THE EARTHIAN — 9

 

Effective Learning Publications, 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, May 26, 2019

OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW

By Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, Editor & Publisher

Hosted by the new bigger and hopefully better Georgia Southern University, resulting from a merger of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro and Armstrong State University in Savannah, recognizing donors to GA SO and Armstrong through the years, as members of the Lifetime Giving Society at Georgia Southern, my wife Debbye and I were invited to and attended a black tie gala event at the Perry Lane Hotel in Savannah Saturday evening May 18.

Per the current Georgia Southern University website:

“Now in its second century of service, Georgia Southern has close to 27,000 students, more than 2,000 faculty and staff, 141 programs of study at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels, and three vibrant campuses in Statesboro, Savannah and Hinesville.”

Approximately one hundred twenty donors to the two institutions came to the gala from various parts of Georgia and elsewhere. The program included greetings and speeches by Trip Addison, Vice President for University Advancement; Katharine Barrs, 1906 Scholar; Kyle Marrero, the first President of the new Georgia Southern; and Jill Forehand, Director of Donor Relations.

We were feted with an excellent dinner, wine, and drinks, with time for socializing on the roof of the hotel before and after dinner.

I especially enjoyed talking again with Nick Henry, one of the more effective presidents of Georgia Southern University during my tenure as a professor of business during 1970-2005. Nick ranks in a leadership class in my estimation with presidents Pope Duncan and Dale Lick as a mover, shaker, and builder of GA SO Univ.

There were six thousand students and no football team at Georgia Southern College when I came here from Texas Tech University in 1970, hired by Pope Duncan, an enthusiastic and inspiring leader and speaker, especially in his annual campus-wide faculty meetings, who called me into his office as president in 1972 about a memo I published in the business school as the acting head of the management department that wound up on his desk; and after I told him I knew damn well I was right and the others were wrong about how to teach business policy, he told me, “You may very well be right, but you have got to learn ‘It’s one thing to be technically correct and another matter to be politically correct’,” which I never forgot or learned, causing me to forget about being an administrator and take satisfaction in becoming one of the youngest full professors in GA SO Univ history at age thirty-six in 1976, approved by Pope Duncan, causing me to carry the mace as the senior professor of GA SO University at the spring graduation ceremony the year I retired as an emeritus professor, 2005, a senior professor being the professor during an academic year who got promoted to full professor further back in time than any other full professor at the university that year.  

Dale Lick and Erk Russell started football in 1983, causing a major spurt in enrollment, making it possible for GA SO College to achieve university status under the leadership of Nick Henry in 1990.

While I never stayed for long in a chain of command administrative position, I never gave up trying to improve the functioning of GA SO Univ and the effectiveness of teaching and learning in general. See my Games Educators Play page at the top of this page included in Debbye’s and my Effective Learning Company website, which we founded in 2006 after we retired at GA SO Univ.  Debbye is an emeritus assistant professor of mathematics at Georgia Southern. 

Our Games Educators Play webpage includes a discussion of and link to a Stapleton & Murkison article I published in the Journal of Management Education in 2001, titled “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations: A Study of Correlations Between Instructor Excellence, Study Production, Learning Production, and Effective Grades.”  

“Optimizing Fairness” is a refereed journal article containing data from student evaluations administered in the management department in 1996 and statistical analysis that is primarily concerned with the problem of how to fairly evaluate the productivity of university teachers, that has by now been cited as a reference in seventy refereed journal articles in several academic fields, from psychology to physics, including citations in the last few years, proving the article is still being read and used, easily verified by simply punching Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations into Google.

Research for Optimizing Fairness enabled me to convince GA SO Univ in 2000 to add study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the permanent (I hope) annual student evaluation form used campus-wide that provides data for faculty evaluations that generally eliminates unfair pernicious effects of inverse correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades. Excellent teachers are just like excellent producers in any field; they want to be recognized and rewarded commensurately to how much they produce, in the case of teachers, learning, not popularity. My CITP, Composite Indicator of Teaching Productivity, fully explained in Optimizing Fairness, can make this happen.

When only instructor excellence was measured and ranked on the student evaluation form, as was the case at GA SO up to 2000, I generally ranked in the bottom twenty percent of the department as a teacher. Based on a ranking of CITP scores –an average score derived from an equal weighting of Instructor Excellence, Study Production, Learning Production, and Expected Grades–I ranked in the upper ten percent of the department.  

Here is what Judith D. Fischer an associate professor in the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville writing in an article in Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute titled “The Use and Effects of Student Ratings in Legal Writing Courses: A Plea for Holistic Evaluation in Teaching,” had to say about “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

“A recent study by Stapleton and Murkison (2001) dramatically showed the limits of the term “valid” as applied in student ratings. Their study showed a positive correlation between student ratings and student-reported learning. But theirs was perhaps the only study to break down and report data by professor. Broken down that way, the data revealed that some instructors confounded the general trend: of the twenty-nine instructors studied, four who produced learning in the top half received ratings in the bottom half, while four who produced learning in the bottom half received ratings in the top half. Had personnel decisions been made on the basis of these data, with a cutoff at the median, four of the more effective professors would have been punished or dismissed, while four of the less effective ones would have been rewarded. This study highlights an important point about statistical data: an overall correlation between two variables does not mean that one variable is always correlated with the other in particular instances.

“Stapleton and Murkison did not attempt to explain why eight professors confounded the general pattern. But studies have demonstrated that a number of factors other than teaching effectiveness influence ratings (Fischer, 2004, pp. 123-124).”

Once again, to read the full “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” article, just scroll to the top of this page, open the Games Educators Play page, and click on an Optimizing Fairness link highlighted in red. That will take you to a full PDF copy including all data, charts, and analysis, prepared by Sage Publications, the publisher of the Journal of Management Education.

 

I spent most of my time at the gala talking with former students and colleagues, discussing what they had been up to and learning about their outstanding achievements.

This was the second GA SO Univ meeting I have attended that included people associated with the old GA SO and Armstrong State, and it seems to me things went well. Hopefully the merger will pan out in a synergistic way and both former institutions shall become more efficient, effective, and satisfying for all concerned combined than would have been the case had the merger not happened, and more academically excellent as well.

Some of the former GA SO Univ business students and colleagues at the gala are on the email list for my Effective Learning Report and were curious about how the Ogeechee Economic Forum is going.

I told them attendance had not been anything to write home about, no participants a couple of meetings, with three participants being the most of any month; but overall I considered it worthwhile.

Having a good serious Game-Free Adult democratic discussion about economics, politics, and the environment in general with just one person for one hour once a month makes the forum worthwhile for me, helping me understand better what is going on. Better than sitting at home reading articles on the Internet.

Hopefully participation in the forum will pick up, including people from all political persuasions and walks of life.

The major objective of the forum is to develop consensual policies and strategies for contemporary global problems and issues. It seems to me similar Game-Free Adult fully democratic forums should be set up everywhere all around Spaceship Earth to deal with the current precarious Earthian situation. Some scientists predict humans only have about ten more years of business as usual before global warming and climate change start to seriously take their toll.

It’s hard to believe human extinction could happen during the lifetimes of living humans. Current predictions of this nature are eerily similar to what end-timers have been saying for a long time, since the time when Jesus was alive. I sincerely hope they’re wrong again this time, but it seems to me factual data and evidence imply they could be right.

Like it or not, one positive aspect of global warming and climate change is that they have rendered war obsolete. Nations no longer need wars fought against other nations to create common enemies to create political cohesion and war making employment. All nations now have the same common enemy, the most threatening of Earthian history: Global Warming and Climate Change.

Instead of fighting other nations to satisfy the needs of their deep states all nations should bond together to fight global warming and climate change.

Read my book Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning       for details on how to set up Game-Free Adult democratic discussion groups for developing consensual policies and strategies.  

A former GA SO Univ business student at the Savannah gala, who did not take any courses from me, now a hospital administrator, told me he had thought about driving in for one of the Ogeechee Economic Forum meetings, from one hundred or so miles away. I told him to come on anytime, that I would be there if I announced the meeting to my email list, which he is on, during the week before the meeting. He asked me if I thought health care is a right or a privilege. I told him I thought it was a right.

Speaking of healthcare, as unlikely as it might seem, a former general studies student at GA SO Univ, who took the business school capstone business policy course under me, the course I added to the business school required core curriculum for all business majors in 1973, the beginning of the end of my administrative career, in which I used a Game-Free Adult democratic learning process, is now my cardiologist in Statesboro. He insisted during my first visit in his office a couple of years ago that I call him by his first name when I visit him from now on twice a year.

The May Ogeechee Economic Forum in Statesboro was cancelled since the forum meets the third Saturday of the month, barring my being out of town, sick, or something. The gala caused me to be out of town May 18, since it fell on a third Saturday of a month.

For more details regarding the Ogeechee Economic Forum, again, just scroll to the top of this page and click on the Ogeechee Economic Forum tab.

Several former students have told me they enjoy my writings in The Earthian and the Effective Learning Report and have encouraged me to keep it up. I intend to for a while, but I am not sure for how long, not for health reasons, considering my health is relatively good for a seventy-eight-year-old. Basically I am in good shape, according to my required semi-annual Medicare checkups. On the other hand, I have had five people, including a former student and a former colleague, tell me to take their names off my list for political reasons, which I did. 

Here’s a copy of a letter I recently emailed to a fellow Internet writer discussing these issues:

 

“I just checked the GoDaddy counter for my wife’s and my website and according to their count we had thirty-two visits yesterday. Sometimes there is a lag of a day or so before I notice any change in the normal visits per day brought about by new articles in my blog. The counter counts hits for the website as a whole, including the Effective Learning Report, which is one page of the Effective Learning Company website. We average about fifty visits per day, the highest daily total I have seen being 136 visits, aggregating about 20,000 visits per year. I think most of the visits or hits are for the Effective Learning Report.

“Your email from your professor about legal morality, a good piece of writing in my estimation, dedicating a lecture in your name, a high compliment to you, caused me to think deeper about the morality and wisdom of what I am doing with my blog, causing me to decide I should let you know as a moral person that I may stop publishing the blog at any time.

“I started the blog more or less just for the fun of it hoping it would produce some book sales and it might do some good in the world. If it has I can’t tell it, at least with book sales. I average selling about two books a month via Amazon.com, mostly Kindle ebooks, most sales from outside the US, about eight dollars a month in royalties. My wife generates more revenue in four hours of mathematics tutoring than I do all year in book sales.

“The blog is not a business, more or less a hobby, an ego trip. I do not sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit or accept donations, or solicit article submissions. 

“Basically I have said about what I wanted to say in the blog, and there is no way at my age I can make the blog into a seriously influential source of news or analysis or a profit-making business. If I continue I do not foresee a meaningful increase in readers or impact and cannot imagine making any changes in the blog or its processes that would significantly make much difference. The older I get the worse my writing will get due to memory problems and poor judgment. As the saying goes, ‘There is no fool like an old fool.’  

“So why keep it up? Why not quit now while I’m ahead? The only rational response is just for the personal satisfaction.  

“So far I have not received any serious criticisms or threats because of what I have written and/or published in the blog. Five people have told me to remove their names from my email list, which I did, from a list of 179 at present. Most people on the list probably do not open the email web addresses for the blog and website events, and, like most people, just do not give a rip about anything but the needs and entertainment of themselves, their families, and their immediate circle of friends. Thinking, learning, and worrying about all species of fauna and flora aboard Spaceship Earth is above their pay grade.

“I have worried to some extent from the git-go of my blog about the possibility that sooner or later I would write and/or publish something that would seriously threaten or piss off someone in the deep state or the elite rich or a hate group that would cause serious problems and losses. I have read bloggers are generally safe from the deep state and the elite rich and hate groups if almost nobody reads their blogs; but it seems to me there is always some risk no matter how unsuccessful they are attracting eyeballs on the Internet that something they write and/or publish will strike a nerve in someone and cause serious trouble, requiring cash for a legal defense or medical bills or a funeral.

“I read a writer on the Internet last week living in Australia who said that while she felt successful with her blog and her writing thanks to selling subscriptions and advertising and soliciting donations via PayPal and Patreon her main satisfaction was helping save the world. That helping save the world bit appeals to me too, but, still, is publishing the blog worth it?  

“It’s getting about time for me to write, edit, and publish another issue of The Earthian, the ninth one. I’ll probably do it, at least one more time.

“But maybe not.

“Don Quixote may hang up his spurs, armor, and lance after the eighth and last issue of The Earthian, and put his horse Rocinante out to pasture.”

 

Here is how the writer responded to my above letter:

“As a follow up to our exchanges I honestly believe that you have no need to fear for anything published and I can explain why.

“Albeit, my biographical note indicates the threats made against me there were specific cases and situations why those occurred. At one stage I was directly litigating against a British monopoly telecommunications company and threating their illegal charges. I did succeed to break the monopoly and have the unlawful charges removed and lawful charges introduced. The other scenario related to my defence of 140 Chinese workers. So, you can see the specifics there.

“In our situation, like most bloggers around the world opinions are being expressed not unlike what many bloggers do elsewhere ( just check the internet and you will see views from ultra left to right posted each day).

“The deep state is concerned with attacking those who are effectively influential and substantially impacting their misdeeds. Such an example is Julian Assange. He has done unprecedented things in exposing the state’s wrongdoings. Seth Rich, the DNC leaker is another example.  Thus, he was  targeted. Likewise, Chelsea Manning is another such example. Nothing you or I do or say is remotely of concern to the powers that be.

“Trouble not thyself. There is nothing to fear.”

 

 

So, here I am one more time, with one more issue of THE EARTHIAN  – 9, one more time as our legendary football coach at GA SO Univ, Erk Russell, used to say about the next football game.

We live in precarious times, but it will do little good to play AIN’T IT AWFUL, a psychological Game identified and labeled by transactional analysts in which psychological Game players collect strokes by constantly complaining about the evils and troubles of the cold cruel world, positioning themselves as Victims of obsolete economic, religious, and political systems manipulated and exploited by greedy self-interested power-mad sociopathic oligarchs and leaders and their corrupt bought and paid for lackeys, especially lobbyists and politicians, however true that might be in many cases in reality.

Yet, it seems to me humans regardless of this should discuss relevant economic, political, environmental, social, and psychological problems in Adult Game-Free ways to develop consensual bottom-up policies and strategies, and the more groups around Spaceship Earth the better, which increases the odds of developing workable and cooperative approaches for staving off the dire consequences of global warming and climate change. 

It will do no good for Earthians to stick their heads in the sand to passively pretend everything is just hunky-dory and swell, with everything coming up roses for everyone, living in small imaginary Candide-like best of all possible worlds, playing a psychological Game labeled GREENHOUSE by transactional analysts, in which players are rewarded with plastic (fake) strokes (units of recognition) for making nonsensical positive cheerful upbeat comments about the environment and political, economic, social, and psychological states of affairs.

Regardless of the myriad causes of the Earthian plight, it seems to me individual humans should assume responsibility and take action for conserving energy as best they can in their daily lives to reduce greenhouse gases and the effects of climate change; but especially they should help select politicians who will vote for economic and political policies and strategies that will help correct environmental, economic, political, social, and psychological problems on a mass scale, before it’s too late.  

 

For at least two centuries humans have lived under the illusion that technology and labor-saving devices, new chemical applications in agriculture (fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides), and new scientific discoveries of all sorts would enable them to live happily ever after, while producing as many offspring as they wished, thereby increasing the world human population without limit, despite the admonitions of humans like Thomas Malthus, an English parson, who published in 1798 in an essay titled “An Essay on the Principle of Population” what became known as the Malthusian Concept, namely that human population grows geometrically while the human food supply grows arithmetically, and therefore most humans were doomed to suffer food shortages, poverty, subsistence living, and premature deaths.  Up until the last few years economists have generally taught that Malthus was wrong, arguing that technology, chemical agriculture, better seeds, and better irrigation would enable an ever-increasing human population to be adequately fed and housed. Unfortunately it now appears that Malthus was right after all. World hunger, poverty and misery are increasing, even in the United States; and, even worse, it appears that some forms of technology, far from helping humans, has led them down a path to possible extinction, including electricity and the internal combustion engine used to power billions of cars, trucks, motorcycles, riding lawn mowers, tractors, airplanes, boats, ships, houses, refrigerators, central heating and cooling systems, factories, computers, and what have you around Earth, requiring the burning and ignition of many millions of barrels, cubic feet, and tons of fossil fuel (oil, gas, and coal) every day as an energy source, the burning of which is causing global warming and climate change by putting ever more tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. All forms of technology are not good things; and humans have to learn how to use good technology instead of bad technology, however horribly addicted to bad technology they may be; and the Earthian human population should be peacefully reduced through natural attrition, natural deaths exceeding births, thereby reducing the need to deplete resources necessary to sustain the Earthian human population in the short run, cognizant of long run consequences. Bringing that about will require many different kinds of changes not only in the behavior of human individuals but especially in the behavior of large human institutions controlled and manipulated by deluded power-mad self-interested sociopaths. The situation is especially ominous when one considers that if humans were to give up all their addictions to bad technology cold turkey they would immediately cause an economic and political catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, possibly extinction. Humans are cornered or trapped in a Global Catch-22 or Gordian Knot–in a damned-if-they-do-and-damned-if-they-don’t situation–and there are no easy answers for getting loose.

 

Here is a website developed and maintained by Guy McPherson who gave me the idea for the Catch-22 analogy above.  McPherson has a similar idea based on pure science positing that if humans were to somehow eliminate all greenhouse gases tomorrow that would guarantee a quick extinction, since some carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is necessary to shield Earth from the sun’s rays, despite the fact the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now is too high, trapping heat. In other words he says Earth needs some carbon dioxide in its atmosphere for cooling, and that removing all of it would cause Earth to heat up immediately to a level that would in short order destroy the human food chain. So the solution would be to remove just enough carbon dioxide to keep Earth’s temperature at a Goldilocks level.

McPherson is an emeritus professor of earth sciences at the University of Arizona who has written several books about global warming and climate change. His big idea is that we probably really are in the endtimes, and the only thing that remains is love.

He retired from university teaching and research early and lived off the grid for ten or so years in a mud hut in New Mexico with his wife, hoping to serve as a role model for others, which he now says was a big mistake. Not only did he not attract any followers and accomplished nothing that might alleviate global warming, he gave up over a million dollars in salary he would have earned had he remained a professor. He now makes a living writing and publishing books and giving talks. This guy is one of a kind, pun intended, a qualified ethical competent scientist who presents radical arguments and conclusions about global warming and climate change, which are not recommended for young children or tender minded adults.

My longtime friend William John Cox from Wolfforth, Texas in the 1950s, a former attorney, now a social activist and writer, introduced me to Guy McPherson by forwarding me some of his videos, telling me they were too depressing for widespread circulation but they contained information we needed to know for planning the rest of our lives.

 

Unfortunately, it seems human Earthians continue to fight irrelevant futile battles for short run gains while losing the relevant war for long run sustainable satisfying living.

For more information regarding the use of Transactional Analysis to create better discussion groups and democratic processes read my book Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.

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

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

TO RESPOND:

As usual this month’s THE EARTHIAN  links and cites as SOURCES recent articles written and published by clear deep-thinking hard-hitting independent writers in various Internet publications on ecological, economic, social, political, religious, and military affairs around Spaceship Earth.  I generally agree with these writers about what is most relevant about Spaceship Earth states of affairs, but each of them brought up facts, analyses, conclusions, ideas, or perspectives that were new to me when I read them during the last thirty days or so, thereby teaching me something, which is why I included them in this issue of THE EARTHIAN.  

It’s not easy, impossible some say, to separate relevant from irrelevant focal points in order to comprehend global cases, systems, and processes, while being inundated with fake news and true facts of states of affairs generated daily around Spaceship Earth, made public on the Internet, and elsewhere, to see what’s really going on, using primarily inductive and analogical reasoning, based on probability, not irrelevant authoritarian make-believe certainty, to be memorized and obeyed by sheeple.

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways economic and political problems and opportunities in something like the Ogeechee Economic Forum go to our RESPONSES page by scrolling to the top of this page and click on it.

Feel free to respond with comments about any of the SOURCES listed below using our RESPONSES page; but please refrain from making ad hominem attacks. Criticize any of the facts, data, evidence, reasoning, and conclusions in any of the articles; but please refrain from slandering the characteristics of the authors to illogically try to prove their arguments and conclusions are wrong and yours are right.

After all is said and done, in economic, political, social, and psychological states of affairs it seems to me one can build a case that “right” answers do not exist; and peaceful consensual answers developed among differentiated individuals, groups, and organizations are as good as they get. Since all individuals, groups, and organizations are caused to be what they are by the same kinds of infinitely-regressive, accidental, inevitable, inexorable, ineluctable, unbroken cause-effect chains, they are equally legitimate with an equal right to exist, and none should be blamed or praised for being what they are, however much their feelings, thoughts, decisions, and behaviors should change, to create fairness and satisfaction for all.

I have no desire to sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit donations for THE EARTHIAN, but I would like to sell more books. If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN and would like to reciprocate scroll to our Effective Learning Publications page at the top of this page and purchase one or more copies of my books. 

Best wishes, RJS

SOURCES:

May 24, 2019

What a can of worms.

“How Many Times Must Assange Be Proven Right Before People Start Listening?” by Caitlin Johnstone, MEDIUM, https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-many-times-must-assange-be-proven-right-before-people-start-listening-61229805a3d8?fbclid=IwAR2Jcgh-bh4vBoRrC90T-Ql1H_nh01u4Doac7t0rjsOmneP7SgOt39Ri0Yw.

May 24

Maybe they’re both crazy, and both should resign. Too bad we don’t have a parliamentary form of democracy like the Brits do. Look at what happend to May today. It’s easy to get rid of an incompetent British top executive leader. Not so in the US. A president is more like a king for four years than a prime minister. You’ve got to impeach him in the House and convict him in the Senate, a very lengthy drawn out affair that probably won’t work in the end. Pelosi is right about that.  

“Trump, Pelosi trade insults as their feud heats up,” by Laurie Kellman and Zeke Miller, ASSOCIATED PRESS, https://apnews.com/ce08485cee37470db8983b8bd06c40a0?fbclid=IwAR1753Yr4UPSsiomqfE_muVn1OC7gWbv23Dty5VnXssmFMPT1nCZCVdBdm8.

May 24    

This shows why the British form of parliamentary democracy is better than our kind of so-called democracy in the US: they can easily get rid of their prime minister, their top executive leader. Wish we could do that in the US. Thanks to our constitution our president is more like a king than a prime minister, at least for four years. You can’t get rid of a US president at the drop of a hat, quick and easy like the Brits can get rid of a prime minister. Also they can get a new prime minister infinitely quicker and easier, with much less money wasted, than we can get a new president. Their system of selecting top executive leaders is much more efficient and effective than the US system of selecting presidents. Trump would not have survived six weeks as a prime minister. Anyone but me for switching to a parliamentary democracy?

“THE END OF MAY:  Theresa May RESIGNS and finally admits defeat after Brexit shambles insisting ‘I’ve done my best’,” by Hugo Gye and Natssha Clark, THE SUN, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9144415/theresa-may-resigns-brexit-tory-leadership-election/,

May 24       

Sounds like real reality.

“Democracy vs. The Putin-Nazis,” by C.J. Hopkins, THE UNZ REVIEW, http://www.unz.com/chopkins/democracy-vs-the-putin-nazis/?fbclid=IwAR26edk7OFJALTRmAWQUyAutrpK8cIGQzZPr7-Z23sFTV_cyXukGPT4QJ-o.

May 24  

Hopefully not going from bad to worst.

“Mississippi Floodway May Be Opened, Unleashing 17 Million Liters Of Water Per Second,” by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-23/close-trigger-levels-mississippi-floodway-may-be-opened-unleashing-17-million?fbclid=IwAR2-HQD7FO4H9PNqW4U0TsEMc8z6uIJNz8Faj06gDObQ6TPVsjOwX-c9FS8.

May 23 

But people would rather focus on Russian meddling in the last presidential election; the truth telling of Snowden, Manning, and Assange; and abortions, thereby sticking their heads in the sand. 

“Money, media and the climate crisis: Immediate action is needed to save the furture,” by John Scales Avery, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27092

May 23

Smart article about a taboo subject problematic for most people most of their lives one way or another.

“The disparity behind anti-abortion laws:  Laws restricting reproductive freedom come out of a culture that doesn’t see women’s sexuality as equal to men’s,” by Jill Richardson, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27095.

May 24

World class hypocrisy. Ok if we do it; not Ok if anybody else does it.

“Living in a Nation of Political Narcissists,” by Tom Engelhardt, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/23/living-in-a-nation-of-political-narcissists/?fbclid=IwAR3oPmbPKNBrDRfgIX3VPOtWsWqDCUvqzy1dMjLo0H2vVWQx3uHLgfbFcCE.

May 24

Right on

“What and Who Gave Us Trump,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTER PUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/23/what-and-who-gave-us-trump/?fbclid=IwAR1jUcuMIyR9LOKLkHvpP0Q6YAUqrSToiHnvh5Bb_xTq5dMN6ImpR_iTPwQ.

May 25

Sounds about right to me.

“The Belligerence of Empire,” by Kenn Orphan, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/23/111852/?fbclid=IwAR0JZ0L-GuCf7CrLUdHWMQSgiJXPZfXkadGhm_254iCnDNRfcb2Up-bELkk.

May 23

About the only good news I have seen lately.

“Warren and Sanders Refuse to Cozy Up to Wall Street Donors,” by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/warren-and-sanders-refuse-to-cozy-up-to-wall-street-donors/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR15b-5lIZp3qeZrJOOU4cwJ659QQLAN67xWebUawJkBeL_SKsVh_UshBM4.

May 23

Sounds like a Third World Country.

“Trump’s War on the Constitution Has Reached a Breaking Point,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-war-on-the-constitution-has-reached-a-breaking-point/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR3OkrEJPFVYq08xhxncU0786lDLx5X6mnY5eces8GXC9LHogTTf_P4QYN8.

May 23

Scary

“Abortion Bans and the Beast the GOP Would Feed Us To,”  Kelly Hayes, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/abortion-bans-and-the-beast-the-gop-would-feed-us-to/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR3LE0wlmrZ9WXib51UaTkeNqHOA958Kco4UE8TnG2c3g1l1Jrpav-6G0hc .

May 23

Saving democracy is not easy anywhere.

“Deadly Protests Erupt in Indonesia as US-Trained Generals Wage War on Democracy,” by Allan Nairn, Democracy Now, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/video/deadly-protests-erupt-in-indonesia-as-us-trained-generals-wage-war-on-democracy/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR3Co9UhZlE3Tb3mNDz0JmVY90YHBL5S_DNdsY8YWs0hMW9MpufRfdpsUbg.

May 23

The Assange case indicates that bullies rule the US deep state.  

“Julian Assange hit with 18 federal charges in new indictment,” by Stefan Becket, CBS NEWS, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/julian-assange-indicted-on-18-federal-charges-related-to-wikileaks-release-of-chelsea-manning-docs-today-2019-05-23/?fbclid=IwAR0LFuUjMAzRlob5Lh5UkNu32r38Lrv6DDWmfzn0M_VrcD0qR25BX7fjglk.

May 23

Interesting but questionable. What was especially interesting to me were the off the chart racial statements of George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill shown in quotes in the article.

“The Origins of the Deep State in North America, Part III,” by The Duran, https://theduran.com/the-origins-of-the-deep-state-in-north-america-part-iii/.

May 23

Right on. Go direct democracy and Buckminster Fuller.

“Direct Democarcy Is the Future of Human Governance – Part 1,”  by Michael Krieger, LIBERTY BLITZKREIG, https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2019/05/21/direct-democracy-is-the-future-of-human-governance-part-1/?fbclid=IwAR02gUCQAwZjp_XGvAPFaP4sq3_Vs5NBAa0StlL2krsuPywSoLByNNgyQI

May 23

We almost never had tornados here in Southeast Georgia and the infrequent ones were weak, but they are getting stronger. The climate here has changed. This one in Missouri looks like a monster.

“‘It Felt Like An Earthquake’:  Violent Tornados Tear Through Missouri, Leaving 3 Dead,” by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-23/it-felt-earthquake-violent-tornados-tear-through-missouri-leaving-3-dead?fbclid=IwAR3nA91GHFh9bzvXeJZC49cGUDwDmPXxb_ZNKo42wiAwgWmcHOj9AHG2Q_A.

May 22

What happened to Trump’s booming economy?

“US PMIs Crash As Business Confidence Collapses to 7 Year Lows,” by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-23/us-pmis-crash-business-confidence-collapses-7-year-lows?fbclid=IwAR0aapdyDf60fF7sSzo7WeONWd1m0ufEywb_b7cGt01Ld_DwPew0yqNPd1Y.

May 22

Scary alright

“Distance yourself from US Iran policies or be responsible for the next catastrophe in the Middle East,” by Jan Oberg, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27084.

May 22

Pathetic

“The retrograde South,” by Wayne Madsen, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27087.

May 22

Could not agree more.

“A US War on Iran Would be Evil, Stupid, and Self-Degrading,” by Thomas Knapp, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/22/a-us-war-on-iran-would-be-evil-stupid-and-self-damaging/?fbclid=IwAR1Tu4PAKJolU2OG2NjUz6Ael9roZD_ghEi2oLie-mxUsBQM_mEHkd4_isA.

May 22

Socialism at its worst. No market. No competition. No transparency. No accountability.

“Vicious Cycle:  The Pentagon Creates Tech Giants and Then Buys their Services,” T. J. Coles, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/22/vicious-cycle-the-pentagon-creates-tech-giants-and-then-buys-their-services/?fbclid=IwAR1Un_PDM_wAX9nBZuuM2yZ3MgZJwsbSvzsCVHrWhTzucV2AhTusJHwoNXs.

May 20

Faculty ideologies my ass. Any faculty member worth her or his salt in any field does not believe in ideologies, only facts, data, and reasoning. If students are moving more into physical science and math and engineering it’s job related, maybe fully justified given the need to make a living in a world descending into a fascist military authoritarian dystopia where everything is black or white, provably true with math, or pure drivel dressed up as dogma and doctrine to be memorized or else. Only deductive reasoning will be valued; analogical reasoning based on probability will be irrelevant when the AIs take over.

“Why Students Are Fleeing the Humanities,” by Phillip W. Magness, AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH, https://www.aier.org/article/why-students-are-fleeing-humanities?fbclid=IwAR3A1fGhehoQuok8P7HaMShatLGno9Jh1GE15RIZN_mU3xkkaTDwvTiJnuk.

May 20

Another truth telling article by the best writer alive, Paul Street.

“It’s Even More Terrible Than You Thought,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/17/its-even-more-terrible-than-you-thought/?fbclid=IwAR1yQfwAoBcTAqPFwPWf6-ZfeuCVyefMlFSKz80OUgazJRYynFLyYMUm01g.

May 20

Tulane wants all their graduates to become workaholics like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Computer Company. How special.

“Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Message to 2019 Graduates: ‘My Generation Has Failed You’,” by Tim Cook, OBSERVER, https://observer.com/2019/05/apple-ceo-tim-cook-tulane-2019-commencement-speech-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR0mvk9paFeHI3L1VC0GbjBtWJ8Yrdpi7yXJveOuGKKtSsVENelx3CKuxKM.

May 20

A worst case scenario.

“The Pompeo-Bolton tag team from hell,” by Renee Parsons, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27061.

May 20

Not fake news

“The Violent History of the Venezuelan Opposition,” by Valerie Reynoso, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/20/the-violent-history-of-the-venezuelan-opposition/?fbclid=IwAR1hT6G3BEfFbz5dv3BWakYlzgs3t9QTcsqEzaapDB7dIMIV21sUrVACStY.

May 20

Say it aint so Joe in this dystopian world.

“From the Middle East to Northern Ireland, Western States are All Too Happy to Avoid Culpability for War Crimes,” by Robert Fisk, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/20/from-the-middle-east-to-northern-ireland-western-states-are-all-too-happy-to-avoid-culpability-for-war-crimes/?fbclid=IwAR0BcMT6LvEbnZu1mQw9XnLhJDflpGCGSO__cj4VfHjYkGmwZlUauEWgBcU.

May 20

Here are some sanctions the US has used to sabotage and destroy Venezuela.

“Vast gasoline lines form in oil-rich Venezuela,” by Scott Smith and Sheyla Urdaneta, AP, https://apnews.com/5d179369e9e04ab693886bab1e47dab6?fbclid=IwAR0ulWfnX1fi1dAh3AKVUQlDJOqn6xIFRepj4NWtIb0AOWFAaeO1AufflH0.

May 20

Dangerous and provocative rhetoric. Let’s hope Trump does not run his big mouth one time too many one of these days

“Trump warns Iran not to threaten US or it will face ‘end’,” AP NEWS, by Nasser Karimi and John Gambrell, APNEWS, https://apnews.com/e46d3bdff2bd48d9a6a87a6752e6be6f?fbclid=IwAR2RXYztQheMMY-8oDoRWkfE_f7T4H38z8MmPt6-ENoMbWWdpVMezI94Hnc.

May 19

Say it aint so Joe

“Drivers beware:  The deadly perils of traffic stops in the American police state,” by John W. Whitehead, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27044.

May 17

Only here in Georgia is it growing.

“As reactors shut in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, nuke war rages in Ohio and New York,” by Harvey Wasserman, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27016.

May 17

Could not agree more.

“The tariff issue,” by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27019.

May 17

Why not?

“The Green Party’s Big Chance: Endorse, and Defer to, Bernie Sanders,” by Keaton Weiss, DUEDISSIDENCE.COM, https://duedissidence.com/2019/05/08/the-green-partys-big-chance-endorse-and-defer-to-bernie-sanders/?fbclid=IwAR1dHDeORyrbqg8pxKNYQFeqQc_fdDY6iRq_yGuVSoyWCyjQIk-ym02xAUU

May 16

Just a distraction to keep the sheeple of the US entertained. Best summary of the current US plight I have read recently

“Russia-gate’s Monstrous Offspring,”  by Daniel Lazare, CONSORTIUM NEWS, https://consortiumnews.com/2019/05/14/russiagates-monstrous-offspring/?fbclid=IwAR3EPG-25t1-KfZ1kqbWjSaRJ5hj1iRdZWrpVEnx9rQ67cdgh31zoaKBY7Y.

May 16

Not for the squeamish.

“Truth Bomb on Abortion and the ‘Sanctity of Life’,” by George Carlin, video, https://www.facebook.com/ResonantMuse/videos/2766871893386010/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDM0OTY1MTE4NjoyMzEyODQyMTE1NDA0MDg4/.

May 16

Nice guys, we USians

“Freedom Rider: U.S. wages war against the world,” by Margaret Kimberley, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/27031.

May 14

“CO2 Levels Hit 415 Parts Per Million for First Time in Over 3 Million Years,” by Jan Queally, Common Dreams, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/co2-levels-hit-415-parts-per-million-for-first-time-in-over-3-million-years/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR0cOQhZIuVf-M9mNx0ET1aH5zhQY5HXqCUoFBENPfx0OyE7-Sj2JrJkF0Y.

Yuk

MAY 14

Hope he’s right.

“Noam Chomsky explains how Bernie Sanders’ movement can beat Trump in 2020,” by Rachael Revesz, video intermiew, THE INDEPENDENT, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-noam-chomsky-supporters-labour-movement-racism-unions-wages-a7459126.html?fbclid=IwAR1PX1SA7WnQoH26tTzj2ibOX5kmACfzdPrTIGeDJ1wTnQ1aXjDIKIX6668.

May 14

Want to hear Iran’s side of the story?

“US and Israel fabricating lies to provoke war with Iran: Ex-CIA officer,” MSN.COM, https://www.msn.com/en-xl/middleeast/middleeast-top-stories/us-and-israel-fabricating-lies-to-provoke-war-with-iran-ex-cia-officer/ar-AABe6zT?li=BBJGzsi&ocid=mailsignout&fbclid=IwAR1r5-ZXobESiXxPNw8Bx7PZtmu1DIcTHSl2itdnbMI1SMF-Oc6qhjbDeJU.

May 13

Sounds right to me.

“D is for a Dictatorship Disguised as a Democracy,” by John W. Whitehead, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/13/d-is-for-a-dictatorship-disguised-as-a-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR3E6xXDV0ClwKuQsVQB8WXJWmKEUtsb6oo29RzkGwC2uuwgz_OiuEUp85Q.

May 13

Another race to the bottom.

“After the Retail Apocalypse, Prepare for the Property Tax Meltdown,” by Laura Bliss, CityLab, POCKET WORTHY, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/13/d-is-for-a-dictatorship-disguised-as-a-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR3E6xXDV0ClwKuQsVQB8WXJWmKEUtsb6oo29RzkGwC2uuwgz_OiuEUp85Q.

May 12

I just published in the Effective Learning Report another empirically-based article by Courtenay Barnett on US international economic, political, and military policies. As this article shows at the root of the matter most US foreign policies are driven by a desire to plunder an inordinately large share of Earthian resources, primarily oil. According to Craig Murray, a former UK ambassador to Usbekistan, now a whistle blower, social activist, and journalist, the same goes for the UK. Murray is now a significant player internationally, as a Google search will show, not quite in a league yet with Snowden, Manning, and Assange, but he’s getting there.

“The Basis for President Trump’s ‘Rational’ Global Political and Economic Policies,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-basis-for-president-trumps-rational-global-political-and-economic-policies/.  

May 11

According to my friend Ruth McKinnon this website is not the best, sometimes trafficking in conspiracy theories. If this is one it’s an interesting one, and it does have a basis in historical fact. It shows how much of Earth’s geography white English-speakers took over.

“The Origins of the Deep State in North America Part II,” by Matthew Ehret, THE DURAN, https://theduran.com/the-origins-of-the-deep-state-in-north-america-part-ii/.

May 11

Here is an illuminating video with a great suggestion: that it’s better to be dis-illusioned than to be illusioned. A father, a medical doctor, psychologist, and author, talks with his son, a social activist, interviewer, and video producer, about Donald Trump and what caused people to vote for him. The father says Trump was traumatized as a child by a demeaning father.

“This Talk Between Aaron & Gabor Mate is the Best Political Video I’ve Ever Seen, by Caitlin Johnstone, MEDIUM, https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/this-talk-between-aaron-gabor-mat%C3%A9-is-the-best-political-video-ive-ever-seen-c8caf4dd7a46?fbclid=IwAR3R7ib7ZHrDSn1En6Df0CDp7bz-r_IJvX_lMjsDoclx27bIkYXOmfxQ3Gw

May 10

The following video includes an interview with Craig Murray, a Scottish former ambassador of the UK in Usbekistan who became a whistle blower exposing human rights violations by the Usbekistan government and UK war crimes in Iraq, giving his view of the Julian Assange fiasco.

Here is what I recently emailed a friend who decided some of the same things as Craig Murray:

“It never occurred to me there would be indelible information left on the DNC computers that could be retrieved if Seth Rich used a memory stick to download the damaging to DNC information allegedly hacked by the Russians. You are the first source I have known to bring up the possibility. It did not occur to me that the DNC computers were not fully investigated. If they were not why not? If not does this not imply the whole Mueller thing is a sham, and the deep state assumes sheeple will lap up anything they deign to tell them, and the Assange cart before the horse trial has been predetermined as best they can, and they assume none of us Independents would dare seriously challenge them for fear of retaliation no matter what they do? As demo senator Chuck Schumer said, “These people (the CIA) have six ways to Sunday to get back at you.” I also did not know if the CIA finds out something with a wiretap it cannot be used in court. I scan-read every page of the redacted Mueller report and saw nothing about a technical investigation of the DNC computers that included details as minute as memory stick usage, as I recall, which is not much. It seems to me the Mueller Report will have an outcome similar to the Warren Commission report on JFK, becoming another conspiracy theory for non-believers and another whitewash for sheeple, covering up DNC corruption in this case. As for Assange I pity him.”

.“Dark Moment for Press Freedom: World Reacts to Assange Arrest,” A U Tube video making public a serious interview with Craig Murray, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DroYJW6Q70.    

The first time I checked out the Craig Murray video above there was an interview of Chelsea Manning in a video immediate following Murray at the same site, but which did not appear the second time I checked the site. Apparently they are presenting a variety of videos on this subject after Murray. After the second time I checked the Murray video a Fox So-called News roundtable discussion of right wing male talking heads and blonde pretty-legged females in short dresses ensued. So I went to Google and tried to find the Chelsea Manning interview that had followed Murray. I could not find it. It was a long video interview via a skype interview of Chelsea Manning emanating from a well attended opera house in Australia, showing Earthians what Manning is really like. The video is well worth a look and listen if you can find it. Chelsea Manning is an intelligent conscientious human being, not a nutcase as most USians probably think. The interviewer gets into a discussion of the causes that caused her to become what she is that shows where she is and wants to go, and why she did what she did. US mainstream media have done an excellent job of suppressing knowledge in the US of what Manning is really like, at least in my case. The missing video was the first presentation I had seen that showed what Chelsea Manning is really like. You can find numerous interviews of Chelsea Manning with a Google search, but nothing I wager as effective as the missing video. On the other hand, this U tube site is very eclectic, apparently frequently changing whatever appears behind Murray. Be sure and check out whatever video they rotate in after Craig Murray. Most of them are quite illuminating. Even the Fox so-called News video was interesting in the sense it showed the disparity in what USians are be shown and told and what Earthians outside the US are being shown and told. Hang in there a few moments after the Craig Murray video ends for another possibly illuminating video that will appear on the site. Maybe the Chelsea Manning video will recycle back in again.

Following is a newspaper article about the Chelsea Manning video mentioned above at https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-convicted-terrorist-and-a-convicted-spy-walk-into-the-opera-house-and-get-a-standing-ovation-20180902-p501ak.html.

 

 

May 9

Here’s Paul Craig Roberts again with another incisive analysis on the problem of robots and artificial intelligence.

Are you ready for a worse dystopia than ‘1984’?”, by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/26968.

May 10

Debbye just picked up another one-month supply of a glaucoma eye drop prescription for me at the pharmacy that for twenty-four years had a copay of ten dollars that went up this week to one hundred dollars. Thus I now have to pay $1200 per year to keep from going blind in one eye, caused by glaucoma caused by getting hit with a bungee cord in the eye in 1995. Have these drug and insurance companies no shame? And Trump says he won’t fix healthcare until Congress stops investigating him.

“To Be Sick and Not Rich is the Nightmare of Medical Care in the US,” by Beverly Gologorsky, TomDispatch, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/to-be-sick-and-not-rich-is-the-nightmare-of-medical-care-in-the-us/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR3klPlA02n9gDrMh79xO4b84ugLR5bbtop9_UmogRgXP_MCNEIXe4MKgWY.

May 8

Instead of undermining such countries with sanctions USians should be doing what they can to help improve these countries so their inhabitants will have no reason to migrate.

“Over 1% Of Guatemala, Honduras Have Crossed US Border In Last Eight Months: DHS,”  by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-08/over-1-guatemala-honduras-have-crossed-us-border-last-eight-months-dhs?fbclid=IwAR0J2A2SRgtm9Xy21u9DIANuNT1zP3bPX9U97eFvhl4cbHHqsiJ87zkBqDU.

May 8

Good economic perspective on how the English-speaking world evolved.

“Peterloo,” by Peter Linebaugh, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/08/peterloo/?fbclid=IwAR2tbvpdSNuN7CTqa8Uoh8RGCl3S0VJPG4MIbLz8EPLznvIowm46efHgpGQ.

May 8

Socialism or no socialism, democrats do not support Medicare for all for one reason: campaign financing.

Thereby trading off alleviating the suffering of millions of ordinary people to enrich the selfish hides of a paltry few hundred politicians.

“Interning for a Centrist Democrat Pushed Me to Democratic Socialsim,” by Jack Delaney, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/interning-for-a-centrist-democrat-pushed-me-to-democratic-socialism/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR2nho4I9tjvUW-WGjlk0aQXSto6s77m5GfeXlXgBi835h2MOX213-E5DNo.

May 8

‘Somethin to think about.

“Paul Craig Roberts: America Needs A Debt Jubilee,” by Paul Craig Roberts, PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS INSTITUTE FOR POLITICAL ECONOMY, https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/05/06/america-needs-a-debt-jubilee/.

May 8

Maybe he should run as an Independent as he maybe should have in 2016.

“The People’s President,” Bernie Sanders, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155828521762820&set=a.10150330850782820&type=3&theater.

May 7

It’s hard to believe it’s already time to think about this US presidential election crap again.

“Step Right Up to the Quadrennial Extravaganza,” by Paul Street, COUNTER PUNCH, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155828521762820&set=a.10150330850782820&type=3&theater.

May 7 

Good question.

“Climate Crisis Forces Us to Ask:  To What Do We Devote Ourselves?”, by Dahr Jamail, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/climate-crisis-forces-us-to-ask-to-what-do-we-devote-ourselves/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR2ybr-kEvL1MHf5k5AIpue_ZbuRn5zru5S13bEuVtXlLRJYQGXDdxGL9Kw.

May 7

Sad and sickening.

“The US is Spending $1.25 Trillion Annually on War,” by William D. Hartung & Mandy Smithberger, TomDispatch, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-is-spending-1-25-trillion-annually-on-war/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR2al2qTCWkAxoBPNvRoKIM3dmjML28TMWRP1cx-gGjoAzSbzJ2qDA8mf0A/.

May 7

‘Somethin to think about. What they need is a Classroom De-Gamer™ to set out in the middle of that circle shown in the article to randomly select the next discussion leader to tell the group what is the problem, what are the alternatives, and what she or he recommends? To then be discussed by the group. Like I do in my Ogeechee Economic Forum and did in almost all my classes throughout my teaching career. See my posts on De-Gaming teaching and learning on my webpage at www.effectivelearning.net for evidence the De-Gaming process works.

“Fascism Is on the March. We Need Radical Education to Fight Back,” Henry A. Giroux, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-on-the-march-we-need-radical-education-to-fight-back/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR3DBL095TxtyfGRjUBaoONWBf1CB6CXuKMNSC5KBd3HdHKwKOVG34NMCLw.

May 6

Go for it.

“The next state-owned bank–California or Washington?,” by Ellen Brown, INTREPID REPORT,  http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/26930.

May 5

What is a fascist?

“The Coming of American Fascism, 1920-1940”, by Chris Wright, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/03/the-coming-of-american-fascism-1920-1940/?fbclid=IwAR2YyQQGLjPlLmh9-IcMt9fcEe1ii2Ryzc_Uvp3Va2n_BXl9P8Tmptf8pSQ.

May 5

Flooding? Why now if it never happened in forty-five years?

“A Growing Number of US Flood Survivors Seek Answers,” by Laurie Mazur, Ensia, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/a-growing-number-of-us-flood-survivors-seek-answers/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR21T4XUtnhVQq6h0Fgbag-QFH5LS0gfpsQLqc8ft5nL8XJTQtbl3YLOZ6A.

May 5

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Landmark UN Report to Show We Are in a Human-Induced Extinction Crisis,” by Jon Queally, Common Dreams, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/landmark-un-report-to-show-we-are-in-a-human-induced-extinction-crisis/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR1tbn3Rb8JU8OGeDJK_64ZI5U2KVhEMPN193UP1h0MYECoV16dGY-vF17s.

May 5

Orwell was ‘somethin else.

“How To Become A Great Writer: George Orwell,” by Harry J. Stead, MEDIUM, https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-become-a-great-writer-george-orwell-3da05bff94d5?fbclid=IwAR0lovi9owbkXhYisBMizASYic2BzQ5TFcNIfA5kY8irRkGTQeQNz6i539U.

May 5

Oh really

“The Origins Of The Deep State In North America, Part 1,” THE DURAN, https://theduran.com/the-origins-of-the-deep-state-in-north-america/.

May 5

Say it ain’t so Joe.

“Almost Half Of College Students Are Going Hungry: Survey,” by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-04/almost-half-college-students-are-going-hungry-survey?fbclid=IwAR14RzmxBTckyfeNxgPFw7Dfcwg2AdYNpbT1azZkQ-GeNlIGG6viluBxtJE.

May 5

Made worse by tariff man Trump.

“Boom Times For Auction Houses As American Farmers Go Bankrupt,” by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-01/boon-times-auction-houses-american-farmers-go-bankrupt?fbclid=IwAR0bmc9Jo4xvbtdfuiikU4uZwla8T1MhxGQVKj583SxzA1CWaM6jtQ_AFq0.

May 5

We’re all predators, is that it?

“What American Collapse Teaches Us About Human Nature,” by Umair Haque, MEDIUM, https://eand.co/what-american-collapse-teaches-us-about-human-nature-943b32ef3842?fbclid=IwAR1webqqAj4iqniCwEL0X4QbkDDD0GzPJwbXqYtHdp_UKeOS8hjZbbt-s4A.

May 3

Sage advice by the smartest banking expert out there, Ellen Brown.

“Bank on the People Instead of Wall Street Parasites,” by Ellen Brown, Democracy Collaborative, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/bank-on-the-people-instead-of-wall-street-parasites/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare&fbclid=IwAR3Zkvt30kpmS17ztCjqRnuna5NL9nTAXfH7JbVa-FqBQkKLYvdSg9ieFPk.

May 3

Surprise

“US Military Stops Releasing Information On Afghanistan War,” by Tyler Durden, ZERO HEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-02/us-military-stops-releasing-information-afghanistan-war?fbclid=IwAR25Zj9Ps–rTqyhORtqGKCw8tWW3rxlquapbpHLTwgNU7QVd7UgGhUgiyo.

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RJS,  Writer, Editor & Publisher

THE BASIS FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ‘RATIONAL’ GLOBAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC POLICIES

By COURTENAY BARNETT

A friend recently made this observation and he got me thinking. So I replied in a fulsome manner to put the jig-saw pieces together to see if there was an actual rational and/or understandable picture to be seen. He said to me:-

“My issue with all this is even when you look at their thesis and find it wanting, they still get what they want, namely more spending on arms and no cordial meetings between Trump and Putin because ‘Russia interfered in our elections’.”

As I understand it the military-complex/Pentagon at some time in the past would be subject to audits of military budget/expenditures, but somehow the law was changed and for reasons of ‘national security’ there was no longer proper accounting and/or any Congressional oversights permitted. I can’t recall any General ever having been called on in a thorough process to give a detailed account of what ‘x’ or ‘y’ billion went to. Last time was the $600 ashtrays, as I recall it ( since if they didn’t use all the budgetary allocation then the next cycle would see reduced allocation). Maybe it was about then that legislatively they said f… that and changed the law. So, you end up with endless military expenditure – but the US is digging its own economic grave. Let me explain.

‘Money’ is but a representative functioning utility. Meaning that it has to be backed by something tangible – gold – precious metal – goods – actual services of value provided to hold its real value. In the absence of that – like Mugabe in Zimbabwe – the country ultimately realises that not just the printing press can be relied on to make a country rich, viable and “great again”. America is doing what I call ‘a Mugabe’. It is actually engaged in ‘voodoo economics’ Why so?

Since post World War 11 the US inherited from the Pound Sterling the world’s reserve currency and then it found itself through the global trade and monetary system actually able to export its inflation – and for decades has been doing that. However, what my economics professors, who were not inclined to the then guru of ‘monetarism’, Professor Milton Friedman of the University Chicago, taught me is that the underlying economic principles remained constant and still operated even if deferred. What am I implying?

Fast forward to the Obama administration and the 2008 crisis in the US. What happened? The so-called quantitative easing ( printing money in endless quantities) ‘Mugabe approach’ as endorsed by Wall Street kicked in – in a massive and unprecedented manner. The crooks on Wall Street who committed financial crimes to enrich themselves and bring the American economy to its knees had bought and paid for Obama to do their financial bidding in their interest. He facilitated Wall Street by returning newly printed money to the very folks who caused the crisis ( look for examples at derivatives or phony unsecured mortgages for processes doomed to financial failure from the onset of implementation). Again, one does not have to have studied economics ( I did) to understand in a logical manner what happens when transactions unbacked by tangibles are relied upon as backing for business transactions. So, money from the US tangibly backed by tax payers’ productivity is extracted and given to the financial ‘banksters’. That is what happened in the 2008 financial crisis. What next?

Well there has been the Quantitative Easing 1 and 11 and more. However, there are limits and the printing cannot continue to infinity. The US thinks, because of its world reserve currency, it can continue. Not so; why so?

As this monetary printing process continues it exponentially balloons the deficit. That debt at some stage has to be paid or it shall impact the real economy in ways which are economically devastating for the American people. The day of reckoning has been forestalled by the 1972 petro-dollar recycling agreement with Saudi Arabia and China’s buying of US Treasury Bonds, that cushions US military overspending. This relates to and reflects on the international politics in operation. So, Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist, is chopped up at the order of the Saudi leader and there is not a pip from the US about this – simply not economically/ financially expedient so to complain on any human rights and/or decent basis. China is slapped with tariffs on all of Chinese produced goods imported into the US (in effect the US consumers are  forced, yet again, to absorb the cost for the imprudent management of the macro-economic situation of the US economy). To put things more starkly, the real political  fall- out is the ongoing prospect of war being unleashed into the world for reasons of US economic panic and again imprudent decisions being made by the Trump Administration. Can we now examine the ‘ logic’ in economic play under Trump?

Lessons in logic 101

Iran: There was a deal in place,  ‘The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action –JCPOA’  to curtail and restrain Iran from producing nuclear weapons that was internationally agreed and verified under UN scrutiny occurring for the Obama Administration via the P5+1 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council–the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China–plus Germany) and the European Union) – an impressive grouping of international powers if one ever saw one. What does the Trump administration subsequently do? There is a unilateral walk out from the deal and simultaneously Iran is blamed – despite the fact that Iran is monitored by UN inspections which confirm that Iran is in compliance and just like the Iraq WMDs inspired war  – the US proclaims – oh no! – while the drums of war beat. Is Iran oil rich? Credible under international law? Makes sense? Logical?

Venezuela: There is an election with 16 political parties participating. Prior to the election the incumbent President, Nicholas Maduro, did offer to have international observers present and the man who refused was one Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez who boycottedthe election and then post-election proclaims himself President. The US rejects ‘logically’ the elected President and tells the Venezuelan people that they cannot accept the elected President and that the only President is their ( the US) appointed President. No doubt with financial inducements added the US persuades some 50 nations to echo and agree with this call. So, does that still not leave over two-thirds of the world’s nations and UN member states in disapproval of the US choice of appointed President? Oh – speaking also of meddling and interference in a sovereign nation’s political processes and internal affairs – duh – huh?Is Venezuelaoil rich? Credible under international law? Makes sense? Logical?

Russia: And so, finally to my friend’s observation. There is a link between the Hillary Clinton allegation of DNC hack; the death of Seth Rich a young DNC employee; computer leak versus alleged Russian computer hacking ( i.e. there is a distinction between a computer leak and a computer hack as someone of the stature of the former technical head in the NSA could examine, verify and credibly explain). So,  NSA technical computer expert – Bill Binney; Julian Assange; the Muller investigation and report; and logical reasons why Robert Mueller failed to interview the best available insider witness to events – namely Binney – and likewise – the best outsider witness to the alleged Russian hacking – namely Julian Assange ( both of whom were readily available and willing to explain from the inside and from the outside – what they actually knew and could actually verify of the said Russian allegation). After all, it was Assange through his WikiLeaks organization who actually was the recipient of the US classified information. So, why didn’t Mueller interview him? Again, Mueller declined to interview those two very relevant witnesses and ‘logically’ came to his own conclusions. 

Conclusion 

Simply put – when one looks at the overall situation the US economy finds itself in – with advantages for reason of its world reserve currency status; its voluntarily created military-industrial complex over-reach; and consequential over-expenditure and further consequential ballooned national debt; one then begins to understandthe logic of President Trump’s ‘rational irrationality’ manifest in the inherent features of the economic policy responses to a US ( and by extension – global) unfolding crisis.

* COURTENAY BARNETT is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for over thirty years, has been arrested for defending his views, has been subjected to death threats, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. He lives and works in the Caribbean.