Or So It Seems To Me Today
By Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA
Say what you will about Donald J. Trump–narcissist, exhibitionist, sociopath, impulsive, fourth grade vocabulary, liar, untrustworthy, stable genius, P.T. Barnum huckster, whatever–he knows how to stay on center stage as a showman in the real life reality show presented by mainstream media. He’s a master Game-player, adeptly switching Game roles back and forth from Rescuer, to Persecutor, to Victim in various sequences on the Drama Triangle, depending on which Game he happens to be playing at the time.
On the other hand, maintaining I’m OK–You’re OK relationships is not his forte. He has now gotten rid of most of his original White House advisors and cronies, having just fired Rex Tillerson, the United States Secretary of State, and the former CEO of Exxon, having spared so far his current wife and children, who still adorn his office in the White House like art objects.
According to various reports, Trump seethes with anger when he sees Persecutors on TV criticizing him or his ideas. This sets him off on walks up and down halls in the White House with jaws and fists clenched to wear the anger off. It’s a wonder he hasn’t had a heart attack yet given the pressure and stress he has caused himself. Maybe for some reason he likes controversy, pressure, and stress and feeds on it.
As happened to Bill Clinton before him in the White House soap opera, Trump’s past affairs, liaisons, and business transactions with female sexual partners are now giving him trouble, including an unusually threatening one, Stormy Daniel, playing a Persecutor role, whom he paid $130,000 to keep quiet, via his personal Rescuer lawyer, who has not kept quiet. Some people are wondering how much more humiliation poor Melania can take.
Trump’s past business relationships with Russian oligarchs have been a thorn in his side during his time in the White House, especially now as Mueller continues to pile up more and more evidence and information in his inquisition, playing a classic Game of COURTROOM in which a Persecutor attempts to force Victims, including Trump in this Game, into a very not-OK position.
Surprisingly, Trump’s Game of IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU played with Kim Jung-Un of North Korea has taken a dramatic change. All of a sudden both Donald and Kim have switched from the Persecutor role to the Rescuer role, having decided to sit down and talk as buddies. It remains to be seen what Drama Triangle role switches will result from this talk, assuming these two impulsive grown-up Adapted Children do not change their minds about meeting before the meeting happens.
One of the the best Game-players on the Earthian stage, Vladimir Putin, recently switched from Rescuer and Victim to Persecutor by telling Trump, the US Pentagon, and all Earthians aboard Spaceship Earth that Russia has produced some new weapons that will be impossible for the US to defend against. Assuming he’s right, Putin is winning not only a psychological Game of NIGYSOB, Now I’ve Got You, You SOB, but a global chess game involving serious Adult strategic opponents.
According to transactional analysts all people start out in life in an I’m OK–You’re OK life position, which is a fundamental attitude that they and others are OK in all ways. Unfortunately there are three other life positions that may be later adopted: I’m OK–You’re Not OK, You’re OK–I’m Not Ok, and You’re Not OK–I’m Not OK.
Shortly after birth people begin to learn, absorb, introject, and take in the life positions of people around them, parents and others. They soon learn attitudes and beliefs that tell them what their world is like. The process is unfair, bestowing advantages on some and handicaps on others. This comes about through natural evolution, an infinitely regressive and progressive unbroken cause-effect chain, sometimes called the accident of birth. One cannot help learning what one learns by virtue of being exposed to people and events they are born among. Once life positions are learned they are difficult to unlearn. The older a person gets in general the more she or he becomes locked-in with others having the same life positions. Group dynamics determine what beliefs, dogmas, doctrines, and the like people must believe to be accepted by groups and organizations, including beliefs in big groups and organizations such as religions and nations.
Staying I’m OK–You’re OK has never been easy, almost impossible for most people. The I’m OK–You’re Not OK life position is required in some organizations, such as military organizations and business corporations. The United States has generally been I’m OK–You’re Not OK among nations since its inception. Almost all immigrants to what is now the US were Not OK when they arrived on the shores of North America, and they had little choice but to do battle with the less OK inhabitants they found there to survive.
Europeans and others came to the US because they were in NOT OK positions in their original countries, caused by extreme poverty and religious persecution, caused by over-fecundity, breeding too many children for the country to support, and the agitations, persecutions, and deprivations caused by anti-social political and religious dogmas, doctrines, behaviors and hierarchies.
President Trump of the US operates from an I’m OK–You’re Not OK position with to respect to almost everyone most of the time. His overall life position is I’m OK, My supporters are OK, They (the other group) are Not OK, the World is Not OK, and we are going to make the world pay. Most of his supporters have adopted a similar position, creating a dangerous situation.
No one is fully OK, but some people are more OK with respect to themselves, the other, their group, other groups, and the world than others, existing somewhere between highest OKness and lowest OKness.
No one can be fully OK unless everyone is OK in the orbit they are fixed in, which is presently impossible aboard Spaceship Earth. For more clarification see Martin Groder, MD’s People Map on page 63 of my book Born to Learn and page 149 of Business Voyages. Marty was a founder of transactional analysis and one of my TA mentors. According to Groder, some high-energy pathological entrepreneurs are addicted to risk, which they require to stave off depression, caused by psychological abandonment in early childhood. No amount of money or power is ever enough to compensate for parental inadequacies of early childhood. Higher and higher doses of risk are required for temporary relief.
According to some anthropologists, Michael Adzema for one, humans thousands of years ago lived in a relative Garden of Eden. They lived in a benevolent environment with an optimum climate. They could gather enough food to sustain themselves working about three hours per day. OKness generally prevailed within groups and between groups. Through time things changed. Populations grew, food supply became more of a problem, competition, skirmishes, and wars emerged among groups. Groups got larger and larger and more organized, hierarchies arose within groups, and among groups. Hereditary status and wealth systems were co-constructed. Nation states and religions with powerful leaders and codified dogmas, doctrines, laws, customs, and behaviors were constructed that preserved hereditary hierarchies from generation to generation. Relative and absolute slavery evolved.
During the Middle Ages the institution of feudalism put large tracts of land under the dominion, ownership, and control of hereditary aristocrats, forcing masses of lower classes known as serfs to become legally subordinate to designated aristocrats on particular estates, creating widespread unfairness and Not OKness, which gradually evolved into colonialism and capitalism, new systems in which inherited money and property known as capital became more important than inherited landed estates.
By the 16th Century European nations developed sufficient power and resources to conquer, enslave, and control humans in less developed parts of Spaceship Earth, primarily enslaving people originating in Africa, resulting in the creation of new nations, some, such as the United States, hypocritically based on the notion that all men (and women, and children) were created equal.
One can build the case human life aboard Spaceship Earth has become less OK through time, with the advent of global warming and nuclear weapons, causing the human species to wind up more insecure than ever before, with their incomes, wealth, status, security, and satisfactions being less equally distributed among populations and socio-economic classes.
African slavery was generally abolished in North, Central, and South American nations in the 19th Century, but colonialism and capitalism remain entrenched in much of the world. Under capitalism, especially in large corporations, a form of slavery still exists. The masters are called owners and chief executives and the slaves and serfs are called employees. Almost no one in a large corporation except the top dog is fully OK; everyone else is less OK than his or her boss; and while all are free to quit and leave, all must obey and do the bidding of his or her boss, if they stay; and most can be fired at will for disobedience.
It seems to me the only hope for indefinite human sustainability is to evolve better economic systems, religions, and ways for humans to relate to one another. While I have no fantasies about this happening anytime soon, it seems to me it might happen through time through synergistic learning, a phenomenon I have covered in my article “Toward the Creation of Spaceship Earth Incorporated,” first published by MWC News (Media with Conscience) at http://mwcnews.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31023&catid=38&Itemid=125. I first encountered synergistic learning, learning in whole systems not predicted by observing subsystems of the whole, in Buckminster Fuller’s bookOperating Manual for Spaceship Earth.
A major assumption of transactional analysis is that human feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are caused by stimuli people are exposed to as the live their lives and, therefore, it seems to me, if this is true, then they are not to blame or praise for what they feel, think, or do, and If this is true then all people are equally OK, not especially good or bad, but OK. In this light a poor homeless person considered mentally ill would be equal to someone like Donald Trump, having been caused by the same sort of causative forces.
As I point out in my TA books, it seems to me there are three basic types of OKness: existential, subjective, and objective. Existential OKness is what I just discussed, people being equally OK by virtue of coming into this world without asking for it, and being gradually shaped and formed by stimuli as they live. Subjective OKness is how a person subjectively perceives and judges her or his self, other individuals, groups to which one belongs, other groups one perceives as different, and the world in general. While these perceptions vary in terms of positive and negative social merit existentially they are equally OK because they were automatically caused to happen. Objective OKness is how OK one is in light of measurable criteria, for health, wealth, education, strength, intelligence, achievements, accomplishments, and the like. It seems to me global OKness would significantly increase if all people would take into account the relevance of all three types of OKness. While objective OKness would necessarily be most relevant in daily working lives, world peace and Earthian OKness would be increased if existential and subjective OKness were acknowledged by all people in all groups and organizations around Spaceship Earth.
In a nutshell, as I discussed and demonstrated using matrix algebra in my article, “Toward the Creation of Spaceship Earth Incorporated,” it seems to me for long term survival the human species must evolve a computerized mathematical management system to produce and fairly distribute the necessities of life for a reduced human population aboard Spaceship Earth, which requires something like a one woman/one child rule for several generations to peacefully reduce the human population through natural attrition, natural deaths exceeding births. There is no way humans can have infinite population growth on a planet with finite resources that are rendered useless or harmful in production and consumption processes.
Most mainstream media play a psychological Game of GREENHOUSE, participating in a societal Happiness Racket designed to lull people into a sense of security and to make federal and state governments, their politicians, their political parties, their rich donors, their locust lobbyists, and their voters look good, or at least make it seem they are doing a better job of governing than they are. For more on psychological Games and Rackets, read my book Born to Learn: A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning at https://www.amazon.com/Born-Learn-Transactional-Analysis-Learning/dp/0692584331.
For more on the fallacy of composition as it applies to organizational life, i.e. harming or destroying the whole system by maximizing subsystems, read my book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds at https://www.amazon.com/Business-Voyages-Schemata-Discovering-Co-Constructing/dp/1413480810.
Following in the EFFECTIVE LEARNING DIGEST are some outstanding articles and one audio interview recently published in various media, primarily internet media, shining light on relevant states of affairs aboard Spaceship Earth. As Romeo said in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, as time was running out for the star-crossed lovers, “More light and light it grows, more dark and dark our woes.”
I am a Certified Transactional Analyst, a CTA, explained at http://www.itaaworld.org/what-transactional-analysis-training.
Feel free to forward, share, copy, abridge, reprint, or otherwise disseminate this Effective Learning Digest any way you see fit.
Just punch on the web addresses and this month’s selections will pop up.
Richard John Stapleton, Editor & Publisher, 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, www.effectivelearning.net, February 15, 2018
March 14, 2018
Paul Craig Roberts tells it like he sees it.
SOURCE: “World War 3 is approaching,” by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/23607.
March 14
Who knows what the true story here is.
SOURCE: “Tillerson out and Pompeo in: ‘From Exxon’s CEO to the Koch Brothers’ most loyal lapdog,” by Julie Conley, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/23614.
March 14
George Soros says what Trump really wants is a mafia dictatorship like Putin has.
SOURCE: “Trump’s ‘enforcers’ reminiscent of mob actions,” by Wayne Madsen, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/23618.
March 14
Holy shit here
SOURCE: “Syria’s War of Ethnic Clensing,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/14/syrias-war-of-ethnic-cleansing/.
March 14
I wonder if we will ever know the true story here.
SOURCE: “Trump Replaces Rex Tillerson With CIA Director Mike Pompeo at State; Torturer Named New Head of CIA,” by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, TRUTH-OUT.ORG, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43824-trump-replaces-rex-tillerson-with-cia-director-mike-pompeo-at-state-torturer-named-new-head-of-cia.
March 13
Yep, they just do not care.
SOURCE: “Perspective: I’m a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929,” by Robert S. McElvaine, WASHINGTONPOST.COM, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/30/im-a-depression-historian-the-gop-tax-bill-is-straight-out-of-1929/?utm_term=.033a22c3d180.
March 12
Say it aint so Joe
SOURCE: “Blocking Peace in Korea by Lying about the Past,” Joseph Essertier, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/12/blocking-peace-in-korea-by-lying-about-the-past/.
March 12
If this is true the human species has a new lease on life aboard Spaceship Earth, if it can make it to 2040.
SOURCE: “The New Atomic Age: Nuclear Fusion and Beyond,” by Gary Norman, OILPRICE.COM, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/The-New-Atomic-Age-Nuclear-Fusion-And-Beyond.html.
March 11, 2018
This clever short satirical article written by an international lawyer and social activist shows the absurdity of Trump’s idea to arm teachers. While this article is enlightening the most educational part is the two posts at the end of the article. The first is a long article by the author providing an incisive and comprehensive overview of US foreign policy since the days of Bush II. The second post is a humorous and enlightening video showing what some Dutch people think about some of Trump’s current foreign policy ideas.
SOURCE: “An Open Letter to President Trump,” by Courtenay Barnett, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/an-open-letter-to-president-trump/.
March 11
One can build the case the US is not “agreement capable” because the US military industrial intelligence banking complex needs wars to put what passes for money these days in their pockets.
SOURCE: “Peace In Our Time? Only if America is ‘Agreement Capable’,” by Tom Luongo, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-09/peace-our-time-only-if-america-agreement-capable.
March 11
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Hope springs eternal. When will the good times end? As a cotton farmer said across the counter in our lumber yard at Wolfforth, Texas back in the 1950s, when I was a kid working there, in answer to the question someone had raised about when it would ever rain again, he said, “I don’t know but I know one thing for sure, we’re gettin’ closer to a rain ever day.” The same goes for another market crash today.
SOURCE: “The Everything Bubble Is Just Waiting For The Pin,” by David Stockman, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-10/stockman-everything-bubble-just-waiting-pin.
March 9
Don’t get much worse than that.
SOURCE: “How To Blow $12.2 Billion In No Time Flat,” by MN Gordon, ECONOMICPRISM.COM, https://economicprism.com/.
March 11
Ugh!
SOURCE: “Pollution, Invasive Aliens, & Mass Extinction: 20,000 Scientists ‘Warn Humanity’ The End is Nigh,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-10/pollution-invasive-aliens-mass-extinction-20000-scientists-warn-humanity-end-nigh.
March 11
Say it aint so Joe.
SOURCE: “The Implications of Russia’s New Weapon Systems,” by Andre Martyanov, UNZ.COM, http://www.unz.com/article/the-implications-of-russias-new-weapons/.
March 11
He has a point.
SOURCE: “Assange Lashes Out: ‘Hypocritical Motherf*ckers…Remember How I Exposed Your Secret Deal With The Saudis’.” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-10/hypocritical-motherfckers-assange-blasts-uk-government-remember-how-i-exposed-your.
March 10
Good question.
SOURCE: “How Effective are International Human Rights Treaties”? by Joan Roelops, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/09/how-effective-are-international-human-rights-treaties/.
March 10
Bein a real progressive aint gonna make you poplar.
SOURCE: “The Democratic party is now publicly attacking progressive candidates,” by Lawrence Douglas, THEGUARDIAN.COM, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/26/democratic-party-laura-moser-texas?CMP=share_btn_fb.
March 10
I remember rumors Nixon might do something like this before he resigned, but someone said the US military was too loyal to the US constitution and the US people to go along. Trump is the first president to my knowledge to come right out and say imposing a military dictatorship with him as lifetime “president”, er dictator, might be a good idea. Shows how far we’ve sunk.
SOURCE: “Trump and a Lifetime Presidency,” by Robert Fantina, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/09/trump-and-a-lifetime-presidency/.
March 10
Unfortunately they can do it anytime they want. No way we the people would have enough power to resist our own military, as big, sophisticated, and powerful as it is today.
SOURCE: “Dictator for life: The rise of the American imperial president,” by John W. Whitehead, INTREPEDIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/23575.
March 10
Another great podcast by Richard Wolff and Harriet Fraud dealing with economic and psychological issues. This episode is especially relevant for understanding the consequences of the steel and aluminum tariffs recently imposed by the Trump admin and the causes and consequences of the breakdown of family structures in the US. Well worth a listen.
SOURCE: “Economic Update: Winds of Economic Change,” by Richard D. Wolff, TRUTH-OUT.ORG, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43784-economic-update-winds-of-economic-change.
March 9
My father who was in the Seabees helped build landing strips on Okinawa during WWII when I was four years old. I used to listen to the radio hearing about US “Flying Tigers” shooting down Japanese airplanes and wondering when he would get back home. Can’t believe we’re still there.
SOURCE: “As US Military Flies Overhead, Okinawa Residents Live Under a Cloud of Fear,” by Jon Letman, TRUTH-OUT.ORG, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43779-as-us-military-flies-overhead-okinawa-residents-live-under-a-cloud-of-fear.
March 9
For now they’ve decided they’re buddies.
SOURCE: “A Step Toward Peace? South Korea Announces Trump Will Meet With North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un,” by Amy Goodman, Video Interview, TRUTH-OUT.ORG, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43794-a-step-toward-peace-south-korea-announces-trump-will-meet-with-north-korea-s-kim-jong-un.
March 9
Raising tariffs. Politicians trying to make it seem they are useful, pitting one group of voters against another in a zero sum game, creating entertainment content for mass media, distracting their populations from the root causes of problems, likely causing a recession or depression, for sure a major hot button. Better to do nothing than to do this. Better for people to be bored than hungry.
SOURCE: “Trump’s Travesty of Protectionism,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/09/trumps-travesty-of-protectionism/.
March 8
Is this more limited government?
What about Homeland Security, TSA, and private security forces? Is this more limited government? What about a university hiring a private security company to check womens’ bags outside the gym when they present their season ticket for a basketball game, even a clear plastic bag? What about a young female ticket taker making an older woman show her driver’s license because she said something mildly flippant and critical about her clear plastic bag having to be physically searched? What about four young males walking in behind the ticket taker to stand shoulder to shoulder facing the older woman and me with their arms crossed over their chests as they stared at us like robots with no affect because the older woman had the audacity to complain about having to show her identification when nobody else had to? Is this more limited government? What about an officious young male supervisor, not wearing a security force t shirt, having watched the shake-down operation through windows from inside the gym, telling you they are doing you a favor, after you finally walk in the gym, telling you they are protecting you, telling you we are living in dangerous times, as you tell him this is insane and walk away, since to my knowledge there has never been any violence at a sporting event at this university, wondering if I would then be handcuffed and taken to jail, for saying I thought the whole episode was insane and/or disrespecting this young man/officer? Is this more limited government? No, this is not more limited government. It’s living in a police state. Other members of the security force, all wearing a strange yellowish t shirt that seemed to almost glow in the dark, were stationed at attention around the gym watching people in all sections of the gym, some doing nothing but looking up at people in the stands. I thought this experience and exposure had spoiled the evening, but it was a good game and we won, a close one. I had forgotten about the security attack by the time it was over. This same security force has been employed by this university for several years but it seems their increasing numbers, their demeanors, and their operations have become increasingly chilling. At this last game outside the gym taking tickets they were abusive. Most of the security employees/officers seem to go out of their way to be polite and friendly when they check your tickets and such, but that ticket-taking operation outside the gym last week was not OK. Like most people, they are doing their jobs, most likely the best job they could find. Unfortunately more and more people seem to work in security jobs, including the US military, despite the beliefs, propaganda, and heritage of the Heritage Foundation, discussed in Ralph Nader’s excellent article below.
SOURCE: “Heritage’s Corporate Lobby Inside Trump’s Government is Not the People’s Heritage,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/08/heritages-corporate-lobby-inside-trumps-government-is-not-the-peoples-heritage/.
March 8
Individual freedom works only if you live in isolation. If you live with others you have to get along, which means you are not completely free to do what you want. All people should be free to pursue fairness, which requires arguing with and discussing things with others. In order for fairness to exist there must be commensurate power among arguers, discussants, participants, etc. If you are a teacher and you want fairness it does no good for you to personally argue with your state school system about what your salary should be. In order to have fairness you have to join something like a union with enough power to argue with your powerful state school system. The labor union laws of the US have been generally fair, but people keep trying to make them unfair, by lobbying governments and courts to change the game in their favor, as this article points out. The US Supreme Court often does not produce fairness, or does not know or care what fairness is. Witness the 5-4 Citizens United Case of 2010 in which five right wing supreme court judges decided it was fair for corporations to spend as much money as their elite rich directors wanted to bribe politicians for laws in their favor, which has now about destroyed freedom and fairness in the US.
SOURCE: “Janus, the Meaning of Freedom, and Striking West Virginia Teachers and Staff,” by Ann Robertson, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/08/janus-the-meaning-of-freedom-and-striking-west-virginia-teachers-and-staff/.
March 8
Fake news you say? If only all US citizens had real knowledge of historical facts around Spaceship Earth they would not be so easily conned and manipulated by propaganda.
SOURCE: “Wall Street Sells Subprime History,” by Aidan O’Brien, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/08/wall-street-sells-subprime-history/.
March 8
Must reading for all citizens. Insane beyond belief. Way to drain the swamp Trump.
“Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group argued that, overall, if the federal government were to manage the weapons labs, it would bring greater transparency and reform than contracting management to universities or corporations. But a bigger question, he said, is whether the labs should exist at all. He said the weapons labs have consistently fended off attempts to bring more oversight and accountability to their operations.
“The resistance of the laboratories to reform is so deep-seated, and their power so great, that it becomes realistic to question whether they can ever be reformed enough to play a positive role in society,” Mello said. “And we have concluded that the labs have no unique role in disarmament, nonproliferation, verification, cleanup, intelligence, or in any other mission that cannot be performed more objectively, cheaper, and better by other institutions.””
SOURCE: “The University of Nuclear Bombs,” by Will Parrish, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/08/the-university-of-nuclear-bombs/.
March 7
Dumbest of all
SOURCE: “Trump speaks at fourth-grade level, lowest of last 15 US presidents, new analysis finds,” by Nina Burleigh, NEWSWEEK.COM, http://www.newsweek.com/trump-fire-and-fury-smart-genius-obama-774169.
March 7
Maybe you don’t have to make a profit anymore? Look at Amazon.
SOURCE: “What Economic Recovery? Half of US Companies Are Losing Money,” by Baruch Lev, KNOWLEDGELEADERS.COM, http://blog.knowledgeleaderscapital.com/?p=13969.
March 7
Easy way to make a living. How many millions will he be paid for this service?
SOURCE: “Massive Tax Cuts for Wealthy Friends and Corporate Raiders Complete, Cohn Calls It Quits,” by Jon Queally, Common Dreams, Report, TRUTH-OUT.ORG, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43764-massive-tax-cuts-for-wealthy-friends-and-corporate-raiders-complete-cohn-calls-it-quits.
March 7
They knew they weren’t qualified, but unfortunately their voters disagreed.
SOURCE: “Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Win–and Neither Did his Campaign,” by Michael Wolff, NYMAG.COM, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html.
March 7
If you want to see who the greediest, smartest, and luckiest are just take a look at this. Some inherited their money. Some had a good idea or two and went for it, and the capitalistic system and new computer technology did the rest.
SOURCE: “The World’s Billionaires 2018,” Louisa Kroll and Kerry Dolan, editors, FORBES.COM, https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#7a78aa89251c.
March 7
Let’s hope not.
SOURCE: “Trade Wars Set To Go Nuclear: US Considering Broad Curbs On Chinese Imports,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM., https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-06/trade-wars-set-go-nuclear-us-considering-broad-curbs-chinese-imports.
March 7
How many human robots have already been replaced by electro-mechanical robots?
SOURCE: “How ‘Flippy The Robot Fry Cook’ Will Save America,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-06/how-flippy-robot-fry-cook-will-save-america.
March 5, 2018
Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, says his country has developed some new weapons indefensible by the US, capable of rendering US naval aircraft carriers and destroyers obsolete.
SOURCE: “The Implications of Russia’s New Weapon Systems,” by Andre Martyanov, The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection, http://www.unz.com/article/the-implications-of-russias-new-weapons/.
MARCH 5
The elite rich of course.
SOURCE: “More Korean War is ‘Worth It’ To Whom,” by Thomas Knapp, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/05/more-korean-war-is-worth-it-to-whom/.
March 5
Can’t keep on spending over six hundred and sixty billion dollars per year on the US military if there are no major wars to fight. Kunstler has a good take on the psychological Game of IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU the US is now playing with Russia.
SOURCE: “Light It Up,” by James Howard Kunstler, http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/light-it-up-2/.