3 — On the Need to Co-Construct a Sustainable Long Run Earthian Political-Economic-Management System

4 — A Democratic Earthian Game-Free Case Method Teaching and Learning Process for Producing Democratic Discussions, Learning, and Policy Formulation Around Spaceship Earth

April 6, 2023

I had about decided this Bragg investigation was just another nothing burger like the pusillanimous Mueller, January 6th Committee, and Garland investigations, all sound and no fury. The Bragg investigation and indictment in the Manhattan District of New York have restored some of my previous respect for and faith in the USian rule of law. I had begun to think USian law-enforcers were very good at bullying, arresting, prosecuting, indicting, and imprisoning poor and hapless young black and white males and females for petty theft and drug selling but too cowardly to prosecute a dangerous older white male con artist with access to serious money and good lawyers such as the law-disrespecting playground bully Donald Trump. Hallelujah. Apparently, the Bragg investigators uncovered and developed facts and reasoning they think prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the hush money paid to Stormy Daniel and at least one other woman was not merely to make sure Trump’s wife would not learn about one more act of adultery…

Read more…

“Why Words, Numbers, and Pictures Cannot ‘Prove’ What the Truth ‘Is’ in Dangerous Cases,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-words-pictures-and-numbers-cannot-prove-what-the-truth-is-in-dangerous-cases/?fbclid=IwAR3XcAYqWyxiLmnkPsGlIzTXr48g6bsqv0XGpied5nczGOuX6c-iaTsHYms.

April 5

Say it aint so Joe

“Profits of Doom: Military Contractors Rob Us Daily, by Tom H. Hastings, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/05/profits-of-doom-military-contractors-rob-us-daily/?fbclid=IwAR3u4LMafAxgLHBH98foW-dxJJuiktvbWR4N6TlEOXdXTX1SoIEoc6mBtkA.

April 5

Carbon dioxide traps heat, like a puffy coat…

“American Climate Tragedy,” by Evaggelos Vallikanatos, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/05/american-climate-tragedy/?fbclid=IwAR2uer2rTrKdEMC3s7N7_4jfULtz4nNJ_I6T2cYEy0uhx7K6Dc0M2xIiLFk.

April 5

Many wrongs on both sides of the aisle do not make a right

“Will Leviathan Democracy Blindfold The World,” by James Bovard, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/05/will-leviathan-democracy-blindfold-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR24JosWvzep_P2n03s_sXpdebAefDLPwg5GeD8Nr3mYIx4qs1L6Hk3U8IE.

April 5

More on the same bull….

“Thirty-four Felony Charges is a Lot of Felony Charges,” by Ron Jacobs, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/05/thirty-four-felony-charges-is-a-lot-of-felony-charges-2/?fbclid=IwAR1Pc1IDolbtXVzemTsWinLv97VMS8FjGmJYJIZl0qkh1g_tkl8-JoP5Og4.

Aoril 5

Let’s face it, insisting on more freedom in some cases is irresponsible

“Tinpot Legislators,” by Stan Cox, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/04/tinpot-legislators/?fbclid=IwAR0ZcwYSTvixrGX4D4t_LAglIrie7AHhqbWxw2QJ5Z7jx_-g_vsAqkA7yE8.

April 5

You mean Henny Penny was right, the sky is falling

“The Climate Time Bomb,” by Mel Gurtov, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/04/the-climate-time-bomb/?fbclid=IwAR0cv6uzQo2qnB6UtfnXDVzGwPwT9lUEFG2djcQMEkhQx5nRt6oEMERLmEs.

April 4

All because of the infernal combustion engine, plenty of oil in the ground, and lots of cheap land in the US to farm and ranch

“Passenger trains in the United States v. Europe,” LONGISLAND.COM, https://www.facebook.com/LongIslandCom/photos/a.2102477679766738/6807018102645982/.

April 3

But what are the chances it might work? Pretty slim it seems

“The Simple Reason Why the U.S. Wants Full Spectrum Dominance of the Earth,” by Roger McKenzie, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/03/the-simple-reason-why-the-u-s-wants-full-spectrum-dominance-of-the-earth/?fbclid=IwAR2yf3IusAMcSkA2zQoNDYhJsNDf_1Qdif1R84FpV5yd5LZ3mA-l474qTCc.

April 3

I’m not for “overthrowing” the existing economic and social order. I’m for evolving a better one, peacefully, ASAP. How to bring that about is the question. Violent revolution is not the answer. All violence in the form of all-out war does is temporarily tear down the existing economic and social order, doing no permanent good. Oligarchies just start over again rising from the ashes and evolve the same sort of top-down tyranny as the one that just got torn down, which is in turn also ultimately torn down. Unfortunately, GWCC and MNWP in the current age may have made it inevitable that the existing economic and social order will be torn down, while this time around eliminating the possibility of a new Earthian human economic and social order rising from the ashes, since Earthian humans will have been rendered extinct. Comment by RJS

“Novel Reflections: On Dickens, Marx, Bronte, Zola, Bernie, and Orwell,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/31/novel-reflections-on-dickens-marx-bronte-zola-bernie-and-orwell/?fbclid=IwAR2mTKwlvUJHg69KpEXBWWtvNmDIe5QOAX0W17Kxr_BrK4zYAVN3YP0iD1g.

April 3

Good point

“’They’re All Libertarians’ Until Their Deposits Are At Risk,” by Roy Sebag, GOLDMONEY.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/theyre-all-libertarians-until-their-deposits-are-risk?fbclid=IwAR0jWUv7nH4b1m0qiWYPNcpoVapcXgdGEMtHlvNHO9fDKxr83OZQC5I9pRk.

April 1

Say it aint so Joe

“Two decades later, US senate votes to abolish Iraq war authorization,” by News Desk, THECRADLE.COM, https://thecradle.co/article-view/23087/two-decades-later-us-senate-votes-to-abolish-iraq-war-authorization?fbclid=IwAR2FuusDmVIGyd9BNSl9EKIA9654iCWkAHWfljJ381pN05SDTw8Wnbt5g2Y.

April 1

Wise words from my favorite author

“Mark Twain’s Book: The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today,” PHILOTHOUGHTS, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=770893751072312&set=a.643405673821121.

April 1

Ben Barnes, a Texas state legislator, was a crony of John Connolly and a major player in Texas politics. Connolly was a Texas governor and a US sec of treasury under Nixon, who was shot in the front seat of the same car in Dallas, Texas as USian president John F. Kennedy in 1963, when JFK was assassinated in the back seat. I was working as an expediter and dispatcher in production control with an undergraduate degree in economics from Texas Tech in a Litton industries plant in Lubbock, Texas that assembled electronic components for USian military aircraft guidance and control systems one evening in 1965 when Barnes and Connolly came strolling through the plant shaking hands with everybody. The plant was put there by Tex Thornton, originally from Stamford, Texas, the Litton Industries founder, and an ex crony of Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War secretary of defense Robert McNamara. Both Thornton and McNamara were Harvard Business School graduates who worked as whiz kids in production control at Ford Motor Company for a while. They were all flying high back in those days. I was hired at Litton by a Harvard Business School graduate. A few months later he fired me. He said I was too sensitive to the needs of people for production control work, telling me I ought to get into something like personnel. Basically, he was right, and he did me a favor firing me when he did from the ill-scripted Litton plant, saving me months and maybe years of wasted time. I worked there seven months, learning a lot that I did not want to know. The HBS-educated fellow who hired and fired me left Litton himself a few months later, taking a new job with the international management consulting firm Booze Allen Hamilton. Comment by RJS

“Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the “23 Million Payoff,” by Greg Palast, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/30/reagans-treason-two-bushes-and-the-23-million-payoff/?fbclid=IwAR1L8Qh79X1bh0MGWzisK_ARzcJYYxIt7WENvJqOM5eiwfCFmVytS0cpXkQ.

April 1

A “final warning” before what happens?

“Climate Options are Available Now, Nuclear Power Isn’t One of Them,” by Linda Pentz Gunter, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/30/climate-options-are-available-now-nuclear-power-isnt-one-of-them/?fbclid=IwAR1OLZ35Rhbav86lTGNwGlWXgoY_CeHCCyfSMCoPtPadZV-dSUPzY18WHV8.

April 1

How the USian West works

“Uncle Sam’s Dams on the Border,” by Bill Hatch, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/30/uncle-sams-dams-on-the-border/?fbclid=IwAR2tpr452f6qkZtk42swhYPo20GGVY0B2mCAQd_wnTuanqS8RQSV7rKmE10.

March 27

October surprises do seem to work for Repugs

“The ‘October Surprise’: Throwing History Off Course,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/27/the-october-surprise-throwing-history-off-course/?fbclid=IwAR0NiSrIzNXVKOs0x3dehwZoKj7vV0faE0YX5u2lK6MOuHSLwox6lzU2nqc.

March 27

No s….

My, what nice smiles you all have

“Report: Trump and Bush Tax Cuts — Not Government Spending — Are Primary Drivers of National Debt Issues,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/report-trump-bush-tax-cuts-have-largely-driven-national-debt-issues-since-2001/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3N9MgNYOyFAez5hG05fsEfFVIlg6sP9twhrsVFVOvufPAU08slH_oVJ04.

March 25

The biggest mistake of all

“After the Cold War’s end, a small circle of policymakers and academics calling themselves neoconservatives argued that the United States, rather than drawing down, should wield its now mostly unchallenged power to enforce an era of ‘global benevolent hegemony.’ The United States’ military dominance, rooted in American ideals, would smash the last vestiges of despotism from the world, allowing democracy and peace to flourish. Any resistance, they warned, however small or remote, was a threat to the entire American-led order.”

“20 Years of Iraq Denialism: The New York Times Continues to Get it Wrong on U.S. Empire,” by Anthony Dimaggio, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/24/20-years-of-iraq-denialism-the-ny-times-continues-to-get-it-wrong-on-u-s-empire/?fbclid=IwAR2aGUTp1MyMbb1piYGdQDKGSAUQ2kclTY40ZfoUmwpQvXy1O5bXU2Z8TiE.

March 23

I remember when Putin announced the development of their new hypersonic missiles in 2018. USian mainstream media have done a good job of lulling USians into a sense of complacency about the danger of these missiles by not saying much if anything about them. Apparently, these hypersonic missiles can destroy aircraft carriers without using nukes. If this Croat admiral is competent and honest, Russia can sink all USian sailing aircraft carriers in a heartbeat by shooting off hypersonic missiles from as far away as two thousand miles from submarines and other launch vehicles. Comment by RJS

“Why Hypersonic Weapons Change Everything,” by Alex Krainer, TRENDCOMPASS, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/why-hypersonic-weapons-change-everything?fbclid=IwAR1KCiSTsVogl9TyMrjGVfooK3kxDtRYqQd4tzUMTAqjkWe6PCfaxQIyVPU.

March 22

A sticky wicket no doubt about that

“China Backs Russia’s Draft UN Resolution On Nord Stream Probe,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-backs-russias-draft-un-security-council-resolution-nord-stream-probe?fbclid=IwAR1OkPvyrOm27s91T83zmLvb1jtFdCQ6MkonsZMFLoyF0I1N6kM8ep2g000.

March 22

Insanity at work

“Deficit Hawk Hypocrites And Warmongers Unite, Apparently Hoping to Start WWIII,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/deficit-hawk-hypocrites-and-warmongers-unite-apparently-hoping-start-wwiii?fbclid=IwAR2_xHMbFiZqXWlNfRHBSJ2IqeHSHoKoyj2WITgKlIyR0m4d4-FHiaVBBEg.

March 21

“With the world only a few tenths of a degree away from the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, scientists stressed a sense of urgency. The goal was adopted as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit).”

“World on ‘thin ice’ as UN climate report gives stark warning,” by Seth Borenstein and Frank Jordans, APNEWS, https://apnews.com/article/un-climate-change-report-ipcc-guterres-science-30d8451c0f3fb7b8a857e3ed4fd01172?fbclid=IwAR3EdVb52IH2-1aPe6QXZCQQYCNzceFbHlCxDbFj0abqmoxmE7bF9Kd_Z6o.

March 21

Say it aint so Joe

“Full-Blown Capitalism is not the Answer,” by Albert Einstein, WORKING CLASS HISTORY, https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2230476593804145/.

March 20

An update on the MNWP (Militarization and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation) problem

“Why China’s Actions Toward Ukraine and Russia Shape the Course of Future Geopolitics,” by John P. Ruehl, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/20/why-chinas-actions-toward-ukraine-and-russia-could-shape-the-course-of-future-geopolitics/?fbclid=IwAR1KCiSTsVogl9TyMrjGVfooK3kxDtRYqQd4tzUMTAqjkWe6PCfaxQIyVPU.

March 20

Yuk

“For 20 Years, Team Bush Has Escaped Prosecution for War Crimes in Iraq,” by Marjorie Cohn, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/for-20-years-team-bush-has-escaped-prosecution-for-war-crimes-in-iraq/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0_md1J9G2Xaij-NYECkZxQ81LA1cR9njVVRvwSxjePbWNMNAM1GVJkl3s.

March 19

Say it aint so Joe

“Child Labor is Back…with a Vengeance!,” by Eve Otttenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/17/child-labor-is-back-with-a-vengeance/?fbclid=IwAR1OkPvyrOm27s91T83zmLvb1jtFdCQ6MkonsZMFLoyF0I1N6kM8ep2g000.

March 16

Here’s a great video interview of Michael Hudson on what’s wrong with the USian economic modus operandi

“Why 3 US banks Collapsed in 1 week: Economist Michael Hudson explains,” YOUTUBE.COM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvm9qrXhqf8.

2 — A Posting by a Hypothetical Exonexus Observer from a Planet Beyond the Earthian Solar

The poor Earthian humans are enthralled, manipulated, and in various degrees controlled by their leaders in some two hundred countries aboard Spaceship Earth. The leaders became leaders because of being caused to be leaders by concatenations of unbroken cause-effect chains resulting after our universe started evolving some thirteen billion years ago in the infinity of time and space.

Leaders are generally products of the same sorts of differentiated configurations of cause-effect chains as differentiated followers and members in differentiated countries. All Earthian humans are all doing what they were caused to do in their daily lives starting at birth.

Earth as a planet was formed about 4.5 billion years ago and has undergone innumerable transformations in the meantime. Humanoid creatures have been aboard Spaceship Earth for some two million years, and they too have undergone numerous evolutionary changes.

Unfortunately, Earthian humans have now reached a precarious and dangerous stage in their evolution as biological creatures. After slowly evolving more and more accurate, complex, and powerful understandings, technologies, and ways of life for two million years on Earth, during the last two hundred years Earthian humans evolved new technological devices at exponential rates that enabled them to increase the overly-fecund Earthian human population of Earth so much that they now threaten not only to destroy their own existence as a species aboard Spaceship Earth but also the existence of most other species alive on Earth.

Keeping eight billion or so Earthian humans alive on Earth has required so many goods and services to be produced to satisfy human biological and psychological needs and wants and so much carbon-based fuel to be burned to produce the goods that the climate of Spaceship Earth has been altered by carbon dioxide gas released into the Earthian atmosphere in large-enough quantities to cause extra heat to be trapped on Earth causing the mean Earthian temperature to increase at a yearly rate that threatens to destroy Earthian human life as it now exists, within centuries, if not decades.

Unfortunately, Earthian humans cannot determine exactly how long this catastrophic scenario will take to unfold, even after an Internet search, since information sources show average Earthian temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit and use different base years, different assumptions about causes of rates of change, and changing rates of change in calculating average Earthian temperature.

However, one can build a case based on available Internet data that it will take over 35 years for the mean Earthian temperature to rise enough to cause the Earthian polar ice caps to melt causing enough sea level rise to displace billions of Earthian humans living on sea coasts and to cause enough decrease in food production to cause billions of Earthian humans to starve—if Earthian humans do not significantly change in the meantime their life scripts, technological processes, and political and economic systems.

Unfortunately, Earthian humans have developed technological knowledge that has enabled them to produce over 10,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy human life aboard Spaceship Earth if dropped and detonated on defined enemies around Spaceship Earth, as they have the capability to do.

Earthian countries dependent on fossil fuel energy in the short run are pitted in a zero-sum struggle for control of oil and gas supplies around Earth, with the two largest military nations on Earth possessing over ninety percent of the nuclear weapons now threatening one another in a war they started in a minor country, a pawn in their Earthian game of chess, a tissue-tearing psychological Game in this case called KING OF THE MOUNTAIN by Earthian humans, caused by egoistic leaders and top members of the two countries who are primarily concerned about maintaining and enhancing their personal power, wealth, prestige, lifestyles, and legacies.

Top leaders of one of these countries, fighting in the pawn country with non-nuclear weapons so far, have publicly declared they will fire and detonate some nuclear weapons if necessary to prevent their being defeated and humiliated in the war/Game started in the minor pawn country. Hopefully this is just a bluff in another reincarnation of the Earthian human psychological Game known as CHICKEN.  

As dangerous as this psychological high-stakes Game-playing is most Earthian humans find it stimulating, interesting, patriotic, heroic, and so forth in their nightly news, a release from the normal grind of their boring and banal daily routines and rituals, and their pastimes, jobs, activities, and intimacies.

The new war Game in the minor country is a helluva way to generate strokes, aka units of recognition, to get attention, to get recognized, stimulated, and affirmed, now that some Earthian human strokes, nuclear strokes, have become so powerful they can cause the elimination of all Earthian human strokes forever.

The probability of a MNWP catastrophe at any time has significantly increased in recent years.

3 — On Co-Constructing a Sustainable Long Run Earthian Political-Economic-Management System

Establishing democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth as recommended in the Effective Learning Publications novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases might develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that might help save Spaceship Earth. These ideas would filter up to randomly-selected humans who would count the consensual answers to make necessary changes. Consensual tactics, strategies, and policies would then be developed around Earth for dealing with the computerized Spaceship Earth management system, operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming and supercomputers.

Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming to implement bottom-up recommendations of millions of members in discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Each member of the group in charge of the codes for the magnum computer system would serve limited terms. These members would not vote or decide what to do. They would see to it that the computer system implemented the consensual answers of millions of Earthian humans from all walks of life, as determined by honest, free, fair, and frank democratic Game-free discussions in democracy chapters all around Spaceship Earth, as explained and shown in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. The overall objective would be to manage the system in such a way as to maximize the lifetime satisfactions of all Earthian humans, as well as all other species of life aboard Spaceship Earth, while insuring the indefinite functioning of all Spaceship Earth ecosystems.

Necessary moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum Management System that Earthian humans at the top would be obliged to obey. If changes should be made in the moral and ethical codes in the overall program they would be sent back to the Earthian democracy chapters for discussion and then tabulated and analyzed before algorithms programmed in the system would create changes in the MMS operating system.  

This Magnum Computerized Management System would require a strict system of security controls like the current codes of nations possessing nuclear weapons, hopefully providing security several magnitudes more secure than current nuclear codes, to make sure a madman could not get in control of any aspect of the Magnum Spaceship Earth Management System.

A management system such as this would significantly improve previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically empowered fickle, egotistical, greedy, power mad, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history caused by the unfair and indiscriminate inexorable tunneling out of Bad, OK, or Good Luck for hundreds, thousands, millions, or billons of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth at all times since time immemorial, resulting from the cosmic evolution commencing with the creation of the Universe some ten billion years ago.

A tough lesson for Earthian humans to accept propositioned in Effective Learning Publications books is that everything that happens in human states of affairs is either predetermined or accidental and therefore individuals are not to blame or praise for what happens in human states of affairs. This is easier to swallow after accepting that believing and acting otherwise will support and perpetuate the I’m OK—You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled, sabotaged, and undermined Earthian humans since time immemorial, making losers out of most of them.

About the only way significant numbers of Earthian humans can be caused to be significantly changed psychologically and socially by others is through democratic face to face discussions in honest serious and rigorous dialectical, dialogical, analogical arguing about facts using reasoning of all kinds, dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs.

What is considered natural, unnatural; normal, abnormal; right, wrong; ethical, unethical; righteous, sinful; worthy, unworthy; or sane or insane by a particular Earthian human is caused by information lodged in her/his brain caused to be lodged there by the concatenation of infinite cause-effect chains causing her/him to exist and slowly inch through the Earthian worm hole of existence inexorably tunneled out for her or him by her/his specific unbroken infinitely-regressing cause-effect chains inexorably-progressing throughout his/her infinitesimally short cosmic life, regardless of how Bad, OK, or Good that luck or fate might be as judged by any Earthian human; and all Earthian humans must keep on inching forward in their worm holes as best they can dealing with inevitable problems and opportunities caused to exist at that stage in their unique tunnels, as they are knocked around like balls in a pin-ball machine, as events inevitably and/or accidentally happen in their so-called real worlds, and in their subconscious and conscious minds, however Bad, OK, or Good their inherited Luck might have absolutely been, which cannot be proved, however easy it might be to relatively estimate.

It follows that changing the life scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, while considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.

Constructivism is considered relevant in Effective Learning Publications books recommended below, having been discussed in some detail in Business Voyages and listed as a source in the bibliographies of three books.

For more information on the use of Transactional Analysis  https://www.itaaworld.org/  to create better discussion groups and democratic processes read Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=born+to+learn++richard+john+stapleton#imgrc=6JdwDPzcAQ1kSM%253A

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

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=business+voyages+richard+john+stapleton

Read free “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 Earthian humans to develop an I’m OK—You’re OK life position. 

Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=as+the+rooster+crows+earthian+okness+increases#imgrc=ZY7nv3jiN9jMCM%253A

 This recently-published novel shows how to conduct a new kind of seminar invented and coordinated by Rout Logger, the protagonist of the novel, that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction that requires participants in a seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle. The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late. When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s beak to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.  Forty participants from all walks of life were paid $5000 monthly for participating in weekend seminars conducted in central city hotels in various cities randomly selected around the US. If randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment the participant had to define what s/he thought was the most important problem facing Spaceship Earth, present alternatives, and make a recommendation for change. What s/he said would then be discussed by members of the group on a free-flow first come-first serve basis. It was against the law of the seminar to interrupt speakers or raise hands to get permission to speak. Discussions lasted until they ran out of steam with most issues covered. The results of the discussions would be published to the wealthy donors financing the process and the Earthian public.

Rout Logger was convinced most Earthian humans would not volunteer to participate in this sort of seminar to merely help save Spaceship Earth from GWCC and/or MNWP using their Nurturing Parent, Adult, and Free Child Ego States, given the reality that their life time and energy was already programmed and consumed with various forms of withdrawal, rituals, pastimes, psychological Games, activities, and intimacy in their unique tunnels of reality, as they acted out their inherited life scripts; so they were paid $5000 per month to participate in a Game-free, Adult-Adult democratic seminar that would require them to honestly discuss existential problems with forty other participants from disparate walks of life, if they were randomly selected by the spinning Truther Rooster as the Leader of the Moment.

According to Effective Learning Publications books, achieving Earthian human sustainability entails such things as Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition (natural deaths exceeding births) 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, assuming sufficient quantities of non-human clean energy can be discovered and developed using mind grants.

The general algorithmic matrix algebra form below can help bring this state of affairs about,

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi,

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

This mathematical formulation might one happy day develop for Earthian humans power in economics loosely analogous to the power of E=mc2 in physics. This formulation, Max or Min CjXj, subject to, AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi, is a general form of the linear programming model, which has been around for many years in management science, operations research, and linear algebra courses.

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi symbolizes knowledge that gives the Earthian human species about as much potential power to perpetuate itself as Albert Einstein’s formula E=mc2 symbolizes knowledge that gives the Earthian human species the power to exterminate itself.

Riding aboard an airliner about to land at night traveling at four hundred miles an hour at thirty-five thousand feet with clouds, rain, wind, and lightning below, what would you rather have figuring out the path, speed, and angle of descent of the aircraft for touch-down, the plane’s auto-pilot, radar, and computer system or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows below but clouds and lightning?

The main reason why delegating the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI programs and magnum computers would be a good idea is that magnum computers and algorithmic AI programs do not get greedy and power hungry or play psychological Games. Thus far in Earthian human history most leaders and rulers atop large organizations such as nations have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological Games, acting out selfish greedy ego trips, hogging all the power, money, strokes, stimulation, and recognition they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies, leaving the hindmost to their underlings. Whatever their limitations and possible threats, algorithmic computer programs and super computers are not egotistical, greedy, and power-hungry.

Thanks to Buckminster Fuller for providing the above airplane-landing metaphor in his book Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, first published in 1969, and for planting seeds for other ideas in the essay “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,” published in the Effective Learning Report, such as computers being the best hope for mankind and humans not doing work machines can do better, being paid to think instead with what Fuller called mind grants. Fuller said unemployment all around Spaceship Earth could be eliminated overnight with mind grants. Buckminster Fuller was the inventor of the appellations Earthian and Spaceship Earth.   

Most Earthian humans like to win BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, to feel superior and lord it over others, regardless if Spaceship Earth is going to hell in a handbasket around them because of global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP), regardless of how much they have failed in other areas of their lives, and regardless of how heinous were crimes and misdemeanors they may have gotten away with in the process of amassing their riches, since they were saved, as it were, by taking in and controlling more almighty monetary units than other lesser mortals, saved, hallelujah, as if by Jesus, who forgave them their sins.

If you want to learn more about transactional analysis, such as Ego States, Scripts, and psychological Games, read Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.

Most Earthian humans know what it is to be egotistical, but they have little understanding of how specific human egotistical manifestations, such as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states, can be used to control and manipulate human behavior for nefarious ends.

One of the biggest egotists of Earthian human history, a narcissist, playing BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, is Donald Trump of the US. He is also a world-class liar and loser playing BALANCE SHEET, and he might go to jail for it, just like other political USian BALANCE SHEET psychological Game players in the US have, such as Georgia US representative, Bo Ginn, in 1995, and cotton farmer Billie Sol Estes of Pecos, Texas in 1965, who had political ties to the USian president from Texas Lyndon Johnson.

Trump psychologically told voters and bankers using his Parent ego state he was extorting votes and money from he was a stable genius and billionaire who could pay them back for their votes and loans. How many billions worth of a billionaire he was he never said, at least not to voters, arithmetic not being his strong suit; but it now appears it’s possible he’s no billionaire at all, using generally-accepted accounting principles and real market values, which he has refused to show since walking on the USian political stage for the 2016 presidential election. It’s possible he’s no kind of naire at all, not even a millionaire, having liabilities that exceed the market value of his assets, being close to bankruptcy.

It now appears as shown in recent public posts that Trump, his loyal Trump Organization lackeys, and his chosen loyal family members lied to bankers about his net worth to get loans, proving once again that “All that glitters is not gold.”

P.T. Barnum is said to have proved there’s a sucker born every minute. If so, Trump may have proved there’s a sucker born every second, in high and low places.

If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN, go to the Internet or any walk-in bookstore around Spaceship Earth and purchase or order one or more Effective Learning Publications books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the latest and probably most engaging Effective Learning Publications book, including an overview of USian economic history, including the Trumpian affair. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at Amazon.com for immediate unrestricted digital reading on any device as a Kindle book for $4.99. You can read it free at Amazon in a restricted KDP option.

For short run policies and strategies for dealing with USian economic and political problems read free the platform of the FreeFairProgressParty at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty/.

4 — A Democratic Earthian Game-Free Case Method Teaching and Learning Process for Producing Democratic Discussion, Learning, and Policy Formulation Around Spaceship Earth

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-Gamer™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively Game-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-Gamer would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-Gamer™. The psychological Game roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (April 7, 2023) been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian—39 anyway you see fit.

 

 

Why Words, Pictures, and Numbers Cannot “Prove” What the Truth “Is” in Dangerous Cases

By Richard John Stapleton

Ben Barnes, a Texas state legislator, was a crony of John Connolly and a major player in Texas politics. Connolly was a Texas governor and a USian Secretary of Treasury under Richard Nixon, who was shot in the front seat of the same car in Dallas, Texas as President Kennedy when JFK was assassinated in the back seat in 1963, and we still cannot “prove” who killed him.

I was working as an expediter and dispatcher in production control with an undergraduate degree in economics from Texas Tech University in a Litton Industries plant in Lubbock, Texas that assembled electronic components for USian military aircraft guidance and control systems one evening in 1965 when Barnes and Connolly came strolling through the plant shaking hands with everybody. The plant was put there by Tex Thornton, originally from Texas, the Litton Industries founder, and an ex-crony of USian president Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Both Thornton and McNamara were Harvard Business School graduates who worked as whiz kids in production control at Ford Motor Company. They were all flying high back in those days. I was hired at Litton by a Harvard Business School graduate, who fired me seven months later. He told me I was too sensitive to the needs of people for production control work, telling me I ought to get into something like personnel. He was generally right about this, and he did me a big favor firing me when he did from the ill-scripted Litton plant, saving me months and maybe years of wasted time. I learned a lot there in seven months that I did not want to know about how the Earthian economic and social system works. The HBS-educated fellow who hired and fired me left Litton Industries himself a few months later, taking a new job with the international management consulting firm Booze Allen Hamilton.

For more background on this case, go here https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/30/reagans-treason-two-bushes-and-the-23-million-payoff/?fbclid=IwAR1tl89rMRyeRhADt2-90ZHKmQUJyyT9e4wC2mAqNcYVFFSc9d1GinuGwcc

I had about decided this Bragg investigation was just another nothing burger like the pusillanimous Mueller, January 6th Committee, and Garland investigations, all sound and no fury. The Bragg investigation and indictment in the Manhattan District of New York have restored some of my previous respect for and faith in the USian rule of law. I had begun to think USian law-enforcers were very good at bullying, arresting, prosecuting, indicting, and imprisoning poor and hapless young black and white males and females for petty theft and drug selling but too cowardly to prosecute a dangerous older white male con artist with access to serious money and good lawyers such as the law-disrespecting playground bully Donald Trump. Hallelujah. Apparently, the Bragg investigators uncovered and developed facts they think prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the hush money paid to Stormy Daniel and at least one other woman was not merely to make sure Trump’s wife would not learn about another act of adultery on Trump’s part but to make sure information about this paid-for sexual act did not become public knowledge before the electors of the nefarious USian Electoral College cast their votes for the new USian president in 2016. If information about the Stormy Daniel case had become public knowledge before the electoral vote it’s possible that Trump would not have become a USian president. Evidently, these facts and this reasoning raised a misdemeanor offense to the level of a felony crime. We will have to wait and see to learn what these facts were as the trial proceeds and eventually learn whether Trump will be declared guilty of committing a felony crime by a jury of twelve Earthian humans who may or may not consider the facts and reasoning of the case real and relevant. It’s hard for Earthian human prosecutors to prove the truth of anything beyond a shadow of a doubt communicating with normal and abnormal Earthian humans and skilled highly-paid defense lawyers in a courtroom who can use all manner of irrelevant, hypothetical, and poorly-defined and misleading words, ego states, and scripts to manipulate fickle and obtuse jurors into voting in their favor. Furthermore, given the incessant broadcasting in public media of “stories” showing Trump’s morals, ethics, and behaviors, that untold millions of USians saw and heard, for over five years now, having had facts, pictures, and numbers poured into their eyes, ears, and minds about what was going on, it seems no rational human would ever dream of voting for Trump again. But, alas, this is not the case. While this indictment will cause Trump to lose voters, millions of his voters will vote for him again if they have the chance. There is no way anyone can prove what the truth is to these Earthian humans in this case. Given that this sort of human behavior has without doubt happened over and over throughout Earthian human history, is it any wonder that incredible injustice and incompetence have always existed in all countries around Spaceship Earth, and that Earthian humans are now faced with the possibility of their imminent extinction as a species, caused by GWCC and MNWP, Global Warming and Climate Change and Militarization and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation?

For more background on this case go here https://www.newzit.com/?ito=facebook_share_topstory&fbclid=IwAR09Q89m7KgE6XxpJK6X0vHAY92UPvB4TQA2FrpfjcmOOP61nqMeVUYGBvQ.

I’m not for “overthrowing” the existing economic and social order. I’m for evolving a better one, peacefully, ASAP. How to bring that about is the question. Violent revolution is not the answer. All violence in the form of all-out war does is temporarily tear down the existing economic and social order, doing no permanent good. Oligarchies just start over again rising from the ashes and evolve the same sort of top-down tyranny as the one that just got torn down, which is in turn also ultimately torn down. Unfortunately GWCC and MNWP in the current age may have made it inevitable that the existing Earthian economic and social order will be torn down one more time, but this time precluding the possibility of a new Earthian human economic and social order rising from the ashes, since Earthian humans will have been rendered extinct by GWCC and/or MNWP.

For more background on this case go to https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/31/novel-reflections-on-dickens-marx-bronte-zola-bernie-and-orwell/?fbclid=IwAR0Tr3Cg9IFw7Ztb3w66Mo85BEU3XIV4JsSqK5fjwQH1kQoHqmx3LkRnoYU.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA would spin the spinner of his Classroom De-Gamer™ in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

This process insured that everyone would be relatively Game-free transacting in class discussions. They all agreed to a learning contract at the outset of the course that they would read assigned cases and would be graded on the quantity and quality of ideas sold in the class market. Anyone caught obviously unprepared by the spinning De-Gamer would lose a whole letter grade from the course grade. No one could feel or think that s/he was being persecuted or rescued if selected to start the class discussion of the day by the Classroom De-Gamer™. The psychological Game roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim were largely banished from the course learning process.

Grades were based eighty percent on class participation in dialectical discussions about what to do about problems and opportunities found in cases; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write-up was an analysis of a case researched and written by professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in all functional areas of business such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK—You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal. He has published seven books and over one hundred articles in various media containing cases, research data, and essays on teaching and learning and management policies and practices.

Stapleton learned and trained using transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He was a Harvard Case Method teacher who never went to Harvard, having learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has a BS in economics (1962), an MBA in organizational behavior (1966), and a PhD in management science (1969) from Texas Tech University, and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis (CTA) from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

He taught his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five different elective case method courses each academic year (1970-2005), in which he led, coordinated, and graded about twenty-five or so students each year who took all or most of those case method courses in their junior and senior years, of about two hundred students who signed up for all his courses each year. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

His students agreed to a course learning contract that stipulated they would read the facts of the case before class and would lose a whole letter grade from the course final grade if the De-Gamer randomly caught them obviously not having read the case before class, if they had not slipped a note under his office door before class telling him they had not read the case, which they could do twice during the course without penalty.

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were few F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner.

He appreciated Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom by allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

He solicited anonymous longitudinal research data using questionnaires in 1992 showing his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the militaristic row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on memorizing or calculating  “right answers” for tests, indicating learners learning in Adult—Adult I’m OK—You’re OK Game-free democratic learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to and graded using so-called objective multiple-choice tests.  

Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study. The data are shown, analyzed, and discussed in full in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475). The data were also used in several refereed articles.

The ancient Greeks used a similar random-selection democratic process in the Third Century BCE to select leaders of political discussions, learning, and policy formulation in their halls of government. Such a process is called sortition.

For more information on related classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” in the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292.

Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations that weighted only instructor excellence scores up to 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://studysites.sagepub.com/holt/articles/Stapleton.pdf . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now April 2, 2023 been cited as a reference in 85 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including ten new citations since April S2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned in his book Tractatus Logico-philosophicus, “The case is all there is.”

If so, everything else said about Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.