IS TRUMP EVIL?

 

By Richard John Stapleton

With Donald Trump as president as the Covid-19 plague and civil unrest cripple the economic and cultural functioning of the US internally, as Trump and his Secretary of State Pompeo sanction, bully, and agitate countries externally, fomenting profits for the USian deep state, anxiety levels among USian civilians have got to be near all-time highs.

Trump has now put his own troops on the ground in Portland, Oregon, and according to stories in news media he is plotting to do the same in other places, such as Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

According to the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the mayor of Portland, this action is illegal; but does Trump care? Why is he doing it in the first place? Very likely he’s doing it to decrease his chances of being humiliated in the November presidential election. He probably thinks he can get away with violating the US Constitution for a few months, having had a lifetime of experience violating laws and getting away with it thanks to having inherited enough money to buy the silence of people and hire slick lawyers.

Is Trump evil? Well for sure he is not yet as evil as Adolph Hitler, apparently one of his heroes, according to stories about Trump reading Hitler’s books and keeping one of them handy in his bedroom for nighttime reading.

Hitler is generally considered the most evil human that ever lived, having conducted the most aggressive, egregious, callous, and diabolical cold-blooded genocide against millions of humans than any other mass murderer in history, primarily motivated by bigotry.

Back in the 1970s and 80s I had a transactional analysis colleague who had close relatives who died in the Holocaust who got so obsessed with it that he did some serious research about it. He made several trips to Germany to Auschwitz specifically to see firsthand the physical remains of the crime scene. An expert photographer, he photographed various aspects of the process, where the Jews got off the boxcars, where they got inspected and tattooed, where they slept, where they worked, and where they got gassed. He wound up writing and publishing a long article in the Transactional Analysis Journal titled “Aspects of Survival: Triumph over death and onliness,” by Alan Jacobs, (1991, Volume 21, No. 1).

Jacobs concluded that mass-murdering sociopaths and psychopaths like Hitler harbored a sub-conscious desire to wind up the only person still alive, to be the only one to survive, and while Hitler was among the most pathological he was not the only human harboring desires of this nature. Jacobs researched not only the Holocaust and Hitler but genocide and democide in general, democide being the mass murdering of various demographic groups by governments, who greatly advanced the efficiency of their murder methods and processes during the 20th Century, probably the most murderous century of Earthian human history, counting people killed with gas, guns, and bombs dropped from airplanes in wars and by callous governments deliberately letting humans starve to death, over two hundred million Earthian humans in the 20th Century, according to various researchers.  

Jacobs concluded that such inclinations were not confined to obvious sociopaths and psychopaths: he concluded many people harbored sub-conscious desires and inclinations of this nature, albeit in relatively unthreatening doses, deeply submerged in their sub-conscious minds.

There is no doubt that the US has become more fascist under Trump due to his life script and personality. Did he cause himself to be what he is? No, he was scripted to be what he is by his accidental life experiences like everybody else, especially including the peculiar parents he accidentally inherited, relatively dysfunctional inhumane parents, however rich they might have been, who emotionally and intellectually abused him, contaminating his mind at an early age with insane script messages, as Trump’s niece recently divulged in her book, and as numerous writers have alluded to in articles since he became president of the US.

Trump was elected into office by ordinary voters who have fascist sub-conscious desires and fantasies, whom few people would consider evil, however much they are part and parcel of an evil process, not of their intentional making, mostly a function of their accidental life script messages laid on them by their parents, accidentally generated from one generation to another through time in the process of surviving, which was never easy for Earthian humans.

This is not the first time a relatively democratic country has become relatively fascist. It’s common in Earthian history, with relatively democratic large and previously relatively successful countries degenerating into fascist dictatorships in the 20th Century, Germany being a prime example. It’s common for countries to evolve from relative democracies to dictatorships and back to democracies, depending on what percentage of their human inhabitants hold various desires and fantasies about what leaders and countries are supposed to be like and do. Sadly a sizeable percentage of the human race has apparently always considered the entire Earthian human population to be so evil that they too had to do evil things, whether they liked it or not, evil things such as murdering people in cold-blood in wars, genocides, and democides, to survive.

The major governmental evolutionary change in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries was from monarchies to relative democracies spurred by the American and French revolutions, with socialistic and communistic experiments being conducted in various countries at various times up to now. There aren’t that many hereditary monarchs ruling by divine right left. Kings and queens weren’t perfect by any means, or divine, but they were less murderous than fascist dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

Yes, fascist leaders can take over countries that consider themselves relatively socialistic or communistic, just like fascist leaders can take over countries that consider themselves relatively democratic; and it’s possible that socialistic or communistic countries can be more democratic than some so-called democracies, depending on what most of the inhabitants of the countries feel, think, and do.

Some humans think corrupt dysfunctional economic systems are the main cause of Earthian evil in general. This is not likely, in my opinion. Economic systems such as capitalism and communism are not like computer programs you put into a computer with consciously thought-out procedures for what to do given historical frequencies and random events; capitalism, socialism, and communism are sets of beliefs and attitudes regarding how selfish people should be and whether humans should be entitled to steal from one another in competitive economic behavior and to what degree. They are rationalizations of human behaviors en masse that naturally evolve through synergistic learning (learning in whole systems not apparent by observing sub-systems). They are not technological systems imposed by intentional intelligent humans.

I have no idea what’s gonna happen now. There is some chance the US will evolve into a fascist dictatorship sooner or later through general inertia, Trump or no Trump, depending upon what ordinary voters feel, think, and decide in presidential elections from here on. On the other hand let’s hope our dear leader sociopath Trump does not declare himself dictator for life before the November presidential election, as his hero did in Germany, assuming there would be any chance the real USian military would back him up, as his Homeland Security and Border Patrol troops are doing now in Portland, Oregon. USian civilians en masse would have no chance of winning a war with Trump’s self-imposed fascist dictatorship if the real USian military establishment followed his orders to suppress, capture, disappear, torture, execute, or imprison rebels, counter-insurgents, or whatever they might be called, using standard fascist dictatorship operating procedures.

Some USian civilians would probably fight for a while to remove the Trump dictatorship with an insurrection with no chance of winning. How long it would take the US society and government to evolve back into a relative democracy would remain to be seen. How many USians would have died in the upheaval is anybody’s guess. Hopefully it would be nothing like the carnage of similar upheavals in the 20th Century.        

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

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

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

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

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

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

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

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

THE GROUP: TO SAVE SPACESHIP EARTH—INTERNET EPISODE FIVE

The Group: To Save Spaceship Earth is a work in progress. While settings, plots, theories, objects, and narratives in this novel may be analogous to the same that have happened in various realities around Spaceship Earth, the names, actions, and attributions of characters cast herein are purely fictional, with the exception of a few well known literary and political figures. All parts of this novel will be published in the Effective Learning Report at various intervals on the Internet, subject to revision at any time, hopefully culminating in a final print edition offered for sale to the public.

Copyright 2020 by Effective Learning Publications. All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be copied or printed on paper without permission. Share on the Internet as you wish.

If you want to refresh yourself about what happened in earlier episodes, go to the following website addresses:

Internet Episode 1, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-part-1/.   

Internet Episode 2, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-episode-2/.

Internet Episode 3, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-episode-three/.

Internet Episode 4, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-group-to-save-spaceship-earth-episode-four/.

SESSION THREE

ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

JANUARY 2020

Rout was beginning to have serious thoughts about the results of the program. It was obvious the group had improved its psychological and social functioning, agitations had diminished, and the group had become more cohesive. But so what? Was this a sign of significant change and progress or was it disingenuous adapting and flexing to make a buck?  The five thousand dollars a month obviously was enough to entice them to attend the meetings but was participating in the meetings producing changes in their group imagoes, scripts, ego states, transactions, and general functioning?  Would their experiences in The Group cause them to feel, think, and behave differently in other groups that would tend to cause polarizations to diminish so as to in some way help facilitate causations for the construction of consensual answers that would help solve problems posing existential threats to all species of fauna and flora living around Spaceship Earth?

Rout knew his supporters and donors would not continue to fund The Group indefinitely if there were no credible signs the process was producing significant changes in the feeling, thinking, deciding, and behavior patterns of the group members.

Rout had been concerned from the beginning about when and how to make a definitive judgment about how well the process was achieving its purposes, mission, and goals.  While donors had been relatively easy to find to start the process Rout knew there was no assurance the donors would continue to fund the process indefinitely. Although they had said very little up to this point he knew they were bound to be getting curious.  The donors had access to the transcripts and tapes and they could see there had already been changes in the feeling, thinking, and behavior of The Group. 

For one thing, the donors could see that most of the group members now accepted Rout’s leadership and they had accepted the rules of the process.  For sure Rout had already proved the group process could cause group members from disparate backgrounds to at least pretend to change, at least when paid five thousand dollars for one weekend of time and six hours of group participation.  It was a good deal for them, even apparently for the wealthy members.  If the wealthy members did not need the money as they said, then the process was generating psychological satisfaction for them because they were still attending.

It was obvious most of the group members were by now gaining some satisfaction from participating in the process, especially being able to get away from their daily grinds to visit different cities.  They were getting together in small groups for lunch and dinner, and while the groups initially formed based on verisimilitude with respect to various socio-economic experiences, the informal groups were now including individuals with different characteristics, apparently caused by feelings of liking and respect generated by the discussions, which was a good sign, indicating The Group process would cause polarizations among people to diminish here and yon.

There were now fewer critical parent, adapted child, and rebel child ego states cathected and a higher percentage of the transactions were adult-adult and free child-free child.  Every now and then they actually had a little fun in the group. 

At the same time the group had become more serious and business-like.  The time of the discussions was now consumed with more work and intimacy with fewer rituals and Games.  The content of the discussions had become more honest.

Rout now felt that he could make the case to the donors that the program was successful and had achieved what it set out to do. He was confident the donors had seen enough of he video tape and transcripts of the group sessions to enable them to see for themselves what had gone on and happened. 

The question now was where to go from here?  Disband this group and start new ones?  Pay the group members of this group to lead similar groups using Truthers in their communities?  Expand to other countries?

On the other hand, Rout had read and heard about a mysterious new virus that had originated in China that was highly contagious and dangerous. Would it spread to the US? If so would it be feasible for The Group to meet face to face?

Rout decided to keep rolling along as they were for a few more sessions before making major changes in the group. 

Maybe the best thing to do would be to simply terminate the process now and announce to the world in a book that the process works, in which case the major problem would be where could sufficient funds be found to fund similar groups around Spaceship Earth?

Why waste more time experimenting with this group?  On the one hand, it seemed clear that continuing the group process for several months or even several years would produce further improvements in the overall functioning of the group. The knowledge bases and critical thinking skills of most of the members, due to the sharing of information in the dialogical, dialectical, and analogical Game-free Adult discussion process would continue to improve; but would these improvements be worth their cost to the donors, and society at large?

There was no way The Group donors could pay several billion people to attend such meetings, hoping to save Spaceship Earth.

If all governments would contribute funding for large numbers of humans from different countries to attend group meetings conducted in a manner similar to the process used in The Group consensual answers might be found that would save Spaceship Earth  from global warming, climate change, and militarization.

Governments would be paying citizens to attend Game-free group meetings to learn how to act like responsible stockholders of Spaceship Earth, Inc., which would entail a transformation of human relationships everywhere, in which there would be no hierarchies with bosses and subordinates, everyone would be equal in terms of rights and responsibilities, with liberty and true dignity for all, since all human Earthians would be an equal owner of Spaceship Earth, Inc., owning one share of stock that would provide dividend checks sufficient for good standards of living for all Earthians.

It was becoming clearer to the donors and others privy to the tapes and videos of the group sessions that feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors in the group were changing for the better.  The members were more comfortable and relaxed and were less fearful about honestly participating in the process.  OKness levels had increased.

OKness was a major concept in the transactional analysis literature, the whole discipline being based on simple colloquial terms that explained relatively complex problems, issues, and states of affairs.  Of the various social, economic, and psychological disciplines Rout had studied, it seemed transactional analysis was most helpful in understanding group dynamics.  Not only was it concerned about increasing Okness in organizations and groups but it provided specific tools for assessing different kinds of Okness.

All organizations and groups are relatively ok or not ok depending on circumstances, ok with respect to themselves, other individuals, other groups, and the world, or universe. How individuals, groups, and organizations were caused to wind up at their particular level of Okness is a relevant question.  A deeper relevant question is whether individuals, organizations, and groups are actually caused to be what they are in terms of Okness or whether they are just pretending to be at those levels?  As with all social and psychological phenomena a major question is whether perceived feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and decisions are real or faked. In other words are phenomena naturally caused to exist or are they constructions created to simulate natural feelings, thoughts, decisions, behaviors, and the like.

Fritz Perls, the founder of Gestalt Psychology, used to say, “Most talking is a lie,” meaning he thought most people were rarely truthful about what they were truly feeling, thinking, doing, etc. Perls called most ordinary conversations chickenshit, most organizational communications bullshit, and most philosophical discussions elephantshit. He thought humans are rarely truly honest about what they feel, think, and do about things because of their vested interests and ulterior motives.

In most organizations and groups people are rewarded not only with strokes but money for conforming to the requirements of the authority structure of the organization. One can build the case that almost no one can be fully honest in organizations and groups, since most appear as they do after having manipulated themselves through various adaptations to conform to the organizational scripts imposed at their level and position in the organizational hierarchy to hold their jobs. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair it’s difficult to convince humans of the real truth of the matter when their livelihoods depend on not believing it.

So it’s not easy to tell by looking just how OK a person, group, or organization really is.

One can observe in groups and organizations how time is being structured, by noting what people are actually doing.  TA has five simple categories for describing time structuring–withdrawal, pastiming, rituals, work, Games, and intimacy.  Withdrawal means people are not engaged with others or groups. One can tell by looking whether individuals are tuning the group out, daydreaming, etc.  In this group Rout’s use of the Truther precludes withdrawal and pastiming, talking about favorite hobbies and such, interests in children, cooking, sports, and the like.  The Truther and Rout’s rules require members to do some intellectual work, such as defining problems, figuring out alternatives for dealing with existential problems, figuring out what to do about the problems and opportunities, etc.  There are almost no rituals in Rout’s process, routine reciting of dogmas or doctrines and housekeeping duties, such as voting on past business, etc., such as what one finds in most organizational group meetings. Games are outlawed by the Truther and the group rules. No one can legitimately say they have been Rescued, Persecuted, or Victimized when The Truther selects them.  Sexual intimacy is also precluded during the group sessions. On the other hand, there is talk about truth.  In general intimacy involves telling the truth about what one actually feels, thinks, decides, and does from moment to moment, which rarely occurs.  In this sense one can build the case a major objective of this group is to increase time structuring spent in intellectual intimacy and decrease time spent in other types of time structuring, such as withdrawal, pastiming, and Game playing.

Watching the videos of the group sessions and listening to the tapes it’s possible for observers to notice changes in these variables. Other things that can be observed are transactions within the group. Transactions are communication vectors beamed from one ego state in an  individual to ego states in others, whether individuals, groups, or organizations.  There are three types of ego states, parent, adult, and child.  Ego states are emotional and behavioral states of being that are parent-like, adult-like, and child-like.  Individuals and groups and organizations transmit messages to others using various combinations of ego states, and individuals and groups respond to what has been transmitted to them using various combinations of the three ego states.  The Truther generally fosters or cathects (a word for turning on or energizing ego states) Adult ego states.  Parent and Child ego states can be seen in the group by noting facial expressions and body language of various  sorts.  Parent ego states usually entail general dogmatic statements and stern facial expressions and pointed index fingers used for emphasizing the person is in a Parent ego state and should be listened to. 

It has become obvious to Rout and his board of advisors, experts in TA and other social and psychological fields, that the process has increased the use of the Adult ego state in the group and has increased honesty or intimacy within the group. Whether this improvement will transfer to other groups that the members of this group belong to remains to be seen.

This is the hard part. You can have good ok groups but still have not ok governments and economic systems.  If not ok people get in control of organizations, regardless of the type of economic system they use, the organization will not produce Okness for everyone.  Such is now the case with capitalism, which is producing massive inequality with the rich getting richer while the rest stagnate of decline, while governments do and say things to make lower and middle classes feel, think, and believe they are more ok than they really are.  One way to do that is by starting wars, which takes the minds of not ok people off their economic plights and puts them to work fighting and making war equipment and munitions.

The issue is whether to continue The Group process for much longer.  One can build the case The Group has already proven it can produce increases in OKness, etc.  Would continuing the process for more months or years eventually result in creating consensual answers for society and psychological problems.   Most likely it would, but the problem as always is not to have consensual answers for sake of producing consensual answers but to implement them so as to make everyone more OK.  One can build a case no one can be fully ok until everyone is OK.  Such has never been the case aboard Spaceship Earth.  There have always been serious differences among the OK levels of humans. A major purpose of religion has been to make people think they are OK regardless of how not OK their psychological, social, economic, and political positions are, if they publicly profess to believe certain dogmas and doctrines and conform to the dictates of various religious leaders.

This leads to some other TA terms for organizational and and group analysis, such as agitations and cohesions, among and within organizations.  To fully analyze organizations and groups one needs to find out whether or how OK people are but also how agitated or cohesive they are at various borders of their organizations, internal and external borders, and whether the agitations and cohesions are between members or between members and leaders, there being three general types of leaders–designated, psychological, and effective.  Once such agitations are located various and sundry consensual answers might be developed to deal with them.

Spaceship Earth is now very agitated, probably experiencing more agitations than ever before in history, agitations between nations, between the leaders of nations and leaders of other nations, agitations between leaders of nations and their own group members, and between countless organizations and groups within nations. It appears the root cause of the increased agitation is the economic systems used, and the organizational systems used, which are causing global warming, climate change, and income inequality.  No amount of organizational and group therapy will cure these problems, unless you can get OK leaders of nations together to seriously discuss how to create new economic and organizational systems and technologies to solve the real causes of the agitations.  

Unfortunately Spaceship Earth is now experiencing negative feedback loops that exacerbate rather than ameliorate the conflict and agitations. Relatively not OK voters is so-called democracies vote for not OK individuals as leaders because the leader reinforces their not OKness, leading to even more not OKness, and so on, and the entire system continues to decline, possibly eventually resulting in the extincton of the Earthian human race.

Since the group has proved its feasibility it would seem more and more similar groups should be established.  Problem is where will the money come from.  The dismal reality is that this group worked because the donors paid the members to increase their OKness.  That is a hell of a note, having to pay people to increase their own OKness, as if they actually enjoy their not OKness.  

On the other hand, he decided today to give the group a reading assignment.

Rout–”Before we select a Truther leader, I have decided I would like to make a reading assignment.

“Please go to Google on the Internet and go to the address I just emailed you  http://www.effectivelearning.net/spaceship-earth–inc..html  , and read ‘The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.’

“I will allocate thirty minutes for everyone to read this article, and then we will discuss the article. The Truther as usual will select the leader to start the discussion.”

After the elapsing of thirty minutes…

“OK, lets’s move on. Whoever got hit last spin The Truther.”

The Rooster crowed and The Truther selected George.

George–”As we all know Trump has advocated building a new wall to keep not ok illegal immigrants out of the US from the beginning of his presidency, without much success, I am afraid.  The Democratic congress has blocked him in every way on this. On the other hand some progress has been made.”

Harrison–”Come on George, you know Trump’s idea for a wall was doomed from the start.  Seems to me there is less talk of it now than there was, especially with this new influx of immigrants from Central America.  I’m not sure why Rout wanted us to read this fantasy article about Spaceship Earth, but if it did come to pass for sure it would cure immigration problems, since everyone would be paid to stay where they are around earth. On the other hand, the article is worse than socialism, it’s a utopian fantasy showing what great things would happen if artificial intelligence robots took over the management of the entire Earthian economy.  Where did you find this article Rout?”

Rout–”I ran across it cruising the Internet.  I assigned it because the article ties together  several aspects of what we have been talking about in our group sessions and it seems to me if it were implemented it would solve most of Earth’s problems.”

Harrison–”Well I suppose in fantasy it might.  But how in hell could people ever implement such a thing.  As I understand it it would require internationalizing, or taking over, all corporations around Earth.”

Rout–”No, it would only require taking over corporations directly involved in the production and delivery of the necessities of life.  There could be other kinds of corporations in other industries, so long as they did not require the consumption of basic resources needed to feed, clothe, and house humans.”

George–”It’ll never happen.  It’s pure socialism or worse.  All freedom would be lost and it would entail redistributing incomes in a major way.  In fact it would require a super government confiscating and taking by force all the wealth of existing people.  What would you do about housing?  How could a billionaire afford to live in a mansion he owns if he has to live off some imaginary dividend check from one corporation, called Spaceship Earth, Inc.?  It’s crazy.  I can’t believe you would have forced us to read it, the only time you ever did such a thing. Its becoming clear to me that what you have really wanted to do all along is brainwash us all with socialism or worse pure communism.”

Noam–”I’ll grant you, the article is a bit radical but it covers a lot of ground and it does make a major point, namely that artificial intelligence and faster and more powerful computers will enable humans to do things that have never been possible before, utilizing data bases that never existed before.  And it’s based on solid mathematical theory, linear programing, that has been around for a long time.  As to its suggestion about the dividend income for all humans, it is similar to the basic of idea of basic incomes now, sometimes called MMT, or Modern Monetary Theory. Some experts are advocating paying or giving citizens a basic income to insure there is enough money in circulation to generate a viable economy.  And this idea in this article is based on Buckminster Fuller’s idea to award mind grants to to all humans to eliminate employment overnight, based on the philosophical notion that all people have value, so paying them to think about whatever their talents happened to be might pay off in the long run. For sure it would require massive changes in all countries, not just in the rich countries, but in theory it could work, and something similar to it is probably necessary to stave off global warming and climate change, and human extinction, not to mention the extinction of thousands of species of fauna and flora around spaceship earth.”

Sam–”Good perspective Noam.  Yes, radical changes are going to have to happen, and it’s going to require thinkers with more than a little ability to think outside of political and social boxes.  Whether a group like this one can do it remains to be seem.  There’s a lot of disagreement among the members here. True enough we have learned to respect one another more and I think most of us are more open to differing views and ideas than we were, but I wonder how many of us would vote for something like Spaceship Earth, Inc.”

End of Episode Five

To Be Continued…

HERE’S THE DEAL: HOW THE USIAN DEEP STATE WON AGAIN

BY RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON

In the words of the now designated leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, “Here’s the deal:”

Ordinary Dem voters in the Dem primaries made a mistake choosing Joe Biden. Had Sanders been chosen he would have had a good shot at uniting the Dem party. Biden has split it into two camps: conservative Dems and progressive Dems.

A united Dem party would be more likely to defeat Trump, the greater evil.

Now, with the Dem party divided, beating Trump is more uncertain.

I, a progressive Independent, will vote for Biden as the lesser evil, much as I hate to; but I am only one progressive vote. There’s no telling how all the progressive Dems will vote.

Dem establishment insiders did not want Bernie Sanders because they were afraid of losing job security and funding, knowing the Deep State–the big banks, the drug companies, the credit card companies, the military industrial complex, the for-profit health care system, the Federal Reserve system, etc.–did not want Sanders–because they knew there was some chance he might actually make systemic changes harmful to their vested interests if he became President.

The Deep State has now won the Game regardless of which political party wins in November. For them it’s head’s they win if the Dems win and tail’s they win if the Repugs win.

While there’s no guarantee the status quo of the disunited USian federal system will work much longer even for the Deep State, given the exploding and ballooning Federal debt, the status quo of the USian federal government system will be maintained if possible for another four and one-half years–to preserve as many vested interests of the Deep State as possible, depending on possible force majeure events.

Biden has already told the Deep State there will be no major changes if he is elected, and we pretty much know what will happen if Trump is re-elected. He has given the Deep State more than they asked for for three and one-half years.

The losers as usual in this deal are lower and middle income civilian voters of both the Dem and Repug parties who made it all possible by not voting in their own best interests in primary elections. Unfortunately they can only see trees, not the forest.

Here is what I have been advocating for several years at

https://www.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty.html.

Richard John Stapleton, Writer, Editor, and Publisher, Effective Learning Report

A 4th July essay on statues, meaning in the Anglo-American world and historical facts.

BY COURTENAY FRANCIS RAYMOND BARNETT

By vocation I am a lawyer; by disposition I am a reader and a thinker.

On the latter limb in the year 2020 A.D. I note that the statues of formerly venerated persons in the personage of U.S. Confederate Generals and slave owners are being toppled  – while on the other side of the Anglo-American axis there in Britain Edward Colston’s statue ( got a baptismal  wash at the bottom of the Bristol harbour) and even Winston Churchill finds himself boarded up lest he too be toppled from his heroic pedestal. How is all this to be understood or interpreted when the ‘evil ones’ are actually challenging, questioning, even symbolically drowning heroes in the harbour – ‘our heroes’?

This is where the sentinel who guards the otherwise unquestionable issue of ‘meaning’ comes to the fore – and finally is to be questioned as to the true meaning of an  assumed  role as the guardian of truth, righteousness or even ultimately – divinity. I have not written the foregoing words without deep and careful thought, for that if Western civilization were to examine and conduct profound  introspection, then the deeper meaning of what I am saying might then begin to emerge. I shall try to explain.

Meaning

How do we come to understanding and then assign meaning?

Meaning as to – who I am – what is my country as regards its historical expression of an  identity – what gave rise to major historical personages and events – and similar cognitive points of reference?

I hazard a guess, from my own experiences, as with anyone else – family – culture – dominant belief systems – formal tuition – discourse – investigation lead to ‘meaning’.

In Jamaica, where I was born, I attended a Catholic school, St. George’s College. By reference to tuition, of my five years there, the third form ( my third year) remains indelibly imprinted in my pedagogic memory. There was a red-haired firebrand of a Scot, a historian by name, Clive Woods. Also, in the same year there were a few young Bostonian Jesuit teachers. Between those teachers they framed and changed my world outlook. It was the 1960s when the Vietnam War was raging and the Bostonians spoke of the horrors of ‘agent orange’, illegal bombings in Laos and Cambodia, defoliates with life destroying chemicals  being deployed, the use of ‘napalm’ and other US war crimes. Mr. Woods opened eyes to the real motivational factors behind Columbus, the Conquistadors and  the Catholic Church’s role in the ‘civilizing mission’ towards  the ‘natives’. On the British side, he went further and informed us of the truth behind the ‘amelioration period’ at the time leading up to emancipation in the Caribbean in 1838. He explained what the payment of 20 million pounds sterling to the slave owners meant as being compensation to the persons who owned ‘chattels’ – the enslaved Africans – without one jot being delivered as compensation to the enslaved people. Mr. Woods only lasted one year at St. George’s and I do believe that he was quietly asked to depart for reason of the impact he was having on the stimulated and excited students. And, to this day the myths and denials persist – despite the best efforts of Mr. Woods who tried to disabuse his Caribbean students of a history that included any benign or caring colonial overlord most concerned with the welfare of the colonised. The other case is told in the status quo accounts, the ‘conventional wisdom’, the official narratives that other than disdain, abuse and exploitation had been colonialism’s handmaiden. Hence 1776 in the United States of America does not surprise and neither should the ever present resistances throughout the British Empire, be it the 1857 Indian Mutiny or  the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica, so long as the British Empire lasted.

George Floyd in the face of historical facts

I reverted in memory to my years in school for reason of the shock of seeing on video, the killing of George Floyd. The death  brought a torrent of early memories to the fore and – as with my recollection of Mr. Woods –  I shall explain in broader recall – how so.

When I arrived in England to continue my education at university at the age of sixteen,  I was then in the ‘mother country’. The country which had colonised and profited from Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean and built herself tremendous wealth, entire  towns, cities ( e.g. Colston’s Bristol), cathedrals, expanded universities, established manufacturing industries from the labour of enslaved Africans. Yet when I spoke to the average English person about from whence I came, quickly I understood their delusional conception of their great and good British Empire. For any human being anywhere living across the globe, simply read Dr. Eric Williams’ tome, ‘Capitalism and Slavery’ which was based on deeply researched historical facts  which to this day from the 1940s when first published – not one human being has ever, despite having tried, succeeded in disproving Dr. Williams’ thesis. The Africans, the Asians, the Indian efforts, and all the ‘others’ who contributed to British wealth were largely irrelevant if not historically non-existent so far as my direct  participant observations of the British were concerned.

My point can be made quite simply following upon George Floyd’s killing and the dumping of Colston’s statue in the harbour. I have many White European friends of different levels of academic accomplishments. However, it is not whether they have doctorates or are professors or not which distinguishes their level of understanding about the British Empire’s deeds,  but the absence of a certain level of economic understanding about what was the British Empire’s methodology. Post Floyd killing, I made the point to a White European friend that the removal of Colston’s statue was perfectly justified in the same way that in Germany today, the idea of honouring Adolph Hitler in effigy in a public place by way of placement of a statue would not be acceptable. I was then chided for comparing Nazi Germany with the British Empire. So, let me ‘double down’ ( to use an Americanism) and then ask:-

  1. When the Boers  were corralled in concentration camps during the Boer Wars – was it the British who had invented this practice – or not?
  2. When the British moved into the highlands of Kenya and set up an Apartheid system and banned, in particular, the Kikuyu tribe from their ancestral lands –what then happened? Did the Africans not quite understandably resist their displacement? Yet again, did the British not on a large scale again corral and torture the Africans in these concentration camps? Did the Kenyans not recently win a court case and the British government not have to pay Kenyan survivors for the cruel and inhumane treatment experienced and suffered in these British concentration camps?

So, were the Nazis really the originators of this  practice? 

Actually, the inventor of the concentration camp was  Horatio Herbert Kitchener who first used the term ‘ concentration camp’ during the Boer Wars. Wonderful servant of the British Empire he was.

But now, do not forget just how benign the Empire was:-

  • The Irish famine of the mid-1800s   – due to British colonial policy.
  • The Bengal famine that resulted in the death of some 3 to 4 million Indians under the British Raj in 1943– was due to British colonial policy. So, we have a loving and oh! so ever caring overall demonstration of concern, in the  words of the British leader at the time:-

“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.” Winston Churchill ( and you wonder why some people want to tear his statue down).

  • The death of some 8 million Iranians ( formerly – Persians) in 1917 – 1919 – due to British policy.

And on and on.

Such a wonderful Empire – indeed.

Conclusion

A four  time UK Parliamentarian recently made his own observations on the British Empire and he said this:-

” When I was young I told my Irish grandfather that the teacher had told me that the British had an empire so vast that the Sun never set upon it. He answered “that’s because God would never trust the British in the dark.” I knew he was telling the truth. And now so does Venezuela.”*

  • Note:  The reference to Venezuela at the end of Galloway’s comment relates to the fact that at a point in time when the Venezuelan Government trusted the British ( read: Bank of England) the Venezuelan Government deposited some billions in gold in the Bank of England. When Venezuela required and still requires in 2020 that its gold be paid out – the British Government has refused so to pay.

May I therefore suggest that the contemporary American Empire is actually an outgrowth from the former British Empire. Elements of abusive use of power do exist within the American Empire. So far as the 4th of July is concerned the American people could well do with a few gifts. Maybe the American Government can start to live up to the ideals of the well drafted US Constitution; maybe instead of invading, bombing and manipulating internal political events in so many countries around the world in the name of ‘democracy’ – the U.S.of A. might now start a genuine commitment to pursue justice and equality and fight  discrimination within America. It should be noted that  nothing teaches better than a good example ( by which I mean – start at home) and leave other countries to determine their own future without continually interfering in their internal political processes.

Anglo-Americans have a lot to account and answer for.  George Floyd’s killing is just “child’s play”, when one seriously considers the murderous horrors which as a matter of historical fact, did precede that day and continues unabated this 4th July, 2020.

Footnote: What is the 4th July – a speech by Frederick Douglass – as relevant as ever:-

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