THE EARTHIAN  —  29         

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Nine, April 18, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, specializing in Adult education.

THE EARTHIAN is an approximately monthly digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting hard-hitting independent writers in linked Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth, especially the human species.

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

Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve

ONE  SCENARIO

By ROUT LOGGER

A participant in a seminar like the one I conducted in Richard John Stapleton’s novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, asked a participant last weekend how the new Earthian management system Spaceship Earth, Inc. recommended in the Rooster novel could possibly be implemented. I did not know at the time how it could be done. I still do not know of course, but I have at least imagined a system that might have the slightest chance of working.

Building on the idea published in the novel that thousands if not billions of democracy chapters should be established around Spaceship Earth in which ordinary Earthian humans would be randomly-selected to lead democratic discussions about Earthian existential problems to develop consensual answers about what should be done, Earthian humans having somehow figured out a way to abolish the abominable system always used around Spaceship Earth that entailed allowing empowered fascist nationalistic leaders to make such decisions, such as Putin deciding to invade and bomb Ukraine and Bush II of the US deciding to bomb and invade Iraq, regardless of where their marching orders actually came from, I imagined the following system.

Should Spaceship Earth, Inc. democracy chapters be established all around Earth, the chapters could develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that would filter up to randomly-selected humans who would summarize the consensual answers and implement consensual tactics, strategies, and policies developed around Earth for dealing with the whole computerized Spaceship Earth system, that would be operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming in magnum computer systems. Randomly-selected groups of dozens of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming. Each member of these groups, who would serve limited terms, would have one vote for every change in all Earthian management system tactics, strategies, policies, and procedures that were programmed and instantiated to maximize the economic, political, psychological, and social OKness of all Earthian humans, based on a computerized count of the number of times a particular idea for change from around Earth was recommended by thousands or millions of Spaceship Earth democracy chapters.

The system would require a strict system of security controls like the current nuclear codes of the US, hopefully providing security several magnitudes more secure than current USian nuclear codes, to make sure a madman could not get in control of any aspect of the Magnum Spaceship Earth Operations System.

Seems to me a management system such as this would be significantly better than previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have empowered fickle, egotistical, greedy, power mad, insane, grandiose, not-very-bright Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans.

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

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

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

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

Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. This recently-published novel features a new kind of seminar invented and coordinated by Rout Logger that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction that requires participants in a seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle. The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late. When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s head to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.

According to Effective Learning Publications books, achieving Earthian human sustainability entails such things as Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition (natural deaths exceeding births) the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers, assuming sufficient quantities of non-human clean energy can be discovered and developed using mind grants.

This is possible managing Spaceship Earth using the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

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

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

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 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ scroll up to and click on the RESPONSES tab at the top of this blog page and speak out about them in writing.

If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN, go to the Internet or any walk-in bookstore around Spaceship Earth and purchase one or more of the above books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the latest and probably most engaging Effective Learning Publications book. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now as an ebook at Barnes and Noble for $4.99 at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases-richard-john-stapleton/1140476381?fbclid=IwAR3iCgbUb4GxgKUAkGOJNBQlbEQmAkKMMQ6DVcc3B085PbntX_VWVi3G-Pg.

RECOMMENDED LINKED ARTICLES RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN INTERNET MEDIA BY RELEVANT HARD-HITTING TRUTH-SEEKING TRUTH-ACCEPTING WRITERS DEALING WITH EARTHIAN HUMAN EXISTENTIAL STATES OF AFFAIRS

APRIL 18, 2022

The following article includes the most detailed comprehensive interview I have read about what caused the Ukraine showdown and what’s at stake. The interviewee is former Swiss intelligence officer and NATO advisor Jacques Buad. According to Baud the main originating cause of the invasion was the US and NATO pushing farther East in Europe to control and depower Russia, adding new countries on Russia’s border to the NATO alliance, while enticing Ukraine to also join NATO. According to Baud, Ukraine has been heavily influenced by right wing extremist fanatical Nazi-like elements in recent years, who control about two percent of the Ukrainian parliament, but ninety percent of mercenaries hired by Ukraine to attack and de-Russify Russian-speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine.  According to Baud the immediate triggers for the Russian invasion of Ukraine were Ukraine attacking Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine, Ukraine preparing to invade and retake Crimea, and Ukraine refusing to sign the Minsk agreement stating they would remain neutral in the USian/NATO-Russian conflict by not joining NATO. Read the article for yourself. It’s a good article and there is more to it than what I mention here.

As I have said before I do not think any of the parties in this showdown have fully clean hands, including the US, and there are no fully good good-guys enmeshed in this disaster, including Zelensky. According to Baud, Zelensky ran for office promising to bring peace and unify Ukraine, but he caved to right-wing fanatics after he got in office. Baud says Zelensky has been told by the extreme right-wing Nazi-like AZOZ faction he will be killed if he signs a peace agreement with Russia that upholds the Minsk agreement, thereby maintaining Ukrainian neutrality in the overall showdown between the US/NATO alliance and Russia.

Who knows what sort of nefarious vile and venal secret agreements and machinations the Ukrainian peace process entails among stakeholders with skin in this showdown, which is another third-degree psychological Game of “I’m Only Trying to Help You,” with all liars, thieves, fanatics, murderers, and Persecutors playing the Game claiming to be heroic patriotic Rescuers in mass media pandering to their serf-like followers, resulting in another Earthian disaster for millions of innocent human Victims, which could get a lot worse, including morphing into WWIII and shooting off and dropping nuclear bombs anywhere around Spaceship Earth, a mother of all reigns of ignorance, stupidity, and terror.

If only all nations around Spaceship Earth would just obey the golden rule–do unto other nations as you would have them do unto you–war–what Mark Twain called the “atrocity of all atrocities”–would be eradicated from the face of the Earth.

But, alas, since nations have never trusted all nations they have only selectively applied the golden rule with some nations for short periods of time in alliances, giving fascist national dictators an opportunity to do all sorts of vile and venal things internationally, since enforceable international laws banning such things have never existed–so fascist dictators can undermine, sanction, invade, bomb, whatever–playing the most ubiquitous human psychological Game on Earth with a clear conscience, a Game played by almost everyone to some extent, when push comes to shove in all sorts of showdowns in all sorts of groups and organizations, including families, “You Made Me Do It.”

“NATO INSIDER ON UKRAINE: US, EU sacrificing Ukraine to ‘weaken Russia’: fmr, NATO adviser ,” by Aaron Mate, THE GRAYZONE, https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/15/us-eu-sacrificing-ukraine-to-weaken-russia-fmr-nato-adviser/?fbclid=IwAR1MuqrQ1zMaoNv1SAJ5N914_EksuVZo2dpMXALPp2Cqj76UT4WF5yQ1TR0.

April 18

Here’s another incisive article by Courtenay Barnett cutting to the chase regarding the nitty-gritty of some Ukraine issues. Barnett is an appreciated repeat contributor to the Effective Learning Report.

“Relevant International Economic Considerations in the Ukraine Showdown,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/relevant-international-economic-considerations-in-the-ukraine-showdown/.

April 16

It’s hard to focus on global warming and climate change (GWCC) when it’s much more exciting and patriotic to focus on the Ukraine showdown and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP), both being ecological cancers that could metastasize, eventually causing the extinction of Earthian humans.

“Our Long Memories,” by Scott Parkin, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/15/our-long-memories/?fbclid=IwAR1KHcTIeFKl8hXgK_dHtoFEIPn_DihrhczPl3NOFmoBPRn_1RZ1Pg34TVQ.

April 16

Say it aint so Joe

“Housing Affordability Declines Nearly 23 Percent in Less Than a Year,” MISHTALK, https://mishtalk.com/economics/housing-affordability-declines-nearly-23-percent-in-less-than-a-year?fbclid=IwAR0nR5O5gG4fC0uqH0Nzc3ZSyHeHeP8_g_99SFX5RqkdpL0EXI83CVxMObw.

April 15

Here’s an interesting read by Pepe Escobar

“Exclusive: Russia’s Sergey Glazyew introduces the new global financial system,” by Pepe Escobar, THE CRADLE, https://thecradle.co/Article/interviews/9135?fbclid=IwAR28c8ATjV0E5bZOWa9zwgK5wIRCkOk2QZQJGi0MlAKbcGViybrTqza2kWI.

April 15

Could not agree more

“Stop the Geopolitical War Now,” by Richard Falk, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/15/stop-the-geopolitical-war-now/?fbclid=IwAR3Q75xfTIlmNTCd6llpIZxp8eesYaPW3PQFRPc3H0rD_6wZQMbtMyYOFS8.  

April 15

Say it aint so Joe

“Ukraine and Yemen Wars Highlight US’s Role as Biggest Arms Dealer in the World,” by Mike Ludwig, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/ukraine-and-yemen-wars-highlight-uss-role-as-biggest-arms-dealer-in-the-world/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2Hnk4u_g36QeYL0oSadjEPi1NT3u3c4MB9OkRzJFGQsnqjaq1QpXdBPNI.

April 15

Did not know about this

“Momentum builds behind a way to lower the cost of college: A degree in three years,” by John Marcus, THE HECHINGER REPORT, https://hechingerreport.org/momentum-builds-behind-a-way-to-lower-the-cost-of-college-a-degree-in-three-years/?fbclid=IwAR1MuqrQ1zMaoNv1SAJ5N914_EksuVZo2dpMXALPp2Cqj76UT4WF5yQ1TR0.

April 15

Say it aint so Joe

“In North Korea, penthouses are mainly for the unfortunate few,” Reuters, ASIAONE, https://www.asiaone.com/asia/north-korea-penthouses-are-mainly-unfortunate-few?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=addtoany&fbclid=IwAR2rL1F6aOlc8G0lqKY65x-GZpDNR68OpR8Iq4dzkfiEhpOlM4AUfmtM8hA/.

April 15

The tongue might be mightier than the sward if you control enough media coverage.

“Billionaires eye parallel media universe,” by Dan Pimack and Sara Fischer, ASIOS, https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-twitter-billionaires-free-speech-social-media-c74547a6-e51d-48fa-b2bd-3d7458f2adb4.html?fbclid=IwAR1klQjQ_6x0ieWmfv_-vBYmnigwuABZ4ta4v1pe_3VyK1ZcgNyM1OPCPMA.

April 15

A blatant violation of human rights

“‘We’re suing,’ says ACLU as Kentucky GOP enacts draconian abortion ban,” by Jake Johnson, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35319?fbclid=IwAR28cirbkMjBut7XXawZN8bN3LN63wdBcQ7rPNBsj1ZXK5aFX-p7J8ywPLo.

April 15

Is this possibly the single most serious existential threat facing Earthian humans?

“Thawing Permafrost is Roiling the Arctic Landscape,” by Mark J. Lara, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/14/thawing-permafrost-is-roiling-the-arctic-landscape/?fbclid=IwAR3MWVZk8qA_DRq9A1JI-BSJ-mESu4gBg6h3yP2mgt8_ci0EPJpBox3pPXY.

April 15

What Winston Churchill said about democracy, “Democracy is the worst possible form of government, until you consider the alternatives,” might also be said about capitalism, but maybe not. Here’s what Richard Wolff has to say about the matter.

“The Role of Capitalism in the War in Ukraine,” by Richard D. Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/14/the-role-of-capitalism-in-the-war-in-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR1U4L-RPwOfzPmPBCo9Sn5g6ILzpnToYVN6guM07t0HWAHarExp7RJAeXM.

April 15

A cogent article

“‘F*ck You Money’,” by Jack Raines, YOUNG MONEY, https://www.youngmoney.co/p/fck-money?fbclid=IwAR2aBnd54ZCxYidb4EIej7RUt8ppy22SvdcSzJyoD7gJUv2GJO-us2zt6NA.

April 15

Here’s a “conservative” article I generally agree with.

“‘We the People’ Are the New, Permanent Underclass in America,” by John & Nisha Whitehead, THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE, https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/we_the_people_are_the_new_permanent_underclass_in_america.

April 13

Sounds good to me

“Ancient Dreams: ‘I Am A Citizen Of the World’,” by Michael Welton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/13/ancient-dreams-i-am-a-citizen-of-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR3LxKtHxYISliK55s30kEIl63FVYVcr90nXORQOHfRN-9YZ4JdNTumINGk.

April 11

Obeying fascists and fighting wars is much more exciting and satisfying than worrying about global warming and climate change.

“Scientists Hit the Streets,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTRERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/11/scientists-hit-the-streets/?fbclid=IwAR0o9xKPw2TBlW7bcay37Wh2IqmCF5ukajkL0Dlb1JDfcGLwt5hsHnv_j-M.

April 11

Fascism is once again growing and marching around Spaceship Earth, as in the 1920s and 1930s.

“The Rise of Digi-Fascism,” by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/11/the-rise-of-digi-fascism/?fbclid=IwAR10xyYa9mDKYMLe_1hAL7Qrpxg-WbjDuSeKrV3WUP8kLCXpfwIkR4ZOcug.

April 11

Loyal Victim cult members are being fleeced by Rescuer Trump playing the psychological Game I’M Only Trying to Help You, which is the only payoff they will get from Trump when the Game finally ends. Surely they know by now in their Adult ego states that Trump has no knowledge, skills, abilities, plans, or policies that will help them socially and economically. Satisfactions they might gain from playing Games with Trump will be purely psychological. For more information backing this assertion read my recently released book As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, now available as an ebook for $4.99 at barnes & noble and $3.99 at amazon.com. Trump is not the only federal politician, repug or dem, playing I’m Only Trying to Help You with voters. You would be hard pressed to find a federal dem or repug politician who has visibly increased the economic and social OKness of middle, lower, and working class USian civilians in the last sixty years.

“Trump is Raking in Millions of Dollars With Fascist Fundraising Emails,” by Mike Ludwig, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-raking-in-millions-of-dollars-with-fascist-fundraising-emails/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR09x97TYhTUXCwqyDPsD7zy2DW-eRHqJy3pGeW5evcl_MD3AMdz0h05KCg.

April 10

Say it aint so Joe

“Sit back and watch Europe commit suicide,” by Pepe Escobar, THE CRADLE, https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8853?fbclid=IwAR1jtDrWgW77kWlWkPQPqNR75i9GgmU7mVCLS_cIl041hAptSkiWbiWqgL8.

April 9

Somethin’ to think about

“The Costs and Benefits of Tribalism–A Roundtable,” by Chris Ferguson, Cory Clark, Bo Winegard, and Allen Buchanan, QUILLETTE, https://quillette.com/2022/04/09/the-costs-and-benefits-of-tribalism/?fbclid=IwAR09x97TYhTUXCwqyDPsD7zy2DW-eRHqJy3pGeW5evcl_MD3AMdz0h05KCg.

April 8

Here’s some more comprehensive economic and political analysis of disparate data bases by Michael Hudson.

“The Dollar Devours the Euro,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/08/the-dollar-devours-the-euro/?fbclid=IwAR134JxBjEZfRljCSN1MphKEJOvowY5mOA9KkVL4K-a3ekmN4OyJvVViwSU.

April 8

This article contains information unknown to me before I read it, but overall it generally confirms what I had been thinking about the situation.

“The Military Situation in the Ukraine,” by Jacques Baud, THE POSTIL MAGAZINE, https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR0H09negvAOD4fCPcw86eneukIcIWUb-dWo8zO_rwIXG2lhFwLLcOE37IU.

April 5

Interesting

“A New History of World War II,” by David Immerwahr, THE ATLANTIC, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/world-war-ii-empire-colonialism/629371/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share&fbclid=IwAR1lmWvPg2clTpWEsa4O206veooyloGLtEkywNVqPcSngC1cYYU7axjRBiw.

April 4

This novel is about a fictional management professor and consultant Dr. Rout Logger who secured funding from wealthy donors for an on-going discussion process that was conducted in central city hotels in randomly-selected cities of the US on the first Saturday of the month starting in October 2019.

Forty participants were randomly-selected from pools of USian citizens based on demographic criteria designed to maximize diversity among the group members, including members living in and identified with widely divergent psychological, social, economic, political, religious, educational, and philosophical states of affairs.

The major purpose of the process was to increase the OKness of the group members by forcing them to engage in rational Adult ego state democratic discussions of serious problems facing all Earthian humans. The group members were paid five thousand dollars per Saturday session in which they participated. The meetings entailed morning and afternoon sessions of three hours. Each session was started by a roulette-like spinner, a copper rooster, called the Truther rooster, that would spin and crow when twirled. Whomever was sitting at the end of an imaginary straight line of fire extending from the rooster’s beak to the circle of forty participants would be randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment, proving true democracy can happen. Each Leader of the Moment was required to answer three existential questions: What do you think is the most serious problem right now? what do you think the alternatives are for dealing with the problem? and what do you recommend for dealing with the problem?

The story includes dialogues between Rout Logger and the group members and between group members dealing with the issues the randomly selected members brought up answering the existential questions and dealing with psychological and social problems group members had adjusting to the group process.

The process lasted six months, to March 2020. Rout told the group members at the outset that the process might be continued for a year or more. Instead, it was terminated after the March meeting because of Covid-19.

Rout was convinced the process did increase the OKness of the group members in six months. How much would be impossible to prove but he was convinced their OKness level went up, as he defined OKness. His donors were also convinced OKness increased based on data and information Rout furnished them. Rout used some transactional analysis lingo and jargon in the process but he also explained how it could be understood by all members. The story ended with Rout and his donors working on a new computer-based Game-free democratic discussion system based on zoom technology that could be rolled out around Spaceship Earth.

AS THE ROOSTER CROWS EARTHIAN OKNESS INCREASES, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases-richard-john-stapleton/1140476381?fbclid=IwAR3iCgbUb4GxgKUAkGOJNBQlbEQmAkKMMQ6DVcc3B085PbntX_VWVi3G-Pg.

April 3

I agree with the Pope about this, but I think more fortunate countries should do more to help fellow Earthians condemned to live in unfortunate countries deal with the conditions in their countries that are causing the need for migration, such as inadequate resources and overpopulation, doing things like what the USian Peace Corps did or does, started by John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, which is rarely mentioned anymore.

“Pope blasts Russia’s ‘infantile’ war,” by Michael Winfield, THE HILL, https://thehill.com/news/wire/3257104-pope-blasts-russias-infantile-war/?fbclid=IwAR1hnNRrxoTve6gYItaKVoVAaHJDIEOstzouPAhjoPOD-f1UId-Kwv1f5ok.

Please forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian anyway you see fit.

ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.

A man sitting at a table in front of a computer.

The object under his left hand is a Classroom De- Gamer™ he invented in 1978.

He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write- up was an analysis of a professionally written case about a real business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses were taken from all functional areas of business, such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK–You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.

He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

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

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

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were almost no F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game- players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career called it The Spinner. He appreciated the fact Georgia Southern honored his academic freedom as a tenured professor, allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials.

He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers” for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Game-free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent–Child I’m OK– You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study.

For more information on these classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292. Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations weighting only instructor excellence scores up to about 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher- evaluations/ . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (March 28, 2022)) been cited as a reference in 84 refereed journal articles concerned about student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including nine new citations since April 2021, proving the article is still being read and cited by serious academics twenty-one years after publication.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.”

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

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/.  

 

 

RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS IN THE UKRAINE SHOWDOWN

By COURTENAY BARNETT

A few thoughts recently came to mind and I share here. 

I make my point by reference to the US, Iran, Venezuela and Russia. I start with the US and follow a common thread linking oil and gas to sanctions and the consequences arising therefrom. 

The US is in the privileged position of having the world’s reserve currency and being in control of the financial architecture of the world and therein controlling the SWIFT system. 

So, first to Iran. In 1953 the US CIA assisted by British oil interests overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in a coup. The Shah of Iran was installed to America’s advantage. The coup occurred because the US and UK were disapproving of the nationalisation of Iranian oil. The Shah proved unpopular and in 1979 there was a new form of government established  in Iran which exists to this day. Following the Iranian revolution sanctions were imposed on Iran which was barred from the SWIFT system. The effect of the sanctions was that Iran could not trade its oil freely on the world market and thus the general impact was to lessen the aggregate of available global oil and negatively impact the price and sales of Iranian oil.  

Next, Venezuela. The election of Hugo Chavez brought change in Venezuela by way of the nationalisation of Venezuela’s oil. The death of Chavez saw Nicholas Maduro being elected. The US response was to reject Maduro’s legitimacy and despite a UN vote of two thirds of the General Assembly acknowledging Maduro’s legitimacy the US still wanted its choice of Juan Guido to be appointed as Venezuelan President. Again, consequences arose of the US imposing sanctions on Venezuela and Venezuela was barred from the SWIFT system. The effect of the sanctions was that Venezuela could not trade its oil freely on the world market and thus the general impact was to lessen the aggregate of available global oil and negatively impact the price and sales of Venezuelan oil. 

And finally, Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. The US response was the imposition of sanctions against Russia. Russia was barred from the SWIFT system. The effect of the sanctions was that Russia could not trade its oil freely on the world market and thus the general impact was to lessen the aggregate of available global oil and negatively impact the price and sales of Russian oil. 

The repetitive similarity is clear in each instance. My point is not about the political rights or wrong of the sanctions but rather leads to the global inflationary consequence of the imposition of such sanctions in the oil market. As a short diversion, I reference Joe Biden’s pronouncement to the people of the United States that the current rates of inflation being experienced in America is due to ‘Putin’s war’ in Ukraine. Additionally, Biden has been urging the European countries to impose sanctions against Russian oil and gas. In both instances he is wrong. The volume of Russian oil bought by the US from Russia amounts to about 3%. So, the impact of sanctions has precious little impact on the sum total of American imported oil and by extension on domestic oil prices in America. By contrast, some European countries are dependent on Russian oil and gas to as high as 40%. The request by Biden, in such a situation then amounts to an invitation for such countries to commit literal ‘economic suicide’. In all of this, again by contrast, I find it particularly interesting that the US does not hesitate to continue normal and quite significant oil purchases from Saudi Arabia while simultaneously making substantial arms sales which the Saudis have been using against Yemeni civilians. But so be it – do as I say – not as I do. 

In the wider scheme of things it seems to me that the available oil and gas which the countries of Iran, Venezuela, Iran and Russia combined, command, constitutes a substantial portion of global oil supplies. Thus, if the aggregate of that oil and gas supply were released and made available on the world market, the consequence, I assume, would be to reduce the cost of energy, which would be a desirable result for the US and the rest of the world. Surely, if Europe, and especially Germany, were thinking in clear and enlightened economic terms then Nordstream 11 and quite affordable Russian oil and gas would be a rational decision for Germany and the rest of Europe to make. So, last but not least,the appeal by the US to moral conduct, principles and pure values seems to me to be laughable, if one but reflects on the number of illegal wars the US has launched – not least in Iraq and bombed Libya to smithereens while still being illegally in Syria and continuing active oil trading with Saudi Arabia. Why, I ask myself, would any rational European leader want to harm the welfare of their own people? Come winter, is it Putin to pay the price – or – will the suffering be felt to greater degree by the mass of the European population? Do the sanctions not actually negatively impact the innocent civilian populations within the sanctioned countries? 

I raise these few points all to say that despite what the mainstream media may preach ( may I say selectively preach and likewise selectively focus on) – there is another reality worthy of consideration when the world’s population at large has to contend with the practical question – how am I to live and survive?  

______________________________________

Courtenay Barnett is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for almost fully forty years, has been arrested for defending his views, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. 

THE EARTHIAN  —  28        

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Eight, March 28, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, specializing in Adult education.

THE EARTHIAN is an approximately monthly digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting hard-hitting independent writers in linked Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth, especially the human species.

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

Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve

NO MORE WAR!

By ROUT LOGGER

I had a dream today, not a dream like Martin Luther King had, but a real dream, asleep in my chair before five o’clock pm, in which there was a vote on who is right in Ukraine, the US or Russia. Over and over the votes were tallied, and over and over it came in that the US won by one vote. My wife came home and she asked me what I had been doing. I told her I had been asleep and had this weird dream. Still discombobulated by the dream, I told her it’s insane this has happened. Here we and Russia were friends in WWII and here we are fighting them after all these years. We, Reagan at least, told Russia in so many words if they would give up Communism in 1989 we would be their friends. Instead of that we have forced them into a bad situation. Yes, Putin had to have been crazy to have done what he did invading Ukraine as he did. But it’s time the US and NATO gave up their paranoid power Game in eastern Europe. This juvenile crap in Ukraine should be stopped now!

Now that the milk has been spilled in Ukraine there is no telling how things are going to turn out from here on. About the best thing ordinary Earthian humans can hope for is that the Ukrainian and Russian govts will soon reach some sort of agreement and bring this abominable war to an abrupt halt. Even if this happened however how could Putin ever compensate for thousands of people killed, cities destroyed, and millions of refugees displaced by his costly spiteful retribution to the US and NATO for expanding in eastern Europe? Provocative as this was, nothing the US or NATO did to Russia after WWII leading up to the Ukraine invasion caused anywhere near as much physical damage, human suffering, and death as what Putin has caused in Ukraine.

Bush II of the US did the same sort of thing Putin did in Ukraine in Iraq in 2003 with fewer good reasons than Putin had in Ukraine, but that’s another story.   

The problem now is that the Ukrainian invasion could escalate into World War III. About all ordinary Earthian humans can do now is grieve.

Ordinary Earthian humans all around Spaceship Earth, regardless of the evolution and duration of this war, are chronically threatened by Two Modern Horsemen of the Apocalypse, global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP). In theory the probability of imminent Earthian human extinction caused by MNWP is easier to eradicate than the extinction probability of GWCC.

MNWP can theoretically be eliminated overnight by all aggressive imperialistic and possibly-genocidal nations now existing around Spaceship Earth declaring peace against one another, waging peace instead of war, and destroying all their nuclear weapons. Relatively few Earthian humans percentage-wise would be affected by edicts necessary to make this happen, primarily those humans making their livings working for militaries as soldiers, pilots, sailors, etc. and military contractors working for and supplying militaries.

On the other hand, eradicating the probability of human extinction caused by GWCC will require lifestyle changes for almost all Earthian humans living aboard Spaceship Earth, and those lifestyle changes will require structural sub-conscious psychological changes in the ways all Earthian humans feel, think, believe, know, and behave.   

Bringing about changes to combat both GWCC and MNWP will entail upsetting the apple carts and vested interests of millions of organizations and billions of individual humans, and most humans are loathe to give up their personal perks and vested interests, however much they harm the whole system. One of the most difficult-to-make and most necessary changes to eradicate the probability of human extinction is changing the competitive dog-eat-dog economic system historically used internationally by I’m OK–You’re Not OK nationalistic governments.

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

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

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

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

Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. This recently-published novel features a new kind of seminar coordinated by Rout Logger that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction that requires participants in a seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle. The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late. When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s head to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.

According to Effective Learning Publications books, achieving Earthian human sustainability entails such things as Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition (natural deaths exceeding births) the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers, assuming sufficient quantities of non-human clean energy can be discovered and developed using mind grants.

This is possible managing Spaceship Earth using the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

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

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

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 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ scroll up to and click on the RESPONSES tab at the top of this blog page and speak out about them in writing.

If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN, go to the Internet or any walk-in bookstore around Spaceship Earth and purchase one or more of the above books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the latest and probably most engaging Effective Learning Publications book. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now as an ebook at Barnes and Noble for $4.99 at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases-richard-john-stapleton/1140476381?fbclid=IwAR3iCgbUb4GxgKUAkGOJNBQlbEQmAkKMMQ6DVcc3B085PbntX_VWVi3G-Pg.

RECOMMENDED LINKED ARTICLES RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN INTERNET MEDIA BY RELEVANT HARD-HITTING TRUTH-SEEKING TRUTH-ACCEPTING WRITERS DEALING WITH EARTHIAN HUMAN EXISTENTIAL STATES OF AFFAIRS

MARCH 26, 2022

Here’s another fearless article by Michael Hudson, the most comprehensive economist I have read. Seems to me it would have been better for the US after WWII to have fairly competed in global markets like any other market participant under free enterprise capitalism, paying the same supply and demand prices for goods and services globally as everyone else; but, no, it seems the USian deep state and military-industrial-intelligence-banking complex did not want to fairly compete globally: they wanted to unfairly compete using force to grab and take what they needed at lower prices than would have evolved under laissez-faire competitive free market capitalism. So they created an imperial empire to invade and bomb countries, occupy countries with military bases, replace and undermine governments, sanction governments and civilians, and manipulate and rig markets to take the lion’s share of whatever the US needed globally at the lowest price by hook or crook,thereby creating enemies around Spaceship Earth, while devastating countries defined as enemies. This USian imperial empire strategy may have technically worked for seventy or more years after WWII, causing many USian civilians to become richer than they otherwise would have, however immoral this strategy might have been, but the glory days for this empire are ending, just like they did for all previous Earthian imperial empires. Seems to me all Earthian humans should now outlaw the imperial empire strategy around Spaceship Earth.

“The American Empire self-destructs. But nobody thought it would happen this fast,” by Michael Hudson, THE SAKER, http://thesaker.is/america-shoots-its-own-dollar-empire-in-economic-attack-on-russia/.

March 26

Doomsday anyone?

“Immune to War Fever, Some Countries Stay Neutral to Russia”, by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/immune-to-war-fever-some-countries-stay-neutral-to-russia/?fbclid=IwAR3Nl2iXkz0tsTvRiSB828NJJ2UaTyVodu7K_y4xj0WQmdLC-FTNEhTcf9A.

March 26

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Roaming Charges: Both Ends Burning,” by Jeffrey St. Clair, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/roaming-charges-both-ends-burning/?fbclid=IwAR2srVHBrWlusWQ9MD2GZzvaOa9MDZcOYpvGE2GL9pNPOxL-AQVm_UjOq2o.

March 26

Seems to me the only hope for Earthian humans is for all Spaceship Earth nations to cease this demented international competition, carnage, and plunder asap and cooperate with each other to combat global warming and climate change. Otherwise, all Earthian humans will sooner than later be toast. As usual Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive, spells out what is going on in this article.

“The Blowback from Sanctions on Russia,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/the-blowback-from-sanctions-on-russia/?fbclid=IwAR3q97LlIbEXjEmf9UUqSNy2a9_2Ncv8TjKSmN815rTWS-EPVZiXcuLRBK8.

March 26

Russia has once again become hell on earth for its own people, however hellish Ukraine is now after the Russian invasion, thanks to Trump’s buddy Putin. Let’s grieve Trump or someone of his ilk does not ever become a USian dictator like Putin did in Russia. As discounted politically as ordinary USians are they are less discounted than ordinary Russians under the yoke of Putin and his fellow oligarchs, as this article points out. On the other hand, ordinary USians are losing their freedom to choose abortions and vote in the US at a rapid rate as repugs increase their power in right wing authoritarian states. If this repug fascist trend continues indefinitely…

“Imperialism and the Struggle Against It Begins at Home,” by Stanley L. Cohen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/imperialism-and-the-struggle-against-it-begins-at-home/?fbclid=IwAR0-vrapZ_RU1BSPPIq36hKMkp6Lz0vpHvKoiNR6Fk7J-3eLXgMf1M8PyAg.

March 25

I am afraid Ferguson is right that Biden and the USian deep state want to keep the war going to further humiliate and weaken Russia, doing more of what they have been doing to them since Reagan told Gorbachev to take down the Berlin Wall in 1989.

“Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the US,” by Niall Ferguson, BLOOMBERG OPINION, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-22/niall-ferguson-putin-and-biden-misunderstand-history-in-ukraine-war?fbclid=IwAR0Cp8dPF-loNTErb_wljSc8-kOpBToV0Q3YKsmm6g0VNkF6jFR0tZGx2BI.

March 25

Wonder why

“Disillusioned With Dems and GOP, Independents Now Largest Voter Group in the US,” by Josephine Lee, TROUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/disillusioned-with-dems-and-gop-independents-now-largest-voter-group-in-the-us/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1wa9QW-BT0Nj6TGwkitEuvl2i2mZysZx8SFj64ke8YXzUAfb2Ykhs7qqU.

March 23

This article does not include the legal stealing caused by the USian elite and large corporations paying politicians to lower their taxes

 “Commercial Defrauding of Uncle Sam–Biggest Booming Business, by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/23/commercial-defrauding-of-uncle-sam-biggest-booming-business/?fbclid=IwAR3te4ARxnlphUsXvza9hRcTxOwodRQAXOK-wHbb4azeigInr5IcJ0EgCt4.

March 23

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Major media in the U.S. become cheerleaders for war in Ukraine,” by John Wojcik, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35177?fbclid=IwAR3Z_GsoXnqfE0FyBoiFcD4bcMtW5FLeODeXbrhwM1F_2KVy5jDU-kYQIRY.

March 22

Sounds about right to me

“It’s All Oligarchs All the Way Down,” by Chuck Churchill, COUNTERPUNCH, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35177?fbclid=IwAR3Z_GsoXnqfE0FyBoiFcD4bcMtW5FLeODeXbrhwM1F_2KVy5jDU-kYQIRY.

March 22

Unethical and immoral protecting of vested interests by a large organization

“Why is Russia’s church backing Putin’s war ?,” by Scott Kenworthy, THE JERUSALEM POST, https://www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-701967?fbclid=IwAR1RNp7PSSMKcMutgj5j1D4eC_TPLi2dCxOd9wZ9aus8Ybs2bdsEvPIw5W4.

March 22

A good summary by Spaceship Earth’s most articulate newsperson

“Gravitas Plus: Did NATO push Ukraine into war?,” YouTube, https://www.jpost.com/christianworld/article-701967?fbclid=IwAR1RNp7PSSMKcMutgj5j1D4eC_TPLi2dCxOd9wZ9aus8Ybs2bdsEvPIw5W4.

March 21

More than a grain of truth here

“We Need an Economy Without Bosses and Managers, Participatory Economics is How,” by C.J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/we-need-an-economy-without-bosses-and-managers-participatory-economics-is-how/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1Nx0lmvzZnxSX44KB_GcUPg7q433JD9b4sMc2l-N3gEOMcGbDJCPv-foM.

March 21

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Severe Drought & ‘Dust Bowl Conditions’ Threaten Disastrous Winter Wheat Harvest In The US,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/severe-drought-dust-bowl-conditions-threaten-disastrous-winter-wheat-harvest-us?fbclid=IwAR1Nx0lmvzZnxSX44KB_GcUPg7q433JD9b4sMc2l-N3gEOMcGbDJCPv-foM.

March 21

This novel is about a fictional management professor and consultant Dr. Rout Logger who secured funding from wealthy donors for an on-going discussion process that was conducted in central city hotels in randomly-selected cities of the US on the first Saturday of the month starting in October 2019.

Forty participants were randomly-selected from pools of USian citizens based on demographic criteria designed to maximize diversity among the group members, including members living in and identified with widely divergent psychological, social, economic, political, religious, educational, and philosophical states of affairs.

The major purpose of the process was to increase the OKness of the group members by causing them to engage in rational Adult ego state democratic discussions of serious problems facing all Earthian humans. The group members were paid five thousand dollars per Saturday session in which they participated. The meetings entailed morning and afternoon sessions of three hours. Each session was started by a roulette-like spinner, a copper rooster, called the Truther rooster, that would spin and crow when twirled. Whomever was sitting at the end of an imaginary straight line of fire extending from the rooster’s beak to the circle of forty participants would be randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment, proving true democracy can happen. Each Leader of the Moment was required to answer three existential questions: What do you think is the most serious problem right now? what do you think the alternatives are for dealing with the problem? and what do you recommend for dealing with the problem?

The story includes dialogues between Rout Logger and the group members and between group members dealing with the issues the randomly selected members brought up answering the existential questions and dealing with psychological and social problems group members had adjusting to the group process.

The process lasted six months, to March 2020. Rout told the group members at the outset that the process might be continued for a year or more. Instead, it was terminated after the March meeting because of Covid-19.

Rout was convinced the process did increase the OKness of the group members in six months. How much would be impossible to prove but he was convinced their OKness level went up, as he defined OKness. His donors were also convinced OKness increased based on transcripts and video Rout furnished them. Rout used some transactional analysis lingo and jargon in the process but he also explained how it could be understood by all members. The story ended with Rout and his donors working on a new computer-based Game-free democratic discussion system based on zoom technology that could be rolled out around Spaceship Earth, hopefully to help save Earthian humans from imminent extinction.

“As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases,” by Richard John Stapleton, BARNES & NOBLE, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases-richard-john-stapleton/1140476381?fbclid=IwAR3e1tHCB1Ia719fEye372lCg2HcwaCxQcMLzxO6Ld6Y-WEgQYp08xUZTz0.

March 20

Repugs like this one, and most repugs and dems in Washington for that matter, should go jump in the lake

“Republicans Supporting a No-Fly Zone Are Putting Us at Risk of Nuclear War,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/republicans-supporting-a-no-fly-zone-are-putting-us-at-risk-of-nuclear-war/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0ugi_sbKI0ZmEn_VlkNl4QvfOCljouFBWilCs1hRUIZqhLu3W72zLMj_Q.

March 20

Enlightening

“Mapped: All The World’s Military Personnel,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/mapped-all-worlds-military-personnel?fbclid=IwAR1luIhIn37nQDQxEElPRLNRTf4_CgyZWc38XU38upa8IHbM_IGSRzMU5ZU.

March 20

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Waltzing to Armageddon,” by Chris Hedfges, CONSORTIUM NEWS, https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/15/chris-hedges-waltzing-to-armageddon/?fbclid=IwAR08gbipE9eAJRvjOgmMxRjEkTmVag4sMgctOFW-1Z6E9E-H9oiUbZ6JKrY.

March 18

Enslaving women in forced motherhood, that’s what it is. Why? Especially considering enslaved motherhood causes the Earthian human population bomb to explode even more every year, causing the need for more and more resource depletion and the burning of more and more fossil fuel, thereby increasing the probability of the imminent extinction of the entire human species.

“‘Worse than Texas’: Extreme anti-choice bills advance in multiple states,” by Brett Wilkins, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35150?fbclid=IwAR1R1tip67H5L0XNozrFi4czZUIPc4K5VEw4cKHuq7Xq7DcZroPUdSC6_Ng.

March 18

Yes, Brother Ben, history is repeating itself again, except this time the consequences may be much worse. Never before have all ordinary Earthian humans been subjected to a probability of imminent extinction caused by the greed and power needs of nationalistic leaders as high as it is now.

“War, Generations, and Historical Memory,” by David Schultz, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/18/war-generations-and-historical-memory/?fbclid=IwAR3n5Zs01LPNknZx8zH-jIkWKzc2eX94UYxxzKMfK3xCGL_bCiREXwXaPe0.

March 18

Seems right as rain

“Arming Scientists and Society for the Climate Crisis,” by W. T. Whitney, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/18/arming-scientists-and-society-for-the-climate-crisis-2/?fbclid=IwAR1prxLkvCXWv1cFZlPP4NCDg0JwljXSHACm0yEAnaf6XEStmD1oFDeRoGs.

March 18

A bunch of wrongs do not make a right, and we ordinary Earthian humans are in a hell of a mess

“Let Us Not Talk Falsely Now: Reflections on War, Peace, and Ukraine,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/18/let-us-not-talk-falsely-now-reflections-on-war-peace-and-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR2BvdYyXBW9sAd8a3piUpFvE3vCbwgbCj2w7vfaz1lo8JBfbbesfLnGIIs.

March 18

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Starving a People, Committing a Genocide: Biden’s Sanctions on Afghanistan,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/18/starving-a-people-committing-a-genocide-bidens-sanctions-on-afghanistan/?fbclid=IwAR0qTjo734u415cmZwYIFWLcLFawocyBgCkOSMV3QcbFFMgpVfIEsk-WOK8.

March 16

Here is a real update today, 10:24 ET, eight minutes ago. let us grieve this goes through and the madness stops ASAP

“Stocks Spiking on Report Ukraine-Russia Drawing UP ‘Neutrality Plan To end The War’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/russia-sparks-ceasefire-hope-after-kremlin-says-neutral-ukraine-army-could-be-compromise?fbclid=IwAR1ioq-SXNboWelMMa2k0AXbRKC-ox_nXI7IyCRGhhs_0ze09sRC8ACeq8s.

March 16

Interesting perspective from a right of center Princeton history professor

“The Weakness of the Despot,” by David Remnick, THE NEW YORKER, https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/stephen-kotkin-putin-russia-ukraine-stalin?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR3e1tHCB1Ia719fEye372lCg2HcwaCxQcMLzxO6Ld6Y-WEgQYp08xUZTz0.

March 16

Who wants to think about methane and global warming when waging war is much more exciting?

“Methane Acceleration Sets Record,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/15/methane-acceleration-sets-record/?fbclid=IwAR1lxILPN4zxAnUXyj9pjWwWdXZ3b4AshKR9RzMOix0r8A1BnshhH2EJHJA.

March 15

Sad and scary hyperbolic inflammatory lunacy, worse than Rescuer Trump inciting his Victim cult members to violence in an insurrection against the USian govt at the USian capitol building January 6, 2021 playing NIGYSOB, Now I’ve got you, you SOB. Here is Rescuer Trump now inciting his not-OK Victim cult members to violence against Persecutor socialists throughout the US playing NIGYSOB. If you do not know what psychological Games are just add the words transactional analysis to psychological Games, making them transactional analysis psychological Games and ask Google what they are. Payoffs from winning NIGYSOB Games include satisfying feelings resulting from venting pent-up anger and temporary feelings of one-up superiority and patriotism caused by putting Game Victims in a one-down position, producing temporary increases in psychological OKness for the Victim/Persecutor so-called winners, but leaving their social, economic, and political OKness levels as not-OK as ever in reality. Trump’s cult members are suckers, to say the least, being played by a master NIGYSOB player, Trump. Yes, make America great again indeed. What did Trump do for his non-rich ordinary supporters in four years as president, socially, economically, or politically? Nothing, that’s what. They may have temporarily felt psychologically better after winning the 2016 NIGYSOB presidential election, but their economic, social, and political OKness levels are no higher now than they were in 2016, probably lower, and certainly their current not-OK economic, social, and political OKness levels were not caused by Biden in one year as president.

“Trump Commands Followers to ‘Lay Down Their Lives,’ to Stop Critical Race Theory,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-commands-followers-to-lay-down-their-lives-to-stop-critical-race-theory/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2ESJ7IXtChzCkXHi8k4UHpzwz7BsR5CCfTo97qCSJvmvS_pk5hZ4kBiMU.

March 14

Yuk. The best rendition I have seen on what is really going on in Russia

“Inside Putin’s circle–the real Russian elite,” by Anatol Lieven, FINANCIAL TIMES, https://www.ft.com/content/503fb110-f91e-4bed-b6dc-0d09582dd007?fbclid=IwAR3hlmVIwG58A0jzKjwwF8jOqYfvoplqJUxJDlqNyUPf4qSFjVy6tGclqr0.

March 13

“The instinct to return home, and the planning, saving and grappling with under insurance that requires, is unfolding amid the backdrop of the western United States’ worst drought in 1,200 years and what’s morphed into a year-long fire season. Winter wildfires by the names of Emerald and Airport have scorched thousands of acres in California; led to the destruction of over 100 structures in Kansas; and amid this writing, prompted the evacuation of 1,100 houses in the Florida Panhandle – at a time of year when those with intimate knowledge of the cycles of burning and regeneration once relied on wetter and cooler conditions to keep blazes at bay.”

“Western US’s Worst Drought in 1,200 Years Brings Year-Long Fire Season,” by Leanna First-Arai, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/western-uss-worst-drought-in-1200-years-brings-year-long-fire-season/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2-Kz5f9aGo_dl4_r9A0M9Cq-LRLMdzOAHAQRbyVWP5Td0_Z9ZX0p-gs2I.

March 13

THE EARTHIAN, specializing in Adult education, is an approximately monthly digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting hard-hitting independent writers linked in Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth, especially the human species.

“The Earthian–27,” by Richard John Stapleton, Editor, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-27/?fbclid=IwAR1NOqN4eagSmi0bUuEzva06q5ODGQSBGB-w0gD7vAiCzwg7k8YhirNxY1Y.

March 13

This article seems well documented

“How U.S. has empowered and armed neo-Nazis in Ukraine,” by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas JS Davies, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35091?fbclid=IwAR2-Kz5f9aGo_dl4_r9A0M9Cq-LRLMdzOAHAQRbyVWP5Td0_Z9ZX0p-gs2I.

March 13

Well said Brother West

“Cornel West Sees a Spiritual Decay in the Culture,” by Vinson Cunningham, THE NEW YORKER, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/cornel-west-sees-a-spiritual-decay-in-the-culture?fbclid=IwAR0CWuWFEov36Gs34-02r5Kj9c3kfb8jttXwznoxopzGbnfnoyEJdDgQ120.

March 12

Seems right on

“The Only Non-Totalitarian Solution to Resource Scarcity: Decentralized Degrowth,” by Charles Hugh Smith, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/only-non-totalitarian-solution-resource-scarcity-decentralized-degrowth?fbclid=IwAR2GwCUbn1PaZplX44v2zsMpcBNtejRXnEqqPyz-OjbHimHZqGu9ag80NV4.

March 9

Another great article by Paul Street, one of the bravest truth-telling writers alive. Contains the first mention I have seen of the schizophrenic spectacle of mainstream tv news media broadcasting attractive talking heads solemnly detailing and showing gory events and scenes of mass murder and misery among civilians still in Ukraine and refugees getting the hell out, and then abruptly switching to the commercials of their advertisers touting exciting episodes in the lives of beautiful, successful, happy ordinary USian humans, living blissful, satisfying, and fulfilling lives in the US, caused by ordinary USian humans buying the advertised products and services.

“Stop This Imperialistic War,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/09/stop-this-imperialist-war/?fbclid=IwAR13z4TSLKPgPlbCLGZdNKjfIxo332Bl6Fir4t1Ea47_EUNwZWUCCvamlAw.

March 9

Excellent article. Contains suggestions like those in my “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.,” article.

“Climate Mitigation Isn’t Just a Matter of Ethics; It’s Life and Death,” by C.J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/climate-mitigation-isnt-just-a-matter-of-ethics-its-life-and-death/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2-Kz5f9aGo_dl4_r9A0M9Cq-LRLMdzOAHAQRbyVWP5Td0_Z9ZX0p-gs2I.

March 8

Another comprehensive article by Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive, telling it like it is around Spaceship Earth. A must-read article for all thinking Earthian humans

“The American Empire Self-Destructs, But Nobody Thought That It Would Happen This Fast,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/08/the-american-empire-self-destructs-but-nobody-thought-that-it-would-happen-this-fast/?fbclid=IwAR0lHzkNazwBgNbqCC5EUk9NgD2Jj5bY4TG7K42U7_-OpRSnPOm7ydT9Z94.

March 8

Seems nobody knows how to teach yet

“American Children Losing Motivation and Creativity, Teachers Say,” by Jackson Elliott, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/american-children-losing-motivation-and-creativity-teachers-say?fbclid=IwAR1rRFRcPcyXa9kEQSH7fdgx0kvDt7rA94j9j3XLfitR7cOr_WW_KAahsKs.

March 7

Sad

“Supreme Court Says Torture at CIA Black Site Is a ‘State Secret’,” by Martha Cohn, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/supreme-court-says-torture-at-cia-black-site-is-a-state-secret/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0CWuWFEov36Gs34-02r5Kj9c3kfb8jttXwznoxopzGbnfnoyEJdDgQ120.

March 7

Might come to this

“Will ‘Victory Gardens’ Make Comeback As Global Food Crisis Worsens?,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/will-victory-gardens-make-comeback-global-food-crisis-worsens?fbclid=IwAR1oArarX_ApD_EShSIjIzhIfNvSAiOqBJSpW6zMUuPnZx77KjaFnDUzRQI.

March 5

I watched and heard the whole thing on tv when it happened, January 6, 2021. It seemed clear to me Trump was inciting an insurrection, but maybe my eyes and ears were lying to me

“January 6 Committee to Start Public, Likely Televised, Hearings Next Month,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/january-6-committee-to-start-public-likely-televised-hearings-next-month/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3ecGa7M40enhwc8Fw5yHk0_1LOpw_zZWlbPlKZboQWcDTgmN-wGVNOGxo.

March 5

Enlightening article. Never knew this. Thanks to Paul Ziegler for sharing the article

“What Our Founding Fathers Said About Political Parties,” by Bill King, https://billkingblog.com/what-our-founding-fathers-said-about-political-parties/?fbclid=IwAR1Nl4qA4gC3_BP058Lo0K9uxUuAwL9wNY4DfX1giU2AfgW3nnJ2-gX1llk.

March 5

And right now here in southeast Georgia spring has sprung again. the trees are leafing out, the grass is getting green, flowers are blooming, the sky is blue, white clouds look like giant cotton balls, the birds are back, singing…

“Patti Smith on Dreams, Loss, Love, and Mending the Broken Realities of Life,” by Maria Popova, POCKET, https://getpocket.com/explore/item/year-of-the-monkey-patti-smith-on-dreams-loss-love-and-mending-the-broken-realities-of-life?utm_source=fbsynd&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR2-Kz5f9aGo_dl4_r9A0M9Cq-LRLMdzOAHAQRbyVWP5Td0_Z9ZX0p-gs2I.

March 4

Yes, Stop the madness now. Wage peace not war

“The War-Profiteering Gangsters Will Kill Us All Unless We Unite Against Them,” by Roger Waters, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/04/the-war-profiteering-gangsters-will-kill-us-all-unless-we-unite-against-them/?fbclid=IwAR2eEarK00XvAO9KShuwCdSBQzPPRKsHsnIk-_f0khW2nsZvfrEGM1zO9Ac.

March 4

Richard Rubenstein the author comprehends the system causing war in Ukraine and he tells it like it is in this Counterpunch article discussing relevant focal points not generally recognized and explained in mass media articles, many of which incite and inflame fear and hatred among poorly informed Earthian humans, to attract readers and advertising revenues, focusing more on form than substance. As usual good and evil in the imperial world system are relative, not absolute. Stop the madness now, before it’s too late to avert catastrophe. Escalate the cease-fire and peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Declare peace! Wage peace, not war!

“The Ukrainian Conflict and the Imperial World System,” by Richard Rubenstein, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/04/the-ukrainian-conflict-and-the-imperial-world-system/?fbclid=IwAR2UWiCim64SfcreSwNIAVrc0L0-JgydIreayOLf1fyJa490THA9N9FBLeo.

March 3

No doubt this egged it on. Why did the US and NATO do it? Was it to build up business for military industrial complexes and keep politicians in power? Were the Europeans ever once seriously threatened by Russia after WWII? Did the US and NATO have any reason for expanding eastward other than to keep on occupying Europe?

“The Ukraine War Follows Decades of Warnings That NATO Expansion Would Provoke Russia,” by Ronald Suny, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/03/235816/?fbclid=IwAR0BF3d5qK98SXU_ZCPYiuVJcb_sco_JGoFmPBq6Zri9YEBa17yqZcLH1eI.

Beware the Ides of March

“What are the Ides of March?

“If you’ve heard of the Ides of March, you probably know you’re supposed to beware them. Why? In ancient Rome, the Ides of March were equivalent to our March 15. In the Roman calendar, this date corresponded to several religious observances. The Romans considered the Ides of March a deadline for settling debts. But – in our modern world – if you’ve heard of the Ides of March, it’s probably thanks to William Shakespeare. In his play Julius Caesar, a soothsayer attracts Caesar’s attention and tells him….” Read the rest of the story here: https://earthsky.org/human-world/beware-the-ides-of-march/.

March 1

A sad day. A major not-ok fascist move has been made on the Spaceship Earth I’m OK–You’re Not OK chessboard.

Pathetic. A complete disaster. SHTF once again. It’s yet another fascist-caused unnecessary war.

Some say Putin is now the richest Earthian human. He was nothing but a KBG agent after Communism collapsed in Russia in 1991. He is now a Russian fascist dictator running Russia like he own’s it. He’s Trump’s role model for what Trump had in mind for himself in the US, Trump having failed to realize his fascist dreams after the last USian presidential election; but he’s still trying, extorting money from his cult followers for another run as president, having not given up on his dream of becoming the first USian dictator, like Hitler, Putin, Kim, et. al. around Spaceship Earth. Putin and his cronies in Russia stole most of the assets of the Soviet Union after it collapsed in 1991, supposedly owned by the Russian people under Communism. Now in 2022 Putin and his cronies have ordinary Russians enslaved again as peasants in their Russian fascist oligarchy, with ordinary Russians being not much better off than serfs were under Russian czars before the Russian Communist revolution led by Lenin in 1917 got rid of hereditary Russian czars. Hopefully Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will not evolve into something much worse militarily than his invading and trying to conquer Ukraine to prove how superior and heroic he and his Russian followers are, playing a possibly-suicidal and possibly-genocidal psychological Game, NIGYSOB, NOW I’VE GOT YOU, YOU SOB.

Putin’s a power-mad drama stroke addict, just like his buddy Trump in the US, just like all fascist dictators have been and are around Spaceship Earth since time immemorial.

On the other hand, Putin is probably a better chess player than Trump, and the chess game in this case at checkmate might entail Russia and China controlling Spaceship Earth in a new We’re OK–You’re Not OK alliance, using the same OK position and script against the US and NATO that the US and NATO used against them.

How to get rid of this international I’m OK–You’re Not OK chess game played over and over by egotistical greedy power-hungry fascist dictators is probably the most serious problem ordinary Earthian humans face trying to stay alive around Spaceship Earth.  

“Zelenskiy Says Ukraine Has Suffered ‘Serious Losses’ After Russian Air Strikes Pound Dozens of Targets,” by RFE/RL, RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY, https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-ukraine-military-operation/31719680.html?fbclid=IwAR23eRgRIqOEoe88-eGh3XE5L_RVA8tM0PZyq18N6u867T_1K4CPeHiy5k0.

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ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.

A man sitting at a table in front of a computer.

The object under his left hand is a Classroom De- Gamer™ he invented in 1978.

He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write- up was an analysis of a professionally written case about a real business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses were taken from all functional areas of business, such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK–You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.

He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

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

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

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were almost no F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game- players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career called it The Spinner. He appreciated the fact Georgia Southern honored his academic freedom as a tenured professor, allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials.

He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers” for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Game-free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent–Child I’m OK– You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study.

For more information on these classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292. Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations weighting only instructor excellence scores up to about 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the Optimizing Fairness article in full, go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher- evaluations/ . After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (March 28, 2022)) been cited as a reference in 84 refereed journal articles concerned about student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including nine new citations since April 2021, proving the article is still being read and cited by serious academics twenty-one years after publication.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.”

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

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/.   

 

 

THE EARTHIAN  —  27              

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Seven, February 13, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA

THE EARTHIAN is an approximately monthly digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting hard-hitting independent writers in linked Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth, including the human species.

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

Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve

SPEAKING OUT, UP, OR NOT AT ALL

By ROUT LOGGER

Whoever woulda thunk how much of a problem free speech is. Kids are told by a lot of parents to keep their mouths’ shut and pay attention, along with saying children are to be seen and not heard. And most Earthian humans would probably agree with the USian comedian W.C. Fields who said, “Tis far better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.” Jesus said Earthian humans should not “hide your light under a bushel basket,” while he also said Earthian humans should not “cast your pearls before swine,” while only casting them to those “who have eyes to see and ears to hear.” One often hears humans say others should “keep their opinions to themselves.” The USian government, as well as most Earthian governments, would say “you had better keep your mouth shut about any of our classified secrets you might have learned, or we will put you in prison forever.” It’s common for some people to be morally and ethically bound to secrecy about what they have learned about the affairs of their customers and clients. Lawyers and bankers come to mind. Also doctors in some cases. Lying by omission about the truth is often considered not only moral and ethical but legally mandatory.

According to the USian constitution citizens are entitled to free speech. But how free is it? And does it apply to everyone in all circumstances? Unequivocally no.

One of the biggest problems around Spaceship Earth today is that billions of Earthian humans are required to be or act ignorant of the truth of ordinary obvious states of affairs, grinning and bearing it, ostensibly living in bliss. There are so many lies and dirty deeds and tricks that have been committed by politicians and governments in the past that supposedly have to be covered up for “national security” and other reasons that in some cases only relatively trivial matters can be seen, heard, read about, learned, and freely discussed in the here and now in the public square. The JFK assassination cover-up comes to mind. Earthian humans are often mandated by governments to lie by omission. More often Earthian humans are constrained from talking freely about certain states of affairs by community customs and mores.

If you don’t believe this, read about what happened to Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange because of truthfully telling the truth about states of affairs. Thousands of political victims through time in various nations telling the truth met similar fates.

One of the first things fascist dictators do when they get in power is imprison, torture, and disappear writers and other truth-tellers who tell truths they do not want told or heard. Serious learning, education, and truth that would enable their underlings to know what is really going on are anathema to what they have in mind. What counts most with fascists is cronies and underlings believing propaganda and doing what they are told. This has also been true to various degrees in different kinds of learning situations around Spaceship Earth. The best way to ensure a high grade-point average in some schools is to believe or pretend to believe everything teachers say and obey without question everything teachers tell students to do, following instructions to the letter, not by telling the truth as you see it in any kind of open, free, fair discussion. This has also happened in some non-school learning situations, whether the teacher happens to be a parent, military drill sergeant, priest, preacher, business manager, or anyone having authority over supposedly-inferior underlings.  

Consequently, it’s not easy to figure out whether you should speak out, up, or not at all. One can build a case that most humans will do what they have been genetically, psychologically, and socially programmed to do in early childhood. Earthian humans programmed to use primarily critical parent and adapted child ego states are programmed by default to comply and get along in groups and organizations, doing what they are told without question. Humans programmed to use primarily adult and free child ego states have higher probabilities of running into trouble getting along in groups and organizations. Those programmed to use primarily rebel child ego states are guaranteed to have problems getting along in groups and organizations.

Speaking out indiscriminately entails risk of loss of various kinds in most cases. Speaking up to power is especially risky. But not saying anything at all is irresponsible and cowardly. What are you anyway, a man or a mouse? 

A tough lesson for Earthian humans to accept propositioned in Effective Learning books is that everything that happens in human states of affairs is either predetermined or accidental and therefore no one is to blame or praise for what happens in human states of affairs. This is easier to swallow after accepting that believing and acting otherwise will support and perpetuate the I’m OK–You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled Earthian humans in groups and organizations since time immemorial, making it highly unlikely humans can eradicate the probability of imminent Earthian human extinction caused by global warming and climate change and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation.

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

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

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

Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, at https://www.google.com/search?channel=nus5&client=firefox-b-1-d&q=as+the+rooster+crows+earthian+okness+increases+++++++richard+john+stapleton  . This recently-published novel demonstrates a new kind of seminar lead by Rout Logger that might help eradicate the probability of imminent Earthian human extinction that requires participants in the seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a colorful copper Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle. The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane sitting atop a house. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow in the seminar room after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late. When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s head to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a discussion of what s/he considers the most serious problem around Spaceship Earth.

According to Effective Learning books achieving Earthian human sustainability entails such things as Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.

This is possible using the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

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

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

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 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ go to the RESPONSES prompt at the top of this page or to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/responses/ and speak out about them in writing.

If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN, go to the Internet or any brick and mortar bookstore and purchase one or more of the above books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the most interesting one. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at amazon.com as an ebook for $3.99. https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks-Richard-Stapleton-Store/s?rh=n%3A154606011%2Cp_27%3ARichard+Stapleton

RECOMMENDED LINKED ARTICLES RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN INTERNET MEDIA BY RELEVANT WRITERS DEALING WITH EARTHIAN EXISTENTIAL ISSUES

February 13, 2022

Well said. It has not happened yet, but it might

“Hell and Earth,” by Charlie Chapman, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.   

February 11

Here’s a must-read article by Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive

“America’s Real Adversaries are Its European and Other Allies,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/11/americas-real-adversaries-are-its-european-and-other-allies/?fbclid=IwAR1_n-L4HZ8tIsf3Y1og7RrtPn-m0DRquha56SkwKcCXJUe7NpOvaGrka-c.

February 11, 2022

Let’s grieve this war is not replicated in the US. Ominous agitating causative conditions in Spain before the Spanish Civil War and conditions now in the US are isomorphically analogous.

“Spanish Civil War, (1936–39), military revolt against the Republican government of Spain, supported by conservative elements within the country. When an initial military coup failed to win control of the entire country, a bloody civil war ensued, fought with great ferocity on both sides. The Nationalists, as the rebels were called, received aid from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The Republicans received aid from the Soviet Union as well as from the International Brigades, composed of volunteers from Europe and the United States.

“The war was an outcome of a polarization of Spanish life and politics that had developed over previous decades. On one side, the Nationalist, were most Roman Catholics, important elements of the military, most landowners, and many businessmen. On the other side, the Republican, were urban workers, most agricultural labourers, and many of the educated middle class. Politically, their differences often found extre…”

“Spanish Civil War: Definition, Causes, Summary and Facts,” Britannica. Com, https://www.britannica.com/event/Spanish-Civil-War.

February 11

Amazing Cubans have been able to function as well as they have since Kennedy signed this document. The US govt says it believes in free international trade for everyone…until a successful govt close to the US decides to believe in socialism or communism rather than capitalism. On the other hand, if the socialist/communist country is far away, such as China, it’s ok, a good trading partner. It’s too bad about what the US did to North Korea and Vietnam fighting socialism or communism for nothing. The USian big enemy after WWII–the communist Soviet Union, having collapsed in 1990 after fighting the US in the cold war arms race–now operating as the new fascist Russia under Putin–is now engaged in a public relations war playing Games with the US in Ukraine, showing both countries need to keep pouring a high percentage of their tax and funny money revenues into their military-industrial complexes, rather than spend it on their civilian infrastructure.

“The Legacy of Lester Mallory: Brief Statement Against the U.S. Economic War Against Cuba,” by Isacc Christiansen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/10/the-legacy-of-lester-mallory-brief-statement-against-the-u-s-economic-war-against-cuba/?fbclid=IwAR3Q95JTd7gxdovW0ry6k_zDohdlSWzYblR2vLT66OvVpTW-DGITdcIqPNM.

February 11

Never saw a cause-effect chain like this before

“It took two months for a teen to get this clip – all in one take,” Nifty, https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeednifty/.

February 11

You might say this fellow is not happy with the way the USian economy is working.

“The ‘Crapification’ of the U.S. Economy is Now Complete,” by Charles Hugh Smith, OF TWO MINDS.COM, https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-crapification-of-us-economy-is-now.html?fbclid=IwAR1Jb5U8jn1Fwt8LCWIk3pCPl7E7tb3KpRkHoYuHcDwf6nsVlVUFb8_fX4w.

February 10

Assuming The Economist magazine knows what it’s talking about the US aint doin’ so hot as a democracy. Think the Repug and Dem parties, Trump, Mcconnell, Sinema, and Manchin might have somethin’ to do with it?

“These Are the World’s Most – and least – Democratic Places, by Alex Millson, BLOOMBERG NEWS, https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/these-are-the-world-s-most-and-least-democratic-countries.

February 9

When corporations invest millions and billions in lobbyists and give money to politicians to cause the government to increase their after-tax profits by decreasing their before-tax tax rates and change the rules of economic life in their favor ordinary USian citizens have a problem

“How Empires Die,” by Charles Hugh Smith, OF TWO MINDS.COM, https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/02/how-empires-die.html?fbclid=IwAR0AzPfrF_YdYH2km5FcRUM4rDAm4GybhmiWNcJKV8IAD5JwhCJAk7oRGhI.

February 9

Of course most ordinary USians do not want war with Russia in Ukraine. The only beneficiaries would be the USian military industrial complexhttp://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34867

“Memo to Congress: Diplomacy for Ukraine is spelled M-i-n-s-k,” by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34867?fbclid=IwAR15fQRNuOyYgVn6iy2w50QhpPaDWW-h4rpaAOP0XquoKQ5i0fb18BWNhR0.

February 9

A white dove?

“Israel, an Apartheid Nation? Of Course!,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/09/israel-an-apartheid-nation-of-course/?fbclid=IwAR0zLutotQPSTVL02EvlOKAWhE-OnFPbqACvnAT1Fym-y28QbKGnlaniLdM.

February 9

Interesting details about the propaganda campaign in Ukraine

“Erdogan in Kiev, Putin in Beijing: can neo-Ottomanism fit into Greater Eurasia?, ” by Pepe Escobar, THE CRADLE, https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/6612?fbclid=IwAR1aNkye5_PgfJ5VUpZ9IEHfipA9s2SkT3Re8sUF_UTgOrWdXPLjJ0NLNYc.

Febrary 8

Sounds about right to me

“US continues to foment war hysteria in Ukraine crisis,” by John Wojcik, INTERPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34856?fbclid=IwAR2XBoK8DNK4wEjPiPbr2Ii5w4lAGJ4kWfkugMKJK6OQWZrwq_7a3JO0LdM.

February 8

About time

“Drug Decriminalization is Working in Oregon. Other States Should Follow,” by Jared Rodriguez, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/drug-decriminalization-is-working-in-oregon-other-states-should-follow/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR25ndCV_fU1ElfJZPU6TFvO-S_XlTtGdv890npafwlKK6c7rmRLOA_xZQY.

February 8

No telling how much damage this did to the welfare of the Cuban people. The US govt says it believes in free international trade for everyone…until a govt believes in socialism or communism rather than capitalism

“The blockade against Cuba turns 60,” by Rosa Miriam Elizaide, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34844?fbclid=IwAR0zLutotQPSTVL02EvlOKAWhE-OnFPbqACvnAT1Fym-y28QbKGnlaniLdM.

February 7

Good point, but a bit overboard on the notion that toxic and leadership are oxymoronic. There has always been toxic leadership around Spaceship Earth, probably more toxic leadership than nurturing leadership

“Toxic ‘Leadership’: The Other Pandemic That Afflicts Us,” by Gregory D. Foster, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/07/toxic-leadership-the-other-pandemic-that-afflicts-us/?fbclid=IwAR2zQbilP3bNvx_BjxIbVNrPIsmVz_QkmwmmdovVkxhZPvJ_iNkqN4NTzpE.

February 7

I used to think the word sanction meant to give someone or something permission and support for doing something. Very definitely not so now according to the USian govt. Sanction is one of its most Orwellian oxymoronic euphemisms for doing people serious harm.

“US Sanctions on Afghanistan May Kill More That 20 Years of War,” by Mstk Eridntoy, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/07/us-sanctions-on-afghanistan-may-kill-more-than-20-years-of-war/?fbclid=IwAR3hWx67o_AneBVGYHj_BGC12mpE5GN5aW1aLwcTgr_jtkbtmFLPS9X0-vo.

February 7

Sad

“Hard times: 7 in 10 Americans say they’re living paycheck to paycheck now,” by Chris Melore, STUDYFINDS, https://www.studyfinds.org/living-paycheck-to-paycheck/?fbclid=IwAR1YeuYtlVz2G_MawY4C1RkcFFyIXMyqfu7Na-YnaBPTdAgHChlxvb0On4U.

February 7

Hell yes it would be mad

“Biden’s Brinkmanship,” by David Rovics, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/07/bidens-brinksmanship/?fbclid=IwAR06HYO2k8qZEYyoKWnJXb5hJbX7-31gSVPS9j6bdOtqyida_WV-A74CI_Y.

February 6

Say it aint so Joe

“Trump’s Political Depravity Sank to a New Level This Past Week,” by Sasha Abramsky, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-political-depravity-sank-to-a-new-level-this-past-week/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3nLy4GG9qeC3B50nePHPd5-pi7fHDn8Fw4EO0u_hMLcfoSjG6Qc3sndyQ.

February 6

Why many young men and their wives went west

“Would you take free land in rural America?,” by Mark Dent, THEHUSTLE, https://thehustle.co/would-you-take-free-land-in-rural-america/?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR3iveF2TmbbAcQdgu9F04IaLgrF6qyJVqNoQtXw3ovdgOgPmefpET4G3pQ.

February 5

Another fearless article by Paul Street, maybe the bravest truth-telling writer alive, mincing no words, pulling no punches

“The ‘American Experiment’ is a Savage Nightmare,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/04/the-american-experiment-is-a-savage-nightmare/?fbclid=IwAR2jh0Do0voubqZGX9CX1LWHPsyvJJuORUfvGuA4pTmYXcQTaZgRJxrRo-8.

February 4

Fully agree with Chomsky. This is mainly psychological Game-playing to keep politicians and militaries in power

“Chomsky: US Approach to Ukraine and Russia Has ‘Left the Domain of Rational Discourse’,” by C.J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1SB7QUOyDqR86lWWNIMNa-01pTxlZokKJQ2ZYWSbxKMyeMgG-lCHXq-5U.

February 4

Has this legislator in Iowa gone nuts or is he avant garde in Usian culture?

“Iowa Republican Authors Bill Demanding Cameras in Every Classroom in States,
by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT,
https://truthout.org/articles/iowa-republican-authors-bill-demanding-cameras-in-every-classroom-in-state/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1MtJ5S0U8V41kXnwF8VxKU5Pm975ZfcwXqlAHJBag4kM9Coi483K4Zujk.

February 4

Say it aint so Joe

“How Bad is Crime in L.A.?” by Peter Kiefer, LAMAG.COM NEWSLETTERS, https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/how-bad-is-crime-in-l-a/?fbclid=IwAR1D_ugbHpoJkKbelqv6NkM4jQHLbClukSmm1lIdl6PTkA-3lmRs6Rdaw4E.

February 4

Yuk

“Clueless Newsome Shocked at California’s ‘Third World’ Conditions,” REASON.COM, https://reason.com/2022/02/04/clueless-newsom-shocked-at-californias-third-world-conditions/?fbclid=IwAR2Ux38tp_Lj5isqtN730lzUJYgtz-a46wPGbAli7Kym0QdAnoDLP6Sxhx8.

February 3

Here’s another reason why trust on Earth is such a rare commodity

“Snowden slams ongoing impunity for NSA’s domestic spying,” by Jessica Corbett, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34813?fbclid=IwAR1traJJ5aNwUE3cxYU07c0kbmAJTzEEierAmkftQsVDVullOntHdYgQTnI.

February 3

In order to trust someone or something you have to believe they or it are not out to do you harm, and you have to believe they are competent and secure enough to do what they say they will do

“What and Whom to Believe (or How to Cope with Disillusionment),” by Alfred De Zayas, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/03/what-and-whom-to-believe-or-how-to-cope-with-disillusionment/?fbclid=IwAR3cntrfTH9Bg2CSwpadaeovtSJq7Az0qm5xfoSFjPYGQ1J-IJo0UD4ZA-8.

Februrary 3

Hear Hear

“A Menacing Wind: a Glimpse of Climate Chaos,” by Evaggelos Vallianatos, COUNTERPUNJCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/03/a-menacing-wind-a-glimpse-of-climate-chaos/?fbclid=IwAR3Hw9MaYNltA88m4UQNpUrERjfBEFaBKVCRKovfRAHt8JCNNhhqpossCEo.

February 3

Another cogent article by truth-seeking truth-accepting writers, Kevin Martin and Brad Wolf

“A No-Nukes Strategy or a No-Win Reality,” by Kevin Martin and Brad Wolf, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/03/a-no-nukes-strategy-or-a-no-win-reality/?fbclid=IwAR0feIQNjzAWYY9mRCzc9IOiyI6u5Epn6QRDoiwGcv-IlpYg-y4r7BLZk4M.

February 3

Here’s Paul Street again trying to make sense of USian voters and politicians

“Sleepy Woke Joe, Coal Mine Manchin, the Holy Charter, and the Color and Gender of Faces in High Places,” COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/03/sleepy-woke-joe-coal-mine-manchin-the-holy-charter-and-the-color-and-gender-of-faces-in-high-places/?fbclid=IwAR38DWE0eTfqoxs9yAwzy1DzeLTzSqXOglB_7F64EnXadQ4t_CmDoIVrA4I.

February 3

Super OK

“Sadio Mane, a Senegalese soccer star, earns approximately $10.2 million annually. He gave the world a rude awakening after some fans were flabbergasted when they saw him carrying a cracked iPhone 11…” and he gave most of his ten million to charity, posted by Tom McGuire, https://www.facebook.com/tom.mcguire.790.

February 2

Why would the US want to whip up cold war hysteria?

“U.S. takes stage at United Nations to whip up Cold War hysteria,” by John Wojcik and C.J. Atkins, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34802?fbclid=IwAR0od7Giop0wBWTthNvbOtz4XB17ORF5cov1sXQkrh-i36CwNrLMCdw6P8s.

February 2

Whoopee, another charismo to make the victims feel a little better

“Historical Pact Coalition Heads for Elections in Violence-Ridden Columbia,” by W. T. Whitney, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/02/historical-pact-coalition-heads-for-elections-in-violence-ridden-colombia/?fbclid=IwAR1xQz6_vsqLvJFrqzv4WjIH3zgIkYrKalqCc542nmI0EZFSZnvM06Px4bg.

February 2

Who is the US to change its mind?

“Rabobank: Russia is Prepared to Declare Economic War On The West, Inflicting ‘Huge Economic Pain’,” by Michael Every, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rabobank-russia-prepared-declare-economic-war-west-inflicting-huge-economic-pain?fbclid=IwAR33aticVos_MLURK2Ja8oNmPLBFxJ0Imr35zapz6RwsPozq2g8Sv7qHM0I.

February 2

Like kids playing with matches

“In the Line of Eternal Fire: Ukraine’s Nuclear Reactors,” by Linda Pentz Gunter, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/02/in-the-line-of-eternal-fire-ukraines-nuclear-reactors/?fbclid=IwAR1eskd0MKA94sVXqYrhOfu7WiCrHlxh6fNJutfRT3FLLpsOtzzBsfAkoH8.

February 2

Round and round she goes where she stops nobody knows

“National debt surpasses $30 trillion for the first time,” by Matt Egan, CNN, https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/national-debt-surpasses-30-trillion-for-the-first-time/ar-AATnlcL?fbclid=IwAR2_GsN1ugcDDWrdQohRi5_q7sQol4mq2t3ZjINZ-xwa1wR153tNAEC_GzI.

February 1    

Amazing story

“He Spent 25 Years Infiltrating Nazis, the Klan, and Biker Gangs,” by Paul Solotaroff, ROLLINGSTONE, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fbi-infiltrator-nazis-kkk-biker-gangs-1280830/?fbclid=IwAR3ATp3X904SZi-BjyMsUUV_prNfukAQy-mtLrut18ABlBCyLttr6CspeXM.

January 31

“One hundred seconds to midnight. That’s the latest setting of the Doomsday Clock, unveiled yesterday morning (January 20, 2022) by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

“That matches the setting in 2020 and 2021, making all three years the closest the Clock has been to midnight in its 75-year history. ‘The world is no safer than it was last year at this time,’ said Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. ‘The Doomsday Clock continues to hover dangerously, reminding us how much work is needed to ensure a safer and healthier planet’.

“As for why the world is supposedly lingering on the edge of Armageddon, take your pick. Covid-19 has amply demonstrated just how unprepared the world was to handle a major new infectious virus, and both increasing global interconnectedness and the spread of new biological engineering tools mean that the threat from both natural and human-made pathogens will only grow. Even with increasing efforts to reduce carbon emissions, climate change is worsening year after year. New technologies like artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, even advanced cyberhacking present harder-to-gauge but still very real dangers.”

“What the Doomsday Clock is really counting down to,” by Bryan Walsh, VOX.COM, https://www.vox.com/22893594/doomsday-clock-nuclear-war-climate-change-risk?fbclid=IwAR0XXysM5sWwfSrp88dw5h9gh3LV28Pjz25HMRhz_Y3E4uWFTJhaCYN3748.

January 31

Don’t get me wrong. I would never advocate or willingly support full-blown communism; but this article deserves to be read for the simple reason it rationally argues that full-blown competitive dog-eat-dog capitalism among nations and individual humans has got to significantly change if the Earthian human species is to have a decent chance of surviving global warming and climate change. Cooperation, not competition, is what the world needs now.

“A Communist Intervention: Reflections on Crisis, Revolution, and Personal Responsibility,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/28/a-communist-intervention-reflections-on-crisis-revolution-and-personal-responsibility/?fbclid=IwAR2Mb6s6cqz2kz-_cSeJP7jYMb2Q02SZQMzLyJt-sEZOdJ0dcuFZg-zPpbI.

January 31

Good question

“Will I be forced to register as a Russian agent?,” by Bev Conover, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34779?fbclid=IwAR0jjPDw96vVYZLwBLMygTZ-QEYd7xdAFw86fdMXFfpVLWaWSrAe0odVnUM.

January 29

Who has suffered most in wars?

“Tales of invasions past: The facts about Russia’s ‘annexation’ of Crimea,” by Kate Clark, INTREPID REPORT,  http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34767?fbclid=IwAR0JzdPMlD3eOZD-W6U1GePgRkgMB6DSEWYeJ8QPGjzW3HxMW2-HimBxOK8

January 29

Another case showing how money talks and the powerful win

“Corporations are Funding Police Repression,” by Kelly Hayes, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/audio/corporations-are-funding-police-repression/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2g63nF78oTvcPfoTtkVMv6_G6EljFCiIrZiomcQzZenDPe4cog_2YljJY.

January 29

A bit paranoid perhaps, but the article contains some rational points

“Authoritarian Madness: The Slippery Slope from Lockdowns to Concentration Camps,” by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, THE RUTHERFPORD INSTITUTE, https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/authoritarian_madness_the_slippery_slope_from_lockdowns_to_concentration_camps.

January 28

This insane behavior is psychological Game-playing of the worst kind–Victims who cause themselves to temporarily feel better about themselves by Persecuting targeted Game Victims, primarily playing NIGYSOB (Now I’ve Got You, You SOB), wherein the only possible payoff is the jubilation of venting anger and temporarily feeling superior to Game targets. Most of these Game players, including Trump, are low-OKness Loser Survivors who have been poorly scripted throughout their lives by various inevitable economic, social, political, and psychological forces. The only thing they can win playing this Game is psychologically feeling superior and possibly more secure. Their actual social, economic, and political life positions will not change one iota no matter how superior or heroic they might feel after winning NIGYSOB Games.

“The Politics of Ethicide in an Age of Counter-Revolution,” by Henry Giroux, COUNRTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/28/rethinking-necropolitics-in-the-age-of-insurrections/?fbclid=IwAR2nc9O2MDHyI1lF9cRLEo_tKUXQKJHnjFtpoOejCqAydlGRosVanq0ZyVo.

January 28

Pathetic and disgusting historical state of affairs

“Fascism’s ‘Legal Phase’ Has Begun. Threats of White Vigilante Violence Are Real,” by William Horne, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/fascisms-legal-phase-has-begun-threats-of-white-vigilante-violence-are-real/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3CLAkVY-xU9drJ21clOEXQP3U03Cvm_UZpkRQS4zTMWohPwNWpi3nafA4.

January 28

This is real economic news not psychological Game propaganda

“Two Shortages That Threaten To Absolutely Eviscerate The Global Economy in 2022,” by Michael Snyder, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/two-shortages-threaten-absolutely-eviscerate-global-economy-2022?fbclid=IwAR2CfAYrwUK7huLy8sqptjba60BuoFD9ATML2on0mACOUPhOkRJhhm3pFws.

January 27

Want to learn more about what’s going on around Spaceship Earth? here’s a good place to start

“The State of the World (and a Few Predictions),” by David Rovics, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/27/the-state-of-the-world-and-a-few-predictions/?fbclid=IwAR0vSkJXgBhd46gHxmxIEuosJb43ekeaIyMRQ_h-uf5sR6QTPJRSsXBJy24.

January 27

How long can they keep it up?

“Debt Up $2 Trillion in 1 Year of Biden,” by Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNEWS, https://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/debt-2-trillion-1-year-biden?fbclid=IwAR2myXwYKTBq3mQ_gNRFNsgNGilcOxNXc_GSgVW7KtBn2q8ekK6eM8mxGGo.

January 27

What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander

“Who is invading whom? U.S. forces already in Eastern Europe,” by John Wojcik, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34756?fbclid=IwAR22wclYcgV6bNVNWl5OpqVmtXF1knI6EOUdY8iuNISHK-uPg2Gh4wpGelU.

January 27

Sounds right on to me

“Ukraine as Game Board,” by Ron Jocobs, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/26/ukraine-as-game-board/?fbclid=IwAR2nc9O2MDHyI1lF9cRLEo_tKUXQKJHnjFtpoOejCqAydlGRosVanq0ZyVo.

January 27

Yuk

“Report: Billionaires Spend 40 Times More on Political Campaigns Than in 2010 Thanks to ‘Citizens United’,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/since-citizens-united-billionaires-are-spending-nearly-1b-more-on-elections/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3zIvoMDAQ-VWhueV9SzkejoNvJmbj3GA1Ajs9wA2op3eiXVTmAyV4UPc8.

January 26

Amen

“‘Is Pelosi insane?’ Dems rebuked over $500 million in military aid to Ukraine,” by Jake Johnson, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34742?fbclid=IwAR3Il9KKudNAd7wv9HqcdeT_ZnCNR0mgRDHvK_cJRGYLEBqFfFYh0dfWldA.

January 25

Political Games are psychological; phosphate is real. You gottta have it to grow lots of crops

“Morocco drives a war in Western Sahara for its phosphates,” by Vijay Prashad, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34726?fbclid=IwAR1QfEZzjGHRkY0S4cA-fecbOowI9q8n5p2U1MSahxx3wL2fejD8qywgALY.

January 25

Political Games are much the same in egotistical nations

“Boris Johnson’s Populism May be Muted, But it is Still Accelerating Britain’s Decline,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/25/boris-johnsons-populism-may-be-muted-but-it-is-still-accelerating-britains-decline/?fbclid=IwAR0G_joagOn86cCIZqPkQIAV7m8_vqk-woqJF5qYc0T5zzxk_EQdQexV9ds.

January 25

Let us grieve for Willis. She is under tremendous extra-judicial political pressure from Trumpian cult members

“Fulton County Judges Approve Special Grand Jury for Probe Into Trump Election Tampering,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/judges-approve-special-grand-jury-for-probe-into-trump-election-tampering/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1mtZyfB1Go9NNANzqYYvG76sSG3uePWZPzPVvw3H9dfUp8ag2Vx16YT8c.

January 25

Sadistic Games of the highest order

“Julian Assange Can Now Seek Appeal Against US Extradition to Top UK Court,” by Marjorie Cohn, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/julian-assange-can-now-seek-appeal-against-us-extradition-to-top-uk-court/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1_ZqvRXvT1PGdKoWnySW62OTDQpxAzN2U-3MtqDfZcxa0Ie8kyFGGSE1s.

January 25

Ever see a picture of Cuba’s new replacement for Castro? Serious Game-playing is underway

“Putin discusses ‘strategic partnership’ with Cuban leader amid fears of military threat,” by Nora Gomez Torres, STARS AND STRIPES, https://www.stripes.com/theaters/americas/2022-01-24/putin-cuba-strategic-partnership-4402280.html?fbclid=IwAR2BmdO0DBlGOkj1YrNs5GvyyjmpGzt_WgE_1AsbCCiskjf84OGEPbwyN3M#.YfBh6GXsSCc.facebook.

January 25

And so it goes. The US is now 25 on the list.

“Denmark, New Zealand and Finland top list of least corrupt nations,” by Rachael Malone, DAILYMAIL, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10438219/Anti-corruption-fight-stalled-COVID-not-helping.html?ito=facebook_share_article-bottom&fbclid=IwAR3QXgRGCNFGXlR6M6x6ZIngY-E9Bsw9Qz1oDf1h2RW9FJjpgNAVPGWDDbc.

January 25

Sad

“One Year in Biden’s Nuclear Policies Look a Lot Like Trump’s,” by Jon Letman, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/one-year-in-bidens-nuclear-policies-look-a-lot-like-trumps/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2j4EgfgvDNX4OjBLklLqvuyOPcFr1cW-LLD2ECF4za9UBiI9S6aQtJeZs.

January 25

Say it aint so Joe

“Biden is Considering Deploying Thousands of Troops to Eastern Europe,” by Jake Johnson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/biden-is-considering-deploying-thousands-of-troops-to-eastern-europe/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0lHIQ8SAAIsjeRd3ghea7uzH-reD1L5gPdRsHCBkC1XXL3xdMMcDep0uI.

January 25

Say it aint so Joe

“The US Bombed A Vital Dam in Syria, Lied About it, & Called Anyone Who Reported the Truth ‘Crazy’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-bombed-key-dam-syria-lied-about-it-called-anyone-who-reported-truth-crazy?fbclid=IwAR2siCxWtkPCppZC7VDMyigpFUpUBRtcjLwHXtGyTJ85ZTvHWNP_UJZbZLI.

January 24

How this woman got so smart I do not know, but she seems way up there

“The surprise ending,” by Caitlin Johnstone, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34698?fbclid=IwAR0kI32z4i9HBkGHp4w_5qo52wx8WcmsKkO6YimHjkg2-rUiizrhN7b24Qw.

January 24

Here’s another article by Caitlin Johnstone giving her perspective on the situation with Russia/Ukraine. Be sure to read the tweets from politicians at the bottom of the piece. I have not been a believer of the notion that USian mass media are seriously brainwashing USian citizens to get what they want, but regarding the Russia/Ukraine situation I am beginning to wonder. I confess to liking most of what I have seen and heard on MSNBC about the Trump fiasco and other matters, but I have lost respect for most MSNBC talking heads for their positions on the Russia/Ukraine problem. MSNBC is the only USian tv or print mass media outlet I have exposed myself to several days of the week for any period of time in twenty or more years, so who am I to know how extensive the brainwashing efforts of the entire USian mass media system have been. As I understand it the real problem with Russia/Ukraine is that most of the population of eastern Ukraine is Russian speaking and wants to be annexed by Russia. If so, let it happen, and let all Earthian humans get on with life. The western part of Ukraine and the dominant part of Ukraine politically is relatively fascist and NATO-European-oriented, and has been relatively corrupt compared to most Earthian governments. Why should we ordinary USians give a rip if Russia annexes the Russian part of Ukraine that wants to be annexed by Russia? We have nothing to gain or lose in this game. Who in the US would gain from a war with Russia? The USian military-industrial-intelligence-banking complex, of course, by such a war creating even more business for defense/offense corporations in the US manufacturing and providing war devices, materials, and services and making it seem 800 or so USian military bases and thousands of military personnel scattered around Spaceship Earth are worth their cost in real money forked over by USian taxpayers and funny-money creators at the USian federal reserve system who use the funny money to buy USian federal govt treasury bonds so the USian fed govt can meet its payroll for its civilian and military employees, hoping this will also prop up the USian civilian domestic economy, while satisfying the greed of rich USians who have given significant money to USian politicians to lower their federal taxes. It took WWII after all to finally end the USian great depression of the 1930’s under capitalism. Who wants to go back to that? And who benefited most after all the carnage, dust, suffering, and misery of WWII had settled? The original USian rich.

“Lunatic Pundit Says It’s ‘All But Certain’ We’re On The Cusp Of A Massive War With Russia,” by Caitlin Johnstone, CAITLINJOHNSTONE.COM, https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/01/22/lunatic-pundit-says-its-all-but-certain-were-on-the-cusp-of-a-massive-war-with-russia/?fbclid=IwAR2BmdO0DBlGOkj1YrNs5GvyyjmpGzt_WgE_1AsbCCiskjf84OGEPbwyN3M.

January 24

Just doesn’t get any doomier than this

“Consider The Possibility That This Is Already The Dystopia You Fear,” by Caitlin Johnstone, CAITLINJOHNSTONE.COM, https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/01/21/consider-the-possibility-that-this-is-already-the-dystopia-you-fear/?fbclid=IwAR3wBCV67vqAuvklxqfrLJefZewixV0pvJ7RMQgmYWP4lCfkV7-MZQKvzXk.

January 24

Interesting

“Live Like the Ancient Cynics,” by Arthur C. Brooks, THE ATLANTIC, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/01/cynicism-modern-ancient-true-meaning/621314/?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR1ANbTQd7ayaFEMaU7unMRmX40GttSFVGGoRIvWOvpGU7TXIZF2MQ6KxSw.

January 24

Yuk

“Nuclear Waste Risks Can be ‘Minimized’ and Other Myths,” by Linda Pentz Gunter, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/24/nuclear-waste-risks-can-be-minimized-and-other-myths/?fbclid=IwAR2q6oaoVAWVLzHWQ7DhoCopq2tgH1NqpxsL-TC03kwsriarHaUINOR5uCU.

January 24

A digest of the Trump years

“A LIST OF ALL ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN THE EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT SINCE SEPTEMBER 2016, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-list-of-all-articles-published-in-the-effective-learning-report/?fbclid=IwAR0wTyjGfTvGADtWPh_McRTrXdl0N599WJf4qEf5A0dURuGdnTaAEiFj4XY.

January 22

Say it aint so Joe

“At the Bottom of the Empire: Homelessness, housing injustice, and Jesse Jackson’s Call to ‘Eradicate Poverty’,” by David Masciotra, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/21/at-the-bottom-of-the-empire-homelessness-housing-injustice-and-jesse-jacksons-call-to-eradicate-poverty/?fbclid=IwAR2-cKYrb5aAECbWkcEFZyomCknuBJm7DO8gZNRJK-YjBb0JE3DGJQcHAoM.

January 22

Say it aint so Joe

“This Happened Here: The Fascist Trump Presidency as Living American History,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/21/this-happened-here-the-fascist-trump-presidency-as-living-american-history/?fbclid=IwAR3qwoUhOkXA8slaJQDauiYLKlJyEPKPgbXrRugnWs-NzFdzIZ5alghmucQ.

January 21

Another great article by Eve Ottenberg

“An Abyss of Human Wickedness, You Can’t Get Much Worse Than Threatening Nuclear War,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/21/an-abyss-of-human-wickedness-you-cant-get-much-worse-than-threatening-nuclear-war/?fbclid=IwAR1Zyvr7uh4K9FsubbeSc0n-h6m22zh-W3T-PtmjnfYn-lYde3lAtG01KiA.

January 21

Interesting

“Fatal Vision: Joel Coen’s ‘Macbeth’,” by Marilyn Simon, QUILLETTE, https://quillette.com/2022/01/19/fatal-vision-a-review-of-joel-coens-macbeth/?fbclid=IwAR3IwpM3Xa10rwFMBaMo2Diqdo5MqNPNHxyF1BxBonrAFo4o2EVUSad5flE.

January 12

Say it aint so Joe

“They don’t want us looking up,” by Thom Hartmann, INTREPID REPORT, https://quillette.com/2022/01/19/fatal-vision-a-review-of-joel-coens-macbeth/?fbclid=IwAR3IwpM3Xa10rwFMBaMo2Diqdo5MqNPNHxyF1BxBonrAFo4o2EVUSad5flE.

January 12

Interesting

“What’s not to like about Ike,” by Howard Lisnoff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/12/whats-not-to-like-about-ike/?fbclid=IwAR3LVD6C11FDoY4eiTGFQZrSVYcwPb-xihq9HyFeSEfDe7S6a4qhPra0vT4.

January 12

So it seems

“The United States: A Push toward moral decline, political extremism, political divisions and violence?” by Dr. Rodrique Tremblay, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34611?fbclid=IwAR0t-q2B9cDxF_DPXVm-88ayjP77cWQ9obq5naSwKN681N5FOejVXeWkVOI.

January 11

Just won’t go away

“Fukushima Takes a Turn for the Worse,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/10/fukushima-takes-a-turn-for-the-worse/?fbclid=IwAR2-cKYrb5aAECbWkcEFZyomCknuBJm7DO8gZNRJK-YjBb0JE3DGJQcHAoM.

January 9

How would I know

“When to Build Sea Walls,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/when-to-build-sea-walls/?fbclid=IwAR0h2xuRPlCPjVw_f-ifb9GU_PZzlin4P4hp-cwukhVRwBxSbjg4mtsA0NU.

January 9

Hard to believe

“Self-driving race cars zip into history at CES,” by Julie Jammot, TECHXPLORE, https://techxplore.com/news/2022-01-self-driving-cars-history-ces.html?fbclid=IwAR2nJHMEQbnm19BdxLp4cSzNnhDAagmmxqt1CZaRc8DdKFHF3v-p_TEFg3M.

January 7

Interesting article. Fascism is alive and well in the US, and it looks like it’s winning. I saw it coming in the Nixon days but I never imagined it would come to what we have today. I feared Trump would try to take over the country in a coup if he lost the election in 2020 but I never imagined he would try to do what he has done. If the USian military had sided in with him a coup could have been a fait accompli overnight and Trump would be USian dictator for life like his buddies around Spaceship Earth, Putin, Kim, et. al., and the USian government and way of life would have become totally corrupted with greed and cronyism.

“1/6, 9/11 and Glenn Greenwald,” by Nick Pemberton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/1-6-9-11-and-glenn-greenwald/?fbclid=IwAR28B4zCDl1hyVvFi67M7mWPfwlPIXXEOToqBUG5ljZ1ov7JYrp-ipl1owE.

January 7

It seems USian democracy is under attack by a large lawless street gang led by Trump

“Trump is Winning the New Nightmare Years,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/trump-is-winning-the-new-nightmare-years/?fbclid=IwAR3cJVvqlDUbUDQypkTHwJgf2WPCF7bCg-bSpwTOOgYgD3SS6yOJqLidhHU.

January 7

Another hard-hitting article by Eve Ottenberg

“Covid Colonizes the Future,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/covid-colonizes-the-future/?fbclid=IwAR3-LidyGK3ns54JIkR0E3M4OM0qs_HeEwhfO6L1tXjoGYfmbZ26lHH5eYY.

January 6

The Way to Fascism

Is the root cause of the USian anger racket menace white men who are afraid they are being “replaced” by women and people of color, a USian Taliban led by USian warlords out to plunder what they can, attempting to enrich and empower themselves, at the expense of others, lawless liars, robbers and thieves of the worst kind, committing a crime of the highest order, the mocking, desecration, and destruction of a democracy, producing nothing of value for decent law-abiding citizens, inexorably stumbling down a nihilistic suicidal and/or genocidal slope to catastrophe?

“Much of Gellman’s analysis (quoted below) comes from a dialogue he has with Richard Patterson, a retired captain in the New York Fire Department. Patterson speaks for a large segment of the Republican electorate who believe that Trump really won the 2020 election. More so, he speaks for the growing number of deeply dissatisfied white people, but especially men, who believe in what is known as the “Great Replacement,” that white men’s place in society is being “replaced” by women and a growing number of people of color, especially African Americans.

“Gellman also draws on the work of Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), who, with his team, provided invaluable profiles of the participants of the January 6th Capitol attack, the new “storm troopers.” The CPOST team developed their profiles based on court documents, public records and news reports.

“Gellman reenforces this insight, noting: “Slicing the data another way: Respondents who believed in the Great Replacement theory, regardless of their views on anything else, were nearly four times as likely as those who did not to support the violent removal of the president.” Drawing upon Pape’s polling data, Gellman points out that “just over 8 percent agreed that Biden was illegitimate and that violence was justified to restore Trump to the White House. That corresponds to 21 million American adults. Pape called them ‘committed insurrectionists.'”

“A Warning: Will the 2024 Election End U.S. Democracy?,” by David Rosen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/06/a-warning-will-the-2024-election-end-u-s-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR3x3JmownF0zsvizKY8QMTUvJsEPNFo2cZkIVsUdZBRNv754xx4ldOscCM.

January 5

Another vivid truthful article by Paul Street

“Four Analogies,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/05/four-analogies/?fbclid=IwAR05J54PcRQHWAPOo74jev6Ze_Mdeyh3d1Poj_yyJSuriaGVO6Exz8F-HQc.

January 5

Hoorah, for a truthful judge

“Taibbi: Meet Jed Rakoff, The Judge Who Exposed The ‘Rigged Game’,” by Matt Taibbi, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-meet-jed-rakoff-judge-who-exposed-rigged-game?fbclid=IwAR1LXZfyfWRA4Pu9pOenF4jgSU8mYIim07PVs0kiBsS542AGu_Mogff0VEg.

January 5

Most people have not yet figured it out or accepted it. Greed and growth are not good, and better processes are needed

“Nuclear Power Doesn’t Belong in the Green New Deal,” by Linda Pentz Gunter, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/nuclear-power-doesnt-belong-in-the-green-new-deal/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR39nR2kCMGr0W_hxTfEqtwefGVp7TZ_yjo9-Hr9Q3C3qpxCW-k1rvSs-fc.

January 5

Say it aint so joe

“The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that 700,000 of the nation’s 4.2 million homeless youth are unaccompanied by a parent or guardian: 1 in 10 young adults between 18 and 25, and one in 30 aged 13 to 17. More than a quarter (27 percent) identify as queer, with LGBTQIA+ youth of color experiencing higher rates of homelessness than other populations.”

“700,000 US TEENS NAVIGATE SCJHOOL WITHOUT FAMILY SUPPORT OR PERMANENT HOUSING,” by Eleanor J. Baeder, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/700000-us-teens-navigate-school-without-family-support-or-permanent-housing/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3x3JmownF0zsvizKY8QMTUvJsEPNFo2cZkIVsUdZBRNv754xx4ldOscCM.

January 5

This is psychological Game-playing on a massive scale, Rescuers and Persecutors pretending to save Victims on a Drama Triangle

“Community Bonds and Mutual Aid Sustain Anti-Fascists Targeted by the State.” by Shane Burley, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/community-bonds-and-mutual-aid-sustain-anti-fascists-targeted-by-the-state/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3jUUR4kxsMe2nZaRT0eHHxicf4nGPf_R5cfYMcfMpBuPSXnJwtqTB9Pcg.

January 5

Say it aint so Joe

“World Powers Including Russia & China Pledge ‘Nuclear War Must Never Be Faught,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/world-powers-including-russia-china-pledge-nuclear-war-must-never-be-fought?fbclid=IwAR3rAIhkqLld32WL_RXJRKwEDcdswtSU5phGgaw2AQLtCfXl5r1UDSwcN2w.

January 4

“At first instance Assange’s lawyers argued that he would be subjected to inhumane treatment in the US prison to which he would be confined if he were to be tried in the US and sentenced. The Magistrate accepted the argument and the extradition was refused. The US Government appealed to the UK Court of Appeal. The appellate court overturned the first instance ruling and accepted the US Government’s assurances that he could serve his sentence in Australia and that he would not be sent to the high security prison in the US where he would be placed in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day.

“The legal issues are interesting on at least three levels….”

“Julian Assange’s Enduring Legal SAGA,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/julian-assanges-enduring-legal-saga/?fbclid=IwAR2vBdlh-qijkRvXiRXkyNY-bOvdlN7t6tCXwf44Elc2OmBvkxJgEewU6aY.

January 4

Here is by far the best video on international relations I ever saw and listened to, featuring an interview with Lawrence Wilkerson, a former chief of staff in the USian state department, who is straight as an arrow hitting the nail right on the head over and over, forwarded to me by Courtenay Barnett, a featured writer who publishes in the Effective Learning Report. if you want to know what’s really going on internationally, you should watch and listen to this video interview.

“Why is Biden Pushing Putin on Ukraine?, by Larry Wilkerson, YOUTUBE.COM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfs2yaOr2Ao.

January 4

Mind-boggling

“Pentagon Fails Audit (Again!),” by Dave Lindorff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/31/pentagon-fails-audit-again/?fbclid=IwAR1QTZvDqFAGupiN2qhfM9Y4Lajk7du5B4uKilGTXuNWwwhPCg_dxd6rtt8.

January 3

Article is more right than wrong

“Brazil, Amazon, World: Sociopathy vs. Democracy,” by Jean Willys and Jule Wark, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/31/brazil-amazon-world-sociopathy-vs-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR1359vJuWrzOhZIgsaHbZwPP_lyQ1XTqgETBXdWwDn2NZwhdsdMfm6U9fM.

January 3

More brilliant courageous writing by Eve Ottenberg

“How CIA Plots Undermined African De-Colonization.” By Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/31/how-cia-plots-undermined-african-decolonization/?fbclid=IwAR2cBjs70wPMqifO4vLQHtdKAj9m4TnOMTOtyRKwjEhv03SF6blI7sxdeys.

January 3

Well said

“Happy New Year! A Reflection on 20 Years at Truthout,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/a-moment-to-reflect-after-20-years-with-truthout-pitt-new-years-draft/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0KF7lvQpVnm2TGAyh9q07-Qhi0lm9oLLRJS3rHZJhyUD0YbbkhDJgt6js.

Please forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian to increase awareness of imminent Earthian human existential threat issues.

ABOUT THE EDITOR 

Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.

A man sitting at a table in front of a computer.

The object under his left hand is a Classroom De- Gamer™ he invented in 1978.

He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write- up was an analysis of a professionally written case about a real business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses were taken from all functional areas of business, such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK–You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.

He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

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

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

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were almost no F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game- players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career called it The Spinner. He appreciated the fact Georgia Southern honored his academic freedom as a tenured professor, allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials.

He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the authoritarian lecture method and the row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers” for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Game-free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent–Child I’m OK– You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study.

For more information on these classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292. Stapleton had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations weighting only instructor excellence scores up to about 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data also showing and weighting study production, learning production, and expected grades scores for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

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

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (February 13, 2022) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eight new citations since April 2021, proving the article is still being read and cited by serious academics twenty-two years after publication.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.”

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

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ and click on the various prompts at the top of the page.  

 

 

JULIAN ASSANGE’S ENDURING LEGAL SAGA

By COURTENAY BARNETT

When I was a young lawyer in the Chambers of a leading Jamaican lawyer, I was given a research assignment. The matter concerned extradition law. A Jamaican police officer had migrated in the 1970s to the US and there joined and distinguished himself in the military. The then Prime Minister of  Jamaica, Mr. Edward Seaga, came to power in 1980 and thereafter made application through the Jamaican Government for an US extradition back to Jamaica to have the man stand trial. On the US defence side was Leonard Bodine ( i.e. the lawyer who had defended Paul Robeson). So, he was well represented. The research was completed and the salient point was that an extradition will not be ordered if the primary reason for seeking the extradition is ‘political’. Thus,  the senior Jamaican lawyer travelled to the court in Virginia to provide the Jamaican law and arguments in opposition to the extradition. The team was successful, for indeed the extradition had a political motive and the US Judge, for that reason,  refused the Jamaican Government’s application. That central legal principle remains constant – so to the extradition application in the UK for Julian Assange’s extradition to the US. 

Assange is the founder of Wikileaks who had obtained large amounts of US Government secrets and other confidential information and he published same on the internet for the world to read. The US Government was most displeased and thus sought Assange’s extradition.  

At first instance Assange’s lawyers argued that he would be subjected to inhumane treatment in the US prison to which he would be confined if he were to be tried in the US and sentenced. The Magistrate accepted the argument and the extradition was refused. The US Government appealed  to the UK Court of Appeal. The appellate court overturned the first instance ruling and accepted the US Government’s assurances that he could serve his sentence in Australia and that he would not be sent to the high security prison in the US where he would be placed in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day. 

The legal issues are interesting on at least three levels.  

1.       The publications by Wikileaks are highly embarrassing to the US Government. Not least was a video of American military personnel in a helicopter flying over a street in Iraq while randomly shooting and killing Iraqi civilians while joking as if engaged in a video game. Here is the video. 

https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/

In that regard, the video is factual and well within the confines of needed disclosure in the public and global journalistic interest. The military persons involved were never charged for the offence of murder nor was any other charge ever laid. Piecing this particular disclosure together with several other disclosures it is perfectly logical to submit in court that the US Government’s application is in essence a ‘political’ one for reason of the embarrassment felt by the US Government. 

2.       The second argument would go towards whether or not there was a breach of the US Espionage Act 1917. The short answer is – yes there was. But, the argument does not stop there. There is precedent on this point in the case of the New York Times publication of the Pentagon Papers. That was the confidential Government papers detailing many unknown facts about  the prosecution of the Vietnam War by the US Government. In other words, the New York Times sought to publish the truth. The US Government then obtained an injunction prohibiting publication. The New York Times challenged the injunction on the basis of infringement of  First Amendment rights ( i.e. freedom of expression). The Court ruled that while there was a conflict between the provisions of the Espionage Act and the First Amendment, the Constitutional right under the First Amendment took precedence over the Act and it was in the public interest for the public to be informed. The Pentagon Papers were published. Thus, there is precedent for what Assange has done. He has contravened the Espionage Act while at the same time, it can be argued, that through his journalistic endeavours he is acting in the public interest by factually  and accurately informing the public.  

3.       The third point, no doubt, will be contested on appeal to the UK Supreme Court with regards to the assurances given by the US Government. One might cynically but factually question – did Colin Powell as representative of the US Government not assure the UN Security Council that Saddam Hussein had WMDs? But, more to the point. There is the case of David Mendoza, who was a Spanish drug trafficker wanted by the US. The US Government not only assured Mendoza that if he surrendered to US jurisdiction he would be permitted to serve his prison sentence  in Spain – and  – the agreement was placed in writing.  This undertaking was prepared as a formal binding legal agreement and duly signed by a US Government representative. Once Mendoza surrendered to US jurisdiction the US Government reneged on its binding word. Mendoza  had his lawyers make two applications in Spain and the Spanish court found in Mendoza’s favour. After six years in  US custody, Mendoza’s US lawyer approached the US court on the basis of the signed and binding agreement and it was only then that Mendoza was permitted return to Spain as agreed. There are other similar precedents, so in Assange’s favour, his legal team will most definitely be able to argue that the US Government’s assurances and  undertaking cannot be taken at face value nor be too readily trusted.  

Put the foregoing all together and one ends up with Assange’s imprisonment in the UK in their top prison designed for the incarceration of convicted terrorists. So, for publishing the truth to the world Assange is designated ‘terrorist’. Interestingly, even if the UK’s Government lawyers argue that Assange breached bail, which then requires his confinement, it could still  be contended that since the seeking of asylum is a legal right afforded to all, which the Ecuadorian Embassy did extend to Assange,  he could not logically be submitting to UK bail conditions while simultaneously accepting the asylum extended to him by Ecuador. Anyway, all said and done this is a ‘POLITICAL CASE’  writ large in big, bold letters and there will be a lot of politics played behind the scenes between the US and UK Governments and full frontal too in the UK judicial system before the saga is completed. 

The American, Anne Sacoolas, left the U.K. shortly after a crash in which Harry Dunn was killed and she claimed diplomatic immunity. Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity which was asserted on her behalf by the US government following the collision – and – she was a US intelligence officer as was her husband. Now, the preliminary evidence suggests that Sacoolas ran into Dunn while he was riding on what the Brits call a ‘moped’ ( his mini bike or scooter). He was a teenager. She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving. So what did Sacoolas do? She fled Britain and the US Government covered her behind diplomatic immunity. She was removing herself totally from British jurisdiction. What then happened with Harry Dunn’s mother and father? They were grieving over the loss of their son and they went all the way to the White House and spoke to then President Donald Trump (he would presently say that he is still the legitimate President of the US) and Trump declined to use his Executive authority to waive diplomatic immunity. The story worsens – there is no assured happy ending. What the Dunn family, quite intelligently did was to secure a ‘red notice’ from INTERPOL ( i.e. the International Criminal Police Organisation “for fugitives wanted either for prosecution or to serve a sentence.” ). In legal terms, if Sacoolas left the US then she could be arrested pursuant to an international arrest warrant. But, here is the point. President Biden succeeds Trump ( but not in Trump’s mind as internationally professed ) and Biden continued – at least for a while – with Trump’s policy of not waiving diplomatic immunity to have the UK’s extradition application advance and then bring the matter to trial in a British court. The legal position has now changed and Sacoolas has agreed to an 18th January, 2022 trial by virtual link. So – if she is convicted to a custodial sentence – what then? What upholding and respect for the rule of law – none – yes/no? So, let us then examine the total picture under both international and domestic law. Above – you have seen the clear video evidence of a dozen innocent lives being claimed on an Iraqi street; you are now aware of Harry Dunn’s family’s grief over the loss of their son; and – having over a forty year plus legal career of legal defence in the courts – I can well and truly invite you to ask yourselves – where is the justice? Maybe some ultimately?

In how the US has worded its so-called ‘undertaking’, it has imposed a ‘get out of jail free card’ for itself, with regards to Julian Assange. Any lawyer with a modicum of experience would never submit to such an agreement. The system ( both US and UK- where actually I studied) now clearly lack an iota of credibility in Assange’s case and continue to pursue a self-righteous path which denigrates, belies and compromises the best of  their own legal principles. Sad to say.  

I believe that the implications of this case go well beyond the narrow political minds of the UK Judges who sat and disgracefully ruled in the UK’s Court of Appeal.  

We shall see in the fullness of time how this legal saga ends for Assange in particular and journalism in general.

______________________________________

Courtenay Barnett is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for almost fully forty years, has been arrested for defending his views, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. 

THE EARTHIAN — 26

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Six, December 4, 2021, Effective Learning Publications, https://effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, Editor & Publisher, The Effective Learning Report.   

THE EARTHIAN is a monthly digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking hard-hitting independent writers containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, analyses, and recommendations concerned about psychological, moral, ethical, philosophical, social, economic, political, military, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth.

To comment about this issue of The Earthian or any article included as SOURCE READING scroll to the top of this page and click on the prompt for ELR Editor’s Daily Shares. Write your comment at the top of the page or at the bottom of the specific article you want to comment about.

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

Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

By ROUT LOGGER

John Lennon and The Beatles had an international hit with a song titled All You Need is Love that made a lot of Earthian humans temporarily happier listening to it. But almost nothing could be further from the truth. While it’s hard to imagine Earthian humans getting too much love they can live without it, maybe not happily or healthily, but they can live a good while without it. Things like oxygen, water, and food are far more important. According to the existential rule of three, humans can live for about three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food.

Another Brit, Mick Jagger, used to sing a song lamenting, “I can’t get no sat-is-fak-shun,” which is hard to believe, especially in his case, but there is no doubt a lot of Earthian humans are not satisfied with their lives. By some estimates about half the human population of the US are unsatisfied with their lives, primarily their economic and political states of affairs. They’re probably a majority percentage of the Repug and Dem Parties in the US. They’re angry, polarized, discombobulated, and agitated. An increasing percentage of the politicians they vote for are angry power-mad semi-literate narcissistic egomaniacs like Donald Trump; and some of them like Trump seem to have some money. But no matter how much money they get their hands on it is never enough. Nothing ever seems to satisfy them, even power. No matter how much power they get their hands on it too is never enough.

Success and satisfaction for most Earthian humans would entail receiving love and at least the necessities of life–breathable air, drinkable water, and adequate food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and medical care. In general success and satisfaction are caused by problems getting solved and goals and objectives being achieved. Winner-survivors achieve goals and objectives and loser-survivors do not, regardless of how tough and unfair, uncontrolled, and poorly-managed Earthian states of affairs are, and always have been.

How to help Not-OK Earthian loser-survivors become winner-survivors is one of the toughest problems around Spaceship Earth. How to help Spaceship Earth itself become a winner-planet is a far tougher problem.  

One can build a case there is such a thing as existential OKness. How OK are Earthian humans with respect to existential threats such as global warming and climate change, militarization, and nuclear weapons development and proliferation? Most likely Earthian human existential OKness is now at its lowest level since human-like creatures evolved on Earth about one million years ago. Innumerable Earthian human tribes and groups have faced imminent threats of extinction through time, and some did become extinct–the Galapagos Islanders come to mind–but most likely never in their history have Earthian humans en masse faced a probability of total annihilation caused by human-caused forces as high as it is now.

Following is an excerpt from the 2021 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Statement, by John Mecklin, Editor. Read the full statement at https://thebulletin.org/ doomsday-clock/current-time/.

“Editor’s note: Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 13 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.

“Humanity continues to suffer as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world. In 2020 alone, this novel disease killed 1.7 million people and sickened at least 70 million more. The pandemic revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly. In this time of genuine crisis, governments too often abdicated responsibility, ignored scientific advice, did not cooperate or communicate effectively, and consequently failed to protect the health and welfare of their citizens.

“As a result, many hundreds of thousands of human beings died needlessly.

“Though lethal on a massive scale, this particular pandemic is not an existential threat. Its consequences are grave and will be lasting. But COVID-19 will not obliterate civilization, and we expect the disease to recede eventually. Still, the pandemic serves as a historic wake-up call, a vivid illustration that national governments and international organizations are unprepared to manage nuclear weapons and climate change, which currently pose existential threats to humanity, or the other dangers–including more “virulent pandemics and next-generation warfare– that could threaten civilization in the near future.

“Accelerating nuclear programs in multiple countries moved the world into less stable and manageable territory last year. Development of hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missile defenses, and weapons- delivery systems that can flexibly use conventional or nuclear warheads may raise the probability of miscalculation in times of tension. Events like the deadly assault earlier this month on the US Capitol renewed legitimate concerns about national leaders who have sole control of the use of nuclear weapons. Nuclear nations, however, have ignored or undermined practical and available diplomatic and security tools for managing nuclear risks. By our estimation, the potential for the world to stumble into nuclear war–an ever-present danger over the last 75 years–increased in 2020. An extremely dangerous global failure to address existential threats–what we called “the new abnormal” in 2019–tightened its grip in the nuclear realm in the past year, increasing the likelihood of catastrophe.

“Governments have also failed to sufficiently address climate change. A pandemic-related economic slowdown temporarily reduced the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. But over the coming decade fossil fuel use needs to decline precipitously if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided. Instead, fossil fuel development and production are projected to increase. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record high in 2020, one of the two warmest years on record. The massive wildfires and catastrophic cyclones of 2020 are illustrations of the major devastation that will only increase if governments do not significantly and quickly amplify their efforts to bring greenhouse gas emissions essentially to zero.

“As we noted in our last Doomsday Clock statement, the existential threats of nuclear weapons and climate change have intensified in recent years because of a threat multiplier: the continuing corruption of the information ecosphere on which democracy and public decision-making depend. Here, again, the COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call. False and misleading information disseminated over the internet–including misrepresentation of COVID-19’s seriousness, promotion of false cures, and politicization of low-cost protective measures such as face masks–created social chaos in many countries and led to unnecessary death. This wanton disregard for science and the large-scale embrace of conspiratorial nonsense–often driven by political figures and partisan media–undermined the ability of responsible national and global leaders to protect the security of their citizens. False conspiracy theories about a “stolen” presidential election led to rioting that resulted in the death of five people and the first hostile occupation of the US Capitol since 1814.

“In 2020, online lying literally killed.

“Considered by themselves, these negative events in the nuclear, climate change, and disinformation arenas might justify moving the clock closer to midnight. But amid the gloom, we see some positive developments. The election of a US president who acknowledges climate change as a profound threat and supports international cooperation and science-based policy puts the world on a better footing to address global problems. For example, the United States has already announced it is rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Biden administration has offered to extend the New START arms control agreement with Russia for five years. In the context of a post-pandemic return to relative stability, more such demonstrations of renewed interest in and respect for science and multilateral cooperation could create the basis for a safer and saner world.”

Read “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc,”  for some management science ideas on how Earthian humans might eventually evolve and 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 might entail Earthian humans peacefully reducing through natural attrition the human population aboard Spaceship Earth, never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.

This is possible based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

Riding aboard an airliner about to land at night moving at four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet with heavy thick clouds, rain, high wind, and lightening below, which would you rather have setting the direction, speed, and angle of descent of the plane, the plane’s auto-pilot, radar, and computer system or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows below but clouds and lightning?

The main reason why turning over the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI robots and magnum computers is the best hope for Earthian humans is that they do not get greedy and power hungry and play psychological Games like Earthian humans in high places do. Thus far in human history most leaders running large organizations such as nations, large corporations, and big banks have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological Games and acting out their selfish life scripts, hogging as much power and money as they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies. Whatever their limitations and possible problems, AI robots and algorithmic computers are not egotistical.

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

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 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ go to the RESPONSES prompt at the top of this page or to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/responses/ and let them be known.

The Earthian does not sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit donations for THE EARTHIAN or the EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT but it would like to sell more books. If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN and would like to reciprocate, go to Effective Learning Publications and purchase one or more books at  https://effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ .

Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning has not been a best seller but it has had some impact as this review in the Texas Tribune shows at https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/26/bookshelf-oct-26-2016/?fbclid=IwAR3ctGFk_zCH5QOyvLjqUiulkAcEPUQ4deUq1-tZIS6OuwaYhI-bmrM4Ebw . A German orthopedic surgeon discounted the book with a customer review based on argumentum ad hominem insinuations at Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810 lowering it from a five-star to a three-star Amazon rating. The orthopedic doctor said the author did not “come across” like a real transactional analyst and the book promised more than it delivered. The Kirkus review in the Texas Tribune in this post is fair and accurate. Both reviews comment on admittedly a debatable issue with Born to Learn: Is the book useful only for teachers and students in classrooms or for all teachers and learners in all kinds of groups and organizations, including parents and children in homes, bosses and employees in businesses, preachers and Sunday school teachers and members in churches, etc.? Is it useful for leaders and members who teach and learn in all groups and organizations–civic clubs, chambers of commerce, street gangs, military units, and governments? The Earthian asserts it can be useful in all organizations and groups and can help increase Earthian human OKness. Read both reviews and write a review of Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning. The more reviews the better.

Read As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases listed below as the first Source citation for this issue of The Earthian, also published by Effective Learning Publications, that shows how transactional analysis can be used in a novel painting a picture of Earthian states of affairs.

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

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

SOURCE READING FOR THIS ISSUE OF THE EARTHIAN

December 4, 2021

As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, 344 pages, published October 16, 2021, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/…/as-the…/1140476381.

This experience and research-based novel is a mostly fictional re-ordering and rendering of Earthian human cause-effect situations and processes experienced by the author. Any resemblance between fictional characters cast herein and real humans is coincidental, with the notable exception of Rout Logger, the protagonist of the story. Readers must willingly suspend disbelief here and there reading this book, as it mixes facts with fiction in some passages. Although novels are supposed to be imaginary fake news, Ernest Hemingway said some are “truer than true.”

This novel was written from a third person omniscient perspective as if it might have been recorded, thought up, and written as a case by an alien from outer space who had somehow learned some Transactional Analysis lingo such as I’m OK-You’re OK; OKness; Life Positions; Parent, Adult, and Child ego states; Transactions; Strokes; Games; Time Structuring Patterns; Life Scripts; and Rackets, as first defined and prescribed by Eric Berne, MD during 1957-1970.

If you want to know more about what these TA words signify when used in a passage in this novel you can find definitions of them with an internet search. Just add the words transactional analysis to OKness, Ego States, Transactions, Games, Scripts, etc. in the search bar of a computer browser so Google or any search engine will know what kind of OKness, transactions, games, scripts, rackets, etc. you are researching, although anyone who knows ordinary English can read and generally understand this novel with no researching of transactional analysis jargon.

Two major purposes of this novel are to paint a literary picture of psychological, social, economic, religious, political, educational, and philosophical states of affairs, primarily in the United States of America, but also around Spaceship Earth, that are impeding the creation of necessary changes for achieving Earthian human sustainability, and to sell a story about a new computer-based democratic Game- Free Adult-Adult I’m OK-You’re OK tv and internet live-streaming discussion system that might help save Earthian humans from annihilation caused by global warming or nuclear war.

December 2

Sounds right to me

“Harvard Tells Us Young Americans are Increasingly Hopeful…Really?,” by Bruce E. Levine, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/01/harvard-tells-us-young-americans-are-increasingly-hopeful-really/?fbclid=IwAR0y3GcbwRKiQjV6RSWs_iCEb6dXkUyeS9ACRPVR9gyuTS7QT0IC17CxRPY.

December 2

Over and over it happens

“Libre Party and Presidential Candidate Xiomara Castro Win Big in Honduras Elections,” by W. T. Whitney, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/02/libre-party-and-presidential-candidate-xiomara-castro-win-big-in-honduras-elections/.

December 2

And now they’re chained to their cell phones

“5G Cell Towers: How the Game is Played,” by David Rosen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/02/5g-cell-towers-how-the-game-is-played/?fbclid=IwAR28P5boS-B8rnXpPv1G9tO5nssZBV2KToRENF7ObB2R__96vlvQ3TsRTkc.

December 2

Afraid it’s so

“Climate Justice Doesn’t Start With Politicians. It Starts in the Streets,” by C. J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/climate-justice-doesnt-start-with-politicians-it-starts-in-the-streets/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0iGYV6V1o-kWaI6cYoa1B74QwYozSB3FC5V0YQYwROxvV2t2yAXzjRQ0U

November 30

Here we go

“Abortion rights at stake in historic Supreme Court arguments,” by Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/abortion-donald-trump-us-supreme-court-health-amy-coney-barrett-a3b5cf9621315e6c623dc80a790842d8?fbclid=IwAR3dzg1q0qEGoAI_GO0NVf5oEv5AJfogp1AFQ3zJOcjppCeRipzgVQrErO8.

November 30

Interesting

“Jack Dorsey’s Twitter resignation is really about bitcoin,” by Benjamin Pimentel, PROTOCOL, https://www.protocol.com/fintech/jack-dorsey-bitcoin-crypto-twitter?fbclid=IwAR1A1BgulG6Ggcj63WuxmD28YPpsUQ6gugXivNOMR7-pCidSrYZ2-LeyR1Y.

November 29

Oh really?

“Now He Tells Us: David Brooks Suggests That the Republican Party Has Embraced Fascism,” by Chuck Churchill, COUNRTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/29/now-he-tells-us-david-brooks-suggests-that-the-republican-party-has-embraced-fascism/?fbclid=IwAR2o_RaREMkM6WDe6NFETGhuX3ddH9MC3BIrrsUBvmBwJV_NES4-UFXfvmY.

November 29

Say it is so Joe

“The Race For Nuclear Fusion is Going Private,” OILPRICE.COM, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Race-For-Nuclear-Fusion-Is-Going-Private.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=fb_repost&fbclid=IwAR1nJ6lV-Cj9a6tlCaaxM2DiB63ilI0HDaohyZwTfj-Z7V8ni23fGE6AEcc.

November 29

Wish we Usians had a real democracy like the Swiss

“Some 62% of Swiss voters back Swiss COVID-19 law – govt,” REUTERS, https://news.trust.org/item/20211128154926-fvqg1/?fbclid=IwAR30HyO8nYguAAq66tgYMm2kJVJ0yXdCMMwgEYxLn5wZ10cfPbtnizNT764.

November 22

Probably not

“Will the CIA’s JFK Assassinated-Related Records Ever Get Released?,” by Jacob G. Hornberger, THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM FOUNDATION, https://www.fff.org/2021/11/11/will-the-cias-jfk-assassinated-related-records-ever-get-released/?fbclid=IwAR3BAF9aOH20EqxNJrax2FadJCAK_iZGd1RDTkTYUNLnDu80Ixqv1XVlrok.

Nobember 22

I used to see a lot of pigeons flying around as a child. A lot of farms had flocks of them that nested in barns and sheds. But no more. I have not seen a flock of pigeons flying around in quite a while. A friend and I used to catch and pet them in a barn on his family farm at night with flashlights. Shine a light in their eyes and you could go right up to them. They were gentle and seemingly unafraid when you picked them up.

“How do pigeons navigate? It’s not the tiny iron balls in their ears,” by James Gaines, ABC NEWS, https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/pigeons-navigate-tiny-iron-balls-ears/story?id=81300896&fbclid=IwAR09hzT6h3BUUDDAKygrrB9UsAPCtT_2mRkyBumU5-tJXcWpG3guI_TF-w4.

November 15

Tragic alright

“The Tragic Cycle of Bottled Water,” by JP Sottile, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/the-tragic-cycle-of-bottled-water/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3G0TaFrVfigBbka9U12N4GsY_zhLAL5bMiE2sZ0D8lCGBFKZNmt7FPRj4.

November 14

Why is it stand-up comics are among the most truthful humans around?

“What Are the Prospects for Peace? An Interview With Lee Camp,” by John Rachel, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/15/what-are-the-prospects-for-peace-an-interview-with-lee-camp/?fbclid=IwAR1hTBI-5Mb4wHtlzdDaNriDj0weW0Okq_QVMoRIP0ag4C7NJ37HlfPSGxM.

November 12

Another great article by Eve Ottenberg about existential threats of Earthian humans and some efforts around Spaceship Earth to deal with them.

“Facing Climate Collapse at the Eleventh Hour,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

November 12

And besides that the sky is falling

“A Dystopian Hellscape Beckons: 21 Dark Clouds Over 2021 Amerika,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/12/a-dystopian-hellscape-beckons-21-dark-clouds-over-2021-amerika/?fbclid=IwAR1n_UFukUINgx_b80SE8lH-_n2DTEg7RkT2KbdZB5L6avb5WA2jy_dV8Ig.

November 12

Because it has one of the angriest, most hate-filled, most bigoted, most prejudiced, most hubristic, most chauvinistic, and most polarized populations of any country

“People Worldwide Name US as a Major Threat to World Peace. Here’s Why,” by C. J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/people-worldwide-name-us-as-a-major-threat-to-world-peace-heres-why/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1QF9UKgUVYbh0zaCvn-3vUtGx-1j49qhNLfCmPayKkCJGeoi6bC4b_RoQ.

November 10

Not a good sign. Can you believe people are loaning their hard earned or inherited or won or received or bribed or swindled or extorted or stolen money to the federal government for thirty years at the rate of 2.0492 percent per year, a rate that was up dramatically yesterday from its low, caused by fewer ordinary investors wanting to buy treasury bills and notes? If this yield rise was catastrophic imagine what would happen if the yield got back up to six percent or so, a more or less normal interest rate for fixed income investments? How many units of funny money would the USian federal reserve system have to keystroke into their computers to buy US treasury instruments and loan to large corporations to keep USian bond and stock markets at high prices then? Would it be appropriate for the Fed Reserve system to keystroke into its computers this much funny money? If not how far could bond and stock markets fall? And how much would the Fed govt budget deficit swell because of the US treasury borrowing this much funny money, while paying yearly exponentially-increasing interest on its debt, while it meets its yearly military and civilian payroll?

“We Have A Tantrum: 30 Year Treasury Auction is Catastrophic,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/we-have-tantrum-30-year-treasury-auction-catastrophic?fbclid=IwAR1vUj1k4QnUKFZfwpy7oSPRp_eX8EktFi5ndRxXkppOYHww-c0rRM5Z0IA.

November 10

Not only the news but politics itself is becoming more and more a form of game show entertainment.

“Brian Williams Leaving MSNBC and NBC Next Month, Follows Rachael Maddow Plan to Leave Daily Show,” by Roger Friedman, SHOWBIZ 411, https://www.showbiz411.com/2021/11/09/brian-williams-leaving-msnbc-and-nbc-next-month-follows-rachel-maddow-plan-to-leave-daily-show?fbclid=IwAR0rcagqUU13aqm2IoBl5REGgHd29iXi07RRl-l6E1syJ8PD1nWfeubylQk.

November 10

Sounds like a good idea

“China, US pledge to increase cooperation at UN climate talks,” by Seth Borenstein, Ellen Knickmeyer and Frank Jordans, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-united-nations-glasgow-europe-1203ed9bfccfc13869d81d90fb368857?fbclid=IwAR07T-PMlkhJv2phiwlzr__0ATDnAeKU2wOhEgiDAChYJTswVbhvS45b6U4.

November 10

And yet USian stock markets keep reaching all-time highs

“US food banks struggle to feed hungry amid surging prices,” by Jane Har, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/food-banks-hunger-inflation-a3d8f4ed0c4842fc3927710f11207c9e?fbclid=IwAR1vNRjRizAN3oOYF7-fNKR-caFOA2u19yw1AgMgAWa6etgABCC11tJMEWM.

November 7

This is not the end of individual reforms for the Dem party, but it is the end of the illusion that Biden will significantly reform the Dem party. Money is talking louder than usual these days in Washington and more and more Dem politicians are being rewarded by the Dem party for being bought off by their rich donors, Senators Manchin and Sinema being the leading examples. Meanwhile rich USians keep getting richer and poor USians poorer. The charade that the US is a democracy, not an oligarchy, is becoming clearer and clearer in the minds of most USians. Is the USian military intelligence complex actually running the show? Earthians need a new and better third political party in the US. This is a must read article by Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive.

“Is This the End of the Unreformable Democratic Party?,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/is-this-the-end-of-the-unreformable-democratic-party/?fbclid=IwAR3pgYOlVuE3nTYH_1cNsRRh22wjQB5X_Nxh-MJ-nh4C8X7N0NTr7XLGOv0.

November 7

Sad, scary, and corrupt

“Chomsky: Build Back Better Fiasco Exposes How Both Parties Serve Corporate Power,” by C. J. Polychroniou, COUNTERPUNCH, https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-build-back-better-fiasco-exposes-how-both-parties-serve-corporate-power/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR34IZFBGP-Df1bKu2bqmIPw6CbwMDeoUxu6dmR2F4D3RSqfkbE6xOBLHmE.

November 7

Insanity run amok

“Republicans Urge Biden To Send US Troops to Ukraine To ‘Deter Russian Invasion’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/republicans-urge-biden-send-us-troops-more-weapons-ukraine-amid-russian-invasion?fbclid=IwAR2kSSUsBbSHN9RNpADo9wPno9MzvEKC2vSc6Korc6uIf9uXhYA_KyEgIJg.

November 7

Who knows

“Did The Fed Just Set The Stock Market Up For A Crash,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/did-fed-just-set-stock-market-crash?fbclid=IwAR2QcNKPGBgFocyMG8ejjxzxMAB2jppLgBJ0aISU-2S3f3roVQ1JSs3Zi7k.

November 7

Wish ’em luck. If this ever happens it will be a giant step toward achieving real sustainability for all Earthian humans.

“U.S. zero-carbon fusion energy startup Helion raises $500 mln,” by Jane Lanhee Lee, REUTERS, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-zero-carbon-fusion-energy-startup-helion-raises-500-mln-2021-11-05/?fbclid=IwAR09hzT6h3BUUDDAKygrrB9UsAPCtT_2mRkyBumU5-tJXcWpG3guI_TF-w4.

November 6

Three cheers for Biden on Afghanistan. Let us grieve for him and Spaceship Earth, and hope he survives his decision to get USians out of Afghanistan, the right thing to do in my opinion. I voted for Biden as the lesser evil and was unimpressed with his character and record. I may have been wrong. He has far more courage and backbone than I imagined. Are we already living in a military dictatorship? And congratulations to Biden on the infrastructure bill, another step in the right direction for USian civilians.

“Biden Defied the Military Establishment: Is the Kennedy-Nixon Rule Still in Effect,” by Paul Ryder, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/05/biden-defied-the-military-establishment-is-the-kennedy-nixon-rule-still-in-effect/?fbclid=IwAR3ylQ6mE8tNwsiw_-T4d44j0HSxN8qW1NMtOwz-4oyBNx9UQph4UNiIrZo.

November 4

A complex analysis

“Frogs slow-boiling in their pans,” by Alastair Crooke, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/34153?fbclid=IwAR12gYRxi6-8iJysRwXUCLeftUh7y63zrIfLNeeczU9vw8HESXSPIS7H0SY.

November 4

Hard to make sense of it all

“Here is The Fed’s Taper Implementation Note,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-feds-taper-implementation-note?fbclid=IwAR1rFoq4vhn-GndKPYdVYzDNSaanEhT8N7Js_XccrjCKt11wYiCVtwSKAbI.

November 2  

Sadistic injustice for Assange up to now according to this article

“Justice For Assange is Justice For All,” by John Pilger, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/02/justice-for-assange-is-justice-for-all/?fbclid=IwAR3YwZSqaLJoZnJ0Ww47UnUoZLtNyK3sVIfpKxmVtq3tm4Hn-o0I4JxM28c.

November 2

Agree

“‘On Liberty’ – Judge Learned Hand’s Wisdom from 1944 More True Today,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/01/on-liberty-judge-learned-hands-wisdom-from-1944-more-true-today/?fbclid=IwAR2EExJR9tLeQs4udBzZvNdjChthoNMSPF6mzx0m_dLBh4yj6-28JbeOUYM.

November 1

Sad and scary well said right on article by Richard Wolff. Could not agree more in general. Wolff is one of the smartest and best economists alive and an excellent writer. But he still falls into a bit of hubris in the article in a place or two by referring to the USian empire as the American empire. USians are not the only Americans, and America includes far more territory than the Earthian territory included in the longitudes and latitudes conquered from Indians and governed by the US of A in North America. There are three American continents, north, central, and south; and the US comprises only about forty percent of the population of the three continents. On the other hand, empires could care less about what the territory it controls one way or another is called. A more appropriate term for the USian military industrial intelligence money and banking complex would be the USian Empire.

“Why the Troubled U.S. Empire Could Quickly Fall Apart,” by Richard D. Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/01/why-the-troubled-u-s-empire-could-quickly-fall-apart/?fbclid=IwAR0Ybl3xX60zeYQGLv4wLB2Rxgm7A_x6A7wSu1q5yZ6hW8CXa3e2jh0sl-Y.

November 1

Afraid he’s right

“On Mass Political Inattention,” by Paul Street, COUNTERUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/29/on-mass-political-inattention/?fbclid=IwAR0jToyFJQqshJAq4jAR3OKG1f-eojpe8d0PA8X5_HYjTH0AfaGRevxkihw.

November 1

Say it aint so Joe

“Class War Heats Up,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/29/class-war-heats-up/?fbclid=IwAR0Jga1ASj625RnhKeb_eUvUMKw7rVu-wqrphe3tpYk_jPwY174VLvDIoN4.

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ABOUT THE EDITOR 

A man sitting at a table in front of a computer.

Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.

The object under his left hand is a Classroom De- Gamer™ he invented in 1978.

He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was either a comprehensive analysis of a publicly-traded company based on published data; an analysis of a local business based on field research; or a business plan the student created from scratch. The other write-up was a comprehensive analysis of a professionally written case about a real business published in a Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, or Alabama casebook assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses included all functional areas of business, such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana–Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK–You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.

He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

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

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

About ten percent or so of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s, and most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were almost no F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner. He appreciated the fact Georgia Southern honored his academic freedom as a tenured professor, allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials.

He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the lecture method and the authoritarian row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers” for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Game- free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent–Child I’m OK–You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study.

For more information on these classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), “Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades,” the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292. He had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations up to about 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data showing study production, learning production, and relative expected grades data for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the article in full, go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher-evaluations/

https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher-evaluations/

After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (December 4, 2021) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about student evaluations of teachers in several academic disciplines, including eight new citations since April 2021, proving the article is still being read and used by serious scholars, educators, and administrators in higher education.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.”

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

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://blog.effectivelearning.nethttps://blog.effectivelearning.net

 

 

 

THE EARTHIAN — 25

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Five, October 2, 2021, Effective Learning Publications, https://effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, Editor & Publisher   

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

To comment about this issue of The Earthian in general or any article included as SOURCE READING please scroll to the top of this page and click on the prompt for ELR Editor’s Daily Shares. Write your comment either at the top of the editor’s Facebook page or at the bottom of the specific article you are thinking about that has been posted in the last month or so on the Facebook page.

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

Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve

A DARK DASTARDLY DEED IN USIAN HISTORY

By ROUT LOGGER

What’s on my mind now? I’ll tell you what. For the first time in my life yesterday, October 1, 2021, the United States Postal Service did not deliver or pick up the mail to/from my address on a business day. A cursory check on the Internet showed there have been scattered reports about slow postal service recently on CNN and elsewhere, apparently the result of Trump appointing Dejoy as postmaster general to destroy the US postal service. Does Biden not have the power to fire Dejoy? If not why not? This is one of the worst desecrations of USian democracy in history. It’s one thing to slow down mail delivery; it’s something else not to pick up or deliver the mail at all. Nothing is more democratic than USian citizens being able to write a letter in handwriting at any time expressing an assessment and/or opinion of states of affairs and mail it immediately to others from their own unique mailing address. The US post office has been one of the most sacred and most dependable democratic institutions around Earth, and now it is being destroyed by greedy fascists. Not one major newspaper in the US I checked yesterday ran a page one headline about the shameless USian abomination that occurred on October 1, 2021–the USPS not delivering or picking up the mail at everyone’s address, on a beautiful, bright, clear business day. Shameful indeed.

A bitter pill for most people to swallow postulated in the books Business Voyages and Born to Learn is that everything that happens is either predetermined or accidental and therefore no one, including Trump, is to blame or praise. Believing and acting otherwise will perpetuate the same sorry I’m OK–You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled humankind since time immemorial.

It’s OK to criticize, condemn, stroke, compliment, recognize, reward, punish, and change deleterious human actions in states of affairs; but it’s Not-OK to blame or praise specific humans for doing what they do, since they were caused to do it.

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

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis read 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

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

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

This is possible based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

The main reason why turning over the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI robots and magnum computers is that they do not get greedy and power hungry or play psychological Games. Thus far in human history most leaders atop large organizations such as countries, large corporations, and big banks have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological Games acting out their selfish ego trips, hogging all the power and money they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies. Whatever their limitations, AI robots and algorithmic computers, in a word, are not egotistical.

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

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 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ go to the RESPONSES prompt at the top of this page or to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/responses/ and let us know about them.

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SOURCE READING FOR THIS ISSUE OF THE EARTHIAN

October 1, 2021

Yes, happy birthday. Great photo. Great human being.

“Happy 97th Birthday President Jimmy Carter,” by George Davis, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10225230725971364&set=gm.5093641817318288.

October 1

Sorry state of affairs

“Fed Vice Chair Clarida Traded Millions One Day Before Powell Emergency Pandemic Statement,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fed-vice-chair-clarida-traded-millions-one-day-powell-emergency-pandemic-statement?fbclid=IwAR0xp-a3KHPb3FEgKt-5_pS3w1HwZoWmiOCV2K1tGtQYzcou2Z07ATtiXcA.  

September 30

Would seem to be inevitable sooner or later

“Wall Street’s wild party in jeopardy as Fed threatens aid cutoff,” by Victoria Guida and Ben White, POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/02/wall-street-fed-threatens-aid-cutoff-514956?fbclid=IwAR397aLYYnLgqzj4CoCpnVaimMa91qBDDSjzMAjpy0RdlKBvw8tH5OhEmfI.

September 30

Another great explanation by Michael Hudson, Earth’s greatest economist.

“China’s Fortune Cookie Crumbles,” by Michael Hudson – Ross Ashcroft, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/30/chinas-fortune-cookie-crumbles/?fbclid=IwAR1gmAOY1nghdPmdh3l268BLC2DKQnpzevEyeRWbzZA7tr-Q6IBjL5TTlrI.

September 30

Great news. If only all countries could do the same.

“China’s population could halve within 45 years, new study warns,” by Stephen Chen, SOUTH CHINA MORNING NEWS, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3150699/chinas-population-could-halve-within-next-45-years-new-study?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3150699&fbclid=IwAR22Qj6tLOcsXGdH-ceCe9i_t8G2bndZMFmBw4_ncuWkCjYMdcA6-f4MD10.

September 30

Yes, they don’t want to talk about that

“Today’s Special: Massive Tax Cuts for Billionaires,” Liz Hammill, Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397/.

September 29

Say it aint so Joe

“Rabobank: Warren is Right, Powell is Dangerous… So Is The Whole Fed,” by Michael Every of Rabobank, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rabobank-warren-right-powell-dangerous-so-whole-fed?fbclid=IwAR2G8D8WweuR6kXAb6b87xSKvSi2g8X6aBzg4ewNL44lr8Nol3pTJiHx88A.

September 29

Very sad. Greedy humans must decrease their population of the Earth peacefully using natural attrition, natural deaths exceeding births, before they foul the nests of all Earthian species, including theirs.

“U.S. to declare 23 species, including ivory-billed woodpecker, extinct,” by Rich Mckay and Kanishka Singh, REUTERS, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-declare-23-species-including-ivory-billed-woodpecker-extinct-ap-2021-09-29/?fbclid=IwAR397aLYYnLgqzj4CoCpnVaimMa91qBDDSjzMAjpy0RdlKBvw8tH5OhEmfI.

September 29

Of course open borders are not sustainable in rich countries all of whom got rich by commandeering the lion’s share of Earthian resources or by controlling their population growth. Most Earthian humans ought to be able to figure out if open borders happened all around Earth all rich countries would soon be impoverished too, except for the elite rich who might continue to live in luxury while others in the country lived in poverty.

“Biden Agrees With Obama That ‘Open Borders are Unsustainable’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-agrees-obama-open-borders-are-unsustainable-psaki?fbclid=IwAR1oz6QAFFEdtW6pA-RxxGMMX9K0W_hZys1M2nFH4jemdOmkPaiIgHqo_hc.

September 28

Sad but true. Great article by Thom Hartmann

“When will the US break free from the clutches of its grifters?” by Thom Hartmann, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33864?fbclid=IwAR0yLLOjigSyMa1Sy5a87gIpGvswgIevbgWY53qZW3k34Qy53gMXv77gjG8.

September 28

Shame

“Dallas Fed President Kaplan to retire early on Oct. 8, citing trading disclosure ‘distraction’,” by Jeff Cox, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/dallas-fed-president-kaplan-to-retire-early-on-oct-8-citing-trading-disclosure-distraction.html?fbclid=IwAR03v6-5pTX1a8elacMTs73keB4z49lJIMMbwEcZEuRmFPLBO8LD2aEWZso.

September 28

Right as rain

“We are standing on our principles,” by Gary Huck, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397/.

September 28

Excellent article by Robert Reich

“When I was at law school with Clarence Thomas,” by Robert Reich, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33858?fbclid=IwAR09yZnb7blG7Vy2GFUHMeBrOEa7YaUHmpBZVtd60Wvq6Ktf3rntWghLVMQ/.

September 28

Pathetic this could happen in the US, or anywhere else, for that matter.

“Donald Trump is Building an Army. He Can No Longer Be Ignored,” by Sean Rayford, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/donald-trump-is-building-an-army-he-can-no-longer-be-ignored/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR24mYrgm-yTg87pjk8JlMjNrCWgnT645_FyX6zdgBHgn8Hm41jj2hHEfE0.

September 26

Say it aint so Joe

“In Washington Today: 535 Members of Congress, 1,500 Pharmaceutical Industry Lobbyists,” by Bernie Sanders, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/124955570892789/photos/a.324119347643076/4464240413630928/.

September 26

Amen

“When someone lies to you 30,000 times in 4 years and you still believe him, you’re in a cult,” by Gilberto Lopez, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1549011222112054&set=a.326476614365527.

September 26

No, I did not know that. Any chance the US could undo it?

“Did you know that before 1973 it was illegal in the US to profit off of health care? The Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 passed by Nixon changed everything,” by Rene M. Upshaw, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=261892602478081&set=a.105649121435764/.

September 26

Way it should have been

“‘Intelligent Design’ (the one by our founding fathers),” by Robert Vukovic, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10220461548871922&set=a.1526356562021.

September 26

Never knew that

“THE FDA RECEIVES 45% OF ITS ANNUAL BUDGET FROM THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY,” by Fred Jones, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=775282603246672&set=a.721127791995487.

September 26

An interesting story about Abraham Lincoln

“A Daily Dose of History,” FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/DailyDoseofHistory/photos/a.115664163197823/585947662836135/.

September 26

Wrong. The problem is not communism; the problem is fascists getting in control of governments. Stalin was not a communist; he was a fascist. Xi may be becoming a fascist himself. Hitler was a fascist. Any political leader who turns himself into a dictator is a fascist by virtue of subverting democratic processes to make it happen, whether it happens under capitalism, socialism, or communism. Trump and his Repug cult members are trying to install Trump as a fascist dictator under capitalism in the US. A fascist dictator is a fascist dictator, regardless of whether he becomes one under capitalism, socialism, or communism.

“The Problem Is Not Just Xi Jinping; It is Communism,” by David Flint, op-ed via The Epoch Times, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/problem-not-just-xi-jinping-it-communism?fbclid=IwAR37ohBKdByfETF208-7gs7G-BLpjKbyMFz1dpzyDzq1M7d75mDqAGLZGXQ.

September 26

Say it aint so Joe

“U.S. Militarism’s Toxic Impact on Climate Policy,” by Medea Benjamin – Nicolas J.S. Davies, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/24/u-s-militarisms-toxic-impact-on-climate-policy/?fbclid=IwAR3CIk5iOh3aaNbfRlJWTuqHGdtMxd2MHgPUECDYnS4Bidd8foa6pzyXjkM.

September 26

Not your normal teacher

“Remembering Paulo Freire as a Freedom Fighter,” by Henry Giroux, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/24/remembering-paulo-freire-as-a-freedom-fighter/?fbclid=IwAR3nQqv7D1XwBcWBJr2TXC6hRM8s4-LqC9xP5cej3-geYkS7ZT-vZtFSk3k.

September 25

Mistakes on an unimaginably massive scale

“The Record-Breaking Failures of Nuclear Power,” by Linda Gunter, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/24/the-record-breaking-failures-of-nuclear-power/?fbclid=IwAR15jrzLi0v5wXGuhMCtem1wGoO1aLwqmMFuyMuEaTLJa9r9_RfMG6l4SYY.

September 24

So it would seem

“Viewpoint: The Cruelty of American Imperialism,” by Noam Chomsky, THE ECONOMIST, https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/09/24/noam-chomsky-on-the-cruelty-of-american-imperialism?utm_campaign=editorial-social&utm_medium=social-organic&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0HebalLyXTLDzAJugsoP-jaTLm_qUj6bAsW0dxEdkBgt6K_3ZOMNEBy8Q.

September 23

As dumb an idea as Reagan’s Star Wars defense shield

“Democrsats File Bill to Abolish ‘Flagrantly’ Wasteful Trump-Formed Space Force,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-file-bill-to-abolish-flagrantly-wasteful-trump-formed-space-force/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3I-Wgbqgq-awWNYHANF_I3cG0BeG8BHwZgpdlNOgfUrzPdS1hdKaYDZfA.

September 23

With no serious threats in sight insane alright

“Ocasio-Cortez Slams Congress for ‘Shamelessly’ Boosting Defense Budget Each Year,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/ocasio-cortez-slams-congress-for-senselessly-boosting-defense-budget-each-year/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3CIk5iOh3aaNbfRlJWTuqHGdtMxd2MHgPUECDYnS4Bidd8foa6pzyXjkM.

September 19

Yes, it’s time to make the US more democratic, freer, and better off by significantly overhauling its woefully obsolete constitution and desecrated government.

“Constitution Day 2021: It’s time to make America free again,” by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33775?fbclid=IwAR3or8ltUdqswPDAKjsVBv2SHozG_j4d3AIBmAMTybiHGEUKt92Q7N9xgnE.

September 19

Right as rain

“Understanding the Basics of 21st-Century Democracy, Autocracy, and Capitalism,” by Richard D. Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/17/understanding-the-basics-of-21st-century-democracy-autocracy-and-capitalism/?fbclid=IwAR08WSAiA-6l2-EoJkTZ8TWkbrTQU_vp0_LZeip_WAi3KEk2raKGjRgnZVY.

September 19

Yes, it’s completely absurd

“Bernie Sanders Rips Into Big Pharma Profits, Says ‘Thousands Die Every Year’,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/bernie-sanders-rips-into-big-pharma-profits-says-thousands-die-every-year/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2OZ6JfAuc4zaRCDE5ng-n4YtYy9P0BumQGKmvm8VZ_0H-teIK54H9DbR8.

September 18

Good question

“Peter Espeut: Why do they hate us so?” THE GLEANER, https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20210917/peter-espeut-why-do-they-hate-us-so?fbclid=IwAR0YrpOUmBMXtBx2atP27PcmHZwK2XhjIqq2PAHwl_DNxopxpolOBkQ-ndk#.YUaB4STyq_k.facebook.

September 17

Another fearless article by Caitlin Johnstone

“Our gods have no heads,” by Caitlin Johnstone, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33763?fbclid=IwAR1CXQjZq5gdF5u1rieaHWhBqKLiYSLK99yYT2tq9hlNXS0ug7ziAhPS0ws.

September 17

Another cogent article by Eve Ottenberg

“Fireworks at the Select Committee on the Capitol Riot,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/17/fireworks-at-the-select-committee-on-the-capitol-riot/?fbclid=IwAR01nVIwFjs2rBezp0eIoblv9d–1ICB5Rs4gdiogYd8d762t3-06Pi80N8.

September 17

Japan’s debt is 275 percent of their GDP; the US’s debt, according to this article, is only 103 percent of its GDP. This implies the US still has a way to go before it financially explodes or implodes because of deficit spending and debt.

“#MacroView: Deficit Deniers & 40-Years of Economic Erosion – RIA,” by Lance Roberts, RIA ADVICE, https://realinvestmentadvice.com/macroview-deficit-deniers-40-years-of-economic-erosion/?fbclid=IwAR3eKYbPsdqFr33uVQXLwZG1DK_Xyde9oiJu5A8HJ5j_GmxhO4UYhgUjBz0.

September 17

How soon we forget

“20 years of post-9/11 amnesia,” by Margaret Kimberley, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33760?fbclid=IwAR0YrpOUmBMXtBx2atP27PcmHZwK2XhjIqq2PAHwl_DNxopxpolOBkQ-ndk.

September 16

Got to have enemies to justify military expenses

“The Dangerous Exaggeration of the Threat,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/16/the-dangerous-exaggeration-of-the-threat/?fbclid=IwAR2YHiKT4_uT19_z7SC-0mFbfNSFBUiViBfWgcXLMOnMfJpD-8t2q4oOiwE.

September 16

As it should

“Supreme Court Approval Hits Historic Low Over Failure to Stop Texas Abortion Ban,” by Chris Walker, TROUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/supreme-court-approval-hits-historic-low-over-failure-to-stop-tx-abortion-ban/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2FgfGAzysBnkbusKJQNlUaK0CR9EBJu8xXdK6JUA_F49tnkgGVlh-I3MY.

September 16

Agree

“Elizabeth Warren Calls for Ban on Federal Reserve Officials Trading Stocks,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/elizabeth-warren-calls-for-ban-on-federal-reserve-officials-trading-stocks/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0_18-SOt24hbhHnG17VjSxu7GXQy8GPUcBzYEXgnl5GFjaB6j3YGUBxj4.

September 16

Right as rain

“Bernie Sanders Blasts Conservative Democrats for Siding With Big Pharma,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/bernie-sanders-blasts-conservative-democrats-for-siding-with-big-pharma/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2PuFZ15LXLgain4lH19UKqhfPoOdl1VEkghjYVp2sWi5Lq-fV-iM9NUWQ.

September 15

A despicable happening

“I Demand The Religious Freedom To Impose My Religious Beliefs On You,” by Barbara Henderson Porter, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1248073412297780&set=a.183054845466314.

September 16

USian federal politicians are bought and paid for by drug companies, so it’s OK for USian medical patients to get ripped off with drug prices significantly higher than those paid by medical patients living in countries with better governments.

“Democrats vote with Republicans to reject adding Medicare drug-price plan to $3.5T budget package,” by Brett Jansen, USA TODAY, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/15/democrats-gop-reject-adding-medicare-drug-price-plan-budget/8349347002/?fbclid=IwAR0rSFlZhK0H4n1Vuikhwa2Xl2Fd41CDeAv-Otb75CuDuqKxg486hPq1qAY.

September 16

Great power rivalry should be dismissed as psychological Game-playing to build up business for the military-industrial complex.

“The Center Cannot Hold,” by Thomas Wright, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-08-24/center-cannot-hold?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=The%20Center%20Cannot%20Hold&utm_content=20210916&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017&fbclid=IwAR1LQrpWAlWq2zJ4To4Bz0TXIvBC0M92coSSz36_bk9GZZGIVDCGshEa8cw.

September 15

Here is a case that free market capitalism is dead, killed by capitalists, politicians, and central bankers.

“Nothing is Real: A Visual Journey Through Market Absurdity,” by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitaerland.com, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nothing-real-visual-journey-through-market-absurdity?fbclid=IwAR0ygTupk7r8uX4Ja0lcb6cwWhw5FLWfZ6yEz_pgNrwZgTC9wwQMkFPRSPQ.

September 14

Did not know it had gone this far.

“Woodward/Costa book: Worried Trump could ‘go rogue,’ Milley took secret action to protect nuclear weapons,” by Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart, CNN POLITICS, https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/14/politics/woodward-book-trump-nuclear/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2JxH-deoEkvr1WvgtaZFpfab7lhIFoFQn38fWmywzEjox36L2c1wyE950.

September 10

Well said

“The Good Death–Cancel Culture and the Logic of Torture,” by Christopher Van Eecke, QUILLETTE, https://quillette.com/2021/09/09/the-good-death-cancel-culture-and-the-logic-of-torture/?fbclid=IwAR2sqnemwgbg0GSNneYqiEucQl4kpTnbhlEsOKnRvByiiIdRaytCw_JlpiM.

September 10

Well said

“Twenty Years After 9/11: a Health Worker’s Perspective,” by Seiji Yamada, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/09/twenty-years-after-9-11-a-health-workers-perspective/?fbclid=IwAR3SYYBqSouxkJiWOJZTTRxi8vEP9mjEuQayoPIzc2raRdY7PlUCf3D6N-Y.

September 10

This is more than an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

“US Airstrikes Have Killed Up to 48,000 Civilians Since 9/11: Analysis,” by Kenny Stancil, COMMON DREAMS, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/07/us-airstrikes-have-killed-48000-civilians-911-analysis?fbclid=IwAR13SqBsTcAU2o99iOijmmgyvzmDS7s6VjF4DpzlMhIgcsRGCU7GEXxeBxc.

September 7

Fusion energy if it ever happens may be the best hope for Earthing human sustainability

“Physicists Have Successfully Advanced a Key Device For Producing Fusion Power,” by Michelle Starr, SCIENCE ALERT, https://www.sciencealert.com/there-s-been-a-significant-advance-in-harnessing-the-power-of-nuclearfusion?fbclid=IwAR0tyDiY_iYnjzepOqMCKLnN9qa6UwoWQPHuIaghOixhpxB5fotmwzGyQiwd=IwAR0tyDiY_iYnjzepOqMCKLnN9qa6UwoWQPHuIaghOixhpxB5fotmwzGyQiw.

September 7

Pathetic

“The Structural Greed of Corporate America,” by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/07/the-structural-greed-of-corporate-america/?fbclid=IwAR25eKPntOaz4va8DtFEbdNKZJt1KWVbO5sgWehWq6U-1phduCzauIuqWrk.

September 7

Say it aint so Joe

“Afghanistan and the Purdue Pharma Case are Reminders That the U.S. is a Failed Narco-State, Too,” by Richard Eskow, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/07/afghanistan-and-the-purdue-pharma-case-are-reminders-that-the-u-s-is-a-failed-narco-state-too/?fbclid=IwAR1LSyUpIYmmF-qp-m3Vk0o-SiLQScBfAxTj2oPsD3aFtmInnPc6rsHM1r8.

September 6

Never knew pro-life was also pro-nazi

“Texas abortion law is based on similar measure in Nazi Germany,” by Wayne Madsen, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33641?fbclid=IwAR1s6yKHtYKAtEX5sJmJjEuZdDecr8DZKvhhDuHq12ldT0IY-K7V_9aQSlI.

September 6

George Soros, the trading master of the world has spoken. Is he right in this case? Probably not. I agree with Michael Hudson, the world’s greatest economist, the author of the article.

“Soros’ Dream: To Turn China Into a Neoliberal Grabitization Opportunity,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/02/soros-dream-to-turn-china-into-a-neoliberal-grabitization-opportunity/?fbclid=IwAR2qUsz-PUxh9IwSIHaG4jeLd-cyP5BuWwiLic5UelxfGXng-YHCdY5l5do.

September 6

Very sad state of affairs

“At Least 27 Million US Workers Can’t Afford All the Basic Necessities of Life,” by Jeffrey Kucik and Don Leonard, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/at-least-27-million-workers-cant-afford-all-the-basic-necessities-of-life/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0UEwLBZdJaIUXPEOPyhF6T1EQ3jF218wRVj0ms5XXyC3IynTiCpIggfao.

September 6

Enlightening article

“Resistance is Futile: The War on Terror Supercharged State Power,” by Thomas Hegghammer, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2021-08-24/resistance-futile?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=fatoday&utm_campaign=Resistance%20Is%20Futile&utm_content=20210906&utm_term=FA%20Today%20-%20112017&fbclid=IwAR2goSYksR06ii8Ex9vZrnC5a3dQl8WeAjehtA926vP-JOFcHJUYRwfjfRA.

September 5

Lived in Holland three months in 1983. Was amazed by the place. Especially the transportation system. The Dutch were way ahead of most USians intellectually and philosophically and had a higher quality of life.

“Dutch trains run entirely on wind energy,” by Rene M. Upshaw, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=248147963852545&set=a.106365118030831.

September 4

Very sad

“Wildlife ‘Red List’ a grim tally of extinction threat,” by Marlowe Hood, PHYS.ORG, https://phys.org/news/2021-09-wildlife-red-grim-tally-extinction.html?fbclid=IwAR0g69MOnQQizLJYaL476qn3nY0pbG4LJlQz5dxJgHhaTOkkmOk-BZsyoQ8.

ABOUT THE EDITOR  

A man sitting at a table in front of a computer.

Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography.

The object under his left hand is a Classroom De- Gamer™ he invented in 1978.

He would spin the spinner of the De-Gamer in his classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on two case write-ups. One write-up was about what the student observed, researched, analyzed, and wrote about an existing business in the local environment or a business plan the student created. The other write- up was an analysis of a professionally written case about a real business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses were taken from all functional areas of business, such as entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, control, management information systems, and business policy and strategy.

He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana– Lafayette in 1969-70.

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK–You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.

He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

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

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

About five percent or so of his students made A’s and D’s, and most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were almost no F’s in his courses. The main criterion for course grades was the quantity and quality of ideas sold by students in case method discussions. He used peer ratings to give students feedback showing what their fellow students thought about the quantity and quality of their ideas sold in class, having made it clear the final decision about final grades was his. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

No student was ever forced to take one of his courses to graduate, and the most hardened Game-players in the school did not sign up for his courses after he issued his Edict of 1972 in which he clearly spelled out in his syllabi the penalty for getting caught unprepared. His Classroom De-Gamer™ was roundly discussed by students in bull sessions across campus every year and was labeled various things, such as The Wheel of Fate and The Death Wheel. Most students near the end of his career simply called it The Spinner. He appreciated the fact Georgia Southern honored his academic freedom as a tenured professor, allowing him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials.

He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the lecture method and the authoritarian row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers” for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Game- free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent–Child I’m OK– You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had worked in the real world ten or more years after graduating from the Georgia Southern business school were included in the study.

For more information on these classroom management ethical issues see Stapleton, R.J. and Murkison, G. (2001), Optimizing the fairness of student evaluations: A study of correlations between instructor excellence, study production, learning production, and expected grades, the Journal of Management Education, 25(3), 269-292. He had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school and was one of the lowest-ranked professors as an instructor on computerized campus-wide student evaluations up to about 2000; but he was one of the highest-ranked professors in a computerized student evaluation he designed that generated data showing study production, learning production, and relative expected grades data for each professor, published in “Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations.”

To read the article in full, go to https://blog.effectivelearning.net/fair-teacher- evaluations/. After this research was published, Georgia Southern in 2001 added study production, learning production, and expected grades questions to the student evaluation form used campus-wide.

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (October 1, 2021) been cited as a reference in 81 refereed journal articles concerned about student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including six new citations since April 2021.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein propositioned, “The case is all there is.”

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

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://www. effectivelearning.net.

 

 

THE EARTHIAN — 24

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Twenty-Four, July 28, 2021, Effective Learning Publications, https://effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA,  Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA, Writer, Editor & Publisher   

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

To comment about this issue of The Earthian in general or any article included please scroll to the top of this page and click on the prompt for ELR Editor’s Daily Shares. Write your comment either at the top of the editor’s Facebook page or at the bottom of the specific article you are thinking about which has been shared on the Facebook page.

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

Individuals Are Not to Praise or Blame for How Earthian Economic, Social, and Political States of Affairs Evolve

By Richard John Stapleton

European immigrants in North America had a natural economic advantage from the 1600s up to about 1980 producing agricultural and industrial products because of where the territory they conquered is situated around Spaceship Earth, at the best latitudes and longitudes, on a Goldilocks spot of Earth, sheltered by two wide oceans from aggressive foreign enemies. Temperatures and fertile soils on that spot of Earthian territory were amenable to growing almost anything, and there was lots of soil to till, after it was expropriated from its native inhabitants by military force.

Excessive population growth in Europe and elsewhere insured a steady supply of land-hungry immigrants willing and able to move farther and farther west to farm new land as it was cleared of Indians, in what became known as the United States of America, however godless, immoral, and unethical this process might have been, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Surplus production of crops such as tobacco and cotton were in high demand in Europe and elsewhere, generating cash cow exports generating lucrative international trade cash inflows for USian planters, entrepreneurs, bankers, and traders, causing high growth rates in the USian economy, giving free USians of all socioeconomic classes competitive advantages relative to their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere.

African slavery in the South facilitated increased cotton production at relatively low cost. USian slaves had no wages or competitive advantages, giving USian cotton farmers owning slaves a cost advantage in international trade. The westward expansion of agriculture in both the South and the North of the US created demand for industrial products of all sorts, especially tractors after the development of the internal combustion engine around 1900.

USian territory was also advantaged in the Great Lakes region and the Ohio Valley for iron and steel production. Iron ore was plentiful in Minnesota and there was plenty of coal in Kentucky. Heavy loads of iron ore and coal could be floated on barges in lakes, rivers, and canals in the region to iron and steel mills and their heavy output could be floated to factories producing tractors, trucks, automobiles, plows, wheat threshers, railroad rails, train engines and cars, and what have you, at relatively low cost.

The farm land was relatively easy to take from Indians and relatively cheap when bought by farmers. While there were farmers who failed because of bad luck, weather, diseases, and what have you, USian agriculture winning in international markets was almost a certainty because of production and cost advantages.

The advent of trains, tractors, and automobiles by 1900 created enormous demand for gasoline, oil, grease, and coal, and USian territory was well stocked with coal and oil deposits in the ground that was relatively easy to mine and pump out, in coal mines in West Virginia, Kentucky and elsewhere, and from oil fields in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere.

Consequently, the USian economy itself was a slam dunk winner from about 1900 to 1980, finding itself in an almost impossible-to-lose position in international trade and competition, thanks to sheer historical geographic good luck, with relatively high wages, salaries, and profits for most USians compared to their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. Happy Days were here, for most USians considered white, and for some USians considered non-white.

Because of these eventualities, a large percentage of USians began to feel and think they were inherently superior to other humans around Earth, feeling and thinking they somehow caused their incomes to be relatively high by virtue of having superior religious beliefs, morals, ethics, intelligence, and abilities, and because of working harder than others.

USians in 2021 are no longer the luckiest humans aboard Spaceship Earth. They are no longer accidentally and inevitably better off economically than others because of natural geographic phenomena and causes. A higher percentage of  Earthian countries have industrialized, creating formidable competition; USian industrial jobs have been sent to low-wage countries; USian factories have been shuttered; USian irrigation wells have been pumped almost dry in several states; USian oil wells have about been pumped dry, no longer guaranteeing USians relatively cheap energy; USian exports of agricultural and industrial products no longer have natural cost advantages in global markets; the US is more dependent internally on relatively expensive car, truck, and airplane transportation systems than other countries, creating a cost disadvantage.     

What’s the answer?

USians believing they’re naturally superior and deserving and believing electing fascist political leaders can make the US great again is not the answer. Believing the US will again get its hands on almost limitless supplies of cheap land and natural resources is not the answer. Believing large USian corporations will bring their industrial factories back to the US and pay wages in the US several times higher than those of workers in industrial factories sited in low-wage countries around Spaceship Earth is not the answer. The above is magical thinking with little or no chance of happening.

Some possible survival answers include learning to live consuming less raw material per capita, producing only one child per woman to reduce the necessity for resource depletion, developing green energy sources, constructing housing and transportation systems that require less energy for each human served, humans doing some organic gardening producing some food in their yards, humans sewing some of their own clothes.

A case can be made that most USians past the age of thirty have been spoiled and poorly scripted by inevitable historical accidents, having had no idea how relatively well-off they were economically compared to others around Spaceship Earth, caused by historical accidents caused by inevitable cause-effect evolution.

A case can also be made that Earthians should worry about befuddled discombobulated sad, scared, and mad USians deciding humans different from them living aboard Spaceship Earth are to blame for their lowered social positions and impoverished economic circumstances, since they might blame different others so much they decide to hate, revile, scapegoat, sanction, incarcerate, disappear, and bomb them.  

If all effects have causes, and if feelings, thoughts, decisions, and behaviors are effects, then such phenomena were caused, and free will, a non-caused effect, does not exist. If so, as a consolation, Earthian humans can hope inexorable unbroken infinitely-regressive and progressive cause-effect chains, that cannot be changed or stopped by Earthian humans of any country, however superior and/or heroic they might think or say they are, will cause at least minimally OK states of affairs to indefinitely happen for all Earthians. 

A bitter pill for most people to swallow postulated in my books Business Voyages and Born to Learn is that everything that happens is either predetermined or accidental and therefore no one is to blame or praise. Believing and acting otherwise will perpetuate the same sorry I’m OK–You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled humankind since time immemorial.

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

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis read 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

Read 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 is possible based on the general algorithmic matrix algebra form

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

The main reason however why turning over the scheduling, production, and distribution of the necessities of life to AI robots and magnum computers is that they do not get greedy and power hungry or play psychological Games. Thus far in human history most leaders atop large organizations such as countries, large corporations, and big banks have become corrupt one way or another playing psychological Games acting out their selfish ego trips, hogging all the power and money they could get their hands on for themselves and their cronies. AI robots and computers are not egotistical.

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

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

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 https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ go to our RESPONSES page and let us know about them at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/responses/ .

I do not sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit donations for THE EARTHIAN or the EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT but I would like to sell more books. If you feel you’ve gained value from THE EARTHIAN and would like to reciprocate, go to our Effective Learning Publications page and purchase one or more copies of my books at  https://effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications/ .

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

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

Born to Learn has not been a best seller but it has had some impact as this review in the Texas Tribune implies at https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/26/bookshelf-oct-26-2016/?fbclid=IwAR3ctGFk_zCH5QOyvLjqUiulkAcEPUQ4deUq1-tZIS6OuwaYhI-bmrM4Ebw . A German orthopedic surgeon discounted the book with a customer review at Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810 lowering the book from a five star to a three star Amazon rating. The orthopedic doctor said I did not “come across” like a real transactional analyst and the book promised more than it delivered. Seems to me the Kirkus review in the Texas Tribune in this post is fair and accurate. Both reviews comment on admittedly a debatable issue with Born to Learn: Is the book useful only for teachers and students in classrooms or for all teachers and learners, including parents and children in homes, bosses and employees in businesses, preachers and Sunday school teachers and members in churches? Is it useful for leaders and members in all kinds of groups and organizations, civic clubs, chambers of commerce, street gangs, military units, and governments? I say it can be useful in all organizations and groups and can help increase human OKness. Read both reviews above for yourself and write a review of Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning. The more reviews the better.

SOURCE READING FOR THIS ISSUE OF THE EARTHIAN

July 28, 2021

Say it aint so Joe

“Academentia: the Organization Insanity of the Modern University,” by Thomas Kilkauer and Meg Young, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/28/academentia-the-organization-insanity-of-the-modern-university/?fbclid=IwAR3tMEa_ZTwOpUpLp2AZ1DJbl9Qjtt5traatKKsExebt3iqCjd_GwjDR9fY.

July 28

Hard to believe

“Healthcare parasites are sucking Americans dry,” by Thom Hartmann, INTREPID REPORT,  http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33219.  

July 28     

Edward Snowden is no dummy

“The Insecurity Industry: The greatest danger to national security has become the companies that claim to protect it,” by Edward Snowden, SUBSTACK.COM, https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/ns-oh-god-how-is-this-legal?fbclid=IwAR10wBZ2XLCBICRdYQKSoivRtQeoN5GoqOVvJO7fjXSuIZSij67cSaCA24k.  

July 27, 2021

Well said  

“The Collapse of the American Empire,” by Chris Hedges, COMMONDREAMS.ORG, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/04/19/collapse-american-empire?fbclid=IwAR2x6sxhFcXJPtWExr-CPoUaYo7nQodXCSST0cPI2n-B9Ffkxb9VOlKEBv4.

July 26

Say it is so Joe

“Inside Bezos–a five-year old boy–outside, a cunning extraterrestrial…,” by Ralph Nader, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33191.

July 26

Heck of a note

“Opinion: Big losses ahead for markets? Jeremy Grantham’s terrifying new forecasts,” Jeremy Grantham, MARKETWATCH.COM, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/granthams-terrifying-new-forecasts-11627061555?reflink=mw_share_facebook&fbclid=IwAR3F8Xp0iKw9Hiyfnlf7Otu86_AsFsD9R-z5lasiblZ2BRZ2uRWJ0AgSEAE.

July 26

Pathetic and sickening, making it easy to see why thousands of returning vets are committing suicide

“In Pre-Sentencing Letter, Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Says Crisis of Conscience Motivated Leak,” by Brett Wilkins, COMMONDREAMS.ORG, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/23/pre-sentencing-letter-drone-whistleblower-daniel-hale-says-crisis-conscience?fbclid=IwAR22klPU6WPglMTnFpMToTPtNuc_tMCrtrprg58MhkTwlHqRF-xZorunH5g.

July 24

Yuk

“The Return of Logging Without Laws,” by Adam Rissien, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/23/the-return-of-logging-without-laws/?fbclid=IwAR08JeU9n5hQfh9lpUHKbS_pTsH-nDeXzIwFxJRbmL186QUgpLt59tWSd7k.

July 24

When push comes to shove

“Brazil, Amazon, World: Part Two,” by Jean Wyllys and Julie Wark, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/23/brazil-amazon-world-part-two/?fbclid=IwAR0VslfopxxVgavPgOgS3H9C8_6hMGTUaDZ4Ig0xFfa1ZkW_sOEgkD9Nkdo.

July 23

This woman’s from Australia

“The US is the absolute worst: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix,” by Caitlin Johnstone, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33174.

July 23

Adventures of a smart bum

“The Beast that Kills the Beauty,” by Ron Jacobs, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/23/the-beast-that-kills-the-beauty/?fbclid=IwAR3MJA-AOolqcpVgbLAsUfMj4fYl660TSAy-nvWT2bZbTOJzzKwCyFM_hPA.

July 23

Say it aint so Joe

“American Psychosis,” by John Clamp, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/23/american-psychosis/?fbclid=IwAR1IJI7VCr2CdrefSSzdnnBus-iwFlvV7zd5qHDNNs-IAphlUr62nwZi8yk.

July 23

Showing his true colors

“Biden Promised Diplomacy, But He’s Overseeing Military Buildup Against China,” by Ann Wright, TROUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/biden-promised-diplomacy-but-hes-overseeing-military-buildup-against-china/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3LaJuGsjADjcMn9OmnMgaF5hmep0NrDm4GgV_0jpl47OaVOkfZh9XohmE.

July 23

Since when was there a real debt limit? More bullshit, smoke, and mirrors in the USian presidency, congress, treasury dept, and Federal Reserve system. The only real debt limit is when the USian govt and the Federal Reserve System can no longer meet the government’s payroll for the govt’s military and civil servant employees, stops making its loan repayments to the USian Social Security System, and stops bailing out the USian deep state by purchasing non-market military products and inflated investment assets in manipulated stock and bond markets.

“How Much Of A Risk Is The Coming Debt Limit,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/how-much-risk-coming-debt-ceiling?fbclid=IwAR1cipZXL1BeeNcZVlqQSyS_rejvRnuomeuLBziyigABc2bTxfU7iUPZWfY.

July 22

Right. What is a fair share of taxes, not to mention a fair share of deficit spending for the US military and other budget items paid for by treasury debt purchased with funny money created from thin air by the Federal Reserve system?

“No One Has a ‘Fair Share’ of Taxes,” by Brian McGlinchey, STARK REALITIES, https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/no-one-has-a-fair-share-of-taxes?fbclid=IwAR1N41eEr_w-GhEzjB91GET1XgJFJ0YqDgDy6Tizy8P-VkxpZPtLhwAQ-5A.

July 22

Yuk

“Virginia Volvo Strikers Narrowly Approve New Contract,” by Kenneth Surin, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/21/virginia-volvo-strikers-narrowly-approve-new-contract/?fbclid=IwAR3jKQgSIcli-dCCMGw6vP3Wn4uJGjysNTOVUOWVWwCno1V7r41lQbjvyQ4.

July 22

On the road to fascism in the US

“When the Sh*t Hit the Fan: Recalling the 1970s,” by David Rossen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/21/when-the-sht-hit-the-fan-recalling-the-1970s/?fbclid=IwAR1Nw0l7JgASyl9fm5Nvdvw3pN316eZkNQIp_WlpxZ4owsEvbzN80OIZvWI.

July 22

Sad state of affairs

“Holding Onto the Cold War,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/21/holding-onto-the-cold-war/?fbclid=IwAR33DxYOSWFRxromID-NfV9GeAtE4spN7qWe4KG2wJSrtE20c7PC0CfCmbM.

July 21

Yes, there are side effects environmentally caused by electric cars such as mining for rare minerals to make batteries, but most Earthian humans seem oblivious to the fact electric cars are not a free lunch to solve the global warming problem. Why? Because electricity humans access by plugging a cord into an electrical outlet to recharge an electric car battery probably requires the burning of fossil fuel to generate the electricity fed into the car battery, offsetting any environmental improvements made by not driving fossil fueled internal combustion engine cars. I am not sure about the net result here, having never read a definitive article on it, but there are environmental pluses and minuses of all sorts comparing electric and internal combustion engine cars. If Earthian humans should completely switch from internal combustion engines to electric motors in cars, if new ways of generating electricity are not developed, such as by using hydrogen fusion reactors, it may take as much or more fossil fuel to keep on driving with electric cars as internal combustion engine cars. It takes energy to make energy, and it might take more energy to make enough usable energy to power cars, trucks, and innumerable other internal combustion contraptions with electricity than gasoline. In other words, what are Earthian humans going to burn to make the new electric energy to power cars, trucks, etc. in the first place? Mostly coal? Whoopee. A lot of energy is required not only to make usable energy but to transport usable energy, whether through electric highline wires or by trucks, trains, and pipelines. A lot of energy is lost through resistance in electric transmission wires. Mainstream media are not painting an accurate picture regarding these states of affairs, leaving most Earthian humans as usual to live in their dream worlds. Electric cars are not a panacea at this time.

“California’s electric car revolution, designed to save the planet, also unleashes a toll on it,” by Evan Helper, YAHOO!NEWS, https://news.yahoo.com/californias-electric-car-revolution-designed-100041571.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb.

July 21

First time I recall this happening

“Wildfires in US blowing ‘so much smoke’ into East Coast,” by Gillian Flaccus and Sara Cline, APNEWS.COM, https://apnews.com/article/science-fires-environment-and-nature-wildfires-cebad62e9bf8d5ed295b60fb9b0961fb?fbclid=IwAR2CPnyMWUmmpvQDiHZ28Fz8hngMWsgMhfS9lthmXQvCt1jQg8xWJxYnSKA.

July 20

Yes, let Cuba live

“If You Grew Up With the U.S. Blockade as a Cuban, You Might Understand the Recent Protests Differently,” by Manolo De Los Santos and Vijay Prashad, COUNTERPUNCH. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/20/if-you-grew-up-with-the-u-s-blockade-as-a-cuban-you-might-understand-the-recent-protests-differently/?fbclid=IwAR1y5JHCGOMBn7KCy1w8ahm84bOaVzrglRxp7ZLIBh4PFeTPjBI4ehuW4JU.

July 20

How about just facing up to the truth, grieving, and going on from there, doing what has to be done, hoping for the best?

“Needed urgently! New US national myth,” by Eric Walberg, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33139.

July 20

Say it aint so Joe

“Scenario for US & NATO invasion of Crimea and origins of American hatred,” by John Stanton, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33141.

July 20

This was news to me

“Robotic Killing Machines and Our Future: Chris Pratt, Aliens, and Drones,” by Matthew Hoh, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/20/robotic-killing-machines-and-our-future-chris-pratt-aliens-and-drones/?fbclid=IwAR2EVMI69vSvXTcCll5usEfQMZSfc8i1IoFU4c10fzNkEBzF1NfOtjnfk1o.

July 20

The same being true with Trump in the US

“The Greatest Threat to Britain Isn’t China or Russia, It’s Boris Johnson,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/20/the-greatest-threat-to-britain-isnt-china-or-russia-its-boris-johnson/?fbclid=IwAR1_i7iKUPn4fyRJWY7jqoDjhoA_ImQitL4DSGtWS7yxTp7yd-w96WvcfdQ.

July 20

What right do lawmakers have to cram their beliefs about abortions down the throats of USian citizens who do not believe it?

“If the Supreme Court Overturns ‘Roe v. Wade,’ It will Impact Us All,” by Kia Guarino & Tara Romano, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-it-will-impact-us-all/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3FZXUZD-OFfoupg3W8x1gxGILN2qro8fudxD5z4bRRXQ9yuv24SLr4eNw.

July 20

Say left wing extremists did it

“Our rulers have all the power and none of the responsibility,” by Caitlin Johnstone, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33131.

July 18

Does it always happen this way when push comes to shove? Fascists take over regardless of the political and economic system the country professes to use, whether it be monarchy, democracy, communism, socialism, capitalism, or a hybrid?

“My Heart Aches for Cuba–and I Yearn for More Solidarity From the Global Left,” by Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/my-heart-aches-for-cuba-and-i-yearn-for-more-solidarity-from-the-global-left/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1XH5dudgB7bhIywLzp-VaQunPBQCVAaK9OLPeeTR64Ao3StpnJdj49gyk.

July 16

The long arm of the law

“Trump’s former CFO resigned too late to shield his ex-boss,” by Katie S. Phang, MSNBC Opinion Columnist, MSNBC, https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/allen-weisselberg-s-resignation-doesn-t-protect-donald-trump-or-n1273950?fbclid=IwAR1kMMhhQB7dBH5UkuDBjv2yEnY_MbRtT0jFcM1d4kpuG4UyDLJR4cDiQmM.

July 15

Hard to imagine alright

“Imagine a Nation Like This,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/13/imagine-a-nation-like-this/?fbclid=IwAR19ToVYjJfmcU_geKfeyX1NcFE0WH-D3AAEy5xMQJTEFyrHFwTWqv3DIZc.

July 13

Hate to hear it

“Cornel West says in resignation letter over tenure dispute that Harvard is in ‘decline and dedcay’,” by Timothy Bella and Susan Surluga, THE WASHINGTON POST, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cornel-west-says-in-resignation-letter-over-tenure-dispute-that-harvard-is-in-decline-and-decay/ar-AAM6A29?ocid=sf.

July 13

Say it aint so Joe

“Assange To Be ‘Moved Around’ Sine Die,” by Ray McGovern, INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56643.htm?fbclid=IwAR3C86al1nIw-hUSA-TmDQcuqyjg9aVXEc2gX7_FYDtSMGqYs7UhwQuF_VQ.

July 12

Pathetic

“Biden regime escalates war on Russia and China by other means,” by Stephen Landman, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/33049.

July 12

Hard question to answer

“Why America Can’t Have ‘Nice Things”,” by Thom Hartmann, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/12/why-america-cant-have-nice-things/?fbclid=IwAR0fTBsl8zKuY_Y1On94EYEGltD3LyjqS8NSd32B-l8yVeOO63Wc5f-pyJo.

July 12

Afraid he’s right

“A World of Total Illusion and Fantasy: Noam Chomsky on the Future of the Planet,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/12/a-world-of-total-illusion-and-fantasy-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky/?fbclid=IwAR0rwxRk5EtR0Ifn4uZ1KmeI80URZ9JpakVmf5RIVK6g3VpBFbyQAOMEfdg.

July 12

Yup

“Cryptocurrency May Wreak Havoc on Economy–Especially on People With No Assets,” by Sam Knight, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/cryptocurrency-may-wreak-havoc-on-economy-especially-on-people-with-no-assets/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0ntSZckgbhNfi3fEXsld7Rut7WwSW1o_gm-jp-Tk3-lC5O11yfOJA8hS8.

July 12

Say it aint so Joe

“Suspected Assassins of Haitian President Moise Trained by US, Linked to Pro-Coup Oligarchy,” by Dan Cohen, MINT PRESS NEWS, https://www.mintpressnews.com/haiti-suspected-moise-assassins-trained-by-us/277898/?fbclid=IwAR19ToVYjJfmcU_geKfeyX1NcFE0WH-D3AAEy5xMQJTEFyrHFwTWqv3DIZc#.YOwMq3JMGeE.facebook.  

July 10

Say it aint so Joe

“From Iowa Nice to Iowa Nazi: A Report from the Friendly Fascist Heartland,” by Paul Street, COUONTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/09/from-iowa-nice-to-iowa-nazi-a-report-from-the-friendly-fascist-heartland/?fbclid=IwAR3nYrad7IKSlIA2wdVFa2koIWSLNA7GqNJYV8a9NwwVnTIxO0XXzLnpJ5o.

Juy 10

Sad

“Was it Just? America and Her Suicidal Combat Veterans,” by Matthew Hoh, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/09/was-it-just-america-and-her-suicidal-combat-veterans/?fbclid=IwAR2ShbGeMcChlVB1kohBBk7SCAVOoVHtTEu2A9gRF1p0Hwl5YszDXh_KsuQ.

July 9

Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning by Richard John Stapleton was featured in “20 Great Indie Books Worth Your Time,” in Kirkus Reviews, VOL. LXXXV, NO 21, 1 November 2017, Page 130:

“Illuminating if quirky at times; insightful eye-opening observations about the interplay of teachers and students in the classroom. A refresher course in Transactional Analysis emphasizes its application in the classroom.”

Born to Learn has not been a best seller but it has had some impact as this post in the Texas Tribune shows. A German orthopedic surgeon discounted the book with a customer review at Amazon.com and slowed sales down, lowering it from a five star to a three star rating. The orthopedic doctor said I (Richard) did not “come across” like a real transactional analyst and the book title promised more than it delivered. Seems to me this Kirkus review in the Texas Tribune is fair and generally accurate. Both reviews admittedly touch on a debatable issue with the book: Is the book beneficial only with teachers and students in schools or with all teachers and learners, parents and children in homes, bosses and employees in businesses, preachers and Sunday school teachers and members in churches, and with leaders and members in all groups and organizations, including boy and girl clubs, civic clubs, Chambers of Commerce, military units, and governments? I say Born to Learn applies in all organizations and groups that teach and learn and can increase human OKness in general.

https://www.texastribune.org/…/bookshelf-oct-26-2016/…

“Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning,” Kirkus Reviews, TEXAS TRIBUNE, https://www.texastribune.org/2016/10/26/bookshelf-oct-26-2016/?fbclid=IwAR3YeBRe0m_FZr7DgAursu7iM61QsRoWfqMlQA8oo9E_G1miwUfJWnDi7F4.

July 8

Great grandparents leading up to all four of my (Richard’s) grandparents from Virginia before the American Revolution owned farms and ranches, mostly cotton farms, on land recently conquered from Indians, in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Texas. All four of my grandparents were reared on cotton farms owned by their parents in Mississippi and Texas. I had two uncles who were cotton farmers near where I grew up in Texas. My parents owned a cotton farm I lived on up to age four near Wolfforth, Texas in Northwest Texas. One of my ancestors, a distant cousin, Dabney Herndon Maury, a West Point graduate and an army general fighting for the South, published a book titled Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars. And, yes, some of my ancestors owned slaves, not something to be proud of, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I am working on another book tentatively titled Evolution of a Professor Surrounded by Cotton Fields.

“Cotton and Conquest: How the Plantation System Acquired Texas,” by Roger C. Kennedy, AMAZON.COM, https://www.amazon.com/Cotton-Conquest-Plantation-System-Acquired/dp/0806143460/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Roger%20g%20Kennedy%20cotton%20and%20conquest&qid=1625510531&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR2xJrqF1y8AAFX3mkHH3mOg__P8kSv_tl_TdKVOcNPkcLMWtSkU8YHhroE.

July 3

Never knew this before

“Manchin Has Made Millions From Coal Sales Since Joining the Senate,” David Moore, Sludge, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/manchin-has-made-millions-from-coal-sales-since-joining-the-senate/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0mdumu01NfCd3dbbMGPJEMDYQESS26xWSL23aFXXm42oNXjCU6xYEi9H0.

July 3

What next? How bad can it get?

“A Remarkable Silence: Media Blackout After Key Witness Against Assange Admits Lying,” MEDIA LENS, https://www.medialens.org/2021/a-remarkable-silence-media-blackout-after-key-witness-against-assange-admits-lying/?fbclid=IwAR22CLLcIKuuZgbQSgOydtW4DtWXIa-_y6ZGGmJDfCLOC3i3U8qlVHgbfoc.

July 3

Say it aint so Joe

“Freedom Rider: The terrible origins of July 4th,” by Margaret Kimberley, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/32964.

July 3

USian fascists win another victory on the road to full blown fascism in the US

“Supreme Court Drives a Stake Through the Heart of the Voting Rights Act,” by Marjorie Cohn, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/supreme-court-drives-a-stake-through-the-heart-of-the-voting-rights-act/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2INmIHTZJTgoDTYcZhidD74-PeJppintV2KPacVF98hUMav0CmxuGSQOA.

July 3

Pathetic

“More Than 72 Million Americans Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/more-72mm-americans-are-living-paycheck-paycheck?fbclid=IwAR3FIvJ31RyMSlwAwNGJ1ixq-t1TariiOfPSuEd6QHnZwPM-EMMp3AAvN9M.

July 3

Is Eve right on again?

“Native Genocide, Native Liberation,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/02/native-genocide-native-liberation/?fbclid=IwAR2xJrqF1y8AAFX3mkHH3mOg__P8kSv_tl_TdKVOcNPkcLMWtSkU8YHhroE.

July 3

Afraid Street’s right again

“The Resistance Remains Hollow: The Weimar Ways of the Dismal Democrats,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/02/the-resistance-remains-hollow-the-weimar-ways-of-the-dismal-democrats/?fbclid=IwAR2VyJJ-YxqYNad_iARyaIAUAOOD7kN6IliX2aeuCvfDcfdC3A2es7rpsGc.

July 2.

What little USian and Earthian history I was exposed to in public school in the 1950s was a joke. No discussions, no nothing about why states of affairs happened, just dates of events and names of people in power to be memorized for so-called objective tests. Dull and dry stuff, explaining nothing.

“What Our Schools Actually Distort,” by Glenn Sacks, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/02/what-our-schools-actually-distort/?fbclid=IwAR1Y2iuQV8dh2OVzqJmnzjtmqRedoZZqB2GidL2UlFcvO2kYTQ1wTy8A80E.

June 29

The true story about the Assange Case

“FBI Fabrication Against Assange Falls Apart,” by Craig Murray, CRAIGMURRAY.ORG.UK, https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/fbi-fabrication-against-assange-falls-apart/?fbclid=IwAR14Tp5WwCSs7m9tmSeT33MdGilreUPB3-yDBkKGceX9fxxyGW0skv4xL04.

July 1

Yikes

“Dozens of Sudden Deaths Reported as Canada Heat His a Record 121 Degrees,” by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, https://truthout.org/articles/dozens-of-sudden-deaths-reported-as-canada-heat-hits-a-record-121-degrees/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3lqXptTFsPYQZRIM8fcj8_QlqPUIXj1s8orY2VoRh_UVmwpx_5GwxYJ3o.

June 30

Not weird, but creepy. The USian mainstream media have long decided to back up the narrative of the USian govt that Julian Assange is a bad guy who made them look bad with truth telling about their war crime secrets in the Mideast on Wikileaks leaked by Chelsea Manning, and therefore he deserves to be silenced and/or imprisoned forever regardless of international law.

“The weird, creepy media blackout on recent Assange revelations,” by Caitlin Johnstone, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/32936.

June 26

Xi is possibly the most efficient and effective top leader on the Earthian political stage today, despite his weaknesses mentioned in this post. It seems however he is following the same cause-effect path to ruin of past top leaders on the Earthian stage–getting greedy for personal power and fame, allowing his personal egotism to offset the good he has done, which is why computer programs and AI robots are needed at the top of large political and economic organizations around Spaceship Earth. In a word, computer technology and AI robots are not egotistical.

“Xi’s Gamble,” by Jude Blanchette, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-06-22/xis-gamble?utm_medium=newsletters&utm_source=twofa&utm_campaign=Xi%E2%80%99s%20Gamble&utm_content=20210625&utm_term=FA%20This%20Week%20-%20112017&fbclid=IwAR3lqXptTFsPYQZRIM8fcj8_QlqPUIXj1s8orY2VoRh_UVmwpx_5GwxYJ3o.

June 28

Yuk

“Biden’s Lawless Bombing of Iran and Syria Only Serves The Weapons Industry Funding Both Parties,” Glenn Greenwald, Substack, ZEROHEADGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/greenwald-bidens-lawless-bombing-iraq-and-syria-only-serves-weapons-industry-funding-both?fbclid=IwAR0qJU8fOp_VrKV_6vB1roJlzRR5FDisrg4FqnE_L8ZQp4uxjRar3Yzfjq0.

June 23

Ominous indeed

“The Republican Party has Turned Fascist and is Now the Most Dangerous Threat in the World,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/22/the-republican-party-has-turned-fascist-and-is-now-the-most-dangerous-threat-in-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR0Mf5-fdMyqzZQLwS_aDtcjlBaOi7eWTZYaWnE1MJoRpzPNa0gIPJIC4cE.

June 18

Let us grieve this does not happen in the US of A

“The United States Threatens

“In Washington, the dismissal of the justices did not sit well with the White House. Vice-President Kamala Harris, who oversees the working group in migration, which is exploring the causes of Central American migration and the problems of the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala), issued a warning about the Biden administration’s reaction to the undermining of democracy and its institutions by Bukele and his deputies.

“This weekend, we learned that the Salvadoran Assembly moved to undermine its nation’s highest court,” she said on May 4 at a Washington DC conference on democracy in the Americas. “An independent judiciary is critical to a healthy democracy and a strong economy. On this front, on every front, we must respond.” She went on to say, “We are focused on attacking the causes and the roots of migration and among the roots we have identified corruption, impunity, the lack of good governance.”

Yeah, right, The best way to stop illegal immigration from Central and South America into North America is to help countries down there become decent law abiding countries, and the USian govt cannot do that by undermining the rule of law in those countries.

“Power and Corruption in El Salvador,” by Carmen Rodriguez, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/01/power-and-corruption-in-el-salvador/?fbclid=IwAR0pFojSPKECP2Gu8dGOrjNcU5kFsNJ-MFp3gJRM48IE7AA3cQLcvK3vM9g.

June 9

Good ole peace loving US of A

“Even the New York Times Now Admits That It’s US Sanctions, not Socialism, That’s Destroying Venezuela,” by Peter Bolton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/08/even-the-new-york-times-now-admits-that-its-us-sanctions-not-socialism-thats-destroying-venezuela/?fbclid=IwAR0p-V9HPQCLXdKpFkGX6mIgSsZBX7t75wHiMMPl4kTddxrV9XsPavZbNX8.

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

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

About the Editor  

Here’s Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA in his office at Georgia Southern University the year he retired in 2005, the senior professor of the university that year. The photo was shot by Lori Grice, a former student, founder of Lori Grice Photography. The object under his left hand is a Classroom De-Gamer™ he invented in 1978.

A man sitting at a table in front of a computer.

 

The spinner was spun in Stapleton’s classes to randomly select a student at the beginning of each class session to lead a discussion of the case assigned for that day, a case taken from a real business prepared by case writers at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama. Grades were based eighty percent on class participation; the rest of the final grade was based on case write-ups.

He learned how the case method works teaching with Bernard Bienvenu, DBA and Rexford Hauser, DBA (Harvard Business School doctorates) at what is now known as the University of Louisiana–Lafayette in 1969-70. 

He has published refereed journal articles and books explaining how his democratic Game-free Adult-Adult I’m OK–You’re OK case method system works, by banishing Persecutors, Rescuers, and Victims playing psychological Games from the teaching and learning process, first documented in an article titled “The Classroom De-Gamer” he published in 1978 in the Transactional Analysis Journal.

He studied TA with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He has degrees in economics, organizational behavior, and management science from Texas Tech University (1962-1969), and an organizational and educational certification in transactional analysis from the International Transactional Analysis Association (1978).

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

He conducted primary survey research in 1992 that discovered longitudinal data (published in “Evidence the Case Method Works” in his book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2008, pg. 475) that showed his case method students during 1972-1982 reported higher yearly incomes in 1992 than students electing the same courses in 1972-1982 taught by professors using the lecture method and the authoritarian row and column classroom layout, who graded students based on how well they memorized “right answers” for so-called objective multiple-choice tests, indicating learners learning in Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Game-free learning processes graded subjectively became more successful in the real world of business than learners lectured to in Parent–Child I’m OK–You’re Not-OK un-De-Gamed learning processes. Only former students who had been in the real world ten or more years after graduating were included in the study.

He had one of the lowest student grade point averages among professors in the business school. About five percent or so of his students made A’s and D’s, and most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There few F’s in his courses. He did not believe in Lake Wobegon grading.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wiggenstein wrote, “The case is all there is.”

Everything else in Earthian human states of affairs is a rendition of what was or might be.

For more on Stapleton’s cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to https://www.effectivelearning.net.  

 

 

THE INHERENT IRONY IN THE PALESTINIAN/ISRAELI STRUGGLE

By COURTENAY BARNETT

The word ‘irony’ sums up much that is probably inherent in human nature and manifest at times in human history, when one considers the on-going conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. 

Historical pogroms had been launched against Jews – ‘pogroms’ used in the widest sense of its meaning as violent attack, expulsion, or marginalisations – then the history is a long one. King Edward 1 in 1290 signed an edict expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England; Pope Innocent the 111 had issued a decree against Jews, placing them in servitude for the killing of Christ; Czarist Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church pursued an exclusionary policy towards Jews; more recently there is the Holocaust; and other instances which could be cited mainly in and around Europe of anti-Jewish actions being perpetrated.

In what can be termed historical Palestine, prior to 1948 Jews, Arab Palestinians and Christians lived peacefully with the Jewish population being about a mere 6% of the total in Palestine. The road to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 might be said to have been signposted with Jewish hopes which followed certain critical stages.  Following the end of the Ottoman Empire, there was a new carving out of territories for the ‘Great Powers’ and in 1917 there was the Balfour Declaration announcing an intent to create a national homeland for Jews; in 1920 there was the San Reno Conference and by 1924 the then League of Nations approved the British Mandate for Palestine. Here comes trouble. Between 1936 to 1939 the Palestinians resisted British policy in Palestine. By the Post World War 11 era the world’s conscience had been touched and galvanised in favour of a Jewish state and by 1948 Zionists saw and grasped the opportunity. The on-going conflict had emerged since the inception of the Jewish state, for reasons such as:- 

  1. The displacement and expulsion of several hundred thousand Palestinians to make space for the new Jewish arrivees. 
  2. The anti-democratic embrace of the idea that one ethnicity can reserve for itself the exclusive right to citizenship at the expense and to the disadvantage of the prior inhabitants of the land.  
  3. The need to corral the expelled Palestinians, and deny them the right of return to their homeland. 

The list of causes for the conflict could be significantly expanded – but this brief commentary is about the inherent ‘irony’ existing in the state of Israel. 

International Law and the mandate 

1947, the United Kingdom had relied on Article 10 of the UN Charter:- 

“The General Assembly may discuss any questions or any matters within the scope of the present Charter or relating to the powers and functions of any organs provided for in the present Charter, and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations to the Members of the United Nations or to the Security Council or to both on any such questions or matters.” 

Wherein commences a problem ( the problem?). A number of Arab States had opposed the British Mandate being brought to the floor of the General Assembly for reason that under Article 12.1of the UN Charter there is express provision that while the Security Council is exercising the functions assigned to it by the Charter in relation to any dispute or situation, the General Assembly must not adopt any recommendation regarding that dispute or situation unless requested to do so by the Security Council. The preexisting system of mandated territories under the law as applied via the League of Nations did not provide for any mandated territory to be transferred via the new UN schema of law. Here is how the problem commenced and continues to this day in point of law.

Articles 75 to 79 of the UN Charter address the UN Trusteeship system, which is the successor to that which had existed under the former League of Nations system as mandated territory. Under Article 79, the terms of trusteeship agreements were to be agreed by “…the States directly concerned, including the mandatory power in the case of territories held under mandate by a Member of the United Nations”.  Additionally, the agreements had to be approved by the Security Council in the case of territorial areas deemed to be strategic areas (see: Article 83) and note the provisions of Article 85 with regards to   the General Assembly’s role.   

Before the UN in 1947 adopted a crucial Resolution on Palestine, the UK had made known that it wanted to withdraw from Palestine, terminate the Mandate and avoid the transfer into an international Trusteeship System.  

On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted a Plan as Resolution 181 (II). That resolution recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States with a Special International Regime being established for the city of Jerusalem. 

By 1948 Jewish re-population and de-population of the Palestinian Arabs, throughout the various iterations of the conflict really does constitute – at least the Alpha – if not fully yet the Omega of the issue. A book would have to be written if I were to continue explaining the issue from its root causes. I simply want to lay an adequate historical and legal plinth to afford a credible shift leading logically to the main point of the ‘irony’ of that which was mentioned in the title at the start of this commentary. 

Ironies. 

Lack of sympathy and/or support for fellow oppressed people  

At a time when Apartheid South Africa was seeking to perpetuate White minority rule, it was Israel which traded with and provided the scientific means to the racist regime to acquire nuclear weapons, as shown at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#:~:text=According%20to%20The%20Guardian%2C%20the,a%20sale%20of%20nuclear%20weapons .   

Establishment and perpetuation of Apartheid policies in Israel 

The position of the recognition of the 1967 borders under international law as constituting the boundaries for Israel, is simply ignored and greater settler colony expansion is taking place on Palestinian lands. 

When the Jewish ‘nation-state law’ was passed in Israel in 2018 the Arab members of the parliament ripped it up and shouted, “Apartheid”. Indeed, reservation for a certain group based on ethnicity in these circumstances can, quite accurately, be so termed.  

Expulsion of Palestinians from their homes while promoting more illegal Jewish settlements ( contrary to international law) 

To say the least, is it not truly ironic, that a group of people, undeniably historically displaced and dispossessed for centuries, would embrace policies such as declaring “Jewish settlement as a national value” while mandating that the state “will labor to encourage and promote its establishment and development.”? 

Beyond the immediate former proclamation, is it not, within historical context – ironic in the extreme for the Zionists to tell the Palestinians to forget their expulsion as of 1948 – being a diaspora people who kept a dream of return with collective memory alive over 2,000 years – long enough to remove people who historically really never did Jews any harm? 

Conclusion 

International Refugee Law weighs heavily in favour of the right of return. Which version would you presently embrace Israel  – the one before 2,000 years ago – or – from 1948 onwards? Change course Israel – or – continue fighting as Apartheid South Africa did over many years, being truly reflective of what you are doing now  – fighting, however ironic the fight may be  – to the end. 

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

AMERICA IS NOT A RACIST COUNTRY

America is not a racist country: It was back then, but then is now.  

( A tribute to Tim Scott)  

A joint venture poem by Courtenay Barnett and George Garwood.  

1. There was actual chattel slavery in the US  

when human beings at a time  

were bought and sold as property –  

but that was way back then, but then is now.  

2. After emancipation in 1863  

there were lynchings –  

but that was way back then, but then is now.  

3. There was the burning of ‘Black Wall Street’ in 1921  

when an entire prosperous town was destroyed  

and burned to the ground by a White mob  

for the Blacks had committed the crime of improving their lot in life  

post-emancipation, and had made themselves wealthy  

and that was quite some time ago –  

but that was way back then, but then is now  

4. After lynchings there was still ‘Jim Crow’ (Apartheid segregation)  

but segregation laws on the books actually ended around 1967  

when Virginia repealed the last miscegenation statute in the US –  

but that was way back then, but then is now.  

In the 1950s there was Federally approved segregation  

via the housing policy applied  

which directly excluded Blacks from benefiting  

from these Federal funds as well illustrated on Long Island  

and the instance of Levittown*– and that was in the 1950s –  

but that was way back then, but then is now.  

5. Even in the 1960s there had to be marches to obtain civil rights  

and that was some time ago in the 60s –  

but that was way back then, but then is now.  

6. Up to the early 1970s there was the ‘scientific experiment’ on  

Black male prisoners  

letting the disease of syphilis run its course  

to study and document the full nature of the disease  

as the bodies of these ‘human guinea pigs’ were made  

knowingly to decay – and this was permitted at  

the administrative and governmental level   

and that was some time ago in the 1970s –  

but that was way back then, but then is now.  

7. Oh Timmy – now I just love this last one –  

it was the day before yesterday  

and home boy George Floyd got his wind-pipe squeezed  

with the cop’s knee upon his neck  

but that was just regular and standard policing  

applied on a Black man  

while on the internet we still see postings of White Americans  

and some non-white Americans  

seeking to justify police action – and that in 2021.  

But eyes don’t lie. This wasn’t way back then –  

but then is now.  

8. So – please Tim Scott – do not disgrace the  

struggle and/or sacrifices of Black folks in  the US, for  

over the centuries, as you know, your mantra is untrue  

When you say, “America is not a racist country”-  

or when you say: that was way back then, for then is now.  

* A clause in the original Levittown covenant prevented tenants from allowing non-Caucasians to use or occupy Levitt houses…. In Levittown, Black veterans were unable to purchase homes, and the Levitts justified the clause by stating that it maintained the value of the properties, since most whites at the time preferred not to live in mixed communities.  

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-nine years, has been arrested for defending his views, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. GEORGE GARWOODis a Jamaican writer and professor of world religions. He resides in Florida, USA, but is a peripatetic observer of human affairs as he travels around trying to understand human behaviour.