Effective Learning Report

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-Five, December 1, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA.

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

FOLLOWING IS THE MOST PRESSING PART OF THE EARTHIAN, A DIGEST OF LINKED WRITINGS AND GRAPHICS OF TRUTH-TELLING WRITERS AND ARTISTS, FEELING, THINKING, AND WRITING FROM ALL EGO STATES, PUBLISHED IN RECENT WEEKS.

SOURCES FOR THIS ISSUE OF THE EARTHIAN:

DECEMBER 1, 2022

Never heard of Dataism before

“The People Cheering for Humanity’s End,” by Adam Kirsch, THE ATLANTIC, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/anthropocene-anti-humanism-transhumanism-apocalypse-predictions/672230/?fbclid=IwAR184hhvNOyr2xTpmBjJ1uwKRo6p3EALv310DaG5qMXTqdFCo1KiR4QgQpk.

December 1

Me too

“I Used To Be Disgusted, Now I’m Just Tired…,” by Charles Hugh Smith, DAILY RECKONING.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/i-used-be-disgusted-now-im-just-tired?fbclid=IwAR1zuBp7cKjPyuRof6-vKvH04jJj1LnkN8Ya3Mz5ixOWGwqP976PDU6RtU0.

December 1

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Be it Resolved: Don’t Trust Mainstream Media,” by Matt Taibbi, SUBSTRATE.COM, https://taibbi.substack.com/p/be-it-resolved-dont-trust-mainstream?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1042&post_id=87825286&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR3puTc_GMxkVbC7Nfk1AzlUmaS9FmJFF-zavXjfsvPm08SawG9A_bDnDi0.

November 30

To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it’s very difficult to get an Earthian human to accept something when her/his livelihood depends on not accepting it.

“Populist Climate Action Requires Thinking About Freedom From Specific Oppressors–Nor just Species Survival,” by Carter Dillard, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/30/populist-climate-action-requires-thinking-about-freedom-from-specific-oppressors-not-just-species-survival/?fbclid=IwAR34ipHRQv_jgF0reK-OSOzExzCVEdkp8ltUmmH6-wrsJXrpNEM9HLBcUGI.

November 30

What’s at stake for middle and working classes in the Warnock Walker election

“Why Raphael Warnock’s reelection could tip the balance for America’s economic. Future,” by Tom Conway, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/36989?fbclid=IwAR1yR0qzeKloidyei6DFxiSsc_3EYjKH_YjUQUkfRPCEe72amV_NUkAVwZU.

November 30

Sounds right to me

“Because ‘publishing is not a crime,’ major newspapers push US to drop Assange charges,” by Jake Johnson, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/36999?fbclid=IwAR3SS19wYP9zAxaGnH9uXGR-ZgAMDcswWW-_Lj_fl-L9o0DWr1SdqzW8LEw.

November 29

A nightmare

“Survey of the AgroAbsurd,” by Bill Hatch, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/30/survey-of-the-agroabsurd/?fbclid=IwAR2HOl6C412td-JxXvTPo2SJ34rYfZs8ZNgDU8gwRVbp8cOCq4skJyHauZ4,

November 28

Among all the other reasons Georgians should not vote for Hershey Walker he’s a carpetbagger

“‘Carpetbagger’ charges fly as Georgia GOP Senate candidate Walker’s Texas tax break exposed,” by Brett Wilkins, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/36987?fbclid=IwAR2QWaLCAhOfG-RG_RTpEZsriFOY6S-ynmg5VRBCGUhhNEzR3Oo3uD0ap6A.

November 28

A Who’s Who of Earthian Fascists

“The World According to CPAC,” by Laura Carlsen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/25/the-world-according-to-cpac/?fbclid=IwAR3vavhejwKz2BX6LcStLeh0grZj8tyyOZ01ENVpKMwa3lBDHkkgx1lRQVA.

November 26

What next?

“A f—ing ‘nightmare’: Trump team does damage control after he dines with Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes,” by Mark Caputo, NBC NEWS, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/f-ing-nightmare-trump-team-damage-control-dines-ye-white-supremacist-n-rcna58780?fbclid=IwAR081vrfvsaVaOxkhZ4e7rt3bNadsTMyNnnhBc9KY354VmV11RFjBHyDs_g. 

November 26

One small step forward for wildlife

“Wildlife conference boosts protection for sharks, turtles,” by Kathia Martinez, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/business-caribbean-sharks-global-trade-fish-473094871ab7aac1f27e80ff2a10b842?fbclid=IwAR1CwuULAjegaXg_79zUPYLjSlEsochkKgA83RPna2mfxnBL3tI9kFCb3WI.

November 28

Another sad one but well written and relevant

“The Retail Carrion Feeders of Rural America,” by Jeffrey St. Clair, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/25/the-retail-carrion-feeders-of-rural-america/?fbclid=IwAR2RuTsXOXlT6hmGDlyHLs1Aqz77WbWC6tpj2NnJiO1uPDlsXoqYajWNKb4.

November 28

If supposedly well-functioning societies such as Sweden cannot control their emissions what is the hope for the rest of Spaceship Earth? Thunberg is saying stop stammering and do something.

“Greta Thunberg Joins 630+ Young People in Landmark Climate Lawsuit Against Sweden,” by Julia Conley, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/greta-thunberg-joins-630-young-people-in-climate-lawsuit-against-sweden/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR37fghEuB70Xjc4qN7kwL8p8YZpApeAlUOMPUc8hxILWhC29CeGGrAbwBs.

November 28

Sad but worth a read

“Humans v nature: our long and destructive journey to the age of extinction,” by Phoebe Weston, THE GUARDIAN, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/cop15-humans-v-nature-our-long-and-destructive-journey-to-the-age-of-extinction-aoe?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR1qIR5dkWuOaB0pMugJHxhlYjU8QI_xV4OdMWkWtkitmQZVCfCyFLJET_s.

November 26

Say it aint so Joe

“China’s 26-storey pig skyscraper ready to slaughter 1 million pigs a year,” by Staff, THE GUARDIAN, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-26-storey-pig-skyscraper-ready-to-produce-1-million-pigs-a-year?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR1brCEHwbYMZ96_7R66Y0XGzvgcemg240mq3M3HighROWyyTL3cQcGcD-s.

November 25

Is sports another opium of the people?

“Well, in our society, we have things that you might use your intelligence on…,” by Noam Chomsky, FACEBOOK, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=573203644810132&set=a.132528992210935.

November 24

An interesting overview and perspective

“What precipitated the radicalization of the Republican Party in the U.S.,” by Nelson McKeeby, QUORA.COM, https://www.quora.com/What-precipitated-the-radicalization-of-the-Republican-Party-in-the-U-S/answer/Nelson-McKeeby?fbclid=IwAR2OVB2ibk9TcimZpKrtr0w9dOVyq1zbphZue3t1fZtP_C3B1Vc5QQjZ4PI.

November 24

Seems right as rain to me. Another telling-it-like-it-is article by Paul Street

“Dear Liberals: Stop Your Smug Celebration of the Midterms,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/23/dear-liberals-stop-your-smug-celebration-of-the-midterms/?fbclid=IwAR1tbVzqSEJ7HoA3Crb5J0q5qpciOUE_NdZFYeX8IyhPBBHBREAh88FUOdM.

November 23

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Attack of the Killer Robots,” by Roberto J. Gonzalez, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/23/attack-of-the-killer-robots/?fbclid=IwAR0OF97hjFNMavYVfzMT09Hhkca4vrQNmqySsLj8IRySYP9rV8Bqnkc8AAk.

November 23

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea Earthian humans need to decrease their numbers aboard Spaceship Earth through natural attrition (natural deaths each year exceeding births) to reduce the Earthian human population so as to reduce the need for burning fossil fuels producing more and more carbon dioxide pumped into the Earthian atmosphere to combat global warming and climate change (GWCC).

On the other hand, the Earthian undependable and diabolical capitalistic economic system needs more and more Earthian humans to be born every year than die from natural causes to create more aggregate demand to enable profit-seeking organizations and groups to sell more and more products and services so as to need to hire more and more servants working for them at as low as possible wages and salaries to prevent Earthian humans from becoming homeless.

Will Earthian humans somehow evolve new systems to resolve this impasse before it’s too late?

Comment by RJS

“Demographic Cliff + Let it Rot = Collapse of Economic Growth,” by Charles Hugh Smith, OF TWO MINDS.COM, https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2022/11/demographic-cliff-let-it-rot-collapse.html?fbclid=IwAR13nX3Y2UyZeZx28Io2FWCUx3OGTLHYIokKUI0zyAOQwn9oZBvz27AO2XE.

November 18

As if Earthian humans did not have enough economic, political, and military problems

“Greenland is Worse Than Ever, Much Worse,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/18/greenland-is-worse-than-ever-much-worse/?fbclid=IwAR1krAWaC7Baly0fKwYU–UAyMbTrITDPoLwmfm_sq32jv8H6SrOdeKg3F4.

November 18

Whatever the morals and ethics, maybe this will give USians somewhat lower gasoline prices than would otherwise have been the case in the short run. What would Jesus have recommended in this case?

“Biden Administration Calls for Immunity for Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi Case,” by Jake Johnson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/biden-administration-calls-for-immunity-for-saudi-crown-prince-in-khashoggi-case/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR197KOtguvi9Mh3nofOzhOUsRroLheP6XkgbsphYBKqDWl5UC8mEZJHwqc.

November 18

Want to be a great man? Here is the sort of thing you would have to do

“Crimes of Britain on Twitter: The crimes of Winston Churchill – voted Greatest Briton of all time,” https://mobile.twitter.com/crimesofbrits/status/905035282046742528?fbclid=IwAR3lqBDkim1AxeubleMzRV8ym2KUZdJf_Ych0qkYUhI8yXgsOWcgVtwKCoM.

November 18

How many times can the DOJ pass the buck? Why do you need a special counsel to recommend what you yourselves have spent millions of dollars and a lot of time investigating? Seems absurd and pusillanimous. Apparently, nobody at the DOJ can make a real decision. Are USians to believe their own eyes and ears have been lying to them in this case? Who the hell is Jack Smith?

“Attorney General Merrick Garland names Jack Smith special counsel in Trump criminal probes,” by Dan Mangan, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/18/attorney-general-merrick-garland-to-name-special-counsel-in-trump-criminal-probe-report-says.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR3yxudnFE4Nqb8AJTZbxCoehGeRrduWd9trou2-Fdu88IyISbCYXIjsBrs.

November 13

How little we know about this

“NASA Has a Theory for Why We Might Be Alone in the Universe, ” https://dnyuz.com/2022/11/11/nasa-has-a-theory-for-why-we-might-be-alone-in-the-universe/?fbclid=IwAR2xVt-1-nHP8-IaORmN1h1mCng6ETYkMe1un_1zcDCES7MCZ0hhpQ9bPrI

November 13

Say it ain’t so Joe. Is it true that the only real free citizens of the US are the elite rich? And all others are servants?

“Will the US War-for-Profit System Lead to Nuclear Annihilation?,” by Leonard C. Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/11/will-the-us-war-for-profit-system-lead-to-nuclear-annihilation/?fbclid=IwAR3ZXjI7k-srFvlZmAS7tCLsqcYAkZnO4R3phMBgOziq4_mhHrHLiDTj6X0.

November 12

Even most smart Earthian humans do not read books

“As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases,” by Richard John Stapleton, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-john-stapleton/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases/?fbclid=IwAR3yAyopzaquOMCDj15a2izdwLogabnX34OzuhkiRbsUqdfgx5YoQ0l6plI.

Novenmber 11

Afraid he’s right

“Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war,” by Albert Einstein, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=666111094883047&set=a.615331416627682.  

November 11

I never did join the dim dems or the repugnant repugs. Always have been Independent. Generally agree with Gabbard here. She won the 2019 dem primary debates you know. I documented it in an article I wrote and published in my Effective Learning Report blog, “Why Large Powerful Political Parties are Evil,” October 27, 2019, at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-large-powerful…/

“Tulsi Gabbard leaves Democratic Party, denounces ‘control of an elitist cabal of warmongers’,” by Cami Mondeaux, WASHIINGTON EXAMINER, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-leaves-democratic-party-denounces-control-of-an-elitist-cabal-of-warmongers?fbclid=IwAR2OVB2ibk9TcimZpKrtr0w9dOVyq1zbphZue3t1fZtP_C3B1Vc5QQjZ4PI.

November 11

Here’s another article by the cogent pulling-no-punches telling-it-like-it-is Eve Ottenberg about the real life of USian railroad workers, a welcome respite from several days of watching and listening to fashionable cosmetic face people/talking heads on TV anxiously competing for air time and eyeballs trying to perfectly recite rehearsed and scripted lines and stories using august and portentous voice cadences and inflections describing the contrivances, machinations, manipulations, and antics of narcissistic USian politicians, who generally have the morals and ethics of an alley cat, in a so-called mid-term USian election November 8, 2022, in which democracy in the US was presumably saved from fascism for a longer period of time than most USians apparently thought it would be before the election.

Comment by RJS

“Working (and Striking) on the Railroad,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/11/working-and-striking-on-the-railroad/?fbclid=IwAR1XyHkGGu2pPWgBmInQhyBZk9bBF4_Yil8BiummB5SDCcN8z7dGv938dz4.

November 11

Here’s another cogent article by Paul Street, this one about what the November 8 election really boils down to

“Twelve Takes on the Mid-Terms,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/11/twelve-takes-on-the-mid-terms/?fbclid=IwAR2hdy-tcUOp5PT05Cf5EPpXbY0qFVXSmLaEoii12ukuLJOLctZF_PEpe6o.

November 11

Afraid Levine is right. Is it most Earthian humans cannot understand or afford good psychiatry, so they are sold pills on the cheap? And stay about as depressed as they were?

“What Are the Variables Associated with Depression?

“Twelve biological measures [including structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), resting state fMRI, and nine other biological measures] fail to distinguish ‘depressed’ from ‘healthy’ populations,” reports Sterling, “but two psychological variables clearly do so . . . . Depressed individuals were far more likely to report childhood trauma and far less likely to experience social supports.

“Once upon a time, it was not extraordinary for psychiatrists to actually spend time learning about their patients’ lives. However, as the New York Times reported in 2011 (‘Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy’). A 2005 government survey found that just 11 percent of psychiatrists provided talk therapy to all patients, a share that had been falling for years and has most likely fallen more since.

“Today, it is a very unique psychiatrist–likely a “dissident psychiatrist”–who offers anything other than medication management (“med management” consists of 10 to 15 minutes every two or three months, checking symptoms and tweaking medications). The vast majority of psychiatrists offer nothing but biochemical-electrical attempts to reduce symptoms.”

Quote by Bruce E. Levine, author of the below article

“No Evidence for Psychiatry’s Depression Claims, Report Three 20221 Research Reviews,” by Bruce E. Levine, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/09/no-evidence-for-psychiatrys-depression-claims-report-three-2022-research-reviews/?fbclid=IwAR2JTCZskwWeD0aaH5N8f8ftgBWaoe018seSEB7EkhCZ6DyPhTwlSBLJdf0.

November 8

Say it ain’t so Joe. Lots of pictures, numbers, etc. about weapons of mass destruction included in the article

“China will focus on preparing for War, Xi JiNping declares,” by Rachael Bunyan, DAILY MAIL, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11403145/China-focus-preparing-WAR-Xi-Jinping-declares.html?ito=facebook_share_article-floatingbar&fbclid=IwAR0jLk8vNxo8ZMtdQ2g45BFUdftU1ZBsH7Ix-fk8dMvKxQ-aQR5JlC6CoM4.

November 7

“Now, in Georgia, conservatives are turning a blind eye to sordid stories coming out about Herschel Walker, who demonstrates no qualifications for serving in the Senate. His sole credential is that he was once excellent at carrying a football.

“Story after story has emerged about reprehensible behavior and lies concerning women and children, and about falsifying his personal history.

“The Daily Beast asserted that while Walker wants to completely ban abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, comparing it to murder, he paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009. Walker has called the story “a flat-out lie,” but The Beast talked to the unnamed woman and checked her financial records. She said she was just sick of the hypocrisy. Even his conservative influencer son, Christian, disparaged his father’s “lies” on Twitter.

“On Friday, The Times published a story confirming The Daily Beast’s reporting, and in a startling development added that in 2011, Herschel pressured the same woman to have another abortion. They ended their relationship when she refused; she had their son, now 10.

“There’s more: His ex-wife claimed he pointed a pistol at her head and told her he was going to blow her brains out; he has four children with four different women, but hadn’t publicly acknowledged three of them. His 10-year-old was one of those hidden.

“Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans should be ashamed to promote this troubled person for their own benefit.”

Quote from “Donald and Herschel: The Unholy Alliance,”

“Donald and Herschel: The Unholy Alioance,” staff, DNZ, https://dnyuz.com/2022/10/08/donald-and-herschel-the-unholy-alliance/?fbclid=IwAR2JTCZskwWeD0aaH5N8f8ftgBWaoe018seSEB7EkhCZ6DyPhTwlSBLJdf0

October 27

Sad but true. Pejorative chauvinistic large powerful political parties foster polarization and hatred among the populace, leading to government by and for special interest groups with lots of money. They make circus-like charades out of elections to entertain sheeple and create an illusion of democracy. The US was never a democracy. It was a republic, a tenuous one according to Benjamin Franklin, who said the US was “a republic, if you can keep it.” Political parties were never mentioned in the US constitution. They are the creations of self-interested groups hoping to extract special benefits from the USian government and USian citizens in general.

“Why Large Powerful Political Parties Are Evil, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-large-powerful-political-parties-are-evil/?fbclid=IwAR0oqmloyPCixQzS2JYQjbboKTkGE-MFz1PwRbdQHQRXITIAX-5PU2xGAaY

TOWARD THE CO-CONSTRUICTION OF A FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE LONG RUN EARTHIAN ECONOMIC SYSTEM

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

Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming to implement bottom-up recommendations of millions of members in discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Each member of the group in charge of the codes for the magnum computer system would serve limited terms. These members would not vote or decide what to do. They would see to it that the computer system implemented the consensual answers of millions of Earthian humans from all walks of life, as determined by honest, free, fair, and frank democratic Game-free discussions in democracy chapters all around Spaceship Earth, as explained and shown in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. The overall objective would be to manage the system in such a way as to maximize the lifetime satisfactions of all Earthian humans, as well as all other species of life aboard Spaceship Earth, while insuring the indefinite functioning of all Spaceship Earth ecosystems.

Necessary moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum Management System that Earthian humans at the top would be obliged to obey. If changes should be made in the moral and ethical codes in the overall program they would be sent back to the Earthian democracy chapters for discussion and then tabulated and analyzed before algorithms programmed in the system would create changes in the MMS operating system.  

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

A management system such as this would significantly improve previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically empowered fickle, egotistical, greedy, power mad, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history caused by the unfair and indiscriminate inexorable tunneling out of Bad, OK, or Good Luck for hundreds, thousands, millions, or billons of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth at all times since time immemorial, resulting from the cosmic evolution commencing with the creation of the Universe some ten billion years ago.

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

About the only way significant numbers of Earthian humans can be caused to be significantly changed psychologically and socially by others is through democratic face to face discussions in honest serious and rigorous dialectical, dialogical, analogical arguing about facts using reasoning of all kinds, dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs.

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

It follows that changing the life scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, while considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.

What is God? Whatever it was that caused the Universe to exist.

Constructivism is considered relevant in Effective Learning Publications books recommended below, having been discussed in some detail in Business Voyages and listed as a source in the bibliographies of three books.

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

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

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=business+voyages+richard+john+stapleton

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

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

 This recently-published novel shows how to conduct a new kind of seminar invented and coordinated by Rout Logger, the protagonist of the novel, that might reduce the probability of Earthian human extinction that requires participants in a seminar to speak out and up when randomly selected by a Truther rooster positioned in the center of a randomly-selected group of forty humans sitting in a circle. The Truther rooster resembles a spinning weather vane. The rooster is programmed to bob its head up and down and raucously crow after being twirled by a randomly-selected seminar participant, as it spins round and round winding down, letting group members know it’s time to wake up and get to work, before it’s too late. When the Truther rooster stops spinning whoever is at the end of a line of imaginary fire extending from the rooster’s beak to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.  Forty participants from all walks of life were paid $5000 monthly for participating in weekend seminars conducted in central city hotels in various cities randomly selected around the US. If randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment the participant had to define what s/he thought was the most important problem facing Spaceship Earth, present alternatives, and make a recommendation for change. What s/he said would then be discussed by members of the group on a free-flow first come-first serve basis. It was against the law of the seminar to interrupt speakers or raise hands to get permission to speak. Discussions lasted until they ran out of steam with most issues covered. The results of the discussions would be published to the wealthy donors financing the process and the Earthian public.

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

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

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

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the biggest egotists of Earthian human history, a narcissist, playing BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, is Donald Trump of the US. He is also a world-class liar and loser playing BALANCE SHEET, and he might go to jail for it, just like other political USian BALANCE SHEET psychological Game players in the US have, such as Georgia US representative, Bo Ginn, in 1995, and cotton farmer Billie Sol Estes of Pecos, Texas in 1965, who had political ties to the USian president from Texas Lyndon Johnson, caused by their lying to bankers about the ratio of their liabilities to their assets to get loans, while actually being almost bankrupt with liabilities exceeding assets. The USian federal government, and other Earthian governments, can legally, if not ethically, get away with this sort of thing indefinitely, but most citizens or subjects of most Earthian countries cannot.

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

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

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

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways (devoid of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim roles) economic and political problems and opportunities go to the Ogeechee Economic Forum at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ and 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 or order one or more Effective Learning Publications books. As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases is the latest and probably most engaging Effective Learning Publications book, including an overview of USian economic history, including the Trumpian affair. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at Amazon for immediate unrestricted digital reading on any device as a Kindle book for $4.99. You can read it free at Amazon in a restricted KDP option.

https://www.amazon.com/Rooster-Crows-Earthian-OKness-Increases-ebook/dp/B0B9XY3HKR/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1666385534&refinements=p_27%3ARichard+Stapleton&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

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

ABOUT THE EDITOR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (October 24, 2022) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eight 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 see “RJS Academic Vita,” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita/.  

Feel free to forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian–35 anyway you see fit.

 

 

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-Four, October 23, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, specializing in Adult education.

THE EARTHIAN is a digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting courageous independent writers in linked Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, memes, 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 aboard Spaceship Earth.

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

OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW

By ROUT LOGGER

A proposition of As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, demonstrated in a fictional metaphorical fashion, is that Earthian humans can increase their OKness through Adult–Adult, Game-Free, democratic discussions of existential problems. Rout Logger, a logger of routs, is the protagonist of the story.

Following in this essay are excerpts from As The Rooster Crows explaining what Earthian human OKness is showing how to estimate different levels of OKness.

If you would like to know more about the contextual meaning of transactional analysis terminology such Parent, Adult, and Child Ego States, psychological Games, Scripts, etc. you can find explanations of them with a simple Google search. Just add the words transactional analysis to them, making them transactional analysis psychological Games, ego states, OKness, etc., and ask Google what they are.

“SPATIAL OKness

“The strangeness of the process in the first two meetings caused Not-OKness to increase, but as the months rolled by the members began to experience increased OKness and satisfaction. Those entering the process with I’m Not OK– You’re OK; I’m Not-OK–You’re Not OK; and I’m OK–You’re Not OK life positions by the end of the last session spent more time in the I’m OK– You’re OK winner quadrant of the OK Corral, the upper right quadrant of a mathematical space encompassing two axes crossing at zero in the center of the space, with negative and positive OKness estimated west and east of origin on the horizontal axis and positive and negative OKness estimated north and south of origin on the vertical axis, with I being the vertical axis and You being the horizontal axis. Intersecting I and You positive or negative OKness combinations for specific individuals could exist at points in all four quadrants of the OK Corral (Ernst, F., 1971).

“OKness cannot be precisely measured, but it can be estimated by observing others and by self-evaluation. Most humans if they think about it know if they are OK or Not OK at any moment. How OK is another matter? OK relative to what? “Relative to how OK one was yesterday, or six months ago? And how OK about what? Estimating OKness is a subjective judgement call, but it can be done. Empathetic humans can determine by looking and hearing whether someone is OK or Not OK.

“There are at least two types of OKness: Psychological and Social.

“Social OKness is generally talked about.

“Psychological OKness is generally not talked about.

“In many cases humans are socially OK but psychologically abysmal.

“Social OKness is based on fact relative to standards concerned with whether and to what degree goals, objectives, and missions have been achieved, such as whether someone has adequate food, clothing, and shelter. If someone is hungry, cold, and miserable it’s an objective fact s/he is Not OK. If someone is in acute physical pain caused by an accident, malnutrition, or disease s/he is Not OK. The same is true for individuals who cannot function in society because of emotional, mental, and behavioral disorders caused by traumatic genetic and social inheritances.

“Psychological OKness, on the other hand, is a judgmental subjective opinion an individual holds regarding her/himself and others not based on current objective data and information that concerns characteristics such as sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, overall appearance, behavioral traits, personality traits, intelligence, knowledge, beliefs, abilities, and worthiness.

“Rout’s group members were all socially OK in the sense they were all functioning members of society and were getting their needs met at levels that provided OK levels of satisfaction, not great levels of satisfaction necessarily but OK levels. On the other hand, they had life positions and satisfactions that were non-I’m OK–You’re OK regarding races, sexual orientations, religions, abortions, economic classes, social classes, professions, and political parties. They were unequally not-OK regarding these issues.

“The members learned in Rout’s group how to transact with one another socially using I’m OK–You’re OK transactions and Adult ego states and how not to play psychological Games; but their psychological structural programming and scripting was left largely intact. Some increases in psychological OKness probably happened over the course of the six once-a-month six-hour meetings on a Saturday; but significantly changing psychological structural programming for all group members would require years of group sessions in most cases with more intimate discussion content than what happened in Rout’s group.

“Here is some transactional analysis theory formulated by Martin Groder, MD about OKness and Not OKness involving problematic humans (Stapleton, R.J., Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds, 2011, pp. 148-151) in a different sort of transactional analysis group.

“Humans generally give little thought to what kind of human they are and where they fit in the spectrum of various types of humans. Innumerable philosophers, writers, social scientists, and others have categorized humans in various ways. Following is a schema developed by Martin Groder, a psychiatrist, organizational development consultant, and entrepreneur, who also had an undergraduate degree in physics (Groder, 1977). Groder developed this schema working with inmates in the maximum-security federal prison at Marion, Illinois in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. He was involved in a process of changing hard-core criminals into law-abiding citizens. Such a process would challenge the abilities of the most skillful and powerful of change agents.

“According to Groder humans vary on two fundamental dimensions. One dimension is Okness, which is estimated on the horizontal axis of a mathematical space; the other dimension is the energy level of the individual estimated on the vertical axis.

“In this schema people vary in terms of how OK they see, feel about, and experience (1) themselves, (2) friends, (3) their group, (4) other groups, and (5) the world. In Groder’s terms, they are OK or not-OK with respect to I, You, We, They, and It (the world). Groder estimates how OK they are on each of these five dimensions on a scale of minus 1 to plus 1, -1 being as not-OK as possible and +1 being as OK as possible. Thus, people with extremely high self-esteem might exist at the +1 level regarding themselves; someone with extremely low self-esteem might exist at the -1 level regarding themselves. People could exist at any level in between, at -.5, 0, +.25, etc. The same would be true of the attitudes of specific individuals with respect to buddies on a one-to-one basis, groups with which one belongs, other groups with which your group cooperates or competes, and the world in general. Summing the 5 dimensions, I, You, We, They, and It, the highest possible rating would be +5 and the lowest possible would be -5. A +5 person would have the highest possible feelings of Okness regarding himself or herself, the OKness of a buddy or friend, the OKness of her/his group, the OKness of other groups, and the OKness of the world. Such an individual would have very positive feelings of self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, a -5 person would have the lowest possible feelings of self- esteem, well-being, regard for others and the world, self-confidence, etc. Very negative people tend to end up in prison. Very positive people tend to end up cultural heroes. The most profitable life position for an entrepreneur in a capitalistic economy would be I’m OK, my employees are OK, my company is OK, the world is OK, but my competitors aren’t worth a damn, since this attitude would motivate his or her employees to steal more business from competitors to help him or her win BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, in which no amount of money is ever enough, involving incessant stealing of business from other businesses under capitalism.

“Entrepreneurs have higher energy levels than middle managers and normal people. Entrepreneurs in Groder’s schema have approximately the same energy level on the vertical axis of his mathematical space as Monsters, the minus-three convict leaders of other convicts. Monsters have the attitude “I’m OK, my buddy is OK, but everything else is not OK, and I am going to make the world pay.” According to Groder, it is more difficult to change the energy level of a human than the OKness position. In rehabilitation work, he attempted to arc people across the gap of the curve in the space to make entrepreneurs out of monsters, middle managers out of creeps, slobs, etc. Sometimes people arc across the gap the other way. Honest entrepreneurs can turn criminal. Entrepreneurs are winner- survivors; Monsters are loser-survivors. Winners achieve goals and objectives; losers do not.

“It is interesting in this schema that less energy is required to be a normal human than to be any other kind of human. According to Groder, normal humans never leave the culture of their origins and adopt the cultures of both parents, which were homogeneous and compatible with the culture of origin. Normal humans do not make many changes as they grow up. More energy is required to change than not to change. The whole essence of entrepreneurship is change. Groder says people can be categorized as sheep, wolves, or hermits. Normal people, like sheep, placidly stay in one place grazing existing pastures. Wolves travel over many pastures, keeping sharp eyes out for easy prey and enemies. Hermits retire to their caves. Entrepreneurs tend to be wolves and sometimes get killed off fighting other wolf packs. Normals do not get involved in competition with others outside their environments, but tend to be the first to be killed off during wars, economic depressions, and other disasters. The limited experience they develop by virtue of accepting the security of the culture of origin leaves them relatively inflexible and unadaptable.

“Groder said some entrepreneurs abandon their parents at some point in childhood, after deciding they could not get anything good from their parents. The basic problem is that high-energy children are hard to be held, trained, and disciplined by parents. Some high- energy children abandon their parents by becoming Persecutors, Rescuers, or Victims. Persecutors become hysterics and like characters; Victims develop borderline psychotic-type personalities. Rescuers become entrepreneurs, therapists, etc. What is needed for high-energy people is a well-functioning culture.

“A cause of clinical depression, according to Groder, is children abandoning parents and deciding they cannot get anything good from parents. In some cases, pathological entrepreneurs are driven to self-destruct, having given up on life itself as source of satisfaction.

“Risk-taking and the excitement it generates become addictive. No matter how much money the pathological entrepreneur takes in, it is never enough. New ventures and risks must continually be undertaken to provide excitement, which the entrepreneur needs as an antidote for depression. The acquiring of more and more money causes problems for the entrepreneur because money tends to create “enemies in the world.” This comes about because the wealthy entrepreneur must hire people to be around to take care of the money. Such people resent the entrepreneur because they know the entrepreneur does not really like them and is using them to preserve the money. Humans like to be liked as individual humans and dislike being used as objects. The entrepreneur may have to hire food tasters, and someone to taste the food tasted by the food taster, etc.

“Most entrepreneurs are not pathological. If you want to be a cultural hero entrepreneur you need a high energy level and high self-esteem, high self- confidence and generally positive attitudes toward other people and the world. At the same time, you cannot be a normal person. Perhaps you should count yourself lucky if you are not an entrepreneur. All roles in life have advantages and disadvantages. For more details regarding various characters and roles found in the business world, see Business Games: How to Recognize the Players and Deal With Them, by Martin Groder (1980), published by Boardroom Books. See also “Groder’s 5 OK Diagrams” (Barnes, 1977).”

It’s not hard to see where pathological entrepreneurs such as Donald Trump and Elon Musk are located on Groder’s People Map.

Causing significant positive change in the OKness levels of individual Earthian humans is difficult; but it’s many magnitudes more difficult to cause significant positive change in the OKness level of Spaceship Earth, considering longtime ingrained scripted self-serving traditional and conservative family, social, religious, economic, political, cultural, governmental, military, and technological policies and practices that have propelled Earthian humans down a path leading to dead ends such global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP).

The history of Earthian human states of affairs has largely been a matter of I’m OK–You’re Not-OK leaders, groups, and organizations, including religions and governments, playing psychological Games, acting out Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer roles on a Drama Triangle, enslaving billions of humans in not-OK situations in the process.

However idealistic and quixotic it might be to think about such things, following are some recommendations for increasing the OKness of Spaceship Earth in the short and long run. Probably the best outcome Earthian humans can hope for is to muddle through somehow in the short run avoiding catastrophe long enough for significant changes to evolve. GWCC and MNWP have been known existential threats for decades but so far little or nothing has been done by Earthian humans to eliminate them anytime soon.

On the other hand, a Victim madman leading a nation possessing nuclear weapons can destroy the OKness of Spaceship Earth in a heartbeat. All he has to do is drop nuclear bombs on his Persecutor enemies, playing the ultimate tissue-tearing psychological Game called NIGYSOB, Now I’ve Got You, You Sob.

Establishing democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth as recommended in As the Rooster Crows might develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that would filter up to randomly-selected humans who would count the consensual answers to make necessary changes. Consensual tactics, strategies, and policies would then be developed around Earth for dealing with the whole computerized Spaceship Earth management system, that could be operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming in magnum computer systems. Forget about hunans doing it. They have long since proved they are too weak minded, corruptible, and egotistical to do the job.

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

Various and sundry necessary moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum management system that temporary elite Earthian humans at the top would be required to obey. If changes should be made in the moral and ethical codes in the overall program caused by changes in the environment they would be sent back to the Spaceship Earth democracy chapters for discussion and analysis before any changes would be made in the Magnum system programming.

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

A management system such as this would significantly improve previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically empowered fickle, egotistical, greedy, power mad, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history caused by the unfair and indiscriminate inexorable tunneling out of Bad, OK, or Good Luck for hundreds, thousands, millions, or billons of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth at all times since time immemorial, resulting from the cosmic evolution commencing with the Big Bang.

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

About the only way anyone can be caused to be significantly changed psychologically and socially by others is through democratic face to face discussions in honest serious and rigorous dialectical, dialogical, analogical arguing about facts using reasoning of all kinds, dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs. The only real sin in such a process is lying.

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

It follows that changing the life scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, while considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.

What is God? Whatever it was that caused the Big Bang setting in motion myriad cause-effect chains causing everything to exist.

Constructivism is considered relevant in all four Effective Learning Report books recommended below, having been discussed in some detail in Business Voyages and listed as a source in the bibliographies of three books.

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

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

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=business+voyages+richard+john+stapleton

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

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

 This recently-published novel 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 beak to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.  Each of forty participants from all walks of life was paid $5000 monthly for participating in weekend seminars conducted in central city hotels in various cities randomly selected around the US. If randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment the participant had to define what s/he thought was the most important problem facing Spaceship Earth, present alternatives, and make a recommendation for change. What s/he said would then be discussed by members of the group on a free-flow first come-first serve basis. It was against the law of the seminar to interrupt speakers or raise hands to get permission to speak. Discussions lasted until they ran out of steam with most issues covered. The results of the discussions would be published to the general public and the wealthy donors financing the process.

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

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/  .

This mathematical formulation could one day develop for Earthian humans power in economics loosely analogous to the power of E=mc² in physics. The formulation has been around for many years in management science, operations research, and linear algebra courses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most Earthian humans know what it is to be egotistical, but they have little understanding of specific human egotistical manifestations, such as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states.

One of the biggest egotists of Earthian human history, a narcissist, playing BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, is Donald Trump. He is also a world-class liar and loser playing BALANCE SHEET, and he should go to jail for it, just like other political USian BALANCE SHEET psychological Game players in the US have, such as the renowned Georgia US representative, Bo Ginn, in 1995, and the notorious cotton farmer Billie Sol Estes of Pecos, Texas in 1965, who had political ties to the USian president from Texas Lyndon Johnson.

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

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

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

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways (devoid of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim roles) economic and political problems and opportunities go to the Ogeechee Economic Forum at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ and 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 or order 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, including an overview of USian economic history, including the Trumpian affair. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at Amazon for immediate unrestricted digital reading on any device as a Kindle book for $4.99. You can read it free at Amazon in a restricted KDP option.

https://www.amazon.com/Rooster-Crows-Earthian-OKness-Increases-ebook/dp/B0B9XY3HKR/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1666385534&refinements=p_27%3ARichard+Stapleton&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

For some doable short run strategies for dealing with Spaceship Earth’s social, economic, political, and military problems in the US read Recommendations for Waking Up From the American Nightmare by Richard John Stapleton, Effective Learning Publications, 2012, 217 pages, at https://www.amazon.com/Recommendations-American-Nightmare-Business-Voyages-ebook/dp/B009TOJVPI

For more information on short run policies and strategies for dealing with current USian economic and political problems read free “The FreeFairProgress Party” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty/.

FOLLOWING IS THE MOST IMMEDIATELY RELEVANT PART OF THE EARTHIAN, A SMORGASBORD OF CURRENT THINKING OF TRUTH-SEEKING TRUTH-ACCEPTING TRUTH-TELLING WRITERS AND ARTISTS, HONESTLY FEELING, THINKING, CREATING, AND WRITING FROM ALL THEIR EGO STATES, PUBLISHED IN RECENT WEEKS IN LINKED ARTICLES, PODCASTS, AND MEMES IN INTERNET MEDIA AROUND SPACESHIP EARTH.

SOURCES and NOTES

October 23, 2022

Scary

“Before and after: See how the Mississipi River and its tributaries have dropped to recond lows,” by Angela Fritz and Brandon Miller, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/22/weather/mississippi-river-low-level-drought-climate?fbclid=IwAR1Lue6Sj-RgB-Plfx9VVi02bpt0Du7kTQ_AFuRG8j6URaRP9QyGH9Ul-6c

October 23

Afraid he’s right. But can competent, trustworthy, accountable Earthian humans be found that can make something like the USian Federal Reserve System work for all humans under capitalism?

“‘It’s Just Not Right,’ – One Trader’s Rage Spills Over At ‘Incompetent, Untrustworthy, Unaccountable’ Fed,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/its-just-not-right-one-traders-rage-spills-over-incompetent-untrustworthy-unaccountable-fed?fbclid=IwAR0EGThFy16iV9Md_KvSYNdGLw7b4qQrez3GdC9x6g_OFlcYw741fuWwaik

October 23

Probably right, but read at your own risk

“‘Dr. Doom’ predicts NYC destroyed by nukes, storms in next 20 years,” by Eric Spitznagel, NEW YORK POST, https://nypost.com/2022/10/22/dr-doom-nouriel-roubini-predicts-scary-demise-for-us/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR0r67eeVWAMwglJ9TakUhEtiE7fLSRr0eaT6bNEpfBCn4IbIqW990PufFw

October 22

A bright idea indeed

“Virtual Power Brightens the Future,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/21/virtual-power-brightens-the-future/?fbclid=IwAR1gfoXUXBWeqwwxtvimY5li7Wyr6GT45jVVla6S6Wjg7pofDiPuy4pe_FI.

October 22

Why is the USian govt reluctant about negotiating? To keep the Usian military-industrial complex needed, busy, and funded?

“The Time to Negotiate Peace in Ukraine is NOW,” by Richard E. Rubenstein, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/21/the-time-to-negotiate-peace-in-ukraine-is-now/?fbclid=IwAR2FUoFNJ2YtePDgNes1Xr2wl7tzlHeiLZZblubOsQq-56XoA8w31Tiolxo

October 22

Here’s some more straight hard-hitting writing by Eve Ottenberg

“Homeless in America,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/21/homeless-in-america-2/?fbclid=IwAR2k9cGl2W94jh6nw3G6W_3_VmW6VXV2_oJqtjE5X5k6Vu91raLqUJS-W4Q

October 22

So it seems

“Ukraine War Evolves: Slouching Toward Armageddon,” by Richard Falk, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/21/ukraine-war-evolves-slouching-toward-armageddon/?fbclid=IwAR0az6hTb4yU-rwir5st9XT5GxN9I-r77ObV8c0Ygz47-9RKROJQ7uAlrQs.

October 21 

No news is good news

“Tyrant ‘will blow up Kherson dam’ and create ‘historic disaster’ says Zelensky,” THE SUN, https://www.the-sun.com/news/6391144/ukraine-news-latest-war-russia-putin-nuclear-live/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb&fbclid=IwAR3wWqR1aZhTA7HdBo2cR7YgMlKMQupVp-LDdJEh8cWl0d3nZU3iCtgCQOI

October 22

What fascism is

“The ‘Mass Man’ and the Specter of Fascism,” by David Rosen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/20/the-mass-man-and-the-specter-of-fascism/?fbclid=IwAR14qr6q8nw11n9SGoFe2mkgp8dgcuymtvdP9vFXu_lx8tTkPUF3lkAvfIs

October 21

Insanity run amok

“‘The Missile Crises,’ Then and Now,” by John Kendall Hawkins,  COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/20/the-missile-crises-then-and-now/?fbclid=IwAR3z8Dpct8LpWZGS78HV_IuGTzG73RJojY-7qYsIfsA8oKUkzVd-mGPGvmA

Ocober 21

Another threat caused by Spaceship Earth’s greatest enemy, global warming and climate change (GWCC). The second greatest enemy is militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP)

“‘It’s Disastrous’: Mississippi Barge Captain Warns About Supply Chain Crisis As Water Levels Drop,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/its-disastrous-mississippi-barge-captain-warns-about-supply-chain-crisis-water-levels?fbclid=IwAR3404ppWlf56vunwCUi00qQ8LZ4OWrE_yau8h1hyajGLHobuxKr8UskepU

October 20

I agree with Musk. End this insanity now, before it’s too late

“Russia Wants Talks To End The War, US Advisor Reveals,” Dave DeCamo, ANTIWAR.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-wants-talks-end-war-us-advisor-reveals?fbclid=IwAR2tXsqDj9NaITk3OndC8tQnLik0wjjoyeG5GWfMruaw559hssGnRzxD6is     

October 20

What next from the dim dems?

“Pelosi Dismisses Call For New Democrat Leadership: ‘There’s No Substitute For Experience’,” ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pelosi-dismisses-call-new-democrat-leadership-theres-no-substitute-experience?fbclid=IwAR2OEvR42rElX_WO0WabDeXJZDs2kLSmnQtp6ku_Atp0A7AuAtrv783UO6U.

October 20

Say it aint so Joe

“Musk Planning to Fire 75% Of Twitter Staff: WAPO,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/musk-planning-fire-75-twitter-staff-wapo?fbclid=IwAR1Bpcu2vOsTn0WGaQsNRtkfGTIvy_sFiqUyI21LE-2JKRQbNjep8W_77l8.

October 20

If only we in the US could get rid of an incompetent leader as quick as this

“Truss Quits, but UK’s political and economic turmoil persist,” by Jill Lawless, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/liz-truss-europe-economy-business-e18e6e6007c28f6e11cc1a201c545b71?fbclid=IwAR0duk1We5PbB3TD71nlLkDIlHedJMIMyWrfMrhot8GnicQdEFJivflHXSo.

October 16

Probably. And while Spaceship Earth burns USian Neros fiddle with Trump, abortions, tax cuts, stealing elections, the Ukraine, China, Taiwan, etc.

“Is Humanity Destined to Self Destruct?” by Steven Higgs, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/17/is-humanity-destined-to-self-destruct/?fbclid=IwAR29YhLZXsSUI0wN9LhFYUFRW44Q5aL0ewowlyKnOlICIDI9bLwVnouU2Lo.

October 16

Same old, Same old. Here’s Biden reiterating what he has already said, repeating a strategy that has been used over and over in Earthian human history, that has never worked in the long run, that is now called Neo-Liberalism, which is about the same as Neo-Conservatism mouthed by Repugs

“Biden’s National Security Strategy Is a Defense of US Domination, Not Democracy,” by Ashley Smith, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/bidens-national-security-strategy-is-a-defense-of-us-domination-not-democracy/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR29YhLZXsSUI0wN9LhFYUFRW44Q5aL0ewowlyKnOlICIDI9bLwVnouU2Lo.

October 20

Gaslighting is a new buzzword. Nothing new here in my opinion. Earthian humans have always been gaslit, in families, churches, schools, businesses, countries, cultures, etc. The gaslighting of some organizations and groups is more in sync with reality than others but Spaceship Earth has never been able to evolve a human system capable of producing OK lives for all Earthian humans. Get born at your own risk.

“The Gaslighting Of The Masses,” by CJ Hopkins, THE CONSENT FACTORY, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/hopkins-gaslighting-masses?fbclid=IwAR2sCmiYxMddxw8-ZoG8ar-Uyuw-Es7OlMmI_U2QJVyo925yoEpPEpeCrqY.

October 19

Winning the USian BALANCE SHEET psychological Game, 2001-2008

“The Wealth of the U.S. Wealthiest One-Tenth of One Percent,” by Rick Baum, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/14/the-wealth-of-the-u-s-wealthiest-one-tenth-of-one-percent/?fbclid=IwAR0k8rKjtA_62PyEq-TgUf5_EmYbYX2xy1CHocVNR1D0ai9hoLWbV9B1dRk.

October 19

Here’s USian congresspeople using insider information to cheat playing BALANCE SHEET a psychological Game in which players try to prove they are superior–intellectually, morally, ethically, and culturally–if they pile up a larger net worth on their balance sheets than others. No matter how much money they take in and pile up it is never enough because there is always someone who has piled up even more, or threatens to. This pervasive Game creates constant strife and discontent. BALANCE SHEET is especially pernicious in this case since insider trading is illegal and USian congresspeople are worrying about winning BALANCE SHEET Games instead of doing their jobs–supposedly creating fair and rational laws for we the people. Most politicians have the morals and ethics of an alley cat.

“The Scandal of Congressional Stock Trading,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/14/the-scandal-of-congressional-stock-trading/?fbclid=IwAR2sCmiYxMddxw8-ZoG8ar-Uyuw-Es7OlMmI_U2QJVyo925yoEpPEpeCrqY.

October 19

Here’s Henry Giroux telling another episode of the on-going horror story of Earthian human existence

“The Nazification of American Society and the Scourge of Violence,” by Henry Giroux, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/14/the-nazification-of-american-society-and-the-scourge-of-violence/?fbclid=IwAR31dQ6N6cipgw4KAkMEqhUDNSrUHfEHAeJirUzsBFT4_nPH4B91-h-UW98

October 19

Did the supremes do something right lately?

“Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Trump’s Mar-a-Largo Documents Appeal,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-trumps-mar-a-lago-documents-appeal/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1mr1iW0JWO3iwO71sI0MS6Gj02xAdDpxUgWKhhRrWKoBh_FUWIxJuO1-s

October 14

This article of mine has gained some traction lately

“Why Large Powerful Political Parties Are Evil,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-large-powerful-political-parties-are-evil/?fbclid=IwAR289vsm_iXAwVjGwDBAfnnKd5ybQlAHPG7owJDWBNxZ_OXSeq5ANvoXGYg.

October 12

Hard to believe to indict or not to indict in this insurrection case would be left to one person, Merrick Garland, the attorney general of the US. Regardless, given the evidence presented in this insurrection case, including the January 6 hearings, it seems to me it’s clear Garland should indict Trump for inciting an insurrection of our government, and not to do so would be pusillanimity.

“The Inevitable Indictment of Donald Trump,” by Franklin Foer, THE ATLANTIC, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/10/merrick-garland-donald-trump-investigation-indictment/671683/?fbclid=IwAR3Fo_VfIjvss0j6kQ8EbRsTeJWog0dNINEWoacJ85mdzE-7Yg1uVLqo4-c

October 12

Seems to me all hell is going to break out over this one of these days. I just cannot believe this can go on forever

“Why questions are swirling about who will buy more than $31 trillion of U.S. debt – and at what price,” by Vivien Lou Chen, MARKETWATCH, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-questions-are-swirling-about-who-will-buy-more-than-31-trillion-of-u-s-debt-and-at-what-price-11665507637?reflink=mw_share_facebook&fbclid=IwAR2eXWquqc19DYsUisIGy-w6BSKU1C91v8X3IVsCrvu2qTRV0xbwotW20EM

October 11

I never did join the dim dems or the repugnant repugs. Always have been Independent. I generally agree with Gabbard here. She won the 2019 dem primary debates you know. I documented it in an article I wrote and published in my Effective Learning Report blog, “Why Large Powerful Political Parties are Evil,” October 27, 2019, at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/why-large-powerful…/

“Tulsi Gabbard leaves Democratic Party, denounces ‘control of an elitist cabal of warmongers’,” by Cami Mondeaux, WASHINGTON EXAMINER, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-leaves-democratic-party-denounces-control-of-an-elitist-cabal-of-warmongers?fbclid=IwAR3LvegRoQUrcccwIadFHT65aKH3g0_rV9uUsdo8CKvGDrW5ocYRd_cYbvw

October 11

Agree completely

“We are on a path of escalation to nuclear war, nothing less,” Jeffery Sachs, INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57270.htm?fbclid=IwAR1zFUj8URiAf4IxJilPKAikJ0ZhuBNe6nkzF-b7zWT3pANv7swtnzOzxdI

October 9

It’s a shame it’s come to this

“US is Overcome with Debt and Death. We Must Fight Inequality to Stop this Crisis, by Liz Theoharis, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/us-is-overcome-with-debt-and-death-lets-fight-inequality-to-stop-this-crisis/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1rJMxu8UTHq2qkpWFw7LUTeIVFpUHJ4SfDSJqP5GxcfVlsjfBAY96vIeY

Octobber 9

Lying amoral hypocrits

“Donald and Herschel: The Unholy Alliance,” DNYUZ.COM, https://dnyuz.com/2022/10/08/donald-and-herschel-the-unholy-alliance/?fbclid=IwAR2sgY-TiGRz9V7KmLuG2IfTV2mrV3HMTVTvLs_zItoM_y8HveQKC4ArhYA

October 8

Here’s Paul Street again right on the money again as usual

“Bad Republicans, Invisible Democrats,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/07/bad-republicans-invisible-democrats/?fbclid=IwAR0pcKqoH1YSEcsETKb4vmrtaZuSqhEzQ_vjwvkv4Za84B_q6lAmfGrB8wI

October 8

Another great article by the no-nonsense cogent on the mark Eve Ottenberg

“A Superstition Called the Presidency,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/07/a-superstition-called-the-presidency/?fbclid=IwAR1GLTmOGx4M71c3YDHZRIMxFaOax00Zsfyodt9x-5wockurOoxrWK6YLPA

October 8

Say it aint so Joe

“The Greatest Evil is War,” by Chris Hedges, CONSORTIUMNEWS.COM, https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/04/chris-hedges-the-greatest-evil-is-war/?fbclid=IwAR1BKQHznSvzImUhr_fq5Kbz4lQHGQPWfnUlUfzKaSYkbvybJiTpJ0iK_Xk

October 7

Even smart people do not read books

As the Rooster C rows Earthian OKness Increases, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-john-stapleton/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases/?fbclid=IwAR0pcKqoH1YSEcsETKb4vmrtaZuSqhEzQ_vjwvkv4Za84B_q6lAmfGrB8wI

October 7

They might keep you alive for a while, but will they enable you to continue to live indefinitely with any real OKness, if all hell breaks loose?

“U.S. Buying $290M Worth of Anti-radiation Drugs for Use in ‘Nuclear Emergency’,” by Chris Menahan, INFORMATION LIBERATION, http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63385

October 7

Switzerland also has more direct democracy than any other country using referendums giving all citizens the right and power to vote about real issues. Representative democracy such as what the US has is better than fascist dictatorship but it cannot compete with direct democracy

“Switzerland, Not USA, Is The ‘Most Innovative’ Country In The World,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/switzerland-not-usa-most-innovative-country-world?fbclid=IwAR3qZq6NZ-NlKHLvaYxuB8cYra9Cp4Tob-If7hFqnrKd3GcaWIQYL4PsF0c

October 7

Let’s hope so.

“Put the battle between Good and Evil to one side. It is these three factors – class, race, geography – that will shape the outcome of the midterms, whatever the media says. The endless kabuki theatre pitting Trump and his minions against Democrats may delight and enrage America’s elites – but for the American people, it is still material concerns that matter.”

“What really divides America,” by Joel Kotkin, UNHEARD.COM, https://unherd.com/2022/10/what-really-divides-america/?=frlh&fbclid=IwAR1HtAEtJeKkXJjqKo0cSA8SEvvvCQ4dqFhdNK7SVISFLraEmhm1Ya08lQI

October 7

He finally did something helpful.

Now when is he going to legalize all illegal drugs so their distribution can be controlled by law enforcement and taxed like wine, beer, booze, and cigs, getting rid of street gangs and pushers, the now equivalent of alcohol gangs and pushers during the USian failed experiment with Prohibition during the 1930s?

“Biden pardons thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession, orders review of federal pot laws,” by Christina Wilkie, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/06/biden-to-pardon-all-prior-federal-offenses-of-simple-marijuana-possession-.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR3e1YFnhOtt9PWUw66ETpAjh2TsoNc1CqKZTbcN2MkoyTa16Gmy2Cet_-8

October 7

Then why not negotiate with the SOB and bring this bullshit to a halt?

“Biden: Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ risk highest since ’62 crisis,”by Ameer Madhani, Ellen Knickmeyer, and Josh Boak, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/biden-nuclear-risk-1d0f1e40cff3a92c662c57f274ce0e25?fbclid=IwAR2-RuhT1StYUvgNsjJUJr109w9WX9wtX-qBrpS5MmEJXzq0qBrEEPpC5EQ.

October 6

Interesting. I grew up thinking I might have some African heritage given my unusual curly-wavy hair. This was not the case according to a DNA test at Ancestry.com that showed my heritage is England and Northwestern Europe, 46%; Scotland, 39%; Ireland, 9%; Wales, 4%; Norway, 2%.

Ancestry.com calls it your ethnicity inheritance, but it’s also genes you inherited that are similar to genes of most of the people living in various countries who are in the ancestry.com data base. I asked my grandfather once if he knew of any Africans in our family line. He said he didn’t, but he also said if you go back far enough we’re all Africans. It’s not only a question of how many African Americans have European heritage, a sizeable percentage pointed out in the article below, but also how many straight-haired pale supposedly Non-African American Americans have African heritage. The answer would not make any difference in a non-racist society, but it does in a racist society such as the US that causes insane ignorant racial slurs to be inflicted on Earthian humans living in the US because of their physical characteristics, regardless of their true genetic heritage, assuming knowing such a thing is possible

“Do All African Americans have European Heritage, if so how much,” by Kent Etheridge, QUORA.COM, https://blackhistoryandpolitics.quora.com/An-excellent-read-https-www-quora-com-Do-all-African-Americans-have-European-heritage-If-so-how-much-on-average-answe?ch=1&oid=57495062&share=f6c3c229&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=post&fbclid=IwAR3EWVxnundbb-uqjP-CFZN3aTcBPB_r43x12uqZSCcQBxz4kg3EixDRktY

October 6

Never knew this

“The Long Arm of US Slavery,” by Yosef Brody, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/05/the-long-arms-of-us-slavery/?fbclid=IwAR3pDMsRqvYVmwYUNRZo5uUISwzBRtfViOOCcDMSP65uXVry7VG883-OA7E

October 4

We already have a civil war in the US, a war of words so far

“Disunited States,” by Serge Halimi, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/30/disunited-states/?fbclid=IwAR0kFd73d67o91dONAze6u6Y1t9MCXVngrlUdjCenEZNZu9-S5Y1qzbTGTQ

October 4

Say it aint so Joe

“‘End War in Ukraine’ Say 66 Nations at UN General Assembly,” by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/30/end-war-in-ukraine-say-66-nations-at-un-general-assembly/?fbclid=IwAR1XXbDDfC9qW0Wnl5pN9PBwgnu8yHJ4P9DBqGld3QyN1A5Rotvatdltumw

October 4

Another great article by Eve Ottenberg

“The Global Fight Against Fascism,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/30/the-global-fight-against-fascism-2/?fbclid=IwAR3eOb0sbs35KCV9GLFuPi6mG4Wv4MUKBNn0Pi8NUuRL7kTPiOki1YL5Jw8

October 3

Scary stuff

“Who Profits from Pipeline Terror?,” by Pepe Escobar, THE CRADLE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-who-profits-pipeline-terror?fbclid=IwAR304tJ7app4ib27XPsyWOTHUw8fcFlCz3icsVGU428D3jlv3T8QNwk-bh4

October 3

How much longer can this go on? The USian Federal Reserve System can create funny money by punching digits into its computer system to produce numbers it calls real money. They use this “money” to buy USian debt instruments, treasury bills, notes, etc., and private debt and asset instruments. The US govt uses this funny money and tax money to stimulate the private sector and to pay for its yearly military and other expenses, including loan payments to the Social Security System Trust Fund to pay back real money the Federal govt borrowed from the Social Security System. The private sector borrows funny money at low interest from the Federal Reserve System to advance its own interests, including the buying back of stock of corporations to enrich stockholders and executive cronies owning the stock. The total federal debt keeps growing and growing through time. As of 2:57 pm September 12, 2022, the total US federal debt, accumulated throughout its history, according to US Debt Clock.org, was about $30,884,777,487,108, almost thirty-one trillion dollars. So far in fiscal year 2022, total USian federal spending has been about $5,952,558,908,352, about six trillion dollars; and total tax revenue has been about $4,459,634,257,768; resulting in a deficit of about $1,492,922,523,176, about one and one-half trillion dollars, to be paid with Fed funny money and money paid by other purchasers of USian federal debt. The US Federal Reserve System now owns about 11.2 percent of the total USian Federal debt, about 2.5 trillion dollars worth. About 50 percent of the Federal debt is owned by foreign countries, China and others. About 48 percent of the USian debt is owned by USian private citizens and other purchasers in the US. The Federal Reserve is now worried about inflation, so it has been jacking up the interest rate charged everyone in the USian banking system. This causes recession in the real economy. How bad will the incipient recession have to get before the Fed starts lowering interest rates again to cure the recession they had to cause to lower inflation by raising interest rates? Since 1980 or so the losers in this process have been middle and lower income USians who have received no increases in their real incomes while the real incomes of upper income USians have significantly increased. It appears middle and lower income level USians in the private sector will again pay a high price for another roller-coaster ride in the undependable USian economy, getting stuck again with tenuous employment and lower real incomes after all is said and done coping with this swing of the business cycle, as the USian Federal Reserve System as usual creates funny money and lowers and raises interest rates causing and curing recoveries and recessions. How do Earthian humans responsible for creating and managing this diabolical system sleep at night?

Comment by RJS

“The US Productive Sector Recession,” by Daniel Lacalle, https://www.dlacalle.com/en/the-u-s-productive-sector-recession/

October 22

To take over the US, Repugs need to get more Repugs elected senators in various states.

How to get another one elected from the state of Georgia? Donald Trump and other oligarchs of the Republican Party knowing most Georgians like football, especially University of Georgia retired football stars like Herschel Walker, an African American, have arranged for him to be their candidate to run in the Georgia US senate race against Democrat Raphael Warnock, also an African American, a minister by profession, a good one who is articulate, intelligent, and coherent, but not charismatic.

Walker has worked for Trump before, starting his professional football career working for Trump’s professional football team in the now defunct American Football League, the New Jersey Generals, at an inordinately high salary in 1983, after dropping out of the University of Georgia after his junior year.

Georgia has a lot of African American voters, and to capture more of those voters, the Repug establishment decided to recruit Herschel Walker as the Repug candidate in the Senate race. Most non-African American Georgians in usual circumstances will vote for Repug candidates no matter who the Repug oligarchs put up, and most African American voters in usual circumstances will vote for the Dem candidate no matter who Dem oligarchs put up.

Therefore, a good strategy for the Repug power structure to win the senate election in Georgia, they seem to think, is to put up Herschel Walker as their candidate. Because of his football fame and charisma, he might draw votes from African Americans who would normally vote for the establishment Dem candidate, no matter how unqualified Walker might be as a USian senator.

Cedric the Entertainer in his podcast below says he thinks Hershey Walker has been taking Creatine after retiring as a football player to keep his muscles tight and bulging.

Whether Walker becomes a paid running back again, this time running plays called by sociopathic quarterbacks of the national Repug political machine, such as Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, remains to be seen.

Walker has not been shown wearing a coat and tie, the uniform of a USian senator, in any political advertisement I have seen, most likely to keep Georgia voters focused on his unusual muscles instead of how much he knows about solving existential social, economic, political, religious, and ecological problems.

Will Walker not wear a coat and tie in the Senate Chamber in the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. if he wins this bizarre and sleazy Georgia Senate beauty contest Tuesday, November 8, 2022?

This is another political can of worms orchestrated by cynical USian Repug oligarchs for their own selfish short run entertainment and emolument, to be gained at the expense of others.

Comment by RJS

“Cedric the Entertainer hits Herschel Walker in new attack ad,” by Juliegrace Brufke, WASHINGTON EXAMINER, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/cedric-the-entertainer-herschel-walker-attack-ad?fbclid=IwAR2DYHeUO1lzTm3rg7MXIuaUFPEf9doa2U9QoiIndJzJORAovjR-Ox5xE8Q

October 2

I again find myself generally agreeing with a former prominent un-unhinged Repug, Ronald Reagan’s Director of his Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985), David Stockman

“Stockman Slams Washington’s Pointless War On Behalf Of A Fake Nation,” by David Stockman, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stockman-slams-washingtons-pointless-war-behalf-fake-nation?fbclid=IwAR1XXYIzWAW5365hOgrzwHUVgkyhl8Id4nF8iK35b8YxKGYi2C5N-OJY6M4

October 2

It’s not hard to see why they are depressed considering how irrational Spaceship Earth is, but it does seem there might be a positive correlation between the anti-depression medicine usage of a country and its social, educational, economic, and cultural levels, indicating relative ignorance is more blissful than relative enlightenment

“The Growing Global Reliance On Antidepressants,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/growing-global-reliance-antidepressants?fbclid=IwAR0IaRaJtHybkUrw7iEWQj4T39Bjw7VFV2I5whB2TFWyxzl2djcdjknk7X0

October 2

Hard to believe

“Visualizing The Global Wealth Pyramid,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/visualizing-global-wealth-pyramid?fbclid=IwAR10rssvOa2LgLh-KPUpKRxZD64zdav7DHSKNQXFNlyKFMmtR-LRTTxYMHo

September 30

Say it aint so Joe

“The Democratic Party, Now the Leading Party of War,” by John V. Walsh, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/29/the-democratic-party-now-the-leading-party-of-war/?fbclid=IwAR2qfyJ1zQkv1fYpH_WvvFVmKKEYhd1EItqOYU01LeK-CsHkvGrQ5jVhWdQ

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 version of the 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 the day, a case taken from a planned or operating business prepared by casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (October 24, 2022) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eight 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://blog.effectivelearning.net/.  

Feel free to forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian–34 anyway you see fit.

 

 

 

  THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-Three, September 27, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, specializing in Adult education.

THE EARTHIAN is a digest of articles written by free-thinking truth-seeking critical-thinking creative-thinking truth-accepting hard-hitting courageous writers published in linked Internet journals containing facts, perspectives, theories, models, memes, 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 aboard Spaceship Earth.

“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

OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW

By RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON

Should Spaceship Earth, Inc. democracy chapters be established 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 count the consensual answers to make necessary changes. Consensual tactics, strategies, and policies would then be developed around Earth for dealing with the whole computerized Spaceship Earth management system, that could be operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming in magnum computer systems. Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming to implement the bottom-up recommendations of millions of members in discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth. Each member of elite groups in charge of the codes for the magnum computer system would serve limited terms. These members would not vote or decide what to do. They would see to it that the computer system implemented the consensual answers of millions of Earthian humans from all walks of life, as determined by honest, free, fair, and frank democratic Game-free discussions in democracy chapters all around Spaceship Earth, as explained and shown in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. The overall objective would be to manage the system in such a way as to maximize the lifetime satisfactions of all Earthian humans, as well as all other species of life aboard Spaceship Earth.

Moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum management system that temporary elite Earthian human overseers at the top would be required to obey. If changes should be made in the codes programmed in the overall system they would be sent back to the Earthian democracy chapters for discussion before changes would be made in the overall system based on a tabulation and analysis of consensual recommendations from the democracy chapters.

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

A management system such as this would significantly improve previous systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically empowered fickle, egotistical, greedy, power mad, insane, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history and banal living for most Earthian humans during normal times, caused by the unfair and indiscriminate inexorable tunneling out of Bad, OK, or Good Luck for hundreds, thousands, millions, or billons of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth at all times since time immemorial, after evolving from bosons and quarks at the time of the Big Bang.

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

About the only way anyone can be seriously affected by others is through democratic face to face discussions, through serious, rigorous honest dialectical, dialogical, analogical arguing based on facts and reasoning of all kinds, honestly dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs.

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

It follows that changing the scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, while considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.

Constructivism is considered relevant in all four Effective Learning Report books recommended below, having been discussed explicitly in Business Voyages and listed as a source in the bibliographies of three books.

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

For more information on how to co-construct better organizations and economic systems using transactional analysis read Business Voyages:  Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=business+voyages+richard+john+stapleton

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

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

 This recently-published novel 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.  Forty participants from all walks of life were paid $5000 monthly for participating in weekend seminars conducted in central city hotels in various cities randomly selected around the US. If randomly selected as the Leader of the Moment the participant had to define what s/he thought was the most important problem facing Spaceship Earth, present alternatives, and make a recommendation for change.. What s/he said would then be discussed by members of the group on a free-flow first come-first serve basis. It was against the law of the seminar to interrupt speakers or raise hands to get permission to speak. Discussions lasted until they ran out of steam with most issues covered.

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/  .

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you are not familiar with the definitions of transactional analysis terms, jargon, and lingo such as I’m OK–You’re OK, Ego States, Parent, Adult, Child, transactions, Games, scripts, rackets, life positions, Drama Triangle, etc., just type in your Internet search bar the words transactional analysis before them, making them transactional analysis ego states, transactional analysis Child ego state, transactional analysis Games, transactional analysis drama triangle, etc., while asking Google what they are, in sentences such as What are transactional analysis psychological Games? You will pull up more information about them than you want to know.

Most Earthian humans know what it is to be egotistical, but they have little understanding of how humans use specific human egotistical manifestations such as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states transacting with others socially and psychologically.

One of the biggest egotists of Earthian human history, a narcissist, playing BALANCE SHEET psychological Games, is Donald Trump. As shown in SOURCE articles below containing monetized numbers, Trump is a world-class liar and loser playing BALANCE SHEET, and he should go to jail for it, just like other famous political USian BALANCE SHEET psychological Game players in the US have, such as the renowned Georgia US representative, Bo Ginn, in 1995, and the notorious cotton farmer with political ties to USian president Lyndon Johnson, Billie Sol Estes of Texas in 1965, who served time for lying to bankers about their assets, liabilities, and net worth to get loans.

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

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

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

If you have ideas on how to democratically discuss in Game-free ways (devoid of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim roles) economic and political problems and opportunities go to the Ogeechee Economic Forum at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ and 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, including an overview of USian economic history, including the Trumpian affair. Rout Logger is the protagonist of the novel story. It’s available now at Amazon for immediate digital reading on any device as a Kindle book for $4.99.

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

For practical doable short run strategies for dealing with Spaceship Earth’s social, economic, political, and military problems in the US read Recommendations for Waking Up From the American Nightmare by Richard John Stapleton, Effective Learning Publications, 2012, 217 pages, at https://www.amazon.com/Recommendations-American-Nightmare-Business-Voyages-ebook/dp/B009TOJVPI

For more free information on short run strategies and policies for dealing with current USian economic and political problems read “The FreeFairProgress Party” at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/freefairprogressparty/.

FOLLOWING IS PROBABLY THE MOST INTERESTING AND IMMEDIATELY RELEVANT PART OF THE EARTHIAN, A SMORGASBORD OF CURRENT THINKING OF HARD-HITTING TRUTH-SEEKING TRUTH-ACCEPTING COURAGEOUS WRITERS AND ARTISTS, FREELY AND HONESTLY THINKING, WRITING, CREATING, AND SPEAKING FROM ALL THEIR EGO STATES, PUBLISHED IN RECENT WEEKS IN LINKED ARTICLES, PODCASTS, AND MEMES IN INTERNET MEDIA AROUND SPACESHIP EARTH.

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

They’ve already escaped reality, made possible by accidentally capitalizing on a few bright ideas that happened to them enabling them to exploit the bright ideas of a few tech geniuses and the drudge work of thousands of tech workers. They are Earthian humans who had very good luck living in their accidental worm holes of existence, having accidentally had very profitable ideas happen in their subconscious and conscious minds at the right time and place. Most likely their good luck will play out there in their bunkers if serious nuclear war breaks out aboard Spaceship Earth. Sooner or later they will run out of food and water inside them, and life outside won’t be worth living, if feasible at all.

“Billionaire bunkers: How the World’s wealthiest are paying to escape reality,” by Eric Spitznagel, NEW YORK POST, https://nypost.com/2022/09/24/how-the-worlds-billionaires-are-paying-to-escape-global-disaster/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR2CmNkCv5wC9oujltdh3Ln_hXBRqNTpoj-Fk5yaj1yf_rNE7JTZKOxT81I.

September 26

Insane Power Moves

“US warns Russia of ‘catastrophic’ consequences of nuclear strike,” YAHOO! NEWS, https://news.yahoo.com/us-warns-russia-castastrophic-consequences-014544335.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb.

September 23

I could not agree more

“I Didn’t Join the Military to Fight for Taiwan,” by Dan McNnight, THE LIBERTARIAN INSTITUTE, https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/i-didnt-join-the-military-to-fight-for-taiwan/?fbclid=IwAR1LPOnMk-1Ww3G_E1t37TiJMVjkYJdNlHG-ZThgq1ZbDzzEtWW8LkVBxHc.

September 23

Another dynamite article by Eve Ottenberg

“Class Warfare Grinds On,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/23/class-warfare-grinds-on/?fbclid=IwAR3GAadSDzJ75aKSMjqcczYc3dU7aFiJ7kRkB_Yi8xBYXw_lgbl-ZD_f_ys.

September 23

Another comprehensive overview by Noam Chomsky

“The War in Ukraine Has Entered a New Phase,” by Noam Chomsky, COUNTERPUNCH, https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-the-war-in-ukraine-has-entered-a-new-phase/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR15opul2tZKdJGBZ5QF4AEt18-WY-9kIlylvZDOxmN5_tubhjHtOG1OtOU.

September 23

“With hindsight, it appears what he sold to his voters as genius-level observations and ideas running for president and acting as president was little more than magical-thinking and wild-assed guesses that did not work. It’s possible he has lost money as an entrepreneur over his career, adjusted for inflation, after adding and subtracting his winning and losing deals from what he inherited, leaving him with less net worth now than he started out with. Regardless, to give him a little credit, he got his small hands on enough inherited and leveraged-loan money to buy some tall apartment buildings, casinos, hotels, and golf courses, and put his Trump name on them. He even bought a professional football team, the New Jersey Generals, that he owned before the American Football League, the AFL, became defunct, like a lot of things Trump bought. He even had enough money to buy the USian presidency in 2016.

“And then, after being exposed and deposed as a would-be fascist dictator, Trump told his supporters a very big lie, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, that he really did not lose the election, and he is now extorting and extracting more millions of dollars from his donors and cult members to run again in 2024, if, as he has said in[…]”

Excerpt From

As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases

Richard John Stapleton

This material may be protected by copyright.

Available now as an ebook at Amazon for $4.99

As The Rooster Crows: Earthian OKness Increases, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://www.amazon.com/Rooster-Crows-Earthian-OKness-Increases-ebook/dp/B0B9XY3HKR/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1663870867&refinements=p_27%3ARichard%20Stapleton&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&fbclid=IwAR3ok5Y7HdKS3vf7ck4ZfQb7rU-u2H19LHwISO4fnvQzGA4PCLU_VZ2KrJE.

September 22  

Say it ain’t so Joe

“In 1983 We Came Closer to Nuclear War Than We Knew: A Cautionary Tale,” by Patrick Mazza, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/20/in-1983-we-came-closer-to-nuclear-war-than-we-knew-a-cautionary-tale/?fbclid=IwAR3g_YRIiQfKqEJegxZdo1FPTn7woJyZUAO8N3UdTvXy8V6cN5-3NodydS8.

September 21

A case of mass insanity?

“Wall-to-Wall Mourning in Food Bank Britain,” by Kenneth Surin, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/21/wall-to-wall-mourning-in-food-bank-britain/?fbclid=IwAR2JjDlw5s4QTTMF1YTmybIu05bYbyEEgSsnr5gN1xbRF6PR1GLhYhwWgh0.

September 21

Pathetic

“Donald Trump Sued for Fraud by NY Attorney General–With Criminal Referral to IRS,” NBCNEWYORK.COM, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/donald-trump-sued-for-fraud-by-ny-attorney-general-in-long-awaited-case/3874251/?fbclid=IwAR2avlA_l-fnOKViuPVqp0oVkVc49evgdCT8xLKDroFZZC6gN_u73h_a1Fc.

September 21

“Putin makes threat to NUKE West and declares ‘I’m not bluffing’ in chilling address,” by Nick Parker, Jerome Starkey, and Natasha Clark, THE SUN, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19870657/putin-addresses-russia-ukraine-invasion/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb.

September 21

You don’t say

“New York sues Donald Trump, company and family  members over widespread fraud claims, seeks at least $250 million in penalties,” by Dan Mangan and Kevin Breuninger, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/21/new-york-sues-donald-trump-company-and-family-members-over-widespread-fraud-claims-seeks-at-least-250-million-in-penalties.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR07lX3eePEYrpy3M2rg18G63P2PFnXsJRqu9uS02U291PsuWe0o-XgSpBE.

September 21

To take over the US, Repugs need to get more Repugs elected senators in various states.

How to get another one elected from the state of Georgia? Donald Trump and other oligarchs of the Republican Party knowing most Georgians like football, especially University of Georgia retired football stars like Herschel Walker, an African American, have arranged for him to be their candidate to run in the Georgia US senate race against Democrat Raphael Warnock, also an African American, a minister by profession, a good one who is articulate, intelligent, and coherent, but not charismatic.

Walker has worked for Trump before, starting his professional football career with Trump’s professional football team in the now defunct American Football League, the New Jersey Generals, at an inordinately high salary in 1983, after dropping out of the University of Georgia after his junior year.

Georgia has a lot of African American voters, and to capture more of those voters, the Repug establishment decided to recruit Herschel Walker as the Repug candidate in the Senate race. Most non-African American Georgians in usual circumstances will vote for Repug candidates no matter who the Repug oligarchs put up, and most African American voters in usual circumstances will vote for the Dem candidate no matter who Dem oligarchs put up.

Therefore, a good strategy for the Repug power structure to win the senate election in Georgia, they seem to think, is to put up Herschel Walker as their candidate. Because of his football fame and charisma, he might draw votes from African Americans who would normally vote for the establishment Dem candidate, no matter how unqualified Walker might be as a USian senator.

Cedric the Entertainer in his podcast below says he thinks Hershey Walker has been taking Creatine after retiring as a football player to keep his muscles tight and bulging.

Whether Walker becomes a paid running back again, this time running plays called by sociopathic quarterbacks of the national Repug political machine, such as Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, remains to be seen.

Walker has not been shown wearing a coat and tie, the uniform of a USian senator, in any political advertisement I have seen, most likely to keep Georgia voters focused on his unusual muscles instead of how much he knows about solving existential social, economic, political, religious, and ecological problems.

Will Walker not wear a coat and tie in the Senate Chamber in the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. if he wins this bizarre manipulated Georgia Senate popularity and beauty contest Tuesday, November 8, 2022?

This is another political can of worms orchestrated by cynical USian Repug oligarchs for their own selfish short run entertainment and emolument, to be gained at the expense of others.   

“Cedric the Entertainer hits Herschel Walker in new attack ad,” by Juliegrace Brufke, Congressional Reporter, WASHINGTON EXAMINER, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/cedric-the-entertainer-herschel-walker-attack-ad?fbclid=IwAR2jydegePeLKbr9XlNq9447RDr7bAAKozgtdUF5ZNecetBI2zC2CWiRryU.  

September 20

Well worth a look and listen

“Carl Sagan testifying before Congress in 1985 on climate change,” YOUTUBE, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI.

September 20

I did not know about this

Here is a Churchillian-like comment I wrote expressing my sentiments about the English monarchy: “Never in the history of Earthian human states of affairs were a few Earthian humans rewarded so much for doing so little.”

“The First Billionaire to Become UK’s King,” by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/20/the-first-billionaire-to-become-uks-king/?fbclid=IwAR2rl5DJgKk91MKIAKXGSNCxCo90YPsC_WGyRoNXwhP8jxcd4B6sSu2Y_O8.

September 20

It’s hard to find cannon fodder these days, in both Russia and the US

“Critics of the Pentagon have long condemned what is known as the “poverty draft.” The military’s offers of financial incentives like student loan repayment, free college, and other cash incentives are a draw for young people experiencing debt or poverty.

“And, knowing this, the military often actively travels to schools in poor and nonwhite neighborhoods in order to recruit; then, once they join, Black, Latinx, Indigenous and low-income people are disproportionately placed in the most dangerous situations compared to other enlistees.

“This predatory practice is unethical for many reasons, critics of the practice argue. People in active military service are at high risk of mental health issues like suicide, and critics say that poor people shouldn’t have to put their bodies and lives on the line just in order to afford higher education.

“With that in mind, critics said on social media that it is alarming that Republicans would not only acknowledge this fact but also openly advocate for it, saying that Republicans were saying “the quiet part out loud.”

“Activist group the Debt Collective wrote that if canceling student debt actually does decrease military recruitment, that would, in fact, be a good thing.

“One of the best parts about canceling student debt is thinking of all the people who no longer feel compelled to enlist in the military to pay off their loans,” the group wrote on Twitter. “It is not a stretch to say that canceling student debt – and making college free – would hamper U.S. imperial/colonial efforts.”

“GOP: Student Loan Forgiveness Hurts Ability to Lure Poor People Into Military” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/gop-student-loan-forgiveness-hurts-ability-to-lure-poor-people-into-military/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2RgBew_Dgg1hOS7kIRt9IoMbRLf889ROkIo42C-Rlhbzm098-afmiqqGg.

September 20

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Warnock, Walker deadlocked in new poll in Georgia Senate race,” by Julia Shaero, THEHILL.COM, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3651666-warnock-walker-deadlocked-in-new-poll-in-georgia-senate-race/?fbclid=IwAR37uzngBDad7FkxYWr8XQslfab0mf6HJA2Yd6qC8u2tj2R4gocW-XCl_Yw.

September 19

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Erasing QAnon Fascism: A Case Study in Black Comedy,” by Anthony Dimaggio, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/19/erasing-qanon-fascism-a-case-study-in-black-comedy/?fbclid=IwAR1OO9YQ4NsBqkJgxJGy4z04E3lx1yssVHl-eFK2pye6Ovrykxv1fm1n-QM.

September 18

Worth a read. Love is an oft-misconstrued word, often used to extort favors, exemplified by Trump telling his cult members at the January 6 insurrection when he finally told them to go home that he loved them. The word love is often considered synonymous with sexual arousal. This book gets to the heart of what love really is.

“Hannah Arendt on Love and How to Live with the Fundamental Fear of Loss,” THE MARGINALIAN, https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/02/25/love-and-saint-augustine-hannah-arendt/?fbclid=IwAR3IvDRMxMFg2ejFdQeNE9geIpDMwmEfnuk5RLIAz8K7SaRBYYUsU4rGYS4.

September 17

Spot on. Another dynamite article by Eve Ottenberg

“The Chuckleheads Take Charge,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/16/the-chuckleheads-take-charge/?fbclid=IwAR0VwnfS2sl2BC9SVQsG7dUMSwhDG-KXsSeQ2W5WEqKv8_1-JT47kMlokoY.

September 16

Some good advice

“What seemingly strange trait will reveal a lot about a person?,” by Cary von Seggern, QUORA.COM, https://www.quora.com/What-seemingly-strange-trait-will-reveal-a-lot-about-a-person/answer/Cory-von-Seggern?ch=1&oid=106391555&share=6f6238d2&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0_PmAZFaTJp2xvyAoVlQm1szQzDURxJ5Ma81z54HL0MJdnbQ5zPv-Vp98.

September 16

Interesting. I grew up thinking I might have some African American heritage given my unusual kind of curly-wavy hair, which was not the case according to a DNA test at Ancestry.com that showed my heritage is England & Northwestern Europe, 46%; Scotland, 39%; Ireland, 9%; Wales, 4%; Norway, 2%

“Do all African Americans have European heritage? If so, how much on average?,” by Kent Etheridge, QUORA.COM, https://blackhistoryandpolitics.quora.com/An-excellent-read-https-www-quora-com-Do-all-African-Americans-have-European-heritage-If-so-how-much-on-average-answe?ch=1&oid=57495062&share=f6c3c229&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=post&fbclid=IwAR0W5WDtEHrAxiLxozvMtBRPWpLDzvHDdWhshPfL43Q6CeeVswvPWBR9QPc.

September 15

Here’s a well thought and reasoned article by Courtenay Barnett

“President Trump and past and present cognitive dissonance,” by Courtenay Barnett, PAMBAZUKA NEWS, https://www.pambazuka.org/democracy-governance/president-trump-and-past-and-present-cognitive-dissonance?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork&fbclid=IwAR3Ta6QFf–QpUuwxs1Q6XKLVNuZ-NjyCHRBJ4l4u19RDTSG0p5I_LDQyQs.

September 14

Spaceship Earth needs more corporations like this. This is probably unprecedented for an Earthian corporation. All corporations producing the necessities of human life would eventually have to do something like this to implement my idea on how to create Earthian human sustainability that I recommended in my article mentioned above, “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.” at   https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-evolution-of-spaceship-earth-inc/  .

“Patagonia founder gives away the $3bn company to environmental causes: ‘Earth is now our only shareholder’,” by Ethan Freedman, YAHOO! NEWS, https://news.yahoo.com/patagonia-founder-gives-away-3bn-203333867.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb.

September 13

Say it aint so Joe. Another hard-truth telling article by Paul Street. This one is on how two wrong political parties do not make a right.

“What’s connecting and driving the playing-with-fire strategy is a pervasive pessimism. For all the sound logic of maneuvering to run against a weaker opponent, there’s also a dispiriting sense that without some nutjob or menacing villain on the other side, Democratic candidates can’t win on their own. ‘I watch focus groups, and Democratic voters are totally checked out and depressed,’ one [Democratic] strategist says. ‘They’re just so sick of everyone involved in politics. Yes, the Supreme Court’s Roe decision enraged them. But some of that ire is directed at their own party: Why the fuck did you guys not codify this when you had the chance? Instead of righteous indignation, it’s more like righteous resignation. So anything that would light a fire under Democrats in November is welcome'” (emphasis added).

“Anything…like the OFR being the Republicans’ presidential nominee in 2024. As Smith ads:

“Including–and especially–Trump making it official, sooner rather than later, that he’s running in 2024. ‘It would be a giant gift to everyone in the party, from Biden on down, to have that guy out there,’ another top Democratic consultant says. Trump has hardly kept his intentions a secret, but the reality of him as a threat, the thinking goes, would shift the conversation away from inflation and toward the existential threat to democracy.”

“Hey: what could go wrong? Right?”

“Transparent Idiocy and Cynically Wishful Democratic Party Thinking: Reflections on a Poll and its Reporting,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/09/transparent-idiocy-and-cynically-wishful-democratic-party-thinking-reflections-on-a-poll-and-its-reporting/?fbclid=IwAR2E0OOPFYThbjiQ1FEYwD0XwUlG40LSv7qJqmA5JmUXDm5vBJIJpy5eo1g.

September 13

Of course, the abominable electoral college should be abolished

“Jan. 6 Committee Member Suggests Ending Electoral College,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/jan-6-committee-member-suggests-ending-electoral-college/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0CF6oTLy_MW6wZj06YOQhrlyDaRFwJLLuVmozHWiqOTouc2Pbo-e9mHYE.

September 13

Generally agree

“What did Kierkegaard mean when he said that ‘Truth is subjectivity and subjectivity is truth’,” by Frederick Dolan, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/What-did-Kierkegaard-mean-when-he-said-that-Truth-is-subjectivity-and-subjectivity-is-truth/answer/Frederick-Dolan?ch=1&oid=367771644&share=de76c81e&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR2VlU6Eq20tau8PkYc3oZOrZDdRDRR3kAd1tQ9n-5Ml5oaBjJ7MOjMh8AI.

September 12

How much longer can this go on? The USian Federal Reserve System can create funny money by punching digits into its computer system to produce numbers it calls real money. They use this “money” to buy USian debt instruments, treasury bills, notes, etc., and private debt and asset instruments. The US govt uses this funny money and tax money to stimulate the private sector and to pay for its yearly military and other expenses, including loan payments to the Social Security System Trust Fund to pay back real money the Federal govt borrowed from the Social Security System. The private sector borrows funny money at low interest from the Federal Reserve System to advance its own interests, including the buying back of stock of corporations to enrich stockholders and executive cronies owning the stock. The total federal debt keeps growing and growing through time. As of 2:57 pm September 12, 2022, the total US federal debt, accumulated throughout its history, according to US Debt Clock.org, was about $30,884,777,487,108, almost thirty-one trillion dollars. So far in fiscal year 2022, total USian federal spending has been about $5,952,558,908,352, about six trillion dollars; and total tax revenue has been about $4,459,634,257,768, resulting in a deficit of about $1,492,922,523,176, about one and one-half trillion dollars, to be paid with Fed funny money and money paid by other purchasers of USian federal debt. The US Federal Reserve System now owns about 11.2 percent of the total USian Federal debt, about 2.5 trillion dollars worth. About 50 percent of the Federal debt is owned by foreign countries, China and others. About 48 percent of the USian debt is owned by USian private citizens and other purchasers in the US. The Federal Reserve is now worried about inflation, so it has been jacking up the interest rate charged everyone in the USian banking system. This causes recession in the real economy. How bad will the incipient recession have to get before the Fed starts lowering interest rates again to cure the recession they had to cause to lower inflation by raising interest rates? Since 1980 or so the losers in this process have been middle and lower income USians who have received no increases in their real incomes while the real incomes of upper income USians have significantly increased. It appears middle and lower income level USians in the private sector will again pay a high price for another roller-coaster ride in the treacherous USian economy, getting stuck again with tenuous employment and lower real incomes after all is said and done coping with this swing of the business cycle, as the USian Federal Reserve System as usual creates funny money and lowers and raises interest rates causing and curing recoveries and recessions. How do Earthian humans responsible for creating and managing this diabolical system sleep at night?

“The US Productive Sector Recession,” by Daniel Lacalle,  DANIEL LACALLE, https://www.dlacalle.com/en/the-u-s-productive-sector-recession/.

September 12

“Modern slavery is present in basically every country, with more than half of cases of forced labour and a quarter of forced marriages in upper-middle income or high-income countries.

“It would be a mistake to believe that forced labour is solely the problem of poor countries,” Ryder told AFP.

“The report found that the number of people — mainly women and girls — stuck in forced marriages had risen by a full 6.6 million since the last global estimates in 2016.

“The number of people in forced labour swelled by 2.7 million over the same period.

“The increase was driven entirely by more forced labour in the private economy, including forced commercial sexual exploitation.

“But the report also said that 14 percent of those in forced labour were doing jobs imposed by state authorities, voicing concern about abuse of compulsory prison labour in many countries, including the United States.

“It also pointed to grave concerns raised by the UN rights office about “credible accounts of forced labour under exceptionally harsh conditions” in North Korea.

“And it highlighted the situation in China, where several UN agencies have warned of possible forced labour, including in the Xinjiang region, where Beijing stands accused of detaining more than one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.”

“50 Million People Stuck in ‘Modern Slavery’: UN,” by Nina Larson, BARRON’S, https://www.barrons.com/news/50-million-people-stuck-in-modern-slavery-un-01662966307?fbclid=IwAR1PCQ7I-cP6rX2IioJpZCKXXJzQ_o0vKzZ0JP0VQ6eNXotdgDXfkgsMD48.

September 12

Great article by the BBC on possibly the number one problem facing Earthian humans today

“How many people can Earth handle?”, BBC,  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220905-is-the-world-overpopulated?ocid=ww.social.link.facebook.

September 11

A relevant presentation on how Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin are being reincarnated around Spaceship Earth

“Fascism Has Gone Mainstream,” by Kelly Hayes, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/audio/fascism-has-gone-mainstream/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3-s5QsYi4YSPZM08BBdcvzloRAEjH0n-17Li7I5q5fxb9avMWkfnO3umE.

September 9

End this I’m OK–You’re Not OK madness before it ends us all

“Sino-American Relations: Breaking the Gordian Knot,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/08/sino-american-relations-breaking-the-gordian-knot/?fbclid=IwAR3-s5QsYi4YSPZM08BBdcvzloRAEjH0n-17Li7I5q5fxb9avMWkfnO3umE.

September 9

The filibuster must go

“Report: 17 of 18 Pro-Democracy Bills Were Killed by Filibuster This Congress,” by Sharon Zhang, COUNTERPUNCH, https://truthout.org/articles/report-17-of-18-pro-democracy-bills-were-killed-by-filibuster-this-congress/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1lbr8Iv_bJK1LgpYja0nP4Xj0J_1diqEkgcpOfj-uO8NBx2YadTeN2RsI.

September 8

Worse than you might have thought

“Summary: U.S. Drought Monitor,” U.S. DROUGHT MONITOR, https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Summary.aspx?fbclid=IwAR17DcQ0icQt__LZugUlei3EN9ID-lOODa16G39XWlytguL9quR_ThUhiPM.

September 8

Say it ain’t so Joe

“Silencing the Lambs: How Propaganda Works,” by John Pilger, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/08/silencing-the-lambs-how-propaganda-works/?fbclid=IwAR2kNMnO3mVnBDEt9k3PZPNq7L7kKT96mrFDvoKnefbxwV7cc175cMbsQoQ.

September 6

Say this ain’t so Joe

“Let’s Stop Pretending America Is a Functioning Democracy,” by Chris Hedges, SCHEERPOST, https://scheerpost.com/2022/09/05/chris-hedges-lets-stop-pretending-america-is-a-functioning-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR12flPAn7XbuOJUteRkLGl1FVLlh97dk6jpG3De5eW9s-T6u2e1K5ITbTo.

September 8

So sad

“Trump is a ‘deranged, defective personality’ we’re watching ‘self-destruct in real time’: George Conway,” by Matthew Chapman, QUORA, https://nevertrumpers.quora.com/Trump-is-a-deranged-defective-personality-were-watching-self-destruct-in-real-time-George-Conway?ch=1&oid=80281575&share=fd6c83b4&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=post&fbclid=IwAR2kkx7BExumOAXi_FCCdVkH9sH62vb_l68H0cK7b1awYVdTpv0YEI3Ov7w.

September 6

If systemic changes are not made in the capitalistic system

“Our Super Rich Are Fretting About Their Great-Great-Grandkids,” by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/06/our-super-rich-are-fretting-about-their-great-great-grandkids/?fbclid=IwAR0f6wX-JJvh5Kfb163DuYKckZNdHGCc-1FcLUlqJQKScJuuAlCYCv3ovtg.

September 6

Greed and corruption at the top of large corporations, a continuing saga

“Does Mexico’s Wind Industry Deliver More Dirty Profits Than Clean Energy?,” by Tamara Pearson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/does-mexicos-wind-industry-deliver-more-dirty-profits-than-clean-energy/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0obTWS1628gozQDtL2KF45fcLCxm5MvrCpO05JFrM3tniR96c-F30U6Mg.

September 6

No. In order to be a genius one must do ingenious things and be widely recognized for it. Any genius worth his or her salt would know if s/he had met this criterion

“Can one be a genius and not know it,” by Emmanuel Brun d’Aubignosc, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/Can-one-be-a-genius-and-not-know-it/answer/Emmanuel-Brun-dAubignosc?ch=1&oid=109908637&share=92e156ab&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0xjxjmT9MNLzlGXDQECPhC1SG5Ycp0osKNyRk-dBXAs-Ejdlb6zGAcqUo.

September 5

For some optimistic thinking read this

“How to Green Our Parched Farmlands and Finance Critical Infrastructure,”  by Ellen Brown, SCHEERPOST, https://scheerpost.com/2022/09/01/ellen-brown-how-to-green-our-parched-farmlands-and-finance-critical-infrastructure/?fbclid=IwAR1VrVnFm0ddAFmROk_5ZXMFx2vgChq3XbYgkIcU6yGYKFxEiAKCu6LyKNA .

September 5

Two wrongs do not make a right

“Where’s the Outrage?,” by J Peder Zane, REALCLEAR POLITICS, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/09/02/wheres_the_outrage_148136.html?fbclid=IwAR1jlSjGi1wIWlzF2NRuH7dmTNW7y0FV-Djgw2eBJw0WPGBSWMp4QMsJ-_U.

September 3

Facism anyone? Here’s another dynamite article by Paul Street

“No-so ‘Semi’-Fascism and its Bourgeois-Democratic Enablers,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/02/not-so-semi-fascism-and-its-bourgeois-democratic-enablers/?fbclid=IwAR2zRkzeRYXcsHqJA55yxcHdvtzoYExaF1VQLmgkh_JGQoMGJrM2WZDoNYY.

September 3

Never read or heard this before

“Why did the Confederacy lose the war?,” by David Sciacchitano, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-Confederacy-lose-the-Civil-War/answer/David-Sciacchitano-1?ch=1&oid=325334514&share=a05c3ae1&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0LH8deRTIg2MDNvSvLubsKJdKkme87O7Y-WQSAf07d0ww3zxD7UUndT_I.

September 2

“McGuire concludes: “This is a call to arms. So if you feel the need to glue yourself to a motorway or blockade an oil refinery, do it. Drive an electric car or, even better use public transport, walk or cycle. Switch to a green energy tariff; eat less meat. Stop flying; lobby your elected representatives at both local and national level; and use your vote wisely to put in power a government that walks the talk on the climate emergency,”

“For the first time in modern history major changes in lifestyle are now a requirement for human survival.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if climate scientists like Bill McGuire (there are several others with very similar views) had it all wrong?”

“How Bad Can It Get,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/09/02/how-bad-can-it-get/?fbclid=IwAR0Lq373t8cO0TG8HuDcy_aor8UseoplMwlUFb7aRbDoF2jn4T4CVA5-Ne0.

Please forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian–33 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.

The object under his left hand is a version of the 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 business situation that really happened prepared by professional casewriters at Georgia Southern, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Alabama.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (September 27, 2022) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eight 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://blog.effectivelearning.net/.  

 

 

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-Two, August 25, 2022, Effective Learning Publications https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ , 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, specializing in Adult education.

THE EARTHIAN is a 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, memes, 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 aboard Spaceship Earth.

“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

OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME RIGHT NOW

By RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON

It seems to me nothing new of systemic significance economically and politically has happened around Spaceship Earth in the last month or so. One positive new thing I am aware of is that the dim dems in Washington were able to get a bill passed in the Senate that became law in a one hundred percent party-line up or down 51-50 vote that will enable the USian federal government to negotiate Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies that should result in lower drug prices, albeit it will be 2026 before it takes effect, too late for it to do a lot of elderly citizens any good. On the other hand, Bernie Sanders tried to get a bill passed in the senate that would withdraw subsidies for oil companies that might help solve global warming problems and tax unfairness problems, that got voted down 99-1, the worst political defeat I ever heard of for a USian senator. Imagine, not one dem senator other than Sanders voted for the bill, showing how much power the money of the oil oligarchs buys and wields. Global warming might exterminate Earthian humans, but, so what, USian humans will still have plenty of gasoline to drive around in their SUVs and pickups, at least for a while, and the oil companies get to keep their unfair tax subsidies. Meanwhile Trump still parades around the country spewing his usual vitriol and ordinary repugs still show up at his rallies and give him some of their hard-earned money for another political run in 2024, based on nothing but magical thinking. Repug Representative Liz Cheney just got punished for her political good deeds in the Trump hearings in Washington by getting voted out of office in a primary vote by her erstwhile repug supporters in Wyoming. Meanwhile the hounds of justice continue to nip at Trump’s heels in several criminal investigations in the US. The situation in Europe featuring the Ukraine proxy war seems to be getting almost normalized and stagnated. The war has done its work in many ways serving the purposes of the Russian and the Usian military-industrial complexes. Russia has proved how vital its natural gas is to ordinary Europeans and the USian military machine has solidified its control of NATO and European vassals. Ukraine could become another Iraq or Syria, or Libya, or Afghanistan. Dem Speaker of the House Nancy “Snow White” Pelosi got back from her trip to Taiwan without setting loose a hornet’s nest of trouble, probably to support USian military-industrial complex efforts to create a second peer cold war enemy in the Far East, namely China, to keep its cash flows flowing from the USian treasury via funny money flowing to the treasury from the USian Federal Reserve System and real money flowing from USian taxpayers to the USian treasury. Torrential floods and scorching heat are now devastating large swaths of territory around Spaceship Earth, washing houses away, burning up crops, and threatening drinking water supplies. The cotton crop is just about burned up in the largest cotton-producing region of the US, the South Plains of Texas. About the only cotton vegetation left there is cotton watered by irrigation systems that seep water to cotton plant roots via holes in plastic pipe buried in the ground to prevent evaporation. Kentucky on the other hand recently almost got washed away by floods, as did Las Vegas. If this ain’t climate change what is? Ordinary repugs are still focused on outlawing abortions and legalizing voter suppression and vote stealing and getting Trump’s wall finished. Ordinary dems are hoping the bottom does not fall out anytime soon while advocating few if any new systemic changes other than restoring women’s right to choose abortions in certain red states that are determined to regress the US back into some sort of fundamentalist fairy-tale world, analogous to what the Taliban have done in Afghanistan, with “real” men fully in control. Meanwhile, about all ordinary Earthian humans can do is peacefully and productively live their lives as best they can despite these threats and hope their fascist leaders do not ignite an apocalypse playing psychological Games with militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP)–or that global warming and climate change (GWCC) doesn’t inexorably destroy their habitats and themselves.

A participant in the seminar Rout Logger conducted in the novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases wanted to know how the new computerized Earthian management system recommended for Spaceship Earth, Inc. in the Rooster novel could possibly be implemented. Well, it can’t be anytime soon. A major systemic change such as this would take decades, maybe a century or more of discussion, planning, and implementation by millions of Earthian humans; but attempting such a thing would be better than keeping on doing over and over what does not work. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” (the philosopher Lao Tzu).

As recommended in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, thousands of democracy chapters could 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–presuming Earthian humans somehow figured out a way to significantly change the fascist systems always used around Spaceship Earth that entailed allowing empowered nationalistic leaders sitting atop authoritarian hierarchical organizations to make existential decisions. This would eliminate the worst consequences of zero-sum chess-playing by nationalistic leaders–such as Putin of Russia deciding to invade and bomb Ukraine and Bush II of the US deciding to bomb and invade Iraq–regardless of where their marching orders came from.

Spaceship Earth, Inc. democracy chapters would be established around Earth to develop consensual answers regarding existential matters from the bottom up that would percolate up to randomly-selected humans who would count the consensual answers to make necessary changes. Consensual tactics, strategies, and policies would then be developed around Earth for programming the whole computerized Spaceship Earth management system, that could be operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming in magnum computers capable of rapidly calculating solutions using large data bases to crank out schedules for producing and distributing the necessities of life.

Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for programming the Earthian Magnum Computer System to implement bottom-up consensual recommendations of millions of members from discussions in democracy chapters around Spaceship Earth.

All members of elite groups in charge of the codes for the magnum computer system would serve limited terms. These members would not vote or decide what to do. They would merely see to it that the computer system implemented the consensual recommendations of millions of Earthian humans from all walks of life, as determined by honest, free, fair, and frank democratic Game-free discussions in democracy chapters all around Spaceship Earth, as explained and shown in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. The overall objective would be to manage the Earthian system in such a way as to maximize, or at least optimize, the lifetime satisfactions of all Earthian humans, as well as all species of life aboard Spaceship Earth, taking verifiable objective resource requirements and constraints for producing the necessities of life for all Earthians into account.

Necessary moral and ethical requirements and constraints could be programmed in the Magnum management system that temporary elite Earthian humans at the top would be required to obey. If changes should be made in the moral and ethical codes in the overall program they would be sent back to the Earthian democracy chapters for discussion and then tabulated and analyzed before algorithms programmed in the system would instantiate new moral and ethical programming in the Magnum management system program.

The output of the whole system would automatically change as changes in the values of the variables of the system changed in reality around Spaceship Earth. On the other hand, systemic changes would be made from time to time in the programming of the system itself as determined by new recommendations made by the democracy chapters.

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

A management system such as this would significantly improve previous management systems used around Spaceship Earth that have historically empowered egotistical, greedy, power mad, insane, grandiose, poorly educated, not-very-bright individual Earthian humans to make existential decisions affecting the OKness of hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions of humans around Earth, an incredibly dumb thing to do, that has been done over and over again for millennia, resulting in incredible losses and suffering at various moments of history caused by the inexorable unfair and indiscriminate tunneling out of Not-OK, OK, or Good Luck by infinite cause-effect chains for hundreds, thousands, millions, or billions of individual Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth temporarily living in their worm holes of existence, at all times since time immemorial, resulting from the cosmic evolution commencing with the Big Bang.

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 acting otherwise will support and perpetuate the I’m OK–You’re Not OK life position that has bedeviled, sabotaged, and undermined Earthian humans since time immemorial, making losers out of most of them.

About the only way anyone can seriously be affected by others is through democratic face to face discussions, through rigorous honest dialectical, dialogical, and analogical arguing based on facts and reasoning of all kinds, honestly dealing with Earthian human existential states of affairs.

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

It follows that changing the scripts of Earthian humans for the better requires changing the course of unique tunnels of existence in which individual humans accidentally and inevitably live, a tall order indeed. Some biological constructivists would consider this notion a pipedream, instead considering the whole process a meaningless drift in the infinity of time and space.

Constructivism is considered relevant in all three Effective Learning Report books listed below, having been discussed explicitly in Business Voyages and listed as a source in the bibliographies of all three books.

For more information on the use of Transactional Analysis  https://www.itaaworld.org/  to create better discussion groups and democratic processes read Born to Learn:  A Transactional Analysis of Human Learning.  https://www.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 free the article “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 beak to her or him sitting in the circle is automatically selected as the Leader of the Moment for the group, proving pure democracy can happen. The Leader of the Moment must then lead the group into a democratic discussion of what s/he considers the most serious existential problem around Spaceship Earth.

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/  .

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

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

Riding aboard an airliner about to land at night traveling at four hundred miles an hour at thirty-five thousand feet with clouds, rain, wind, and lightning below, what would you rather have figuring out the path, speed, and angle of descent of the aircraft for touch-down, the plane’s auto-pilot, radar, and computer system or the pilot and co-pilot, seeing nothing out their windows 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 go to the Ogeechee Economic Forum at https://blog.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum/ and 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 a Nook Book at Barnes & Noble for $4.99 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases-richard-john-stapleton/1140476381?ean=9781088023464.  

WHAT FOLLOWS IS THE MOST INTERESTING PART OF THE EARTHIAN, THE THINKING OF HARD-HITTING TRUTH-SEEKING TRUTH-ACCEPTING WRITERS AND ARTISTS ABOUT RELEVANT EARTHIAN PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES PUBLISHED IN RECENT WEEKS IN LINKED ARTICLES AND MEMES IN INTERNET MEDIA AROUND SPACESHIP EARTH.

August 25, 2022

Great article by Rick Staggenborg, MD

“The Stealth Plan to Privatize Medicare for All, by Rick Staggenborg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/24/the-stealth-plan-to-privatize-medicare-for-all/?fbclid=IwAR1Cqj4khw-J-uyV75pAYzfX0pGDh_2SFok394N9Ti0wVw70rjHHI1PyBDE.

August 24

Say it aint so Joe

“Heatwave in China is the most severe ever recorded in the world,” by Michael LePage, MSN,  https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/heatwave-in-china-is-the-most-severe-ever-recorded-in-the-world/ar-AA110949?cvid=a9a8feb2315e414a8e806c12cf0a7985.

August 18

Probably truer now than when he spoke it

“As we observe the 77th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we consider this speech given in 1955 by Bertrand Russell,” HUMANISTS UK, https://www.facebook.com/humanists.uk/videos/1252834768861799.

August 18

Davy Crockett, “The king of the wild frontier” in the US, who “kilt him a bar before he was only three,” said “make sure you’re right and then go ahead.” If only it were that simple.

“The Value of Philosoophy” by Bertrand Russell, DR. JEFFREY NAI, https://www.facebook.com/DrJeffreyNall/photos/gm.5714319431934198/5829770260406734/.

August 22

While I disagree with most of the long run assumptions and projections of this article, it seems to me the author’s historical and short run perspectives are relevant and could happen, although nobody knows what the probability of them happening to what degree is

“An Autumn With Epic Collapses of Stocks, Debt, Currencies, Much Higher Inflation – Leading to Poverty & Social Unrest,” by Egon von Greyerz, GOLD SWITZERLAND, https://goldswitzerland.com/an-autumn-with-epic-collapses-of-stocks-debt-currencies-much-higher-inflation-leading-to-poverty-social-unrest/?fbclid=IwAR1S4en-swyjpxQcujbjAD1P0bQ8h9luISXQX1wOrkctSxvpabrzVY2j5s8.

August 22

Say it aint so Joe

“The Best Lack All conviction as the River Goes Brown,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/19/the-best-lack-all-conviction-as-the-river-goes-brown/?fbclid=IwAR2714fDN8mTuGAD9X-WGbna6br1Vud3SD9wujzUPeazUY7MpMZeeeaEkN4.

August 22

Excellent point in this article

“Trump and the Fifth,” by Jacob G. Hornberger, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/22/trump-and-the-fifth/?fbclid=IwAR1llWXWzDejS8HPvt_ZBg-vLRoePGy09HjMrF17LdX46xyaydduOYW_eps.

August 22

No cure on the horizon in this race to the bottom?

“Despite Trump’s Legal Woes, GOP Political Candidates Are Leaping to His Defense,” by Sasha Abramsky, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/despite-trumps-legal-woes-gop-political-candidates-are-leaping-to-his-defense/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0_CLlpbVCmE-JKxhl_jKdVh8mOlpdDa8mq7-IiUndy4GB7_Yfsf7Viu30.

August 22

Grasping at straws?

“Europe is Trying to Solve Its Energy Crisis With Fossil Fuel Projects in Africa,” by Simon Pirani, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/europe-is-trying-to-solve-its-energy-crisis-with-fossil-fuel-projects-in-africa/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1m8ckti-sRPLEyxjg9QfsO0wOoAPjtrKmTVgrR4yzb-MztSL_zCJiwl-I.

August 22

Seems to me the current inflation problem is not caused by more real demand. It’s caused by faux demand caused by the creation and dissemination of funny money, exacerbated by less real supply of energy. The long run solution is to create less real demand by breeding fewer Earthian humans than naturally die each year to make all existing Earthian humans richer by enabling all of them living on Earth to get richer from year to year by receiving larger slices of smaller economic pies of goods and services baked every year, due to the Earthian human population shrinking disproportionately to the Earthian production of goods and services, to deal with Global warming and climate change (GWCC).

“Something is Looming Geopolitically, and We Better Start Taking It Seriously,” THE LAST REFUGE, https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/08/18/something-is-looming-geopolitically-and-we-better-start-taking-it-seriously/?fbclid=IwAR0AR_G-_mp4MFpki5z2d5gmWdGuSwHd5plFKSnhrgkBh9Ap4gEuItIaCeI.

August 22

Sad indeed

“Hitler’s Scuttled Black Sea Fleet, Centuries-Old ‘Hunger Stones’ Emerge From Dry Riverbeds In Drought-Stricken Europe,” by Tyler Durden, ZDEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/hitlers-scuttled-black-sea-fleet-centuries-old-hunger-stones-emerge-dry-riverbeds-drought?fbclid=IwAR1K86fAJG-1ZCovXESnX4eAE4GyrKSzi9NffeKfxYx0-RiFBURg0yPPToA.

August 22

Very sad it’s come to this

“Weaponizing the Bureaucracy: Who Will Protect Us from the Government’s Standing Army?,” by John and Nisha Whitehead, RUTHERFORD.ORG, https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/weaponizing_the_bureaucracy_who_will_protect_us_from_the_governments_standing_army.

August 20

Well said

“A Letter to a Repellent Request about Fascism,” by Betrand Russell, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=619468099541011&set=a.280894120065079.

August 20

Another great article by the brilliant and courageous Eve Ottenberg. It does appear Biden does not know what he is up to or just does not care about some serious problems; but how could that not be a problem with any USian president in the minds of USians?

“The Biden-Trump Persecution of Julian Assange,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/19/the-biden-trump-persecution-of-julian-assange/?fbclid=IwAR14vGGZYoMotQARjhPACGPSCmF-VVJcwcP3HoS_88vVdCno18xj5Ab6RdA.

August 19

What a surprise

“Trump-Appointed Judge Blocks Biden Moratorium on Oil and Gas Leasing,” by Jake Johnson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-appointed-judge-blocks-biden-moratorium-on-oil-and-gas-leasing/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0pk0jwODnFhdEGoyBVc4eDj63WZ5LioRVdCFFIHxsVe2tKCXmRIkQnV_A.

August 19

Back down from what? What progressives in Congress? Other than Sanders, Warren, and a handful of others?

“Sanders: ‘It is Absolutely Imperative’ for Progressives to Not Back Down,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-it-is-absolutely-imperative-for-progressives-to-not-back-down/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0pL2Hsl2vGCeO2xiJzM8jx01BVzipHZY0JOxfvC-Q4HtaPt4q6Iq6X5Ag.

August 19

Ain’t that sumthin’

“How sad it must be – believing that scientists, scholars, historians, economists and journalists have devoted their whole lives deceiving you, while a reality-TV star with decades of fraud and exhaustively-documented lying is your beacon of honesty?,” by Jym Shorts, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=629207892059852&set=a.340686620911982.

August 19

Think we’ve got it bad here?

“Drought conditions in Britain prompt water restrictions for millions of Londoners,” by Anmar Frangoul, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/17/london-to-face-water-restrictions-from-next-week-thames-water-says-.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR1Ga7eA1ssTq5TNebiuNh4NnUphaYeltrIvX60elmKPJHn_jsiE2CDPKqY.

August 17

How could Wyoming repug voters do this given what Cheney did to preserve truth, justice, and democracy in the US?  Apparently Wyoming repugs don’t like or care about democracy

“Cheney ponders 2024 bid after losing Wyoming GOP primary,” by Steve Peoples and Mead Gruver, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-donald-trump-presidential-wyoming-alaska-48a5444f247727d26cf67a0a72f14637?fbclid=IwAR2nBw7ErufvoQ9IBKc9vZcsql0XuPOXw4GXIjjB2dfctm-MrFTynrGSuwo.

August 17

Great powers and imperial empires are passe, or at least they soon will be, thanks to global warming and climate change (GWCC)

“Washington Wants a New Cold War…That’s a Bad Idea,” by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/16/washington-wants-a-new-cold-war-thats-a-bad-idea/?fbclid=IwAR2KXNGnB75T0eb6BuGnjv3oiT8Z7MEZBXX0BClRooLKcb_13u-QdeR1u-M.

August 16

Hell of a note for a so-called non-profit organization

“The California health care industry is massive, a corporate kingdom employing hundreds of thousands, cashing in with billions in profit – for profit and not for profit alike.

“Kaiser Permanente was once considered union friendly, a progressive organization which enrolled thousands of trade unionists. No more. Kaiser is today one of the largest not-for-profits in the country; it, is the pacesetter in California. Kaiser is based in the Bay Area with 39 nine hospitals and some 700 medical facilities. In recent years, it has grown by 600,000 members; it now employs some 300,000 workers, including 80,000 nurses and doctors. In 2020, its profits were $6.4 billion. In 2021, its net worth, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care, was $43.3 billion. CEOs are compensated handsomely. Salaries compared to workers: 231-1! Greg Adams, the chief executive in Oakland received $17.3 million in total compensation in 2020. He and the 100 top executives have the benefit of eight separate retirement plans.

“Kaiser can do this! It has the money.

“The 16,000 member NUHW represents California 4000 Kaiser mental health technicians, clinicians (psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses and chemical dependency counselors), including another 2000 in southern California who settled earlier in the year.

“We are striking because our patients aren’t receiving needed services,” says Shay Loftus, a psychologist, also in Kaiser’s Napa/Solano “We’re not willing to be part of a system that disrespects the work we do and prevents us from providing ethical care. Kaiser has no excuse to continue treating mental health care as a separate and unequal service, and we’re going to keep striking until that changes.”

“The Strike at Kaiser,” by Cal Winslow, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/16/the-strike-at-kaiser/?fbclid=IwAR2JgOOnoiOmSHjRrHaefvmBo8PrLo9BRiAL1olh12sPI_HML-SgRhxa3TE.

August 16

Where I grew up. Sad

“‘Worst I’ve Ever Seen’: Cotton Prices Soar After Historic USDA Cut Amid Megadrought,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/worst-ive-ever-seen-cotton-prices-soar-after-historic-usda-cut-amid-megadrought?fbclid=IwAR1RxYgUdRh7sTzuVNnuAxxVJIyCAQgim3mcEzothTnsTvxUbmyUwnZFN7k.

August 13

Lies, lies, and damned lies, all around in USian politics. another brilliant incisive fearless truth-telling article by Paul Street

“The Dangerous, Degenerate Dems: Pied Piper 2022 and Other Forms of Complicity,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/12/the-dangerous-degenerate-dems-pied-piper-2022-and-other-forms-of-complicity/?fbclid=IwAR3iJXVh67SKlamSozijOyeHIqLvmIKiKm5B9zLv7GXWnOHJlvc4g7CuQPM.

August 13

Another dynamite to the point right as rain article by Eve Ottenberg

“American Dystopia Gets Bleaker,” by Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/12/american-dystopia-gets-bleaker/?fbclid=IwAR2jEvL_MTAhj2W4dMPEhDHT3-jIBRpJvRDOGJ9iza5ViKrNAjquJan0KH4.

August 12

Good essay on why and how the USian political process does not change

“Talking Sense About ‘A New American Civil War’,” by Richard E. Rubenstein, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/12/talking-sense-about-a-new-american-civil-war/?fbclid=IwAR3a90VR2HWfnq20pOgRnniFxHArAzl3hpM50pXeiMmSvurohbH28BQwm4M.

August 12

Here’s a brave assessment of a sensitive problem. At issue is whether Earthian humans are depressed because of maladies in their brains or because of maladies in their social, economic, religious, military, and political systems

“Behind Rolling Stone’s Hatchet Job on a Psychiatrist Critical of Neoliberal Capitalism,” by Bruce E. Levine, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/11/behind-rolling-stones-hatchet-job-on-a-psychiatrist-critical-of-neoliberal-capitalism/?fbclid=IwAR3PaLzq2AJSA9ALLEFU8_nYNPv9iYn8eICrL-loVJ_4CrLvwuJp08eDZVU.

August 11

Here’s an interesting Poem

“The Gestalt Prayer,” by Fritz Perls

I do my thing, and you do your thing.

I am not in this world to live up to your

expectations

And you are not in this world to live up to mine.

You are you, and I am I,

And if by chance, we find each other, it’s beautiful.

If not, it can’t be helped.

Posted by Richard John Stapleton, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=158143964207258&set=a.147106731977648.

August 10

Well, maybe not too surprising

“Surprising Book Facts,” by Edward Bruce Williams, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10229895560270644&set=a.1349205047677.

August 10

Lyin’ it seems is goin’ on about jobs. It appears the bottom line is that yes there are a lot of new part-time jobs, but fewer full-time jobs that one can make a living doing

“The Bombshell in the July Jobs Report,” by Jack Rasmus, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/10/the-bombshell-in-the-july-jobs-report/?fbclid=IwAR0WFR-S_eUcMJWq5MFwGPAZ_RPItbNHldOF64JtyLtCP4lVyY4ZV_X-ojQ.

August 9

Want to know how the world works? Read this

“The Destiny of Civilization: Michael Hudson on Finance Capitalism, the Economic Consequences of Ukraine and the End of Globalization,” by Eric Draitser, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/09/michael-hudson-on-finance-capitalism-the-economic-consequences-of-ukraine-and-the-end-of-globalization/?fbclid=IwAR1dBucaDFkXAKKeymC-PY_Pnrfn3fKdWleZwTZ706cXdBc7UaTfJQ9bgk4.

August 9

Say it aint so Joe

“Work, Work, Work–So a Few Can Be Rich,” by Michael D. Yates, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/09/work-work-work-so-a-few-can-be-rich/?fbclid=IwAR0nOdHCmLbAPBgMyJPEu_jUv6Cqjdp1hhwfKBW-j5fsXzggAfHkiAFlhpQ.

August 8

Say it aint so Joe

“Hudson raises a shocking question: ‘when it comes to global famine, was a more covert and even larger strategy at work’? It is now looking like the major aim of the U.S. war in Ukraine all along was merely to serve as a catalyst, an excuse to impose sanctions that would disrupt the world’s food and energy trade, and to manage this crisis in a way that would afford US diplomats an opportunity to not only lock in Western Europe but to confront Global South countries with the choice ‘Your loyalty and neoliberal dependency or your life’ – and, in the process, to ‘thin out’ the world’s non-white populations…’ Basic survival hangs in the balance for more than half the world’s people.

“An implicit Russian and Chinese counterplan

“‘What is needed for the world’s non-US/NATO population to survive is a new world trade and financial system,’ Hudson says. More people will die of the Western sanctions than will have died on the Ukrainian battlefield. Financial and trade sanctions are as destructive as military attack. So Global South countries need to reject the sanctions and reorient trade to Russia, China, India, Iran and their fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. A debt moratorium – really a debt repudiation – must be declared. And the World Bank and IMF must be replaced with ‘a genuine Bank for Economic Acceleration’ and ‘a replacement for the IMF that is free of austerity junk economics and does not subsidize US client oligarchies or currency raids of countries resisting US privatization and financialization takeovers.’ Hudson adds that Global South countries should join ‘a military alliance as an alternative to NATO, to avoid being turned into another Afghanistan, another Libya, another Iraq or Syria or Ukraine.'”

“How to Resist the Empire’s Neoliberal Debt Trap,” by Dee Knight, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/08/how-to-resist-the-empires-neoliberal-debt-trap/?fbclid=IwAR2ugCeX7Ug8FzaOZdUudNgQfwGchxwmoQL-A5RhxSu9htHGYz5Gc7Snhxo.

August 8

Well, it was worth a shot

“99 Senators Vote Against Sanders’s Proposal to Remove Big Oil Handout From Reconciliation,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/nearly-all-senators-vote-against-sanderss-amendments-to-inflation-reduction-act/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3uSKSS_-bX0mjYoousnDTK7WVc2_zOIByIADKlX5dq68KFFxJtEIhfYiY.

August 8

The man told the truth as he saw it. That’s what free speech is. As they used to say about politics, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” Not everyone has to believe, or pretend to believe, lyin’ eyes (Richard Pryor’s words) and ears to get along or survive politically or otherwise

“MSNBC Remains Silent After Elie Mystal Unleashes Racist Attack on Herchel Walker, by Jonathan Turley, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/msnbc-remains-silent-after-elie-mystal-unleashes-racist-attack-herschel-walker?fbclid=IwAR31Y3bLoyNtJP6WL1cwMG1nARsZMFBISkVZz8Gj0LwtpkKxzyE5tUOSwhc.

August 7

Say it aint so Joe

“Climate Reality Is Hitting Us Like a Breakaway Glacier,” by JP Smith, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/climate-reality-is-hitting-us-like-a-breakaway-glacier/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0WjbaxE7P8PbTx39XlnnW0VkacMCHuJbOfc8-vGe2HyGNhvoje9FMSUKc.

August 7

Say it aint so Joe

“Stephan Hawking Left Us Bold Predictions on AI, Superhumans, and Aliens,” by Max de Haldevang, POCKET, https://getpocket.com/explore/item/stephen-hawking-left-us-bold-predictions-on-ai-superhumans-and-aliens?utm_source=fbsynd&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR0WjbaxE7P8PbTx39XlnnW0VkacMCHuJbOfc8-vGe2HyGNhvoje9FMSUKc.

August 6

What next

“The Secret Service Text Cover-Up Keeps Getting Bigger,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/the-secret-service-text-cover-up-keeps-getting-bigger/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0NVdhCTcg1kt2DhAKBh4iutFxhMsaKLFxYENbxIGWI6B6v2yNJ3J1lDl4.

August 5

One reason I went to Georgia Southern University and Statesboro, GA, west of I-95 in Southeast GA, in 1970, was to remove myself from this environmental problem in South Louisiana. I taught one year at the University of Louisiana–Lafayette, having gone there from Texas Tech University in Northwest Texas where I had lived all my life on higher ground. I enjoyed teaching at USL, as it was called at the time, and the Cajun culture of the area, one of the most unique and ebullient cultures of the US.

“End-Times: a Visit to Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana,” by Stephen F. Eisenman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/05/end-times-a-visit-to-isle-de-jean-charles-louisiana/?fbclid=IwAR0VP3HRLJtiq-B2BOmZ9t7I68FlMLP7N4WNA9UxW-eEVUu9hmMYbsD9Bwk.

August 3

Another right on ultra-comprehensive pulling no punches article by Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive

“American Diplomacy as a Tragic Drama,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/29/american-diplomacy-as-a-tragic-drama/?fbclid=IwAR2NXQEU7QBEp0uiGWx6TC3skUIZDJtmgBdJ_40CjaZoTVranWF9MnVgpgI.

August 3

Afraid he’s right

“Barbarians at the Gates,” by Evaggelos Vallianatos, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/03/barbarians-at-the-gates/?fbclid=IwAR3sAujFAU9JFaKrIHRVLE7ykSeLX-PerZ24Gu_o5vFUYa57AyKFxDFVSoU.

August 3

Ralph Nader hits the nail right on the head again. The whole USian telephone communication system is now a farce, designed to shield organizations and groups from personal responsibility. Most large businesses and governmental agencies no longer care about pleasing the customer or constituent with their telephone responses using their robot voices and menu choices. Robo calls from call centers hound and disturb citizens incessantly with junk calls and the USian government does nothing about it. It seems poor telephone service for ordinary users in the US has now been normalized and must be profitable for oligarchs in this business.  

“Callers say–’Can’t Get Through’–Callees –’Don’t Want to Let Them Through,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/01/callers-say-cant-get-through-callees-say-dont-want-to-let-them-through/?fbclid=IwAR3HLpEMhoNVxTb3RUtE4xuUTE8hYTqvJu5OuUfCVJyn7R0ew9SfBE5S5wg.

August 3

Scary to think the USian constitution makes it possible for characters like this to gain control of the USian government

“Henry Kissinger: A Warmonger’s Lying Continues,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/02/henry-kissinger-a-warmongers-lying-continues/?fbclid=IwAR3Tqu2E-rY1RQy6LU7GAwlgjodr_ltpnYnXVx7_tALSSDq0gCkG_02jRiE.

August 3

Nancy “Snow White” Pelosi plays a dangerous psychological Game with Taiwan

“Nancy Pelosi Could Get Us All Killed,”  by Norman Solomon,COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/08/02/nancy-pelosi-could-get-us-all-killed/?fbclid=IwAR0hM1InUXK7-Vq_JgiHG15cBNZgnu0H6q0OXqJL_CRrPGEl_HY3jeGeUXA.

August 3

How much bribe money did you give lobbyist locusts in Washington this year to bribe lawmakers to enact good laws? I used to think you elected representatives and senators to write good laws to promote the greater good for the greater number without you having to give them extra money after they got there to do their jobs. What are their congressional salaries and retirement plans for?

“Federal Lobbyists Slated to Spend in Record Amounts After Raking in $2B in First 6 Months of 2022,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/report-lobbyists-raked-in-record-2-billion-in-first-6-months-of-2022/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0imY8rnV3f_lPH5beBezkvCln9V9MDPNAidcBB-CteoAgNn04VCznCXzw.

August 2

Wow. Here’s another blockbuster u-tube presentation by Richard Wolff about problems Earthian humans now face

“Global Capitalism: War, Sanctions, Deepening Splits: Economic, Political, and Cultural (July 2022),” by Richard Wolff, YOUTUBE.COM, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGVfTS489IY.

August 2

Well said

“Albert Einstein’s Essay on Racial Bias in 1946,” by the On Being Project, ONBEING.ORG, https://onbeing.org/blog/albert-einsteins-essay-on-racial-bias-in-1946/?fbclid=IwAR0Reg_IREGqjx4sHiADDo0Xlxx_U-U3Rb2U_e3g9Sf03d5TNcQEY5aPOYA.

August 1

What a family

“Elon Musk’s Father Insists He Isn’t Proud of Him,” by Darika Fears, THE DAILY BEAST, https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/elon-musk-e2-80-99s-father-insists-he-isn-e2-80-99t-proud-of-him/ar-AA10aDC4?fbclid=IwAR2DDxmwfp8F4muNFtW-D-C4B4aA24Q25SmTdKH4mrBSzzwBM7S88ZE_kE8

August 1

What a world

“U.S. kills al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in drone strike,” by Alexander Ward, Paul McLeary, Nanal Toosi and Lara Seligman, POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/01/sources-u-s-kills-al-qaeda-leader-ayman-al-zawahri-in-drone-strike-00049089?fbclid=IwAR1Ff-xQThT8Qt0H7Pplv3iFR8PHZKiOL__OCRn80ixHiZY_G6napkFR260.

August 1

Say it aint so Joe

“UN chief warns world is one step from ‘nuclear annihilation’,” by Edith M. Lederer, AP NEWS, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-covid-health-antonio-guterres-2871563e530f9a676d7884b3e2d871c3?fbclid=IwAR0I9e_-dxjZCQKaxcC10VtbS9BmuHcQjyXhh8hfMsuyBDETbFx9cbXvIPI.

July 31

One of the most satisfying times of my life was hiking to the top of Hermit’s Peak with about thirty hikers, elevation 10,000 feet, near Western Life Camp where I lived for a month one summer with about one hundred other kids, counselors, cooks, and others, near Las Vegas, New Mexico, in the southernmost stretch of the Rocky Mountains, in the summer of 1952. Life was beautiful then in the area. A counselor said you can see five states from the top of Hermit’s Peak, and there was no smoke from wildfires to be seen in any direction when you got up there.

“New Mexico’s Megafires Are a Hint of the Climate Nightmare Ahead,” by William deBuys, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/new-mexicos-megafires-are-a-hint-of-the-climate-nightmare-ahead/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0sAjGxyebL47tZn6frDDdpEI1cv2ZUBLIPEY1hoQJmG9XFCNM16ZYL47U.

July 31

Another dynamite article by the inexhaustible Eve Ottenberg

“The West Can’t Stop Pillaging Other Countries’ Bank Accounts,” b y Eve Ottenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/29/the-west-cant-stop-pillaging-other-countries-bank-accounts/?fbclid=IwAR1_pkcc0rjUZM_OulymDHW_ObM0pN2fVFOz8_sKSeNdU7-K0fcrIiikOE8.

July 31

Yuk. Another canary in a coal mine?

“Nursing Homes Are Suing the Friends and Family of Residents to Collect Debts,” by Noam N. Levy, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/nursing-homes-are-suing-the-friends-and-family-of-residents-to-collect-debts/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0ScbDkSXSC4bGeii_QSZCxUCgoWJ-FPpAH34FMeRzQfiHsCke9KFpTZfA.

July 31

And who would want to live in one of those five thousand dollar rents?

“This New Jersey city is now America’s most expensive to live in,” by Mary K. Jacob, NEW YORK POST, https://nypost.com/2022/07/29/jersey-city-is-now-americas-most-expensive-city-to-live-in/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR2RdzTrD1-ecgi29bPUAjMlFfw6MRzAcpRFDw_emB-ddZB8DMmsIXxrvb0.

July 30

Sad

“I fought for liberty and was deprived of all liberty,” by Julian Assange, FILMS FOR CHANGE, https://nypost.com/2022/07/29/jersey-city-is-now-americas-most-expensive-city-to-live-in/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons&fbclid=IwAR2RdzTrD1-ecgi29bPUAjMlFfw6MRzAcpRFDw_emB-ddZB8DMmsIXxrvb0.

July 31

Say it aint so Joe

“Everything is determined…by forces over which we have no control,” by Albert Einstein, THE LIGHTS OF KABBALAH, https://www.facebook.com/lightsofkabbalah/photos/a.319056761576811/2274043399411461/.

July 29

Say it will never happen here Joe

“German Cities Turn Off Hot Water And Cut Lighting at Government Buildings, by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/german-cities-turn-hot-water-and-cut-lighting-government-buildings?fbclid=IwAR2xp3KOdCt5TrJ3RiqSwPecWoe0bac1GxGBohZMPRuDd8nKfFIgZUeYBz0.

July 29

One species?

“We are One Species,” by Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/28/we-are-one-species/?fbclid=IwAR33ClbSfdlpzy8QIWkp01WstlUw-u8Q6JdOLW6nE17MMI3xmZuS8fGT8M8.

July 28

Ought to say it all

Herschel Walker or Raphael Warnock, by Kaolin Kay, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10210427012109211&set=a.2254967151267.

July 27

Say it aint so Joe

“Wobbling Towards Our Own Extinction,” by Daryan Rezazad, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/26/wobbling-towards-our-own-extinction/?fbclid=IwAR1HmeAWqUWlImvwr4T-DZxW1NE0ZQKDt3gkH2sCzPHhKITnAW8eYa1MiAk.

July 27

“Now, compare those hopeful scenarios to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). At the moment, world oil production is hovering at around 100 million barrels daily and is projected to reach 109 million barrels by 2030, 117 million by 2040, and a jaw-dropping 126 million by 2050. So much, in other words, for “peak oil” and a swift transition to green energy.”

“World Oil Production is Rising, With No End in Sight,” by Michael T. Klare, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/world-oil-production-is-rising-with-no-end-in-sight/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1HmeAWqUWlImvwr4T-DZxW1NE0ZQKDt3gkH2sCzPHhKITnAW8eYa1MiAk.

July 27

Why not indict? Is it the Attorney General of the US is afraid to indict because doing so might incite more violence among Trump’s supporters?

“January 6 Committee Has Provided Sufficient Evidence for Garland to Indict Trump,” by Marjorie Cohn, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/january-6-committee-has-provided-sufficient-evidence-for-garland-to-indict-trump/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR166g6_NLCDhhMm43cKhHucpIelbr89DFlIN6a4J_UWhwIvebx8pU1QLlw.

July 27

My father was a rancher in Central and Northwest Texas. Very sad what has befallen ranchers, and cows, there

“Ranchers are Selling Off Their Cattle in Unprecedented Numbers Due To The Drought, and That Has Enormous Implications for 2023,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/ranchers-are-selling-their-cattle-unprecedented-numbers-due-drought-and-has?fbclid=IwAR0llWjKC7xQVVpAeKQNfjQEdqWP30qZ5jAzzK28mIMzMAicv38RM3YfZac.

July 27, 2022

“There are two principal tracks of the investigation that could ultimately lead to additional scrutiny of Trump, two people familiar with the situation said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

“The first centers on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding, the type of charges already filed against individuals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and on two leaders of far-right groups, Stewart Rhodes and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who did not breach the Capitol but were allegedly involved in planning the day’s events.

“The second involves potential fraud associated with the false-electors scheme or with pressure Trump and his allies allegedly put on the Justice Department and others to falsely claim that the election was rigged and votes were fraudulently cast.”

“Justice Dept. investigating Trump’s actions in Jan 6 criminal probe,” by Carol D. Leonnig, Devin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, and Spencer Hsu, THE WASHINGTON POST, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/justice-dept-investigating-trump-e2-80-99s-actions-in-jan-6-criminal-probe/ar-AA100h1s?fbclid=IwAR3EOpEYhre6Ihq8oeP5sLkKiRD0Kl7de-eK4ucrlTTqRh_K2NVOFCp54QQ.

Please forward, share, post, print, or otherwise circulate The Earthian–32 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.

The object under his left hand is a version of the 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 case researched and written by business professors about a business assigned as the final exam. Cases used in his courses contained processes, problems, opportunities, and data occurring in 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 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 learned and trained in transactional analysis with Martin Groder, MD; Graham Barnes, PhD; Vann Joines, PhD; and many others at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (1975-1978).

He 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 taught in his own case method track at the undergraduate level in the management department of the business school at Georgia Southern University offering four or five elective case method courses 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 signing up for all his courses each year majoring in all disciplines. He used a democratic circle or amphitheater classroom layout in all his classes. He also taught most semesters two sections of a capstone integrative business policy course he added to the business school curriculum in 1970 that was required for all undergraduate business majors that could be elected by any student in any major.  He was the only professor in the business school to use the case method in any course.

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

About ten percent of his students made A’s and about five percent made D’s. Most made C’s, which is about right, since C = Average. There were 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 Georgia Southern honoring his academic freedom thereby giving him control of his teaching methods, classroom layouts, grading procedures, and course books, cases, and materials, some of which he researched, wrote, and published. He was promoted to full professor at age thirty-six.

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

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

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

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

“Optimizing the Fairness of Student Evaluations” has by now (August 24, 2022) been cited as a reference in 83 refereed journal articles concerned about the ethics of student evaluations in several academic disciplines, including eight 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://blog.effectivelearning.net/.  

 

 

By RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON

The protagonist of the novel Dr. Rout Logger an organizational analyst, consultant, and developer spent considerable time and energy in the book ensuring that his forty randomly-selected participants in his process, paid five thousand dollars a month to participate, had an equal democratic opportunity to freely, fairly, and frankly tell the truth as s/he saw it to the whole group about what s/he really felt, thought, and recommended regarding psychological, social, economic, political, military, and religious problems s/he thought were relevant around Spaceship Earth. Logger’s biggest problem conducting the six monthly six-hour discussions on the first Saturday of the month in randomly-selected cities in the US was convincing group members that it was OK to honestly tell the truth as they saw it to the whole group if randomly selected as the democratic “Leader of the Moment” by the Truther rooster (who raucously crowed when spun, letting the group members know it was time to wake up and get to work), caused by the members of this group having been conditioned in prior-experienced groups and organizations to think telling the truth as you honestly saw it about relevant existential problems around Spaceship Earth to others in groups was anti-social or risky. The story ends with Rout recommending a new computer-based TV zoom system for managing Spaceship Earth states of affairs involving thousands of democracy chapters established around Spaceship Earth to eradicate the power of fascist dictators and increase the chances of Earthian humans not being rendered extinct as a species by global warming and climate change (GWCC) or militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP).

Linked below is a Kirkus review, not as informing about the book as it might have been, but educational, showing what a relatively unbiased reader/professional paid reviewer thought about the book.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-john-stapleton/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases/?fbclid=IwAR33DTreE4PLfTAhEYy5FuPn-jSHfFTDNqwbHvYLGi2ruoVGZ3xyJc2rw7o.

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-One, June 24, 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

PUSH HAS COME TO SHOVE

By ROUT LOGGER

Several articles featured as SOURCES for this issue of THE EARTHIAN are concerned about the Earthian economic chess game now being played by nations around Spaceship Earth. Michael Hudson in his article “The Fed’s Austerity Program to Reduce Wages” and Alastair Crooke’s article “Zugzwang” shed new light on the precarious state of economic and political states of affairs now existing on the international chessboard, as do several recently-published articles sourced below.

No Earthian human knows how this chess game is going to end. Would it do any good for all Earthian humans to pay attention to the moves of the game? Probably not. As matters now stand, one can build a case the best strategy for most Earthian humans would be to do their jobs day in and day out and hope for the best, trusting their superiors in their various organizations and groups, including their families, to act in their best interests. On the other hand, some Earthian humans might take satisfaction in knowing something about what is really going on around Spaceship Earth. If so, they might gain some satisfaction from reading articles such as those sourced in THE EARTHIAN.

A participant in the imaginary seminar I conducted in Richard John Stapleton’s novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases wanted to know how the new computerized Earthian management system recommended for Spaceship Earth, Inc. 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 some chance of working in the long run. If the system were magically implemented it would eliminate the causes of constantly repeating international chess games like the one now being played by political leaders around Spaceship Earth,

As published in As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases–if thousands 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 significantly change the fascist systems always used around Spaceship Earth that entailed allowing empowered nationalistic leaders to make existential decisions–such as Putin of Russia 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–they might eliminate the worst consequences of zero-sum chess-playing by nationalistic leaders .

Should Spaceship Earth, Inc. democracy chapters be established 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 management system, that could be operated and controlled using artificial intelligence programming in magnum computer systems. Randomly-selected groups of Earthian humans of high intelligence with impeccable moral and ethical character and credentials would control codes for changing the Earthian Magnum Computer System programming. 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 count of the number of times a particular idea for change from around Spaceship Earth was recommended by thousands or millions of Earthian democracy chapters.

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

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

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 to what has previously existed.

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 setting 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 Amazon.com for $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/Rooster-Crows-Earthian-OKness-Increases-ebook/dp/B09NCF1MDS/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1RZWJ599VKHAK&keywords=as+the+rooster+crows+richard+john+stapleton&qid=1655901089&sprefix=as+the+rooster+crows+richard+john+stapleton%2Caps%2C64&sr=8-1 .

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

MAY 13, 2022

Here’s the gist of it

“Consider Enrico Fermi’s famous paradox: In simple words, where are they? A distinguished astrophysicist, Fermi knew that there are a huge number of planets within the reach of potential contact that have the conditions to sustain life and higher intelligence. But with the most assiduous search, we can find no trace of their existence. So where are they?

“One response that has been seriously proposed, and cannot be dismissed, is that higher intelligence has developed innumerable times, but has proven to be lethal: It discovered the means for self-annihilation but did not develop the moral capacity to prevent it. Perhaps that is even an inherent feature of what we call “higher intelligence.”

“We are now engaged in an experiment to determine whether this grim principle holds of modern humans, a very recent arrival on Earth, some 200,000-300,000 years ago, a flick of an eye in evolutionary time. There is not much time to find the answer – or more precisely, to determine the answer, as we will do, one way or the other. That is unavoidable. We will either act to show that our moral capacity reaches as far as to control our technical capacity to destroy, or that it does not.”

“Chomsky: To Tackle Climate, Our Morality Must Catch Up With Our Intelligence,” by C.J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-to-tackle-climate-our-morality-must-catch-up-with-our-intelligence/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3FVRCjONEf-8znwRHpnOs6B80zi_32_ywwxAQRqNyYLWna7emj_1BgRYM.

JUNE 24     

Seems like insider information in this article to me, depressing insider information, from the belly of the beast, in a tony Washington tavern for USian political bigwigs, told by the irrepressible Paul Street. Don’t get your hopes up about the January 6 hearings. Street seems to think based on what he learned in the tony tavern that they will be just another slick Congressional snipe hunt done for show, and Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the US, will not prosecute Trump regardless of how clearly the hearing leaders and participants show to current TV viewers that Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against the USian government and the attempted murder of Mike Pence.  While their testimonials and replays of phone calls, emails, Tweets, and video clips of what happened shown to current TV watchers are impressive and truthful, told under oath, anyone watching the live January 6 abomination when it happened should already know what happened. These hearings are not about debunking fake news and conspiracy theories; they are an attempt to convince lying eyes and ears that what they saw and heard live on TV January 6, 2021 was real. The hearings of course are also about public servants seeking personal satisfactions of various sorts demonstrating their courage and skills on TV while telling the truth. There is no way to know how much this January 6 abomination has cost USian citizens and taxpayers in wasted time, energy, and money, culminating in this TV truth extravaganza. Meanwhile Trump has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from his Repug cult members since January 6 by asserting over and over again that all of this is just a “big lie”caused by a stolen election–with no evidence to back it up.     

“Report from Capitol Hill: Still the Trump Era,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/24/report-from-capitol-hill-still-the-trump-era/?fbclid=IwAR0SZDk_683lb3sh9HlVgbCKhgMxAGeopQwe4PzNvpwedKr1fBlgC9UlEhs/.

JUNE 23

Here’s the rub. At issue is whether it’s OK for a bullying thug to be president of the US.

“It will be bad if Merrick Garland prosecutes Trump – and worse if he doesn’t,” by Eugene Robinson, THE WASHINGTON POST, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/23/merrick-garland-needs-to-prosecute-trump/. 

JUNE 23

Let it be heard

“An Open Letter to Biden on Assange’s Extradition,” by Michelle Renee Matisons, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/23/a-letter-to-biden-on-assanges-extradition/?fbclid=IwAR1MUwcRLeYdAsQT-nlCL_hMMZcyWiwrOFsYC7R2mmN4Ka0VjdAASzvhDWI.

JUNE 22

Interesting article

“Is universal basic income part of a just transition?,” by John Feffer, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35697?fbclid=IwAR27ZBzCW8OeIeDXW2zERc2TVrKH39F_fB3aaQ1-tgX5ntiNP9ZVzQf3aXs.

JUNE 22

Say it aint so Joe

“How Did America Become Ruled By Its Military-Industrial Complex?,” by Eric Zuesse, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zuesse-how-did-america-become-ruled-its-military-industrial-complex?fbclid=IwAR04Z2lOQSWadFjc8b37LzBMtE7HpEsAcaHQSuauD8XVIgQINy6qZxIsWkQ.

JUNE 22

Here’s Michael Hudson, the greatest economist alive, again telling it like it is.

“The Fed’s Austerity Program to Reduce Wages,” by Michael Hudson, COUNTERPUNCH,  https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/22/the-feds-austerity-program-to-reduce-wages/?fbclid=IwAR0XH2lz1CjM4vpanXEkXGHWAkAEBT_AJmswAjRWbNFXXq44vnqSQrH8ns4.

JUNE 22

“The Age of Stupidity: From Johnson and Biden to Putin and Xi Jinping,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/21/the-age-of-stupidity-from-johnson-and-biden-to-putin-and-xi-jinping/?fbclid=IwAR2oXDn2uE0TYRIEpRELg-AmmboxGRe0kdlgU0yg1wQs59BzxW7RJXyMfBE.

JUNE 22

Interesting

“For those claiming Biden caused the increase in the price of gas, please explain how he caused the increase around the world,” by Fay Easter, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10219744437993881&set=a.1329321205543.

JUNE 22

Generally agree

“Zugzwang*: Europe’s future looks bleak. It is now pressed by its own imposition of sanctions, and the resultant spike in commodity prices. The EU is lumbering around in a daze,” by Alastair Crooke, COUNTERPUNCH, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35688?fbclid=IwAR1OE-mEyEByurOtX1ZpwnxJahe8po-u14DW7HNCjeNDJB6hH0MmRipCEQc.

JUNE 22

Sounds about right

Why war happens, by Ernest Hemingway, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=447827247347773&set=a.132528992210935.

JUNE 20

You don’t say

“Without any Doubt, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, Beyond any Doubt: Tribe Declares Trump Committed Attempted Murder,” by Jonathan Turley, https://jonathanturley.org/2022/06/17/without-any-doubt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt-beyond-any-doubt-tribe-declares-trump-committed-attempted-murder/?fbclid=IwAR1injtzMf8M_5AsGcVSM-HXtC07MOcNDnQmlb6ThrGEA27ayBHMmPoV9uk.

JUNE 20

A review

“As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases: ‘A smart but rambling series of discussions on everything that’s wrong with the world today’,” KIRKUS,  https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-john-stapleton/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases/?fbclid=IwAR3BBIqzAtFI_JmNrx5Z1RM1-v7OamaEu1-jh7xJvy6Aa7Bb1k-giZMu9Ro.

JUNE 16

Too bad the Earthian power structure did not follow his advice

“You support atheistic communism! Bertrand Russell you are a traitor,” BERTRAND RUSSELL, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=578349900319498&set=a.280894120065079.

JUNE 18

Some hard choices to be made made clear by Paul Street

“Merrick Garland’s ‘Existential’ Choice,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/15/merrick-garlands-existential-choice/?fbclid=IwAR1OE-mEyEByurOtX1ZpwnxJahe8po-u14DW7HNCjeNDJB6hH0MmRipCEQc.

JUNE 18

Yes, Pence did the right thing on January 6, 2022 in the capitol building of the USian government. Had he not done what he did January 6 untold miseries would have befallen the US. Yet I agree with William Rivers Pitt that he merely did what he should have done on that day as an elected USian citizen as vice president, and he’s the same Earthian human who slavishly kowtowed to Trump for over four years. He now probably wants Trump’s old job from which Trump was fired by a sizeable majority of USian voters.

“Pence and Trump Aides Are Trying to Project Righteousness. Don’t Be Fooled,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT. https://truthout.org/articles/pence-and-trump-aides-are-trying-to-project-righteousness-dont-be-fooled/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2LAasD8zeZKPsvlb7lvyyHnDthtyvXNq8fodgQnFvaAfzwjrWDAFDBrKU.

JUNE 18

Even China and India are not so smart about this

“Buckle Up! The Arctic’s Sizzling,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/17/buckle-up-the-arctics-sizzling/?fbclid=IwAR3uBhRhLl9sDeEzLm4uOR-Owk4xQWNq1kyreGilCLcYpEAetxIPERR7P5Q.

JUNE 17

Another great article by the indomitable Eve Ottenberg

“Hating Kids the American Way,” by Eve Otttenberg, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/17/hating-kids-the-american-way/?fbclid=IwAR3uBhRhLl9sDeEzLm4uOR-Owk4xQWNq1kyreGilCLcYpEAetxIPERR7P5Q.

JUNE 17

Say it aint so Joe

“Summit of the Americas Flops While Workers Summit Exposes Cracks in the Imperial Façade,” by Roger Harris, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/17/summit-of-the-americas-flops-while-workers-summit-exposes-cracks-in-the-imperial-facade/?fbclid=IwAR0W-y8hcGpqWMBFLH0ikS_FfJlTndi4R8grUxHBGWPj6CfyyXTgjLrvDrk.

JUNE 17

Absurd on the face of it. You’re innocent because of believing lies? Especially when you told them in the first place. What next?

“Trump Saying He Believed Lies About Voter Fraud is No Defense, Legal Experts Say,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/trump-cant-defend-himself-by-saying-he-believed-fraud-lies-legal-minds-say/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0o94tElDSNmj8SHCMxaS-WdMLbZmYCwJhLS-Qjdxe1861iGFobARHqgW4.

JUNE 17

Will justice ever be served in Trump’s case?

“As coup evidence mounts, progressives eye Georgia to jail Trump, not feds,” by Steven Rosenfeld, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35656?fbclid=IwAR2aIBvLvluej9eEsR-aZj9vx9OYoEnUI3Iak_IV6SHMW_ana9YG3xkR5vo.

JUNE 17

Might be the thing to do

“Diving Down to Earth,” by Paul Gilk, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/16/diving-down-to-earth/?fbclid=IwAR1RhL0Lytrh1mEVg-7hyP5TsjPnGI3XOF6B0r8NST5NReWSpDBV1N6Gvl4. 

JUNE 17

Another great article by William Rivers Pitt

“Almost Every Square Inch of the US is Being Battered by Climate Change Today,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/almost-every-square-inch-of-the-us-is-being-battered-by-climate-change-today/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1-yOwQ6fB3JX86Nz-dYuaHWwjDEjLxLrUTUoUCAfg20OBp_RbGrc4lQ-o.

JUNE 15

The rule of law that’s what’s at stake here

“Merrick Garland’s ‘Existential’ Choice,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/15/merrick-garlands-existential-choice/?fbclid=IwAR0dQneFuh5K5tU0-4615avD1fpfwcsNO_XRAYT9-R3yrduJOJy9uVbsdcs.

JUNE 15

The de-intellectualizing of USian society

“Adjunct and Tenured Faculty Must Unite to Resist Pandemic Opportunism on Campus,” by Jennifer Ruth, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/adjunct-and-tenured-faculty-must-unite-to-resist-pandemic-opportunism-on-campus/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1bYQsNpv6VWiCTgItsZzDaaL_2gM9pfKwNDt5jC2otlICengjCTEgS4e0. 

JUNE 23

One injustice after another in the case of the Kurds

“Turkey’s Assault on Syrian Kurds: A Secondary Crisis of the Ukraine War?,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/13/turkeys-assault-on-syrian-kurds-a-secondary-crises-of-the-ukraine-war/?fbclid=IwAR2uMxJmHsjjIJmRLrfgQ9yV_t_q84yrT_9hCHzZL-Iv2jp2kDiy7ICbEcQ.

JUNE 13

Good article covering all sides of the Ukraine war

“The Ukraine War,” by Noam Chomsky, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/03/the-ukraine-war-chomsky-responds/?fbclid=IwAR2aIBvLvluej9eEsR-aZj9vx9OYoEnUI3Iak_IV6SHMW_ana9YG3xkR5vo.

JUNE 13

They got greedy and corrupt that’s what, and they have about ruined free enterprise capitalism

“The ‘Secret’ That Gets CEOs Rich: Keeps Workers Poor,” by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/13/the-secret-that-gets-ceos-rich-keep-workers-poor/?fbclid=IwAR203UmF1zNMvWEDbER3g_vII2ShRD9aHEU5M5t6N7ljDjjbBSTdyJATFLM.

JUNE 13

Good point by Buckminster Fuller, a great intellectual

“You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe,” by Buckminster Fuller, THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER INSTITUTE, https://www.facebook.com/BuckminsterFullerInstitute/photos/a.139494043585/10160205422698586/.

JUNE 13

Leave it to Ellen Brown, one of the brightest writers around, a lawyer and a money and banking expert, now hitting the nail right on the head again, advocating growing your own food.

“The food shortage solution in your own backyard,” by Ellen Brown, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35603?fbclid=IwAR1TcJ9xEAGk5JdNZ4WAoqc6Ei-8ZHS88olz1PW-KiFp_fKE7Er4QvpRv3A.

JUNE 12

Another USian diplomatic nothing burger

“Storms at the Summit of the Americas,” by Rosa Miriam Elizalde, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35580?fbclid=IwAR0qZHDCamQ60ld6XMzs8LtcHMANW6feoXowKjXeM7VVTTekXGxN7t_kTCo.

JUNE 12

This engineer claims a computerized Artificial Intelligence robot talked back to him, telling him s/he was afraid someone would unplug him or her or it.

“Google engineer goes public after suspension: warned AI is sentient,” by James Gordon, DAILY MAIL, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10907853/Google-engineer-claims-new-AI-robot-FEELINGS-Blake-Lemoine-says-LaMDA-device-sentient.html?ito=facebook_share_article-factbox&fbclid=IwAR3a_UdrcXhB16rV3MM9kfJz7OVoo4Lx59pahF6RqmnEUt6atRAG9R9cswY.

JUNE 9

I never imagined this would happen in the US, a major political party turning into an amoral street gang, with no compunction about destroying democracy, led by gang leaders caring for nothing but their own plunder and power over others.

“Election subversion is replacing voter suppression as new GOP threat,” by Steven Rosenfeld, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35574?fbclid=IwAR1MpD2lvcLeXKfJAl_QRnSogx3SmB6CN_0mcGutd7mk_ybuY3XPPgY6oPI.

JUNE 9

More on the gun trade and its probable aftermath

“The Arsenal, but Not of Democracy,” by Mel Gurton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/09/the-arsenal-but-not-of-democracy/?fbclid=IwAR10wl5DaCu4e-7QasECqXgE3YQ1UTok4X3WlCKpCsSycINF9D5pv8IszQs.

JUNE 9

Did not know this. Say it aint so Joe

“Mapping U.S. imperialism,” by THE MAPPING PROJECT, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/09/mapping-us-imperialism/?fbclid=IwAR2UvvKY_eGhpo2L6F4xy8D5nzgLo0jQLz8oqxaeVdGEkEfGlcWvFjew1w0.

JUNE 9

Playing psychological Games

“U.S. Military Spending is Undebatable Because Indefensible,” by David Swanson, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/09/u-s-military-spending-is-undebatable-because-indefensible/?fbclid=IwAR1DWXcWyWHLZNVtImmZJdGI5LqWQEZ27K-ecnGRlNHhK1z5XOTfalAacTE.

JUNE 9

Another enlightening article by Richard Wolff, another outstanding economist

“There are Better Ways for Societies to Address Inflation Than by Hiking Interest Rates,” by Richard Wolff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/09/there-are-better-ways-for-societies-to-address-inflation-than-by-hiking-interest-rates/?fbclid=IwAR1IWNUN7kiMlh1S1x-wtbWcVXpCUCmcAEgFuJSMzmZHFELt1SQn-4zwQbc.

JUNE 9

Aint that somethin’, for $4.65 billion no less

“The NFL’s Denver Broncos have agreed to sell the team to a Walmart heir and his family,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/08/the-nfls-denver-broncos-have-agreed-to-sell-the-team-to-a-walmart-heir-and-the-walton-penner-family.html?fbclid=IwAR1sHy5Q3wvND9qvdp7WzaHvHzsISEwrBHbc-fiqUb2yHKQwkXN7TMKRr8U.

JUNE 7

Psychological Games have always been a major determinant of Earthian economic and political behavior, and a Game transactional analysts call NIGYSOB has been the most significant and pervasive psychological Game played in business, economics, sports, and politics, along with endless iterations of Games such as MINE’S BETTER, BALANCE SHEET, CORNER, I’M ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU, and IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU played throughout Earthian human history. Playing a third-degree tissue-tearing Game of IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU thanks to nuclear weapons proliferation might finally cause Earthian humans to stop playing psychological Games forever by causing the extinction of the human species.

“War is a Psychological Game,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/wars-are-psychological-games/?fbclid=IwAR2dsijZeD-U9XvHd0C9Lj1iGVJnpAqnDKPBFjNERl0UVaUcwMKbiphGn40.

JUNE 7

They just don’t give a rip. They’ve got it the way they want it and nothing you say matters. This Monty Python dead parrot story in this article is by far the funniest one I have read in my internet reading. Paul Street has done it again. When you think he could not write a better article than he already has he does it again.

“American ‘Democracy’ as a Dead Parrot: Constitutions, Killing floors, an Unhatched Egg, and Forced Motherhood,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/07/american-democracy-as-a-dead-parrot/?fbclid=IwAR15f8BMqGcM0n59Z67JRYNsXkscYp4XzYQYnnihWKW-EnLh4zIxqIBCZ-k.

JUNE 7

Say it aint so Joe

“Two Nations Joined at the Hip by English…and Inequality,” by Sam Pizzigati, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/07/two-nations-joined-at-the-hip-by-english-and-inequity/?fbclid=IwAR1Dr-YhnMcGinnPS6vOlkbRsN1TFBZtLIlHrLGDxd2LMw6-4023Rti0cBg.

JUNE 7

Snipe hunts–yes, that’s what’s been goin’ on. Thanks to William Rivers Pitt, for labeling it like it is. All these investigations, impeachments, hearings, judicial proceedings against Trump–the Mueller committee, etc.–so far, have been nothin’ but snipe hunts, and it’s gettin’ old. If this January 6 hearing process and the Georgia DA investigation does not work nothing will. Anyone who watched the January 6 hearings live should know the current hearings are not a snipe hunt.

“Damning Leaks Provide Grim Preview of Thursday’s January 6 Hearing, by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/damning-leaks-provide-grim-preview-of-thursdays-january-6-congressional-hearing/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1iSv4vbJuOnxR63HjX0spSGhfc6aKl48vs9HEbMUS3nCS3bN1gxGDaFi8.

JUNE 4

Want a high IQ anyone? Better think twice. This article has seventy-seven comments on the question.

“Is a high IQ sometimes a handicap?” by Matthew Adair, QUORA, https://www.quora.com/Is-a-high-IQ-sometimes-a-handicap/answer/Mathew-Adair-1?ch=1&oid=184406957&share=7aa998aa&srid=hkkCWN&target_type=answer&fbclid=IwAR0K_UFEK6g8RI47Y0t9BMYtw9eNZs0rjAWmfQnTykrn8Q3RM6mfKH3r9Vk.

JUNE 3

Here’s an early model of my de-Gamer.

“The Classroom De-Gamer,” by Richard John Stapleton, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1801356336552671&set=a.1050672944954351.

JUNE 3

Burn, baby, burn, one of the most comprehensive perspectives on the Ukraine showdown I have read

“Petroleum Wars in the Age of Climate Disaster: a Bridge Fuel Too Far,” by John K. White, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/03/petroleum-wars-in-the-age-of-climate-disaster-a-bridge-fuel-too-far/?fbclid=IwAR2bjHmPT5dBq5ioOnTHltOJYQ5D8BoAmCtrC-jWNISbzTlSo0PWouOo7os,

JUNE 3

An artistic representation of war

“Guernica and Bucha,” by Stephan F. Eisenman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/03/guernica-and-bucha/?fbclid=IwAR2bjHmPT5dBq5ioOnTHltOJYQ5D8BoAmCtrC-jWNISbzTlSo0PWouOo7os.

JUNE 3

Horrible optics alright

“The 2022 Bilderberg Agenda: Disinformation, Deglobalization, & Disruption of the Global Financial System,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/2022-bilderberg-agenda-disinformation-deglobalization-disruption-global-financial?fbclid=IwAR1lQhwTJt_WecxWPsbfKUQGw41BLQkGxwUCmVyQqJXY6i-f1nKz1WajWHI.

JUNE 1

According to the standard USian deep state narrative about why and how John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he was shot by a lone insane USian gunman who had ties to Russia.

But the narrative based on the story that JFK was assassinated by a lone insane gunman is now out of date. The official US government narrative was written by the Warren Commission in 1963 and did say Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman. Subsequent developments however changed this original official narrative, at least in the National Archives, if not in the minds of most USians. For the full story go to the National Archives JFK Assassination Records at https://www.archives.gov/…/warren-commission…/chapter-1 .

Here is an updated narrative of the USian government regarding the JFK assassination, pursuant to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, according to the Assassination Records Review Board, at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board :

“Findings

“The Committee believes on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

“Go to the footnotes for this chapter.

“The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy

“The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy

“The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved

“The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved

“The Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy .”

“Earthian Humans Experience Less OKness,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/earthian-humans-experience-less-okness/?fbclid=IwAR2FYEDTwTGKkJtValG5vaW561wLlITmmm8zHk5FDImaYiEGXykriLFv5MI.

MAY 31

A dangerous move in a dangerous psychological Game

“Russia threatens to wipe out entire US with just four Satan II missles,” by Will Porter, THE SUN, https://www.the-sun.com/news/5460070/russia-threatens-to-hit-us-with-satan-missiles-ukraine/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb.

MAY 30

“David Deutsch, a physicist at Oxford, has for several years been seeking to avoid this dilemma by developing a theory of (as he puts it) “a world in which probability and randomness are totally absent from physical processes.” His project, on which Marletto is now collaborating, is called constructor theory. It aims to establish not just which processes probably can and can’t happen, but which are possible and which are forbidden outright.”

“Physicists Trace the Rise in Entropy to Quantum Information,” QUANTA MAGAZINE, https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-trace-the-rise-in-entropy-to-quantum-information-20220526/?fbclid=IwAR1T3V-cyU6UqlFqMYFHmOvKUxIEYpYeu–jL0C9PwnH2WJ8YvQqbrUXvYE.

MAY 30

Say it aint so Joe

“Roaming Charges: The End of the Innocents,” by Jeffrey St. Clair, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/27/roaming-charges-54/?fbclid=IwAR3YZ-EPmR_wRvAIRC9k2G3zePktnB6TFVDaFFGTuvzrJzmll2oh-4WWVmA.

MAY 30

Of course

“To End Mass Shootings, We Need to Change the Deeper Structure of the US,” by Henry A. Giroux, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/to-end-mass-shootings-we-need-to-change-the-deeper-structure-of-life-in-the-us/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0mNSYWYyDcgF9dO6-xiYMtOKBeT2HrXQsCZMzTPAIu6jHSOM8a3L5vU2s.

MAY 26

And the last straw

“No Way Out but War, by Chris Hedges, SCHEERPOST, https://scheerpost.com/2022/05/23/hedges-no-way-out-but-war/?fbclid=IwAR2YptwrqH7Qv8QIfvhzb2pYznVg9HbfKSUmf3aLTeB70UiYx-zvoAsihKc.

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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.

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 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 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-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/.  

 

 

 

By RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON

It seems to me psychological Games have always been a major determinant of Earthian economic and political behavior, and a Game transactional analysts call NIGYSOB has been the most significant and pervasive psychological Game in business, economics, and politics.

If you’re thinking here I go again with more of that TA crap, looking at the world through a transactional analysis lens, I guess I have to plead guilty. I got hooked on TA back in the 1970s and have used it ever since. Here is a new application of transactional analysis using TA jargon to shed new light on the nature of economic and political behavior.

NIGYSOB (Now I’ve Got You, You S.O.B.) entails psychological Game players trying to reign supreme over others, to triumph over others, to become “one-up”, to be superior, to beat, to win, etc. NIGYSOB players are motivated by anger that they feel justified in releasing because of perceived social and psychological actions and manipulations on the part of Persecutors that might cause them to become loser Victims, causing them to feel their social, political and psychological standing and security are threatened.

All psychological Games include two sets of transactions conducted simultaneously between the Game players, a spoken overt social set, and an ulterior covert unspoken psychological set, with three basic roles, Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim acted out by the players, involving three basic ego states, Parent, Adult, and Child, with switches of transactional vectors between various combinations of the Ego States in all players, as the players also switch around from Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim on a “Drama Triangle”.

NIGYSOB Game-playing underlies all conflicts, competitions, and wars among nations and corporations domestically and internationally as well as among individuals within countries. You might think nations and international corporations competing constantly among themselves do not entail real anger, but it seems to me anger is a major factor when serious fighting breaks out. Leaders try to engender fear and anger among their followers before the first outbursts of fighting to psyche up the followers. You might think a war is not an ego trip for the leaders. You might think instead the leaders are simply doing their perceived ethical duty to preserve the safety and security of their followers, to Rescue Victims and Persecute bad guys. This might be true at the overt spoken social level; but the unspoken psychological truth is another matter. All wars are ego trips, with leaders trying to triumph over other leaders, wanting to become one-up top dogs.

This raises the question of whether it’s possible for a large organization such as a large financial, manufacturing, or communications corporation, or even most small businesses; or the Federal Reserve System, the FBI, CIA, or Pentagon, or the US government, to be fully OK?

Probably not, for long.

You can build a case competitions among political parties in presidential elections more than anything else are NIGYSOB Games, with leaders saying they want to improve the plight of Victim citizens, increase their relative share of national and international income, provide them with better and cheaper health care, and the like; but here too the contest is largely an ego trip for the leaders who are more interested in being the top dog one-up winner than anything else. It becomes an ego trip for followers as well as the leaders foment fear and anger among them to beat the bad guy Persecutors and run them out of office. If their party wins the followers also feel “one-up” because their party ideology won, regardless of nothing being done to improve their economic and social conditions.

Entrepreneurs may say their major motivation is to create a new business that will improve the lives of customers, but creating a successful, powerful business is also an ego trip, especially if the entrepreneur is able to take in much more money than others. The money may be important for what it can buy, but a major satisfaction a big pile of money generates is the ego satisfaction and recognition a winner gets because of being able to take in much more money than others, producing a bigger and better balance sheet to show off, proof one has won the business Game called BALANCE SHEET.

The capitalistic economic system is based on NIGYSOB-playing. It’s what makes the world go round. It makes everyone richer, the defenders of capitalism say, because it motivates people to work harder and longer and more efficiently than they would if they did not have to compete and do battle with others to make a living. Even the losers under capitalism get richer than they would under socialism, many imply, because they assume capitalistic countries are able to capture much larger GNPs (Gross National Products) than socialistic and communistic countries. Nations sometimes think they can win in international competition by NIGYSOBing other countries using sanctions and wars.

Capitalism does indeed make some NIGYSOB players richer, those who wipe out their competitors and those who exploit and dispose of their employees to get cheaper ones in impoverished countries; but, of about 7.6 billion humans now aboard Spaceship Earth under capitalism, most will never get ahead, and a billion or so or will stay dirt poor the rest of their natural lives, however long or short, if global warming and climate change, or nuclear bombs, do not render the Earthian human species extinct in the meantime.

I was a decent football and basketball player back in my junior high, high school, and college years. I found it incredibly satisfying calling plays and running the team in a real game before cheering ecstatic fans on a football field, especially when we were winning, in total control of the team on offense, as was the case when I was in the eighth grade, when we won every game, eleven out of eleven. I don’t recall feeling serious anger caused by my football and basketball opponents but I seriously wanted to beat them, badly.

I read a post on my Facebook newsfeed a few days ago featuring Larry Bird, the Boston Celtics basketball superstar, back in 1980 or so, reminiscing about the intense anger he and his teammates felt when they played the Los Angeles Lakers. He said the anger was real and serious. Maybe you have to be a little angry to be a superstar basketball player.

Ten or so years ago Joe Moring, who coached me three years in junior high and high school football, basketball, and track back in the 1950s, telephoned me out of the blue. In the conversation, the first one we had had since the Texas state basketball playoffs in 1960, he told me “You may have been the ‘most coachable’ player I ever had.” This was quite a “stroke” coming from a superstar athlete and coach like Joe Moring, a stroke being what transactional analysts call a “unit of recognition”, which can be positive or negative. It never occurred to me back in the day that my success in sports may have been partially due to repressed anger released playing an underlying second-degree NIGYSOB psychological Game.

Capitalism may be a poor kind of economic system, but it’s better than the alternatives, some say. Just take a look at what happened to people in socialistic and communistic countries, they say.

Maybe so, maybe no.

As a certified transactional analyst with professional experience dealing with psychological Games in organizations, it seems to me under capitalism people are forced to play psychological Games to vie for a greater share of the whole pie generated by organizations, including not only money but recognition, structure, and stimulation, to satisfy their ego needs.

There are basically two kinds of scripts people have to act out in organizations to keep their jobs or get promoted: psychological scripts and social scripts.

Psychological Life Scripts are programmed into children by virtue of being constantly exposed to and dependent on their parents before the age of eight. Almost as if by osmosis parents psychologically script their children not to feel, think, and do certain things in various ways and degrees as various events happen in the environment, largely non-verbally by how they respond to a child, by how they get mad, glad, sad, or scared, or not, when the child does something when various things happen. Psychological scripts are automatically “introjected” into the personalities of children during early childhood, and most children wind up pretty much like their parents, with the same accents, and the same kinds of feeling, thinking, doing, saying, and living patterns. Transactional analysts call these basic “don’t” requirements Injunctions.

There are some generic “do” script messages called Counter-Injunctions such as brush your teeth, study hard, make something of yourself, work hard, etc. that are socially overt and spoken, but they are not as significant or powerful over a lifetime as psychological script injunctions.

Injunctions and counter-injunctions wind up creating a life script that includes a life position. There are four basic TA life positions: I am OK and You are OK, I am OK and you are Not OK, I’m Not OK and You are OK, and I am Not OK and You are Not OK; and there are three generic TA life script outcomes: Winner, Loser, and Non-Winner.

There is no way under capitalism for all people to be fully OK economically and politically, making the I’m OK – You’re OK life position impossible among humans en masse.

The bottom line is that most people are what they are because of family scripts, not economic conditions, and can only respond in adult life in certain ways because of their life scripts that cause the life positions and outcomes. Some people are more flexible and adaptable than others, but most people in order to make a living and achieve some satisfaction in life have to find a slot, niche, and level in an organization in which their life script is considered congruent, regardless of whether the economy is booming, flat, or imploding. In this sense the type of economic system is largely irrelevant.

Social scripts include the sum total of do’s and don’t’s required for a person to be successful dealing with others in a particular job or role. These scripts include the algorithmic steps required to do the specific job you are paid to do and required words and phrases to say to others and how to respond to people around you, up, across, and down the organizational chain of command, including playing the psychological Games people around you like to play.

Social restaurant scripts for greeters, servers, and customers require more conformity than most, requiring these words in almost all restaurants to get the show started: “How many?”, “Two”, or “Four”, or whatever number in the party; and “Right this way please”.

All organizations require generic and particular social scripts for participants with words and phrases that have to be memorized and used. Almost nobody can be her or his true self most of the time making a living in an organization. Most employees have to act out scripts created by the organization. Organizations such as Disney World are the most scripted of all. Employees there are required to wear costumes and “go on stage” after they clock in for work, pretending while on the job to be characters such as Donald Duck or Mickey or Minnie Mouse dealing with customers, parroting memorized lines. While all employees in all organizations have to pretend to some extent they are something they are not to keep their jobs, the scripting is not this extreme in most organizations.

Most people who get fired for cause in organizations are fired because of psychological scripts thought to be inappropriate in an organizational culture, and for being unwilling or unable to act out social scripts, not for not being able to perform the required algorithmic steps of the job.

A problem under capitalism is that the easiest way for upper managers to do a good job increasing the profit of the corporation is by eliminating jobs, regardless of how well their employees are acting out their required scripts and doing the algorithmic therbligs of their jobs. Therbligs are the smallest units of doing something your job requires, such as moving something from Point A to B or making some sort of calculation. Therblig is a made-up word using various letters of Gilbreath, the surname of two of the founders of so-called scientific management in the US.

Psychological Games are a way of getting stimulation, recognition, and structure as one goes about one’s business of surviving and making a living. Basically they involve trying to gain satisfactions dealing with others, such as by making yourself or someone else feel comfortable or by causing a loss of some sort for others, or by making a fool of someone. Psychological Games entail people discounting problems, opportunities, and people, and the significance of someone or something. All psychological Games entail players acting out one of three roles on a Drama Triangle: Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer.

Common psychological script injunctions are Don’t Be Excellent and Don’t Be Important, among about fourteen kinds of Don’t feel, think, and do injunctions generally recognized by transactional analysts, widely transmitted in family scripting. I have covered them in detail in my books Business Voyages and Born to Learn , easily found on the Internet. Why would any parent tell a child not to be excellent or important? Well, no rational parent would socially. They do it psychologically largely outside of conscious Adult ego state awareness mainly because they too did not have psychological permission to be excellent or important when they were children. People play psychological Games by “cathecting”, or turning on, all three of their ego states, including their Parent and Child ego states to create and maintain stimulation, recognition, and structure similar to what they experienced earlier in life, and in most cases they are not aware of what they are doing.

While all managers say they want excellent important employees many of them don’t want them to be too excellent or important, otherwise they might have to pay them more money, or one of them might take over his or her job as manager or supervisor, pushing him or her out the door.

I have described and explained the dynamics and significance of ego states, psychological Games, and scripts in my books, as they were first described and explained in a large gush of books and papers written by Eric Berne, MD (the originator of transactional analysis), and others, published since the 1960s that are still in print and offered for sale on the Internet. The International Transactional Analysis Association has published an excellent collection of refereed scholarly articles on transactional analysis quarterly in the Transactional Analysis Journal since the early 1970s. I studied and trained in transactional analysis at the Southeast Institute at Chapel Hill, North Carolina during 1975–1978, passing written and oral comprehensive exams on transactional analysis in 1978 administered by the ITAA.

Two major purposes of TA are to help people become more authentic and script free so as to gain more satisfaction from life in general and to see social and psychological scripts for what they are in organizations to help people learn how to adapt and flex to them to make a living.

Political races entail opponents playing psychological Games producing psychological satisfactions for all stakeholders – vested interests, candidates, and voters.

Why vote in the first place? The best Adult ego state reason would be to take social satisfaction in helping select the best leader for an organization or group to achieve rational goals and objectives for everyone. Lesser Parent and Child reasons would be to create satisfying psychological Game payoffs for yourself and to secure psychological structure, recognition, and stimulation similar to what you experienced with your parents, friends, and others in your early life, and in adolescence, that supported the psychological, social, economic, religious, political, and moral states of affairs of organizations such as your family, school, church, political party, or nation.

Once psychologically scripted most people do not rebel. Red states stay red and blue states stay blue, regardless of the logical Adult ego state reasoning of idealistic generally-OK presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders with script-free ideas on how to improve the functioning of the economic and political system.

I remember a TV interviewer in 2000 asking an attractive woman who ran a bar and grill why she intended to vote for Bush II. “Cuz he’s a good-lookin’ man” was her quick response.

There are several psychological Games people play in political races; but it seems to me based on observing presidential races on the Internet and elsewhere, listening to comments people make on my Facebook news feed timeline and elsewhere, most politicians play to some degree a psychological Game called RAPO by transactional analysts, since one of the surest ways to get votes in our narcissistic USian culture is to be considered good lookin’.

There are three degrees of psychological Games: First Degree Games are basically compliments, insults, discounts, jokes, and body language displays designed to build up or tear down someone’s self-esteem, or gain or lose some sort of psychological advantage; Second Degree Games entail more serious discounts and payoffs, threatening someone, firing someone, getting divorced, etc.; Third Degree Games are sometimes called tissue-tearing Games with payoffs such as getting into physical fights, going to war, winding up in a morgue, etc.

A RAPO Game starts by someone psychologically promising some sort of satisfaction to someone for responding to her or his sexual attractiveness. There are various social and psychological transactions that can bring this about, social transactions being spoken and overt, psychological transactions being unspoken and covert. The payoff for a RAPO player is not a real sexual liaison but making a fool of a mark or sucker who will be punished or humiliated in some way if he or she responds to the psychological sexual messages. Not all psychological Games entail sexual messaging but a lot of them do. All psychological Games involve a con artist of some degree taking advantage of the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of a mark or suckers, promising things the Game starter has no intentions of delivering. Most of the promises of first-degree Games are insignificant and inconsequential. These Games are ubiquitous and most people play them at various times. Sometimes they have to to survive in organizations.

Psychological Games and scripts are what make folk tales and fairy tales (such as Robin Hood, Superman, The Lone Ranger, Snow White, Cinderella, Jack & Jill, Humpty-Dumpty, Hansel and Gretel, The Big Bad Wolf, and Little Red Riding Hood) interesting and dramatic.

Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Bush II, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden won some big races largely because of being successful psychological Game players, having physical and psychological characteristics that enabled them to transmit non-verbal psychological messages to voters that they would deliver to them psychological and social satisfactions if they voted for them, somehow providing them with various sorts of desired or fantasied psychological stimulation, structures, and recognition. Whether these politicians produced for their voters the psychological satisfactions the voters sought would be difficult to prove, just as it would be for these voters (for sure middle and lower income voters) to prove voting for these politicians produced any economic satisfactions for them. Any president during the last forty years would have a difficult time proving he produced significant tangible economic benefits for middle and lower income voters, regardless of how much psychological and social satisfaction he produced for them.

Seems to me Earthian humans are polarized intellectually between two general extreme categories that might be best described as democratic idealists and authoritarian nihilists, with most humans being clustered near the middle of the continuum.

Democratic idealists are not necessarily members of the Democratic party in the US; and all authoritarian nihilists are not necessarily members of the Republican party.

A democratic idealist in my view is someone who visualizes new states of affairs that might make an unsatisfying situation more efficient, effective, just, and satisfying through consultation, collaboration, and cooperation.

Authoritarian nihilists in my view are dissatisfied with states of affairs as they are but do not visualize changing them by creating new states of affairs through democratic processes, believing instead that strong leaders in positions of authority should make existing systems and processes work better for them by out-competing others.

Most so-called liberals and progressives would be included in the democratic idealist category and most so-called conservatives would be included in the authoritarian nihilist category.

An extreme democratic idealist would focus primarily on ideal states to be achieved in the future; extreme authoritarian nihilists would be focused primarily on the here and now, caring little about achieving better imaginary states of being in the future.

Abraham Lincoln once remarked there are two kinds of people who never amount to much in life: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who cannot do anything but what they are told. Idealistic builders of imaginary air castles often have a hard time making a go of things in life, and people with no goals and imagination are pretty much stuck where they are, if they’re lucky. Probably most successful people lie somewhere in between the two extremes of idealism and nihilism.

Extreme democratic idealists worry a lot; extreme authoritarian nihilists just don’t give a rip.

I agree with most transactional analysts that Earthian humans are scripted to be what they are emotionally, intellectually, and behaviorally in early childhood by Injunctions that are psychologically transmitted from the child ego states of parents to the child ego states of their offspring.

According to Robert Goulding, MD and Mary Goulding, MSW, quoted in my book Business Voyages, page 160, there are about fourteen generic psychological Injunctions widely transmitted in family scripting:

Don’t Be

Don’t Be You (the sex you are)

Don’t Be A Child

Don’t Grow

Don’t Make It

Don’t

Don’t Be Important

Don’t Be Close

Don’t Belong

Don’t Be Well (or sane)

Don’t Think About X (forbidden subject)

Don’t Think What You Think, Think What I Think

Don’t Feel

Don’t Feel X, Mad, Sad, Glad, Scared, etc.

Don’t Feel What You Feel, Feel What I Feel (Goulding & Goulding, 1976).

These injunctions are transmitted primarily psychologically, meaning they are not overtly spoken. Rarely would a parent socially tell a child what one of the above injunctions requires. They are transmitted non-verbally primarily by the Parent, Adult, and Child ego states and mad, glad, sad, or scared emotions parents display in response to what a child naturally feels, thinks, and does as shared life events occur in early childhood. On the other hand, children are scripted by the ego states they observe parents using when parents feel, think, and do things. Children psychologically “introject” in living color the ego states of parents, including the accents, mannerisms, facial expressions, tone of voice, and behaviors of parents, as parents and children deal with life events. To introject is to take in or absorb the personality and behavioral characteristics of another. So children more or less replicate their parents, and the replications become hard-wired in their brains for life in most cases.

For good or ill, the scripting process may determine not only the personality and behavioral characteristics of a child but also his/her life position and role in life, including determining whether a child grows up to become a democratic idealist or an authoritarian nihilist.

Therefore the scripting process largely determines which political parties win in any culture; and the fate of Spaceship Earth may depend on changing the scripting of humans, which entails a process of change that includes not only changing economic and political systems but also psychological and social systems.

An assumption of transactional analysis is that humans can learn to “see what is really going on” with themselves and others as they transact with one another socially and psychologically living their daily lives so as to increase their chances of living satisfactory lives, regardless of how not-OK their economic, social, psychological, and political worlds might be.

According to transactional analysis theory there are three naturally occurring generic life outcomes caused for humans: winner, loser, and non-winner – caused by inherited physical characteristics and “messages” one is exposed to throughout life – and by the early decisions offspring make about the messages that become determinants of emotional, intellectual, and behavioral responses throughout life.

Whether one inherits a winner, loser, or non-winner script is determined by naturally-occurring inevitable cause-effect chains one is accidentally exposed to. Some transactional analysts assume proportions of winner, loser, and non-winner scripts in the population remain relatively constant from one generation to another.

A purpose of TA is to help individuals and groups insert new causes into natural cause-effect chains so as to increase the probabilities and proportions of winner outcomes in the populace.

Changing a loser script to a winner script requires hard work but it can happen if a person somehow acquires new script messages powerful enough to control frustrating, debilitating, or harmartic script messages recorded in his or her sub-conscious mind. TA can provide people basic concepts and tools for attempting such a thing, perhaps requiring learning to use different ego states and transactional patterns and learning how to communicate in more effective ways psychologically and socially.

Most people seem to think if only Earthian humans could solve their economic, political, military, and religious troubles then everything would be wonderful for everyone. Not so, many people would not be happy and successful living in paradise because of script messages indelibly recorded in their sub-conscious minds before they were eight years old. In order for everyone to live happily and successfully humans would have to solve not only economic, political, religious, and social problems, but also psychological problems.

Changing a loser script may entail changing the ego states one uses, the way one structures time (learning how to spend more or less time in different ways), withdrawing in their heads, pastiming (shooting the bull) with others, performing rituals, doing work activity, playing psychological Games, or being intimate with others.

The Prayer of Serenity goes something like this: Lord give me the intelligence and strength to change what needs changing, and the wisdom to know what I can and cannot change, knowing full well that some suffering, losing, and grieving is inevitable.

Using TA in some cases can help people become more serene, by enabling them to see more clearly what is going on to make salutary changes, or by learning to accept one’s script and focus on finding a niche in which it fits. On the other hand, a basic problem or question is whether serenity is possible in today’s world, beset by global warming and climate change and by escalating tensions and agitations among organizations and groups around Earth.

TA never promised anyone any rose gardens, or eternal bliss in heaven, but it does advertise that it can help individuals, groups, and organizations become more OK, OK not only in terms of achieving goals but more OK transacting with others so as to live with more dignity, satisfaction, peace, and tranquility, based on Adult mutually agreed to contracts.

No one could blame you if you believe in tuning out TA and articles such as this one. Maybe the best strategy is to tune out the world as much as you can, burrowing up in your burrow as much as possible, reading no newspapers and not watching television, with no Internet. The problem however if you do that is boredom. Most humans have an innate need for stimulation, achievement, and recognition.

Regardless of what sort of cognitive structures humans might use, TA or whatever, sooner or later they have to take action, and this entails defining problems, delineating alternatives, making recommendations, choosing things, trying new things, trial and error, over and over, till something works.

1 – What is the problem?

2 – What are the alternatives?

3 – What do you recommend?

We live in precarious times that probably encourage people to play AIN’T IT AWFUL more now than in the past, a psychological Game in which Game players collect strokes for complaining about the evils and troubles of world, positioning themselves as Victims of obsolete economic, religious, and political systems and policies manipulated and exploited by greedy self-interested power-mad sociopathic oligarchs and leaders and their corrupt bought and paid for lackeys, especially lobbyists, politicians, and religious leaders, however true that might be in reality.

By the same token, it will do no good for humans to passively pretend everything is just hunky-dory and swell, with everything coming up roses for everyone, living in small imaginary Candide-like best of all possible worlds, playing a psychological Game called GREENHOUSE by transactional analysts, in which players are rewarded with plastic strokes for making nonsensical positive cheerful upbeat comments about the environment and political, economic, social, and psychological states of affairs, regardless of how bleak they are in reality.

It seems to me the most dangerous psychological Game played politically right now is IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU, involving polarized individuals, groups, and organizations who experience increasing insecurity and hopelessness causing them to blame others and find scapegoats for their plights, escalating their anger as they transmit threats from their angry Parent and Child ego states to the Parent and Child ego states of others, sometimes attacking others verbally and physically for their perceived misdeeds and beliefs. Some of the threats include the threat of international and civil war. Trump is doing a good job of playing IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU with Iran and Venezuela right now, and one can build a case about all he does is play psychological Games with his supporters and opponents.

IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU entails aggrieved humans psychologically acting as if opposing warring or competing parties maliciously and arbitrarily decided using free will to commit the harmful or heinous actions and deeds they are accused of committing, instead of realizing the others were caused by circumstances and script messages to do what they did just like the aggrieved aggressive people were. Getting rid of the other will not solve problems such as poor educational systems, poor family scripts, poor religions, and poor economic policies and systems.

For more information regarding the 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 TA 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

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

This entails human Earthians never doing work that machines can do better, and delegating the day-to-day management of systems for scheduling, producing, and distributing the necessities of life to artificial intelligence programs and supercomputers.

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

Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi

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

Flying aboard an airliner about to land at night moving at four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet with cloudy and rainy weather below, which would you rather have landing the plane, the plane’s computer system or the pilot and co-pilot looking out their windows with their hands clutching their steering wheels?

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

SOURCES for this article are provided in THE EARTHIAN FORUM https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum-16/ with links to recent Internet articles written and published by clear deep-thinking hard-hitting independent writers in various Internet publications on ecological, economic, social, political, religious, and military states of affairs around Spaceship Earth. I generally agree with these writers about what is most relevant about Spaceship Earth states of affairs, but each of them brought up facts, analyses, conclusions, ideas, or perspectives that were new to me when I read them during the last thirty days or so.

Some Game playing goes on in the articles, i.e., a writer is psychologically Persecuting, Rescuing, or Victimizing someone, but it seems to me the writers are generally trying to paint accurate pictures of what they think is really going on economically, socially, psychologically, and politically. Unfortunately one can build a case that politicians spend most of their time playing psychological Games, wasting most of their time pastiming (bullshitting), doing rituals (filling out unnecessary forms, attending useless meetings, and the like), and playing psychological Games. Most expenditures of time, money, and energy in so-called foreign policy are moves in psychological Games it seems to me.

There is such a thing as Positive Critical Parent Ego State energy, and Critical Parent economic, political, and religious criticism is necessary and rational to stave off dire consequences staring humanity in the face.

It’s not easy, impossible some say, to separate relevant from irrelevant focal points in order to comprehend global cases, systems, and processes, while being inundated with fake news and true facts of states of affairs generated daily around Spaceship Earth, made public on the Internet and elsewhere, to see what’s really going on, using primarily inductive and analogical reasoning, based on probability, not deductive logic. Almost never can anyone prove with deductive logic that a general proposition about economic, social, psychological, or political states affairs is absolutely true. About the best humans can hope for is to develop consensual answers that are generally acceptable and true based on probability.

It’s better to be honestly wrong than dishonestly wrong, saying something is true because you really don’t know it’s not true than to say something is true when you know damn well it’s not true.

Seems to me most lying is lying by omission (people not telling people things they know are true to gain or preserve advantages in competitive situations). Whether lying by omission is more or less harmful in overall perspective than lying by commission (telling people things you know are not true to dispense fake news), is debatable, as is proving whether it’s getting easier or harder for most people to see what’s really going on in economic and political states of affairs.

Political parties, the US government, and mainstream media often lie by omission about what is going on with alacrity, presumably to protect national security and their corporate revenues, in many cases socially presenting true facts about states of affairs but omitting analysis about why they happened or what should have happened, enabling group-think mental illnesses.

TO RESPOND:

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 at https://www.effectivelearning.net/ogeechee-economic-forum.html. go to the Effective Learning Company RESPONSES page and let us know about them at https://www.effectivelearning.net/responses.html .

Feel free to respond with comments about any of the SOURCES listed in the Earthian Economic Forum cited in this article https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-forum-16/ using the RESPONSES post on this blog masthead at the top of this page, or by emailing [email protected] . Feel free to criticize any of the facts, data, evidence, reasoning, and conclusions in any of the articles, including this one; but please refrain from slandering the authors and the Internet journals to deny consideration of their arguments and conclusions.

I have no desire to sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit donations for the EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, but I would like to sell more books. If you feel you’ve gained value from the Effective Learning Report and would like to reciprocate go to the Effective Learning Publications page and purchase one or more copies of my books at https://www.effectivelearning.net/effective-learning-publications.html .

FOR A FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO THE EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT AND THE EARTHIAN FORUM: Email [email protected] and punch the word Subscription into the subject line.

Richard John Stapleton, PhD, CTA is an emeritus Professor of Management at Georgia Southern University specializing in entrepreneurship, organizational behavior, and business policy. See https://www.effectivelearning.net/rjs-academic-vita.html for a full listing of credentials

By Richard John Stapleton

Numerous longstanding economic, social, political, and military issues are coming home to roost once again around Spaceship Earth. Earthian humans are caught between the proverbial rock and hard spot. The fly caught in the spider’s web entangles itself more and more as it struggles to free itself. Global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP) hang over the heads of Earthian humans like clouds of doom.  The Malthusian Concept may have been right after all.

Gail Tverberg had the following to say April 21, 2022 in the last two paragraphs of her article “The world has a major crude oil problem; expect conflict ahead,” in the blog OUR FINITE WORLD, at https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/04/21/the-world-has-a-major-crude-oil-problem-expect-conflict-ahead/:

“Now we are running into a serious shortfall of crude oil. We can expect a new set of problems, including far more conflict. Wars are likely. Debt defaults are likely. Political parties will take increasingly divergent positions on how to work around current problems. News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.

“About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.”

One can build a case based on Google-searched facts and information that a cause of the USian-NATO-Russian-Ukrainian War is that the USian deep state does not want Russian oil and gas to be sold in Europe because it would enrich the Russian economy and make Russia a more powerful global economic competitor; and the USian deep state is using Ukraine to fight a proxy war with Russia to shut off the flow of Russian oil and gas into European markets.

It’s depressing to think the USian-NATO-Russian-Ukrainian showdown might escalate into WWIII and nuclear war; but it’s also depressing to consider that if Earthian humans do not significantly reduce the fossil fuel they burn in coming years Global warming might cause the extinction of Earthian human life.

If Earthian humans increase the oil supply and burn it all to feed the growth of the Earthian economy in the next decade as much as possible as it now technologically functions they might render themselves extinct by raising global Earthian temperature past the tipping point. Conversely, Earthian humans will weaken the Earthian economy, decrease the Earthian production of goods and services, and probably lower the quality of human life by significantly cutting the production and burning of oil and gas in the next decade to reduce global warming.

It would seem the latter choice is the lesser evil.

One can build a case that Tverberg might be right in the last sentence of her second paragraph above about the need for a religion for most Earthian humans that promises eternal well-being and fulfillment after death if they cannot experience happiness and peace aboard Spaceship Earth during their infinitesimally-short natural lives.

Earthian humans have been told the narrative since WWII by USian politicians, generals, parents, teachers, preachers, writers, talk show hosts, lobbyists, public relations experts, advertising experts, and others employed in the USian education/information/propaganda/infotainment system that the US had no choice after WWII but to militarily contain and restrain Russia with NATO in Eastern Europe, and to bomb and/or invade North Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and to undermine, bomb, and/or sanction numerous countries around Spaceship Earth, while establishing some eight hundred USian military bases in over one hundred countries around Spaceship Earth, to prevent the spread of atheistic communism and socialism.

Is this narrative still true? Was it ever true?

Usian army four-star general Wesley Clark dropped an information bombshell in his published memoirs that a senior general sitting at his desk in the Pentagon as Clark walked by his office in the hall during one of Clark’s visits to the Pentagon in 2001 two weeks after 9/11 called Clark into his office and showed him a “memo” outlining a USian military plan to “take out seven countries in five years,” which had nothing to do with containing or restraining atheistic communism or socialism. Read about this memo at https://www.salon.com/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/.

What this memo did have something to do with was oil. All seven countries on the list were oil producing countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and most of their governments have by now been “taken out” and replaced with new governments one way or the other. One of the governments on the list not “taken out” was the Syrian government. One can build a case the USian deep state tried to take out the Syrian government by fostering, supporting, and using a New Syrian Army proxy force ostensibly to fight Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorist groups in Syria, that would also serve as proxy fighters to take out Assad’s Syrian government; but it failed to take out Assad and his government because Russia militarily fought on their side. If this narrative is true, the USian deep state was also fighting Russia in Syria.

The USian deep state did not “win” wars by “taking out” the governments of most of the seven countries in the memo, destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Earthian humans in the process, but most likely it did gain more control over the Earthian oil supply than it otherwise would have had.

President Dwight Eisenhower, a USian five-star army general and supreme commander of allied forces during WWII, warned USians in his farewell address January 17, 1961 as he left office as USian president about the establishment of a USian “military-industrial complex.” Eisenhower said every dollar spent on the USian military could have been spent to alleviate poverty and suffering among civilians in the US. The USian government now spends more on its military than on anything else in the USian federal government discretionary budget, almost one trillion dollars per year, several times more per year than any other Earthian government spends on its military. Much of that money is funneled into the coffers of large USian private sector defense corporations to produce military weapons, equipment, and supplies. The USian economy is now the largest arms dealer around Spaceship Earth, generating revenues that increase USian GDP selling weapons, equipment, and services to customers in numerous countries around Spaceship Earth. Whether the USian deep state generates an accounting profit for ordinary USian taxpayers doing this is probably incalculable. Accountants have given up trying to audit the USian Pentagon.

What would a narrative say that explains why USian governments did what they did militarily after WWII? Doing what they did to contain communism is obviously not the full story. The USian deep state tried to constrain, restrain, and reduce Russia in Eastern Europe after Russia eliminated its communist government through internal political processes in 1991. The Russian government is now a fascist authoritarian oligarchy, using a capitalist economic system, supposedly holding democratic elections, loosely analogous to what exists in the US, that uses the traditional Russian Orthodox Christian Church as a tool to manipulate and control its middle and lower classes, much like authoritarian Russian czars did before the Russian Communist Revolution in 1917. Meanwhile Putin and his oligarch cronies have become some of the richest Earthian humans after taking ownership control of Russian assets that presumably belonged to the Russian people under communism.

The old USian deep state narrative that the USian military had to constrain and restrain Russia to prevent the spread of communism is now obsolete, since Russian governments got rid of communism and atheism themselves.    

One can build a case all USian governments since WWII, dealing with matters of war and peace, with the possible exception of  the government of John F. Kennedy during 1961-1963, who was assassinated before his first term ended, adhered to policies generated by the USian deep state; and the main reason USian governments did what they did militarily after WWII was to increase USian GNP and civilian and military employment, and to ensure necessary resources and raw materials would be available for the USian corporate deep state. Ensuring plenty of oil and gas at low prices would be available for the USian deep state had to have been high on the list of reasons explaining why the USian deep state did what it did militarily after WWII.

According to the standard USian deep state narrative about why and how John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he was shot by a lone insane USian gunman who had ties to Russia.

But the narrative based on the story that JFK was assassinated by a lone insane gunman is now out of date. The official US government narrative was written by the Warren Commission in 1963 and did state this position. Subsequent developments however changed this original official narrative, at least in the National Archives, if not in the minds of most USians. For the full story go to the National Archives JFK Assassination Records at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1 .

Here is now an updated narrative of the USian government regarding the JFK assassination, pursuant to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, according to the Assassination Records Review Board, at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board :

“Findings

“The Committee believes on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

---

“Go to the footnotes for this chapter.

---

• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy
• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy
• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved
• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved

“The Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy .”

I got involved in a discussion last week on my Facebook page about USians traveling around Spaceship Earth acting as if they are the only “Americans” inhabiting the American Continent, comprising North America, Central America, South America, and Caribbean Islands. I posted and shared a meme on Facebook that I saw on my Facebook newsfeed showing the American Continent on one side of the page and USian territory on the other. The USian land mass in the meme appeared to be about one-fifth of the total landmass of the American Continent. I wrote the following comment at the top of the shared meme: “But most Earthian humans living in the US think they are entitled to consider and refer to themselves as the only Americans, or at least the only Americans that count.”

The post generated 13 likes, 19 comments, and 2 shares. Some of the comments generally agreed with my comment, but most of them ignored the logic of what I said; instead, they attacked my character in ad hominem illogical arguments, accusing me of being a socialist, communist, or liberal, deflecting attention from the point I tried to make about the attitudes of USian humans with respect to their actual social and geographic position on the American Continent. I responded with another comment in the thread of comments pointing out most of them had missed the point of my original comment. This prompted a new commenter to enter the discussion saying he had not missed the point of my original comment but he had “destroyed” it. He accused me of thinking I was morally and intellectually superior, which he said was not true, and he was not “having” it. He said I was a son of the failed liberal global world order. He said he was “Nation First”, and wore a Trumpian MAGA red cap in Canada. He said he loved telling his liberal Canadian friends how stupid they were. He said the US had kept sea lanes free for international trade and had contained six or so nuclear-armed countries, and was the only country on the American Continent that counted. I responded to him saying he was entitled to his opinion, telling him I did not agree, but so what?  He then responded that he would have none of this, saying I should “take some responsibility”, among other things. It seemed to me he was psychologically advocating violence of one kind or another. I deleted his second post from my Facebook page and temporarily blocked him from my page, thinking there was no way he would cease his arguing in the thread in an OK way.  I unblocked him from my Facebook page two days later. He seemed to be an OK human.

This First Nation thinking and believing modus operandi in my opinion is one of the primary causes of dangerous polarizations around Spaceship Earth, and always has been. Nobody can prove his or her opinion about pychological, social, economic, and political states of affairs is absolute truth; but some humans, maybe over half the Earthian human population, believe fact and reason-based relative truth is irrelevant, believing rather what counts are memorized opinions, dogmas, doctrines, and slogans, that they and their kind believe, which they believe they have a right, perhaps duty, to impose on others, as if their dogmas and doctrines were absolute truth.

A poignant current case in point is USian right-wing states recently blocking abortions with new laws in their states in the US and then beseeching the stacked deck of biased and prejudiced authoritarian right-wing USian Supreme Court judges to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Supreme Court judge Alito in essence argued in writing for the majority 5-4 court, citing the due process clause, that since the USIAN Constitution does not mention abortions then technically the Supreme Court did not have a right to allow abortions throughout the US with Roe v. Wade in the first place. This argument seems specious and irrelevant to me but having a grain of technical logic, albeit not enough to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I disagree based on Alito’s reasoning that USian states should have a right to enact state laws that disallow abortions. Most likely their constitutions do not mention abortions either.

Abortions in my opinion should be legally treated like any other medical procedure. Should USian humans with no medical training have a right to enact state or federal laws allowing or disallowing any medical procedure they “feel” like allowing or disallowing? Are trained, qualified, and certified medical doctors less qualified to make decisions about abortions than medically unqualified biased and prejudiced right wing voters, politicians, and judges?

Should USian states or the federal government have the right to force all citizens of a state or the nation to accept subjective arbitrary unprovable opinions, dogmas, and doctrines regarding medical procedures by enacting laws based on biased and prejudiced party line votes that are enforceable on everyone with police force arrests and serious fines and punishments?

No, in my opinion.

It seems to me up to seventy percent or so of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth believe some fascist dogmas and doctrines, and many true believers believe they have a right or duty to fight, kill if necessary, those who do not believe the opinions, dogmas, and doctrines they do. They believe believing the opinions, dogmas, and doctrines they believe makes them morally and intellectually special and entitles them to outlandish rewards, such as eternal bliss in some sort of heaven.

Trump struts around on stage at political rallies in the US exhorting followers to chant USA! USA! USA! over and over again. The discussant from Canada on Facebook last week taught me what this USA chanting is about. Trump’s supporters are psychologically expressing Trump’s “America First” doctrine while psychologically proving how courageous, patriotic, heroic, superior, and deserving they are. They are psychologically saying We’re OK, but you are Not-OK if you do not believe what we believe. Trump’s America First doctrine is a variant of the Canadian’s Nation First doctrine.

Fascists who took full control of their countries around Spaceship Earth throughout Earthian human history, such as Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Pinochet in recent decades, let their Victims know if they did not submit to, believe, and conform to what they the fascists said they would fine them, beat them up, put them in prison, disappear them, starve them, crucify them, burn them alive at the stake, stone them, and torture them using various sadistic techniques and devices before killing them, which they did with hundreds, thousands, and millions of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth.

Fascist dictators may have enabled their cronies and followers to experience psychological highs in the beginnings of their regimes, but none of their governments lasted very long in Earthian time. Rationality prevailed, and sooner or later their countries got rid of their true-believer fascist governments.

Unfortunately, fascism is now far from dead around Spaceship Earth despite its track record, and several current pseudo-fascist dictators might blossom into full-blown fascist dictators around Spaceship Earth. Fascism has selling points that appeal to a high percentage of Earthian humans. Its main appeal to lower classes is that it promises opportunities for obedient followers to receive strokes and rewards for memorizing, obeying, and promoting fascist opinions, doctrines, and dogmas, and for doing what they are told by their supposedly-superior supervisors, managers, and commanders. A selling point for upper classes is fascist dictators promising to help them perpetuate their superior social, economic, and political positions.

The Canadian on Facebook caused me to do some research into fascist doctrines. I did a Google internet search, asking Google “What is the Nation First doctrine?” I got ninety-two million results. I read or perused several of them, including an essay written by Mussolini, titled “The Doctrine of Fascism” (1932).

Unlike the barely-literate MAGA red baseball cap-wearing former USian president Donald Trump, Mussolini, assuming he wrote “The Doctrine of Fascism,” was an articulate polished well-read sophisticated thinker and writer. The essay is worth a read (https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf ).     

The Nation First doctrine the Canadian brought to my attention on Facebook is about as depressing as global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP).

Here are the last two paragraphs of my recently published novel, As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases:

“As states of affairs worsen in the meantime, relatively-OK Game-free Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Earthian humans should just say “go jump in the lake” to all hardened Not-OK one-up Parent–Child psychological Game-players, letting them know they will remain Not-OK until their group imagoes, personalities, ego states, transactions, life positions, scripts, Games, and rackets are somehow caused to be more OK.

“If most Earthian humans have become extinct because of global warming or nuclear war as you lie dying, having done what you could to eradicate the probability of imminent human extinction, just say “tough luck” and let the remaining chips fall where they may.”

Perhaps Earthian humans should start chanting “EARTH!, EARTH!, EARTH!” over and over again at political rallies around Spaceship Earth.   

––––––––––––––––––––––––

RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON, PhD, CTA, an emeritus professor of management, consultant, and author, is the founder and editor of the Effective Learning Report and The Earthian. For more on his cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to www.blog.effectivelearning.net.

 

THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty, May 20, 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, scientific, religious, and ecological states of affairs affecting the existential well-being of all species of fauna and flora around Spaceship Earth, focusing on 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”

“YOU ARE ENTITLED TO EXPLAIN YOUR OPINION TO ME, AND I AM ENTITLED TO EXPLAIN MY OPINION TO YOU; BUT NEITHER YOU NOR I ARE ENTITLED TO TELL THE OTHER WHAT HER OR HIS OPINION MUST BE”

 

EARTHIAN HUMANS EXPERIENCE LESS OKNESS

By Richard John Stapleton

Numerous longstanding economic, social, psychological, political, and military issues are coming home to roost once again around Spaceship Earth. Earthian humans are caught between the proverbial rock and hard spot. The fly caught in the spider’s web entangles itself more and more as it struggles to free itself. Global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP) hang over the heads of Earthian humans like clouds of doom.  Covid-19 may flare up again this winter. The Malthusian Concept was probably right after all.

Gail Tverberg had the following to say April 21, 2022 in the last two paragraphs of her article “The world has a major crude oil problem; expect conflict ahead,” in the blog OUR FINITE WORLD, at https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/04/21/the-world-has-a-major-crude-oil-problem-expect-conflict-ahead/:

“Now we are running into a serious shortfall of crude oil. We can expect a new set of problems, including far more conflict. Wars are likely. Debt defaults are likely. Political parties will take increasingly divergent positions on how to work around current problems. News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.

“About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.”

One can build a case based on Google-searched facts and information that a cause of the USian-NATO-Russian-Ukrainian War is that the USian deep state does not want Russian oil and gas to be sold in Europe because it would enrich the Russian economy and make Russia a more powerful global economic competitor; and the USian deep state is using Ukraine to fight a proxy war with Russia to shut off the flow of Russian oil and gas into European markets.

It’s depressing to think the USian-NATO-Russian-Ukrainian showdown might escalate into WWIII and nuclear war; but it’s also depressing to consider that if Earthian humans do not significantly reduce the fossil fuel they burn in coming years Global warming might cause the extinction of Earthian human life.

If Earthian humans increase the oil supply and burn it all to feed the growth of the Earthian economy in the next decade as much as possible as it now technologically functions they might render themselves extinct by raising global Earthian temperature past the tipping point. Conversely, Earthian humans will weaken the Earthian economy, decrease the Earthian production of goods and services, and probably lower the quality of human life by significantly cutting the production and burning of oil and gas in the next decade to reduce global warming.

It would seem the latter choice is the lesser evil.

One can build a case that Tverberg might be right in the last sentence of her second paragraph above about the need for a religion for most Earthian humans that promises eternal well-being and fulfillment after death if they cannot experience happiness and peace aboard Spaceship Earth during their infinitesimally-short natural lives.

Earthian humans have been told the narrative since WWII by USian politicians, generals, parents, teachers, preachers, writers, talk show hosts, lobbyists, public relations experts, advertising experts, and others employed in the USian education/information/propaganda/infotainment system that the US had no choice after WWII but to militarily contain and restrain Russia with NATO in Eastern Europe, and to bomb and/or invade North Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and to undermine, bomb, and/or sanction numerous countries around Spaceship Earth, while establishing some eight hundred USian military bases in over one hundred countries around Spaceship Earth, to prevent the spread of atheistic communism and socialism.

Is this narrative still true? Was it ever true?

Usian army four-star general Wesley Clark dropped an information bombshell in his published memoirs that a senior general sitting at his desk in the Pentagon as Clark walked by his office in the hall during one of Clark’s visits to the Pentagon in 2001 two weeks after 9/11 called Clark into his office and showed him a “memo” outlining a USian military plan to “take out seven countries in five years,” which had nothing to do with containing or restraining atheistic communism or socialism. Read about this memo at https://www.salon.com/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/.

What this memo did have something to do with was oil. All seven countries on the list were oil producing countries in the Middle East and North Africa, and most of their governments have by now been “taken out” and replaced with new governments one way or the other that are more acceptable to the USian deep state. One of the governments on the list not “taken out” was the Syrian government. One can build a case the USian deep state tried to take out the Syrian government by fostering, supporting, and using a New Syrian Army proxy force ostensibly to fight Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorist groups in Syria, that would also serve as proxy fighters to take out Assad’s Syrian government; but it failed to take out Assad and his government because Russia militarily fought on their side. If this narrative is true, the USian deep state was also fighting Russia in Syria.

The USian deep state did not “win” wars by “taking out” the governments of most of the seven countries in the memo, destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Earthian humans in the process, but most likely it did gain more control over the Earthian oil supply than it otherwise would have had.

President Dwight Eisenhower, a USian five-star army general and supreme commander of allied forces during WWII, warned USians in his farewell address January 17, 1961 as he left office as USian president about the establishment of a USian “military-industrial complex.” Eisenhower said every dollar spent on the USian military could have been spent to alleviate poverty and suffering among civilians in the US. The USian government now spends more on its military than on anything else in the USian federal government discretionary budget, almost one trillion dollars per year, several times more per year than any other Earthian government spends on its military. Much of that money is funneled into the coffers of large USian private sector defense corporations to produce military weapons, equipment, and supplies. The USian economy is now the largest arms dealer around Spaceship Earth, generating revenues that increase USian GDP selling weapons, equipment, and services to customers in numerous countries around Spaceship Earth, and the USian military is a major contributor to global warming, burning as much fossil fuel every year as some countries, such as Sweden. Whether the USian deep state generates an accounting profit for ordinary USian taxpayers producing and selling arms and war materials is probably incalculable. Accountants have given up trying to audit the USian Pentagon.

What would a narrative say that explains why USian governments did what they did militarily after WWII? Doing what they did to contain communism is obviously not the full story. The USian deep state tried to constrain, restrain, and reduce Russia in Eastern Europe after Russia eliminated its communist government through internal political processes in 1991. The Russian government is now a fascist authoritarian oligarchy, using a capitalist economic system, supposedly holding democratic elections, loosely analogous to what exists in the US, that uses the traditional Russian Orthodox Christian Church as a tool to manipulate and control its middle and lower classes, much like authoritarian Russian czars did before the Russian Communist Revolution in 1917. Meanwhile Putin and his oligarch cronies have become some of the richest humans aboard Spaceship Earth after taking ownership control of Russian assets that presumably belonged to the Russian people under communism.

The old USian deep state narrative that the USian military had to constrain and restrain Russia to prevent the spread of communism is now obsolete, since Russian governments got rid of communism and atheism themselves.    

One can build a case all USian governments since WWII, dealing with matters of war and peace, with the possible exception of  the government of John F. Kennedy during 1961-1963, who was assassinated before his first term ended, adhered to policies generated by the USian deep state; and the main reason USian governments did what they did militarily after WWII was to increase USian GNP and civilian and military employment, and to ensure necessary resources and raw materials would be available for the USian corporate deep state. Ensuring plenty of oil and gas at low prices would be available for the USian deep state had to have been high on the list of reasons explaining why the USian deep state did what it did militarily after WWII.

According to the standard USian deep state narrative about why and how John F. Kennedy was assassinated, he was shot by a lone insane USian gunman who had ties to Russia.

But the narrative based on the story that JFK was assassinated by a lone insane gunman is now out of date. The official US government narrative was written by the Warren Commission in 1963 and did state this position. Subsequent developments however changed this original official narrative, at least in the National Archives, if not in the minds of most USians. For the full story go to the National Archives JFK Assassination Records at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-1 .

Here is now an updated narrative of the USian government regarding the JFK assassination, pursuant to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, according to the Assassination Records Review Board, at https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board :

“Findings

“The Committee believes on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.

---

“Go to the footnotes for this chapter.

---

• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy
• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Cuban Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy
• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that anti-Castro Cuban groups, as groups, were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved
• The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the national syndicate of organized crime, as a group, was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, but that the available evidence does not preclude the possibility that individual members may have been involved

“The Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency were not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy .”

I got involved in a discussion last week on my Facebook page about USians traveling around Spaceship Earth acting as if they are the only “Americans” inhabiting the American Continent, comprising North America, Central America, South America, and Caribbean Islands. I posted and shared a meme on Facebook that I saw on my Facebook newsfeed showing the American Continent on one side of the page and USian territory on the other. The USian land mass in the meme appeared to be about one-fifth of the total landmass of the American Continent. I wrote the following comment at the top of the shared meme: “But most Earthian humans living in the US think they are entitled to consider and refer to themselves as the only Americans, or at least the only Americans that count.”

The post generated 13 likes, 19 comments, and 2 shares. Some of the comments generally agreed with my comment, but most of them ignored the logic of what I said; instead, they attacked my character in ad hominem illogical arguments, accusing me of being a socialist, communist, or liberal, deflecting attention from the point I tried to make about the attitudes of USian humans with respect to their actual social and geographic position on the American Continent. I responded with another comment in the thread of comments pointing out most of them had missed the point of my original comment. This prompted a new commenter to enter the discussion saying he had not missed the point of my original comment but he had “destroyed” it. He accused me of thinking I was morally and intellectually superior, which he said was not true, and he was not “having” it. He said I was a son of the failed liberal global world order. He said he was “Nation First”, and wore a Trumpian MAGA red cap in Canada. He said he loved telling his liberal Canadian friends how stupid they were. He said the US had kept sea lanes free for international trade and had contained six or so nuclear-armed countries, and was the only country on the American Continent that counted. I responded to him saying he was entitled to his opinion, telling him I did not agree, but so what?  He then responded that he would have none of this, saying I should “take some responsibility”, among other things. It seemed to me he was psychologically advocating violence of one kind or another. I deleted his second post from my Facebook page and temporarily blocked him from my page, thinking there was no way he would cease his arguing in the thread in an OK way.  I unblocked him from my Facebook page two days later. He seemed to be an OK human.

This First Nation thinking and believing modus operandi in my opinion is one of the primary causes of dangerous polarizations around Spaceship Earth, and always has been. Nobody can prove his or her opinion about psychological, social, economic, and political states of affairs is absolute truth; but some humans, maybe over half the Earthian human population, believe fact and reason-based relative truth about these matters is irrelevant, instead believing what counts are memorized fact-free opinions, dogmas, doctrines, and slogans that they and their kind believe, which they believe they have a right, perhaps duty, to impose on others, as if their opinions, dogmas, and doctrines were absolute truth.

A poignant current case in point is USian right-wing states recently blocking abortions with new laws in their states in the US and then beseeching the stacked deck of biased and prejudiced authoritarian right-wing USian Supreme Court judges to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Supreme Court judge Alito in essence argued in writing for the majority on the court, citing the due process clause, that since the US Constitution does not mention abortions then technically the Supreme Court did not have a right to allow abortions throughout the US with Roe v. Wade in the first place. This argument seems specious and irrelevant to me but having a grain of technical logic, albeit not enough to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I disagree that USian states should have a right to enact state laws that disallow abortions. Most likely their constitutions do not mention abortions either.

Abortions in my opinion should be legally treated like any other medical procedure. Should USian humans with no medical training have a right to enact state or federal laws allowing or disallowing any medical procedure they “feel” like allowing or disallowing? Are trained, qualified, and certified medical doctors less qualified to make decisions about abortions than medically unqualified biased and prejudiced right wing voters and politicians?

Should USian states or the federal government have the right to force all citizens of a state or the nation to obey subjective arbitrary opinions, dogmas, and doctrines regarding medical procedures by enacting laws based on biased and prejudiced party line votes that are enforceable on everyone with police force arrests and serious fines and punishments?

No, in my opinion.

It seems to me up to seventy percent or so of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth fervently believe some fascist dogmas and doctrines, and many fascist true believers believe they have a right or duty to fight, kill if necessary, those who do not believe the dogma and doctrines they do. They believe believing the dogmas and doctrines they believe makes them morally and intellectually special and entitles them to outlandish rewards, such as eternal bliss in some sort of heaven.

Trump struts around on stage at political rallies in the US exhorting his excited cult-like followers to chant USA! USA! USA! over and over again. The discussant from Canada on Facebook last week taught me what this USA chanting is about. Trump’s followers are reifying his “America First” doctrine while psychologically proving how courageous, loyal, patriotic, heroic, brave, superior, and deserving they are. They are psychologically saying We’re OK, but you are Not-OK, if you do not believe what we believe. Trump’s America First doctrine is a variant of the Nation First doctrine.

Fascists who took full control of their countries around Spaceship Earth throughout Earthian human history, such as Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Pinochet in recent decades, let their Victims know if they did not submit to, believe, and conform to what they the fascists said they would fine them, beat them up, put them in prison, disappear them, starve them, crucify them, burn them alive at the stake, and torture them using sadistic techniques and devices before killing them, which they did with hundreds, thousands, and millions of Earthian humans around Spaceship Earth.

Fascist dictators may have enabled their cronies and followers to experience psychological highs in the beginnings of their regimes, but none of their governments lasted very long in Earthian time. Rationality prevailed, and sooner or later their countries got rid of their fascist governments.

Unfortunately, fascism is now far from dead around Spaceship Earth despite its track record, and several current pseudo-fascist dictators might blossom into real fascist dictators and take full control of several countries around Spaceship Earth. Fascism has selling points that appeal to a high percentage of Earthian humans. Its main appeal to lower classes is that it promises opportunities for obedient followers to receive strokes and rewards for memorizing, obeying, and promoting fascist doctrines and dogmas, and for doing what they are told by their supposedly-superior supervisors, managers, and commanders. A selling point for upper classes is fascist dictators promising to help perpetuate the superior social, economic, and political positions of the elite.

The Canadian on Facebook caused me to do some research into fascist doctrines. I did a Google internet search, asking Google “What is the Nation First doctrine?” I got ninety-two million results. I read or perused several of them, including an essay supposedly written by Mussolini, titled “The Doctrine of Fascism” (1932).

Unlike the barely-literate MAGA red baseball cap-wearing former USian president Donald Trump, Mussolini, assuming he wrote “The Doctrine of Fascism,” was an articulate polished well-read sophisticated thinker and writer. The essay is worth a read (https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf ).     

The Nation First doctrine is about as threatening and Not-OK as global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP).

Here are the last two paragraphs of my recently published novel, As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases:

“As states of affairs worsen in the meantime, relatively-OK Game-free Adult–Adult I’m OK–You’re OK Earthian humans should just say “go jump in the lake” to all hardened Not-OK one-up Parent–Child psychological Game-players, letting them know they will remain Not-OK until their group imagoes, personalities, ego states, transactions, life positions, scripts, Games, and rackets are somehow caused to be more OK.

“If most Earthian humans have become extinct because of global warming or nuclear war as you lie dying, having done what you could to eradicate the probability of imminent human extinction, just say “tough luck” and let the remaining chips fall where they may.”

Perhaps Earthian humans should start chanting “EARTH!, EARTH!, EARTH!” over and over again at political rallies.   

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

RICHARD JOHN STAPLETON, PhD, CTA, an emeritus professor of management, consultant, and author, is the founder and editor of the Effective Learning Report and The Earthian. For more on his cultural, educational, and professional experiences go to www.blog.effectivelearning.net.

SOURCES FOR THIS EDITION OF THE EARTHIAN:

May 17, 2022

Here’s the gist of it.

“Consider Enrico Fermi’s famous paradox: In simple words, where are they? A distinguished astrophysicist, Fermi knew that there are a huge number of planets within the reach of potential contact that have the conditions to sustain life and higher intelligence. But with the most assiduous search, we can find no trace of their existence. So where are they?

“One response that has been seriously proposed, and cannot be dismissed, is that higher intelligence has developed innumerable times, but has proven to be lethal: It discovered the means for self-annihilation but did not develop the moral capacity to prevent it. Perhaps that is even an inherent feature of what we call “higher intelligence.”

“We are now engaged in an experiment to determine whether this grim principle holds of modern humans, a very recent arrival on Earth, some 200,000-300,000 years ago, a flick of an eye in evolutionary time. There is not much time to find the answer – or more precisely, to determine the answer, as we will do, one way or the other. That is unavoidable. We will either act to show that our moral capacity reaches as far as to control our technical capacity to destroy, or that it does not.”

“Chomsky: To Tackle Climate, Our Morality Must Catch Up With Our Intelligence,” by C. J. Polychroniou, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-to-tackle-climate-our-morality-must-catch-up-with-our-intelligence/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3HJC6ZRoHwNl1MNXmx3fr4K4NM33c3CkqM59Ns8HVI4rsaxT877bosv80.

May 10

Had never heard or read anything about this before reading this article. Some folks in the North wanted to secede from the South before the Civil War because of slavery.

“Secession From the Left,” by Patrick Mazza, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/10/secession-from-the-left/?fbclid=IwAR2J3BxWmu7o9pxD5VjLKVpO_mCIhcs1HCQy2ADBBNTHAjMUugpbXITmb08.

May 10

Can you believe this?

“The Biden administration is preparing for the possibility that 100 million Americans – roughly 30 percent of the population – will get infected with the coronavirus this fall and winter,” reports The New York Times. “The 100 million figure, which the official described as a median of what could be expected, also assumes a lack of federal resources if Congress does not approve any more money for tests, therapeutics and vaccines, and that many vaccinated and previously infected people would become infected again.”

“100 Million New COVID Infections Could Be Just Months Away,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/100-million-new-covid-infections-could-be-just-months-away/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3OT-5fODbn-rFD-COgTIdks1gXQY9Nb7fD2tWyVUO9Y1QJ9zOS-r4Y410.

May 10

Would be nice

“‘Public Justice’ – Standing Forty Years Against Brutish Corporate Power,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/09/public-justice-standing-forty-years-against-brutish-corporate-power/?fbclid=IwAR1dAbeZhZfRsJsWJAT4pRFl1pdfm9McpZ0UidX-a7ee03paTdMgx80ZHJ4.

May 9

Say it aint so Joe

“World Drought Gets Worse, Cities Ration,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/09/world-drought-gets-worse-cities-ration/?fbclid=IwAR3XWd_F8PJgWOIiWXy1OBksskaUt82MRXulQQgbNpcSvzvA9fo1BXYog9A.

May 8

Yes, a real mess of life

“The Long Hand of Slave Breeding, Redux,” by Joann Wypijewski, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/06/the-long-hand-of-slave-breeding-redux/?fbclid=IwAR0zNS1TOydMj7BazoxMduOF5GIas-zMduf3_EcZ57OQ2QbW8T6h1Hy7tig.

May 6

Do it. Even if it’s a waste of time. Some good might come of it.

“Schumer Promises Vote on Codifying ‘Roe’ Without Workaround for Filabuster,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/schumer-promises-vote-on-codifying-roe-without-workaround-for-filibuster/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2Ijc5SXQuTOJr-EXx8xyHpfYdPsR_so2bAOzmM81dTAzrU0ab_13RrRko.

May 6

Interesting perspective

“How The Big-Tech Giants Make Their Billions,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/how-big-tech-giants-make-their-billions?fbclid=IwAR1xuQWjzDT9aAF_PY0V1rGz00RlSoSAv3P5iDIlkyI-n3Z-XhPF6DF5pck.

May 5

Right on. The most relevant question is why the US did not want Russia to join NATO after the fall of communism in Russia? Would that not have ensured world peace? Was it because USians were afraid to compete against Russians in a free European market that included Russia as a fellow player? And was it not that the US deep state needed an enemy to justify the USian military industrial intelligence banking complex and to maintain USian military bases around Spaceship Earth, to maintain full employment in the US making war-making goods such as tanks, airplanes, ships, bombs, etc. under supposed free enterprise global capitalism?

“Taking Aim at Ukraine: How John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen Challenged the Dominant Narrative,” by Michael Welton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/05/taking-aim-at-ukraine-how-john-mearsheimer-and-stephen-cohen-challenged-the-dominant-narrative/?fbclid=IwAR0QrSCciqhVxCdqJtpW4XQwLBFjVrQl8PMay_kVEtR3ePoYWyVYdlqFRM4.

May 5

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 Earthan OKness Increases, by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING PUBLICATIONS, 2022, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/as-the-rooster-crows-earthian-okness-increases-richard-john-stapleton/1140476381?fbclid=IwAR2q6_NAFnqDZ3g0RPhfhpyBa-ZbXpEyQuPDYH6WXfG3vcMG7Hu-UcSka_0.

May 5

Sounds right on to me

“10 Ways Information-Shapers Have Infiltrated Our Institutions,” by Sharyl Atkisson, THE EPOCH TIMES, https://www.theepochtimes.com/10-ways-information-shapers-have-infiltrated-our-institutions_4444496.html?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=fb&rs=0&&fbclid=IwAR1TFwP0gk0IIRvWK85YaefwarDuKJsb9fpxijI7SXQb-kaeOdOgOOOeg9M.

May 5

Insanity run Amok

“US Intel Assisted in Sinking Russian Flagship Vessel: Officials Claim Bombshell Escalation,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-intel-assisted-sinking-russian-flagship-vessel-officials-say-bombshell-revelation?fbclid=IwAR2e1SSCZ0AtMEjKjExYP3o8hBXWzf2rcOJOXxx-6PfPWB_3KKNPNkCZ8bc/

May 5

Yuk

“Patrols, fines, altered landscapes: How severe SoCal water restrictions will roll out,” by Hayley Smith, YAHOO NEWS, https://news.yahoo.com/patrols-fines-altered-landscapes-severe-120032519.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb&tsrc=fb.

May 5

The bullshit politics of our time

“‘Bullshit’ Is the Perfect Game Show for our Stupid Times,” by EJ Dickson, RollingStone, https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-reviews/bullshit-netflix-game-show-review-1347413/?fbclid=IwAR23mxbofF6YqsWXW9hlgNsUwdrTINMNr3bGU72zmGdn6AK8WdZ3cNiK23A.

May 5

it’s one thing to be honestly wrong; it’s something else to be dishonestly wrong, especially when paid to be dishonestly wrong

“What Spin Doctors Do,” by Thomas Klikauer and Mel Young, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/04/what-spin-doctors-do/?fbclid=IwAR3CyM6_Yt0FNmJRcBqlGhsgHNpp1pAqjEVXbVuGCvT-t0hfc_GFBiUAVtY.

May 4

Say it aint so Joe

“It’s Time to Challenge the Corporate University,” by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt & Bertin M. Louis Jr., TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/its-time-to-challenge-the-corporate-university/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2-plHZNfbdtaINNvOdICsfzcu5TWYIFjRiU6N200_tibiLttfbK1SqHOc.

May 2

Somethin’ to think about. Another cogent article by Thom Hartmann

“It’s time to nationalize the fossil fuel industry, by Thom Hartmann, INTREPID REPORT, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

May 2

Seems to me a case can be made existential threats posed by global warming and nuclear weapons require the construction of a new global order to save Earthian humans from extinction, as I have depicted in my novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases.

“Alternatrive Vision of a New Global Order,” by Michael Welton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/02/alternative-vision-of-a-new-global-order/?fbclid=IwAR3F0yhKdbN7Hffu6tJ0__YqI6olA2WzSl5OEoejZtFj-0sLUYeiLtUBJlU.

May 2

Here’s the most depressing but relevant article I have read in some time. The comments about the article are also depressing but relevant. Read at your own risk to your mental health.

“Now we are running into a serious shortfall of crude oil. We can expect a new set of problems, including far more conflict. Wars are likely. Debt defaults are likely. Political parties will take increasingly divergent positions on how to work around current problems. News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.

“About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.”

“Tverberg: The World Has A Major Crude Oil Problem: Expect Conflict Ahead,” by Gail Tverberg, OUR FINITE WORLD, https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/04/21/the-world-has-a-major-crude-oil-problem-expect-conflict-ahead/.

May 2

Bitcoins are hard to keep track of and keep from losing on the internet, requiring maintaining imaginary digital wallets, passwords, codes and such, making them hard to transfer to others who know nothing about such things, assuming you have the time, specialized knowledge, and energy to keep track of these sorts of things yourself. Seems to me they are more trouble than they are worth, but nobody knows for sure what they will be worth in the long run.

“Warren Buffett gives his most expansive explanation for why he doesn’t believe in bitcoin,” by Tanaya Macheel, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/30/warren-buffett-gives-his-most-expansive-explanation-for-why-he-doesnt-believe-in-bitcoin.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR1vHZNxRIaP3RjWR2gZp8nhhInqYCvbUPrVeaWSgsG7gej7_ibWLnblW8c.

May 2

Here’s another enlightening article by Paul Street, one of the best truth-seeking truth-telling writers alive.

“Why Trump Runs Free,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/29/why-trump-runs-free/?fbclid=IwAR3ARO9TgwdoexdXgva5vYHUJ_jBgy-XpCZ3vcjm__Up6SNJ9kM6cnH5Slg.

May 1

Here’s another incisive u tube program on what is really going on around Spaceship Earth

“Why are they hiding this about Ukraine?, by Clayton Morris, REDACTED, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZpzPWnoHGk.

May 1

“A participant in a seminar like the one I (Rout Logger) 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 by now at least imagined a system that should have some chance of working.”

Read all about it below in The Earthian–29

“One Scenario,” by Rout Logger, THE EARTHIAN – 29, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/the-earthian-29/?fbclid=IwAR28WYMxKA_y9NmbngIEzzFeZLKsW_sFcDf7sJwfA2z2EufrLv0L6sORhZU.

May 1

Here’s some news with at least a grain of truth in it

“Putin ‘to have cancer operation and hand power to hardline ex-spy chief’,” by Will Stewart and Tarig Tahir, THE U.S. SUN, https://www.the-sun.com/news/5236303/putin-undergo-cancer-operation/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb.

May 1 

Here’s the best poem I have read in a while

“Brass Spittoons,” by Lanston Hughes, POETRY FOUNDATION, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47879/brass-spittoons?mc_cid=882a689dbd&mc_eid=f9ab7e9ce1&fbclid=IwAR3F0yhKdbN7Hffu6tJ0__YqI6olA2WzSl5OEoejZtFj-0sLUYeiLtUBJlU.

May 1

Here’s a disturbing but cogent u tube video interview about what is going on around Spaceship Earth politically and militarily with some relevant recommendations by a retired USian colonel.

“Retired Colonel Richard Black Interviewed by the Schiller Institute, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-REt6GCF_g.

April 29

Seems to be tweeting to birds

“Trump Takes His War on Intelligence to a New Level,” by Melvin Goodman, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/29/trump-takes-his-war-on-intelligence-to-a-new-level/?fbclid=IwAR2-plHZNfbdtaINNvOdICsfzcu5TWYIFjRiU6N200_tibiLttfbK1SqHOc.

April 29

Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about the doings of Elon Musk. As Rout Logger pointed out in my novel As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases, Elon Musk may be the most successful entrepreneur in Earthian human history, doing what pathological entrepreneurs do under capitalism. Starting out with degrees in physics and economics, he created and managed cutting-edge corporations in high-tech manufacturing industries with no bankruptcies, and is now at age 50 supposedly the richest man on Earth. He is far and away more successful as an entrepreneur than the barely-literate fellow pathological entrepreneur former US president Donald Trump, who cheated his way through a finance degree, operated in low-tech rentier industries, started with over four hundred million dollars of inherited family money, who went bankrupt numerous times, who at age 75 may be worth less now in inflation-adjusted dollars than he started out with.

“‘You Are Throwing Me Under the Bus’ – Musk Rages At Saudi Wealth Fund Head in Tweets Exposed by ‘Funding Secured’ Lawsuit,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/you-are-throwing-me-under-bus-musk-rages-saudi-wealth-fund-head-tweets-exposed-funding?fbclid=IwAR3Vl-nhS3Kg3KsL6iXhH0pQy8ejQ2vrUbIt6t10Z0cwfonCwtLODBwJu_k.

April 29

Say it aint so Joe

“Albright’s Funeral: The Sword and the Cross Come Together,” by Sam Husseini, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/29/albrights-funeral-the-sword-and-the-cross-come-together/?fbclid=IwAR3DQ1cYYy1DTkVEwMi_cjWBEXuWY1kMgOCPHCodI4e1H6Kme17iX320vwY.

April 29

Makes sense to me

“This illustrates the fallacy of defining a war as just or unjust purely on the basis of who began it. No – a war is unjust not only if it is wrongly started, but also if it is wrongly escalated and prolonged. The origins of a conflict alone do not determine its ethical or unethical content. If Putin now offered a ceasefire in order to negotiate the status of the Donbass republics and to assert other Russian needs and interests, would the U.S. and Ukraine be justified in refusing to talk in order to punish or “weaken” him? Of course not! In a world of competitive nations, “weakening” Russia as some Bidenites propose really means eliminating that nation as a significant player in international politics. If this is the nature of the threat now posed by the new U.S. war aims, Russians will naturally consider raising the ante by making new threats of their own.”

“The New Turn in Ukraine: Putin’s War Becomes Biden’s War,” by Richard Rubenstein, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/29/the-new-turn-in-ukraine-putins-war-becomes-bidens-war/?fbclid=IwAR3NjIKYxiq8BjDuz8mRuo2991IKhjvt7YjeOEV3La3XorhwJoKbDEofAE4.

April 29

Are Brazil and the US politically analogous?

“Despite Everything, Bolsonaro Could Still Win,” by Brian Winter, AMERICAS QUARTERLY, https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/despite-everything-bolsonaro-could-still-win/?fbclid=IwAR06iTiuuoOAklEIoHoIAKbtmMOqLl9CmCMGmq9cMRgbIFde4nTPOu0wnYk#.Ymvh_SbOWP8.facebook.

April 28

Generally well thought and said

“The Population Implosion,” by Graham Peebles, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/29/the-population-implosion/?fbclid=IwAR3ZbTPDBSYBpeBnyPZchUpAmIaCeVDBy5ne7s8DYlz7KmBrrPARBqptj8k.

April 28

No one is above criticism, even the richest Earthian human

“Elon Musk is a self-entitled child of apartheid South Africa: that should say it all about the world’s richest person,” by Wayne Madsen, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/35440?fbclid=IwAR1_Bb_Sf63aWvU3GWlAsdxzBBLojQuq8beZAqJnAhsigPAZDUSwC4Ezq7k.

April 28

Sounds right to me

“Carl Jung On Why We Must Learn To Accept Ourselves Before We Can Help Others,” by Martin Schirp, HIGH EXISTENCE, https://highexistence.com/carl-jung-on-why-we-must-never-pass-judgment-when-we-desire-to-help/.

April 27

Mind-boggling

“While JPMorgan Chase Was Getting Trillions of Dollars in Loans at Almost Zero Percent Interest from the Fed, It Was Charging Americans Hit by the Pandemic 17 Percent on their Credit Cards,” by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/25/while-jpmorgan-chase-was-getting-trillions-of-dollars-in-loans-at-almost-zero-percent-interest-from-the-fed-it-was-charging-americans-hit-by-the-pandemic-17-percent-on-their-credit-cards/?fbclid=IwAR1_Bb_Sf63aWvU3GWlAsdxzBBLojQuq8beZAqJnAhsigPAZDUSwC4Ezq7k.

April 26

Yes, it is beginning to feel like the 1950s and 60s again to me too, at age 81. I included some of these sorts of sentiments in my recently released novel, As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases. What I call in the novel the two horsemen of the modern apocalypse, global warming and climate change (GWCC) and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation (MNWP) are breathing down the necks of Earthian humans. MNWP is easier to eradicate than GWCC. MNWP could be eradicated overnight by all Earthian governments simply declaring peace against one another, waging peace instead of war, and destroying all nuclear weapons.

“A Duck and Cover World,” by Tom Engelhardt, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/25/a-duck-and-cover-world/?fbclid=IwAR1xXqJoUB_y1mwlckJQpO-XSr8YMfJKN2A6udLkesOHFJPMT0bNPwB4XQU.

April 25

Hell on Earth

“The War in Ukraine is Beginning to Look More and More Like Syria,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/25/the-war-in-ukraine-is-beginning-to-look-more-and-more-like-syria/?fbclid=IwAR14UVFGhkGNynZRhinOw7bJLg0wJEb2fDnZT_Ei0EeeWP5yKjYTE2roTLQ.

April 25

Say it aint so Joe 

“Economically, global capitalism faces what is known in technical language as “overaccumulation”: a situation in which the economy has produced – or has the capacity to produce – great quantities of wealth but the market cannot absorb this wealth because of escalating inequality. Capitalism by its very nature will produce abundant wealth yet polarize that wealth and generate ever greater levels of social inequality unless offset by redistributive policies. The level of global social polarization and inequality now experienced is without precedent. In 2018, the richest 1 percent of humanity controlled more than half of the world’s wealth while the bottom 80 percent had to make do with just 5 percent. The international development agency Oxfam reported in January that during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, the 10 richest men in the world more than doubled their fortunes, from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, while 99 percent of humanity saw a fall in their income and 160 million more people fell into poverty.”

“Global Capitalism Has Become Dependent on War-Making to Sustain Itself,” by William T. Robinson, https://truthout.org/articles/global-capitalism-has-become-dependent-on-war-making-to-sustain-itself/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR04Bb9yZgf1eq15TMiLfhdXcJjD6OR96dxc4faygycrPqo299a6AV7i4-s.

April 25

Has justice finally been served?

“New York judge holds Donald Trump in contempt for failing to comply with subpoena for business documents,” by Dan Mangan, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/judge-holds-donald-trump-in-contempt-for-failing-to-comply-with-ny-subpoena.html?__source=sharebar|facebook&par=sharebar&fbclid=IwAR09lKo6QVih_DAvchQ7RH3cqjXyzJ47oH2YYByUiyaZ-PSC6fpNcAmTIFQ.

April 24

Yuk

“It’s Not a Drought, It’s Looting: Indigenous Water Rights Activists Launch Caravan in Mexico,” by Tamara Pearson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/its-not-a-drought-its-looting-water-rights-activists-organize-in-mexico/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1t3KihSok6Owdl23g0NZUfaHLEeHL776Uc3HxR26AUXZ40v7KERlZpBwA.

April 23

Say it aint so Joe

“What’s Needed to Fight Climate Crisis is Clear. The Powerful are Preventing It,” by William Rivers Pitt, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/whats-needed-to-fight-climate-crisis-is-clear-the-powerful-are-preventing-it/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1Hi83uvfB7drIEh_JBPcltiIwfhV-_WMnVZxa3EbXse3Dko7vX21ERiOc.

April 22

Who cares about Earth Day?

“Dishonoring Earth Day 2022 with An Oil, Gas, Coal & Nuclear Heyday,” by Ralph Nader, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/22/dishonoring-earth-day-2022-with-an-oil-gas-coal-nuclear-heyday/?fbclid=IwAR14UVFGhkGNynZRhinOw7bJLg0wJEb2fDnZT_Ei0EeeWP5yKjYTE2roTLQ.

April 22

Right as rain

“Roaming Charges: Runaway Sons of the Nuclear A-Bomb,” by Jeffrey St. Clair, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/22/roaming-charges-49/?fbclid=IwAR1ieH2CFaCT721nzxDb9whk2MQt07VySEgTKFoBrYBA0VEeDa6QzEJiG0c.

April 22

Tech social media giants like Google and Facebook have done more good than harm facilitating democracy in my opinion and neither they nor ordinary USian civilians should be censored by fed politicians. i would trust a tech exec more than these two to do the right thing for we the people, or trust Trump, or Biden, or just about any federal politician to do the right thing for we the people for that matter. Tech social media giants provide ordinary USian civilians like me a way to access many more large data bases and to express our political views free of charge to a much larger audience than would otherwise be the case. Read my recently released book As the Rooster Crows Earthian Okness Increases for more detail and background about this issue.

“Obama, Clinton Rail Against Free Speech Under Guise of Fighting ‘Misinformation’,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/obama-clinton-rail-against-free-speech-under-guise-fighting-misinformation?fbclid=IwAR0SRp2YBR6_tJAYdpYLdYe2vXVmp6z5ycwcwBZLRl9QCzikFfRS9rhDnos.

April 20

Say it aint so Joe

“Beneath the Fog of Ukraine: A Troubling Current Events Update on the US ‘Homeland’,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/22/beneath-the-fog-of-ukraine-a-troubling-current-events-update-on-the-us-homeland/?fbclid=IwAR3sj4I_estbE9vAWN_pEVUpZ8fbLKDBK5eaceGlWtgOnDWDTNBpMq-buiY.

April 22

Good news

“Research shows the U.S. military produces at least 59 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually – more greenhouse gas emissions than industrialized countries including Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal. The fact that the Defense Department doesn’t report its own emissions and has no decarbonization targets is something VFP National President Susan Schnall, who helped organize the Tax Day protest, says her organization wants to change.”

“Vets Push ‘No War, No Warming’ Climate Campaign Amid Russian Invasion of Ukraine,” by Candice bernd, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/vets-push-no-war-no-warming-climate-campaign-amid-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0vr_h5KCLYA6-khOXRJWQs4Fot3Y5F6AOrQCSe4U29vST-wG9MU5SBaR8.

April 21

Agree with this lady

“Dem Lawmaker Calls Out GOP Fundraising Email That Includes Derogatory Anti-LGBTQ Attacks,” by Chris Walker, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/dem-lawmaker-calls-out-gop-fundraising-email-that-includes-derogatory-attacks/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0SRp2YBR6_tJAYdpYLdYe2vXVmp6z5ycwcwBZLRl9QCzikFfRS9rhDnos.

April 21

Whoopee

“Sanders is Open to Running for President If Biden Doesn’t Seek Reeelection,” by Sharon Zhang, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-is-open-to-running-for-president-if-biden-doesnt-seek-reelection/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3ZbTPDBSYBpeBnyPZchUpAmIaCeVDBy5ne7s8DYlz7KmBrrPARBqptj8k.

April 21

Yes, of course

“More Military Spending Won’t End Atrocities – We Must Focus on Preventing Them,” by Mike Brand, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/more-military-spending-wont-end-atrocities-we-must-focus-on-preventing-them/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR0SJr-vk3ZRMMQFus1jp2xiPwFTnfXgPodLxCBepq9v8ekMR-iAzrN_0JY.

April 21

Maybe he’s finally really cracking up

“Dramatic moment Trump storms off Piers Morgan interview raging ‘you’re a DISLOYAL FOOL’,” Watch the Video, THE U.S. SUN, https://www.the-sun.com/news/5166374/moment-donald-trump-storms-off-piers-morgan-interview/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb.

April 20

This is a major issue in the lives of USian winner-survivors and USian loser-survivors. Read my book As the Rooster Crows Earthian OKness Increases for more details about this problem. Over seventy percent of USian civilians may now be loser-survivors, caused by economic, political, educational, and social changes in USian culture since 1950 or so.

“Student Loan Forgiveness is Not a Working Class Priority,” by Chris Orlet, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/20/student-loan-forgiveness-is-not-a-working-class-priority/?fbclid=IwAR3IGKRuhT27UclLPpz0iLW1f1PfEMXMrdG5QumjFySrx3_CUoaUnGp8mqA.

April 20

Here’s an interesting perspective on how to end the Ukraine war

“As it happens, though, there is a blindingly obvious path to payment. Just as a U.S. municipal court can garnish the wages of a deadbeat dad who won’t pay child support, so the European Court of Human Rights could garnish the gas income of the world’s ultimate deadbeat dad, Vladimir Putin. In its first five weeks, Putin’s war of choice inflicted an estimated $68 billion dollars of damage on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure (its homes, airports, hospitals, and schools), along with other losses worth about $600 billion or three times that country’s total gross domestic product.

“But how would Ukraine collect such a sum from Russia? Any Ukrainian party that has suffered damage – whether individuals, cities, or the entire nation – could petition the European Court of Human Rights to enforce its judgement in Ukraine v. Russia (X) by awarding damages. The Court could then instruct the Council of Europe to direct all European corporations buying gas from Gazprom, the Russian state monopoly, to deduct, say, 20% from their regular payments for a Ukraine compensation fund. Since Europe is now paying Gazprom about $850 million daily, such a court-ordered deduction, would allow Putin to pay off his initial $600 billion war-damage debt over the next eight years. As long as his invasion continued, however, those sums would only increase in a potentially crippling fashion.”

“How to End the War in Ukraine: A Solution Beyond Sanctions,” by Alfred W. McCoy, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/20/how-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine-a-solution-beyond-sanctions/?fbclid=IwAR1goAvA1FWWO3L9Op3C_nD0aRTc5RgQuG9Xxsx4noeDdrguUg_OCiCmykc.

April 20

So are, according to Michael Every in this article, the European and British dreams of middle-and-lower class civilians, maybe all middle-and-lower class civilians living west of China, including USians and Russians. Most Russian oligarchs will also receive big income and wealth cuts but they stole so much from the Russian people after the collapse of Russian communism the cuts won’t matter much to them personally. Most USian oligarchs however probably won’t feel a thing for some time to come, their biggest threat being pitchforks brandished by their impoverished renters

“The American Dream is Dead: For the First Time, Less Than Half of Americans Believe They’ll Ever Own A Home,” by Michael Every of Rabobank, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/american-dream-dead-first-time-less-half-americans-believe-theyll-ever-own-home?fbclid=IwAR35yl1EYZJgLofyDjvE-ZCTZdtkIa4mv8elY8BOxBT9guPc51TzcdvmX1k.

April 20

How the man stands the sadism I do not know

“UK Court Formally Issues Order To Extradite Julian Assange To US,” by Agence France-Presse, NDTV, https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/julian-assange-to-be-extradited-to-us-uk-court-formally-issues-order-news-agency-afp-2903729?fbclid=IwAR0Y00DAekvbbR8UK7m201Z7oPp5_IZ4QVpZLMZe37X0gZ-I6WjhQROdl-A.

April 19

Seems likely

“The Forces Pushing Asylum Seekers to Cross the English Channel are Poorly Understood,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/19/the-forces-pushing-asylum-seekers-to-cross-the-english-channel-are-poorly-understood/?fbclid=IwAR1t3KihSok6Owdl23g0NZUfaHLEeHL776Uc3HxR26AUXZ40v7KERlZpBwA.

April 19

Say it aint so Joe

“After Undermining International Criminal Court, US Now Wants It to Charge Russians,” by Marjorie Cohn, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/after-undermining-international-criminal-court-us-wants-it-to-charge-russians/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3IGKRuhT27UclLPpz0iLW1f1PfEMXMrdG5QumjFySrx3_CUoaUnGp8mqA.

April 18

Best interview I have read about what caused the Ukraine showdown and what’s at stake

“US, EU sacrificing Ukraine to ‘weaken Russia’: fmr NATO adviser,” by Aaron Mate, GRAYZONE, https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/15/us-eu-sacrificing-ukraine-to-weaken-russia-fmr-nato-adviser/?fbclid=IwAR1x5TFxR5104JRED0_qGoNLONZCD4sKPvFXcC7geovCh7EFpJlR5AQlesg.

April 16

Here is what long-term contributor to the Effective Learning Report Courtenay Barnett had to say about the Ukraine showdown.

“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?” 

“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/.

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