THE EARTHIAN

Effective Learning Publications, 32 East Main Street, Statesboro, Georgia, USA, www.effectivelearning.net , September 10, 2018

Or So It Seems to Me Today

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

My weltanschauung has not changed much since the publication of The Earthian – 2 last month, so I have reposted in this introduction some of what I said last month. It’s not easy to accept the idea of being Earthians and active stakeholders in an imaginary virtual Spaceship Earth, Inc. So maybe another dose of some of the basic ideas might be helpful.

It seems to me today that the Doomsday Clock is now even closer to Midnight.

The purpose of The Earthian is to advocate for preserving all species aboard Spaceship Earth, not just right wing or left wing political humans, especially rich oligarchs now constructing themselves underground bunkers to survive what they call “The Event” that they think will wipe out most Earthians. The purpose of The Earthian is not to cause humans to learn something just for the sake of learning it, or something that might make their personal lives better, but to learn something that might make for smoother sailing for all Earthians aboard Spaceship Earth, hopefully helping humans become better stockholders and managers of Spaceship Earth.

For more ideas on how a real Spaceship Earth, Inc. might eventually happen read my article “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.”

This issue of The Earthian as usual links and cites recent articles written by clear and deep thinking hard hitting independent writers in various open fearless Internet publications dealing with current ecological, economic, military, religious, and political affairs around Spaceship Earth in the last month or so. Cited again in this issue is an article I recently wrote titled “De-Gaming And Saving Democracy,” in which I assert democracy is waning in the Western World and capitalism has failed to satisfy a majority of Spaceship Earth stakeholders. I proposed in the article a way to rejuvenate democracy. The upshot of the article is that the fate of Spaceship Earth depends on people like you. Read the article and set up a De-Gaming Democracy group in your community.

Humans spending more and more time staring at computer and cell phone screens looking at faces, hearing voices, and reading fake news, gossip, and even truthful news has not resulted in economic and political progress. Something new needs to be tried. As Albert Einstein pointed out, doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is insane.

And it seems to me it’s even more insane to do the same thing over and over pretending you want a different result that never happens, which is what happens much of the time in groups and organizations that really want to preserve their status quos to protect their vested interests.

To supposedly improve things experts and power people often get together in committees and decide what kind of information, excuse me, rules, algorithms, dogma and party line doctrine to inflict on their subordinates down the chain of command, usually via the lecture method of teaching with victims, er, subordinates sitting in seats, chairs, and desks in neat rows and columns obediently trying or pretending to memorize what is laid on them for some sort of test or task. Most people enjoy lecturing others standing rigidly erect pointing with their index fingers with a stern look on their faces. Even five-year-old kids can sometimes be seen taking pleasure lecturing other kids.

What I recommend in “De-Gaming and Saving Democracy” is not doing this, but, rather, having learners and teachers sit in circles using a spinner to randomly select the leader of the day to start a democratic discussion of relevant problems or opportunities. This entails everyone being equally ok and having an equal chance to be the leader, which is the essence of democracy.

I included a good bit of detail in my introduction to The Earthian – 2 such as my definition of an Earthian and transactional analysis theory as I think it applies to the problem of managing organizations and groups. Assuming you did not read that issue or if you need a refresher you might want to go there and read my August “Or So It Seems To Me Today,” introductory essay, so this essay will make more sense.

I took my own advice and tried to set up a De-Gaming democracy group in Statesboro two months ago as explained here. I invited 153 people on my Internet list, told them I was hosting a forum in our Stapleton Learning Company offices, what I called the Ogeechee Economic Forum, using principles outlined in “De-Gaming and Saving Democracy,” and announced the time and how to get there.

One person showed up. Obviously you can’t have democracy with only one person and no group. But the discussion was randomly started nevertheless. Something in the person’s mind showing up caused the person to bring up the problem discussed during the assigned hour of the forum, namely the sad state of affairs now bedeviling Georgia Southern University in Statesboro and Armstrong State University in Savannah caused by the University System of Georgia deciding to merge the two universities. It was an interesting discussion and made interesting content for this article.

So, as my experiment during July showed (one person showing up), it will not be easy to set up De-Gaming Democracy groups for bottom-up democratic discussions around Spaceship Earth, the reason being most people do not like face-to-face democracy. Most people may actually prefer being told what to believe and do in authoritarian top-down systems, on TV, on their cell phones, in homes, in churches, in schools, in militaries, at workplaces, in political parties.

I held another Ogeechee Economic Forum on the third Saturday of August, and again one person showed up.

The person showing up this time was a former student who took several of my case method courses in the 1970s, having spent a career teaching and consulting in Asia, providing interesting conversation about happenings there, promising to come back for the September forum and bring a friend.

Maybe two people will show up for the September Ogeechee Economic Forum, on the third Saturday of this month, September 15, 10-11 a.m. The public is again welcome, including you.

It looks like I will be teaching a business planning course pro bono, at no cost to participants, at the BIG Building, the Business Innovation Group, at the Georgia Southern University City Campus in downtown Statesboro starting on September 24, lasting ten weeks, meeting once a week from 7-9 p.m. on Mondays, in which I will use a democratic de-Gamed case method process. I will furnish free copies of my book Business Voyages to serve as the course bible. The course will be conducted much like a Sunday School Class, no tests and no grades. I will suggest certain passages from various pages in the book non-sequentially at various times during the course for group reading outside of class which a de-Gamer selected person will analyze in class for some sessions. Most of the time of the sessions however will be consumed by de-Gamer selected participants talking about their own cases, relating their fact-based cases to passages they find anywhere in Business Voyages, much like a preacher would relate a passage in his/her bible to the topic of her/his sermon on a particular day, except the cases in this business planning course will be discussed by all participants on the spot as soon as the de-Gamer selected person tells his/her story. You can take this course if you wish, if it indeed makes. The last I heard five participants wanted to take it.

According to the philosopher Karl Popperit’s possible for humans to know about phenomena in three worlds, as shown in a passage taken from Business Voyages:

“World 1 includes hydrogen and helium, the heavier elements, liquids and crystals, and living organisms; World 2 includes consciousness of self and of death, and sentience or animal consciousness; and World 3 includes works of art and science and technology, human language, and theories of self and of death.”

Writers can only write about what they know about and can imagine. I have formally studied in degree programs economics, organizational behavior, management science, and transactional analysis; and for sure I can recall verbatim only a small fraction of what I read and studied. Hopefully I can remember the gist of most of it, and I shall recall or imagine here what is most relevant for what should be written in this blog. I should know more about these subjects than most people not having my experience and training, but no one knows right answers for problems that require knowledge from all three of Popper’s Worlds. The best hope is to develop consensual answers in democratic discussions that work better than others for all Earthian species.

That said, it seems to me democratic discussion methods generally work better than authoritarian methods, since they produce answers created by more than one person. On the other hand, it is not always true, it seems to me, that consensual answers get better and better as more people contribute to their creation. Sometimes you need completely new answers starting from scratch.

One can build a plausible case that provably true “right” answers do not exist in social, economic, and political affairs.

TO RESPOND:

Do Your Duty! As an equal virtual Spaceship Earth, Inc. stockholder, owning one share of virtual stock, just like everybody else around Earth, tell other stockholders what you think the problems and opportunities are, what the alternatives are, and what you think should be done to better manage Spaceship Earth, Inc.

Go to my Facebook Page and say whatever you want to say in regard to anything I have said above or to anything anyone has said in an article posted below.

But, no slanders and no profanity. Say whatever you want to say in response to the facts of what was said, pro or con, but please no ad hominem attacks, i.e., don’t try to prove you are right in your argument by citing your low opinion of the character, integrity, or personal characteristics of the person you are arguing against.

Just type your response at the top of my Facebook Page where it says What’s On Your Mind? You will start a conversation if no one else has responded that day. I will respond to your post if I think a response is appropriate, as may others. If someone else has started a conversation that day you can respond on that Facebook post for the day, letting people know what you think about that particular conversation in a particular issue of The Earthian.

As I read articles from various publications here and yon on the Internet I post some of them to my Facebook page and then use many of them as sources for The Earthian. After you get to the Facebook page you can find most of the articles listed as sources in The Earthian posted on the Facebook page, and you can respond beneath them with any comment you want to make about the article or what anyone has said about the article.

SOURCES:

September 10, 2018

Paul Street goes where most people fear to tread in their thinking. Here he quotes scientists who assert there are millions of planets in the universe capable of supporting life and posits that human-like life on many of them may have become extinct because of industrializing, that humans aboard Spaceship Earth are in the process of doing the same thing, implying the Luddites and Mennonites were right all along about technology being the work of the devil. Street agrees we are now in an Anthropocene, better, he says, called a Capitalocene, a new era of decay and destruction brought about by human-caused climate change, laying the blame on the advent of capitalism in the 1600s, starting seriously with the burning of coal to power steam engines around 1850, then taking off with a fury around 1900 with the burning of fossil fuels in internal (infernal) combustion engines. He includes a long quote by Noam Chomsky who casts Donald J. Trump as the prime devil now leading us all to hell on Earth. For an alternative scenario, read my article “The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc.”

SOURCE: “Climate of Class Rule: Common(s)er Revolt or Common Ruin,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/07/climate-of-class-rule-commonser-revolt-or-common-ruin/.

September 9

Trump is either a lunatic or he is doing a very good job pretending to be one. Or he may be crazy like a fox, smarter than you might think. What is he really after? Most likely power, recognition, and stimulus, trying to stave off boredom in his life, having done everything he could think of to entertain himself before running for president. He probably would like to be president for life as he has said. On the other hand, if he waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, well, yes, he probably is a duck, i.e., a mentally deranged human being. But so what you say? Since probably at least twenty-five percent of eligible US voters are mentally deranged, enough to elect a deranged president thanks to the deranged US Electoral College. Trump’s performances before audiences are as fake as professional wrestling matches, but millions of people watch him anyway, most probably thinking it’s real.

SOURCE: “Trump Goes Really (Really) Off Script,” FACEBOOK WATCH, https://www.facebook.com/thetrumpsterfirebyhuffpost/videos/199841417310866/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDM0OTY1MTE4NjoxOTYwNTEzNzc3MzAzNTky/.

September 8

There is no such thing as a federal govt payroll tax. There are social security insurance contributions (FICA) (Federal Insurance Contribution Act payments) that can be increased, and the SS system trust fund can also start asking the US govt to pay back more per year of the money it has borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund, surplus money generated by the SS system since the 1930s, about three trillion dollars, to balance the cash inflows and outflows of the SS system for many years with no sweat. If the fed govt wants to balance its own cash inflows and outflows it can cut the salaries of its senators and representatives and civilian and military employees to compensate for having to increase their loan payment obligations to the SS trust fund. Fed govt congressional politicians and administrative employees, and others, including presstitute media, lying to the public by telling people increasing payroll taxes (which don’t exist) is the only way to balance Social Security Insurance cash flows is unethical and heinous.

SOURCE: “The Pension Crisis is Bigger Than The World’s 20 Largest Economies,” by Simon Black, SOVEREIGNMAN.COM, https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/this-financial-crisis-is-bigger-than-the-worlds-20-largest-economies-24103/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=sm_notes&utm_campaign=notes&utm_content=201897_pension_crisis.

September 8

Trump’s nitwit idea for a trade war doesn’t seem to be working yet.

SOURCE: “China’s Trade Surplus With US Hits Record High At Worst Possible Time,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-08/chinas-trade-surplus-us-hits-record-high-worst-possible-time.

September 8

Another nitwit idea.

SOURCE: “Trump says he could use the MILITARY to build his wall if Congress won’t fund it through Homeland Security’s budget – and he won’t rule out another government shutdown to get his way,” by David Martosko, DAILYMAIL.CO.UK, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6144837/Trump-says-use-MILITARY-build-wall-Congress-wont-fund-DHS.html.

September 7

Yep, creepy all right

SOURCE: “Billionaires Plan Escape From Apocalypse,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/07/billionaires-plan-escape-from-apocalypse/ .

September 7

Look at the look in humble reverent Trump’s eyes, caught in the act engaging in his favorite pastime, projecting fake body-language messages. The man is full of hate in this picture not reverence, with good reason, if Pence really is the mysterious NYT op-ed writer.

SOURCE: “BBC Uses Linguistics Program to Conclude Mike Pence Is Likely Author of NY Times Op-Ed,” by Scott Alden, GRITPOST.ORG, https://gritpost.com/bbc-linguistics-mike-pence/.

September 7

Say this ain’t so Joe

SOURCE: “Freedom Rider: John McCain, Trump Derangement, and false black consciousness,” by Margaret Kimberley and Ann Garrison, INTREPEDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/25041.

September 7

Say it ain’t so Joe

SOURCE: “A diabolic false flag empire,” by Edward Curtin, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/25036.

September 6

Who cares what they’re called; they’re losers trying to tear others down because they can’t build themselves up.

SOURCE: “They’re Not White Nationalists – They’re White Supremacists,” INTREPIDREPORT.COM, https://www.facebook.com/richard.stapleton.397.

September 6

Say it ain’t so Joe

SOURCE: “America’s first black billionaire gets police involved after hotel refuses to check him in,” by Walter Einenkel, DAILYKOS.COM, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/5/1793435/-First-black-billionaire-has-Florida-hotel-call-police-on-him-after-they-didn-t-allow-him-to-check-in.

September 6

Oh, really

SOURCE: “Warm ocean water has penetrated deep into the Arctic interior portending year round loss of sea ice,” by Pakalolo Community, DAILYKOS.COM, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/5/1793435/-First-black-billionaire-has-Florida-hotel-call-police-on-him-after-they-didn-t-allow-him-to-check-in.

September 5

Why 2040?

SOURCE: “‘Old TV Show That Warns Of The End of Civilization in 2040 Found As The Elite Warn Earth’s Landscape ‘Set To Undergo Major Transformation’,” by Michael Snyder, THEAMERICANDREAM.COM, http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/old-tv-broadcast-that-warns-of-the-end-of-civilization-in-2040-found-as-the-elite-warn-earths-landscape-set-to-undergo-major-transformation.

September 5

Hope the preparations work

SOURCE: “Tenth Anniversary of Financial Collapse, Preparing for the Next Crash,” by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/05/tenth-anniversary-of-financial-collapse-preparing-for-the-next-crash/.

September 5

Talk about an ill-fated conference, not completely rained out, but almost, by a monsoon, no less, in Kerala, India. As shown here I have been a member of the International Transactional Analysis Association over forty years.

SOURCE: “Initial Reflections on the Kochi Conference,” by Diane Salters, ITAA President, ITAAWORLD.ORG, https://www.itaaworld.org/sites/default/files/itaa-pdfs/the-script/script-2018/ITAA%20The%20Script%202018-09.pdf#page=1.

September 4

Now here is a news item for you, the dumbest US president in history, Bush II, at McCain’s funeral, playing the fool as usual.

SOURCE: “George W. Bush sneaking a piece of candy to Michelle Obama is warming my heart,” by Roland Scahill, CAITLINJOHNSTONE.COM, https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/09/02/stop-humanizing-war-criminals/.

September 4

Why can’t the US govt keep its nose out of other nations’ business–always stirring up trouble to justify military activity and sell more US manufactured weapons, even to neo-Nazi governments such as the one in Ukraine? Very sad

SOURCE: “Ambassador Kurt Volker: US to Drastically Expand Military Assistance to Ukraine,” STRATEGIC-CULTURE.ORG, https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/09/03/ambassador-volker-us-drastically-expand-military-assistance-ukraine.html.

September 4

One reason currencies melt down is that power hoggers want to discount the price of goods produced in a country in world markets, hoping to sell more internationally at the expense of countries that don’t devalue their currencies in a trade war. Unfortunately if most countries do it almost nobody wins. Trump’s tariffs increased the price of goods produced in other countries sold in the US, another tactic in a trade war. Unfortunately if all countries do this they will all wind up producing and selling less, causing a global recession or worse.

SOURCE: “The Global Financial System Is Unraveling, And No, the U.S. Is Not Immune,” by Charles Hugh Smith, CHARLESHUGHSMITH.BLOGSPOT.COM, http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-global-financial-system-is.html.

September 4

Who really was involved in plotting 9/11/01 and for what purpose? To create a justification for the so-called War on Terror?

SOURCE: “‘Never Forget’: Gov’t Said the Air Was Safe, Now Thousands of 9/11 First Responders Have Cancer,” by Derrick Broze, THEFREETHOUGHTPROJECT.COM, https://thefreethoughtproject.com/never-forget-govt-said-the-air-was-safe-now-thousands-of-9-11-first-responders-have-cancer/.

September 4

Will this be another million dollars in the bank for Woodward, as if ‘we are in crazytown’ is anything new since Trump’s election?

SOURCE: “‘We’re In Crazytown’ – Woodward’s Explosive New Book Exposes ‘Nervous Breakdown’ Of Trump Presidency,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-04/hes-gone-rails-trump-mocks-sessions-mentally-retarded-orders-assassination-assad.

September 4

Are the US and the UK birds of a feather joined at the hip? Unable to manufacture consumer goods competitively to produce real employment? Having to make non-competitive weapons of war instead? Needing Russia to serve as a demand creator and rainmaker to sell their war products?

SOURCE: “Britain prepares for war against Russia,” by Brian Cloughley, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/25016.

September 4

More intelligent strategic thinking by Paul Craig Roberts

SOURCE: “Provocations have a history of escalating into war,” by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/25018.

September 4

If this is victory I would hate to see what defeat is, which, I would assume, would be worse; but who knows whether in today’s Alice in Wonderland Orwellian world in Washington, where down is up, or any other thing they choose to call anything.

SOURCE: “The US Military sees Endless War as a ‘Victory’,” by Nick Turse, TomDispatch, TRUTHOUT.ORG, https://truthout.org/articles/the-us-military-sees-endless-war-as-a-victory/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare.

September 4

Which is why you need to get in groups that focus on real problems rather than identities and ideologies

SOURCE: “Being reminded of your political bubble can stop you from breaking out,” by Scott K. Johnson, ARSTECHNICA.COM, https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/being-reminded-of-your-political-bubble-can-stop-you-from-breaking-out/.

September 4

So, time really does fly by faster the older you get. Retiring in 2005 I noticed this was happening to me within two or three years, and time’s elapsing seems to continue accelerating. Although in good health, I’m almost dead already of old age.

SOURCE: “Scientists found brain’s internal clock that influences how we perceive time,” by Jennifer Ouellette, https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/scientists-found-brains-internal-clock-that-influences-how-we-perceive-time/.

September 3

Right on

SOURCE: “Our Rulers’ ChiCainery,” by Robert Gore, STRAIGHTLINELOGIC.COM, https://straightlinelogic.com/2018/09/02/our-rulers-chicainery-by-robert-gore/.

September 3

Medicine too strong for most people

SOURCE: “Nike Launches Ad Campaign Starring Colin Kaepernick,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-03/nike-launches-ad-campaign-starring-colin-kaepernick.

September 3

Another hard-hitting article by Paul Craig Roberts, one of the best truth tellers of our time in Internet media.

SOURCE: “A book for out time, a time that perhaps has run its course,” by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/25009.

September 3

Paul Street pulls no punches, including this statistic: the upper one tenth of one percent of the US population own as much US wealth percentage-wise as the bottom ninety percent, which is well documented in this article.

SOURCE: “The McCain Death Tour Reaches Its Imperial Apotheosis,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/03/the-mccain-death-tour-reaches-its-imperial-apotheosis/.

September 2

We are being ruled by less than twenty-five percent of US eligible voters, thanks to the disastrous deranged US Electoral College.

SOURCE: “I finally pinpointed what it is exactly that I resent the most about Trump voters,” by beerfinger, DAILYKOS.COM, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/28/1791595/-I-finally-pinpointed-what-it-is-exactly-that-I-resent-the-most-about-Trump-voters.

September 1

Say it ain’t so Joe

SOURCE: “There is no limit to presstitute hypocrisy,” by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/24973.

September 1

Here is another gripping poignant article by Lihn Dinh, a native survivor of Vietnam during the US bombing spree of the 1960s who lived in the US thirty years who is now living back in Vietnam. Compared to this guy most people in the US are snowflakes. He tells it like it is now in Vietnam. One of his most gripping points about the servant’s tale is that this is what US workers have to compete against now with global free trade, having been thrown to the wolves by US corporations outsourcing US jobs to Asian sweatshops since the 1970s.

SOURCE: “A servant’s tale,” by Linh Dinh, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/24979.

August 31

Here’s an article about a legal case my longtime friend William John Cox, a retired attorney in Long Beach, California, handled pro bono for Mel Mermelstein, now age 92, that established the Jewish Holocaust as a legal fact under the legal doctrine of Judicial Notice, posted here as a story published in the Smithsonian Magazine a few weeks ago. Events and facts leading up to and including the trial were used for a movie by TNT, Never Forget, starring Leonard Nimoy and Dabney Coleman, with Coleman playing Willian John Cox. This was quite a feat for a country boy who grew up on a cotton farm in Northwest Texas. Wm and I sat in the same Methodist Sunday School class in 1948 at Wolfforth, Texas. The post includes some video footage of the movie. Mel and Wm were real heroes.

SOURCE: “Mel Mermelstein Survived Auschwitz, Then Sued Holocaust Deniers in Court,” by Patrick Sauer, SMITHSONIANMAG.COM, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mel-mermelstein-survived-auschwitz-then-sued-holocaust-deniers-court-180970123/.

August 31

Say it ain’t so Joe

SOURCE: “How Donald Trump is the Bernie Madoff of Politics,” by Lucian K. Truscott IV/Salon, ALTERNET.ORG, https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-donald-trump-bernie-madoff-politics#.W4lOfPt83Rk.facebook.

August 30

Trump won’t give about two million US civilian employees a pay raise but he will give about 1.3 million US military employees a pay raise. The man has little or no respect for context, causes, consequences, fairness, and rationality. What about some 3.7 million independent contractors who feed at the federal trough? Will they get a pay raise? I suppose we are now supposed to believe Trump is seriously worried about the federal debt, after he gave himself and his rich cronies a trillion or so dollars worth of tax cuts, vastly increasing the federal debt. Add one more nitwit decision to Trump’s collection.

SOURCE: “Trump cancels pay raises for federal employees,” by Kevin Liptak, CNN.COM, https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/politics/trump-cancels-federal-employee-pay-raises/index.html.

August 22

Karl Popper has been one of my favorite philosophers, primarily because of his stance against dogmatism and people thinking they know something that is unknowable, having been brainwashed about it in some sort of fascist authoritarian learning process, such as a family, church, corporation, or military unit, asserting you cannot prove any proposition to be true, that all you can do is prove a proposition to be false. In this Scientific American article you get to see how Popper functioned in his last years and learn about a confrontation he had with Ludwig Wittgenstein, another favorite philosopher of mine, who said “The case is all there is,” and “Everything that happens happens by accident.” Apparently Wittgenstein was a bit more dogmatic than Popper. I discussed Popper and Wittgenstein and these issues in more detail in my book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds.

SOURCE: “The Paradox of Karl Popper,” by John Horgan, SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-paradox-of-karl-popper/.

August 29

Yes, but the insurance companies, healthcare companies, and pharmaceutical companies don’t, and they have enough money to make politicians vote their way.

SOURCE: “Most Americans and doctors support universal healthcare,” by Stephen Lendman, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/24965.

August 29

Paul Street nails it again. Why the demo party is as bad as the repug party. If so what do we do then? Fall into despair? No, support the Green Party

SOURCE: “No Remorse: Reflections on Radical ‘Purism’,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/29/no-remorse-reflections-on-radical-purism/.

August 28

I agree with Jonathan Cook’s brilliant summarizing article below about UK politics. I am definitely in his second camp. The elite rich just keep getting relatively richer as everyone else stagnates or declines, maybe throughout the Western World. All the elite rich have to do is count the money their already pilled up money provides them. No work required. Communism failed for the same reason capitalism failed: greedy power hoggers at the top. The US and the UK it seems to me are in pretty much the same kind of political boat and predicament.

SOURCE: “Corbyn is Being Destroyed, Like Blowing Up a Bridge to Stop an Advancing Army,” by Jonathan Cook, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/28/corbyn-is-being-destroyed-like-blowing-up-a-bridge-to-stop-an-advancing-army/.

August 28

When I retired as a university professor in 2005 it was obvious student loans were problematic, becoming one of the major drivers of higher education. See my cases “Georgia Southern Business School,” “Games Educators Play,” and others in my book Business Voyages: Mental Maps, Scripts, Schemata, and Tools for Discovering and Co-Constructing Your Own Business Worlds.

SOURCE: “How U.S. Education Became A “Debt Sentence,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE.COM, https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-28/how-us-education-became-debt-sentence.

August 28

Right on, brother, eveybody’s deplorable but you and me and sometimes I wonder about you

SOURCE: “What? Me Deplorable?,” by Andrew Levine, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/28/what-me-deplorable/.

August 28

Communism failed for the same reason capitalism failed: greedy power hoggers at the top. for more detail read my editorial “Or So It Seems To Me Today”.

SOURCE: “New Film Reveals Life of Civil Rights Activist Jack O’Dell,” by Rami Katz, TRUTHOUT.ORG, https://truthout.org/articles/new-film-reveals-life-of-civil-rights-activist-jack-odell/?utm_source=sharebuttons&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=mashshare.

August 27

Say it ain’t so Joe

SOURCE: “The Tectonic Plates of Geopolitics are Starting to Shift,” by Michael Krieger, LIBERTYBLITZRIEG.COM, https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/08/27/the-tectonic-plates-of-geopolitics-are-starting-to-shift/.

August 27

Say it aint so Joe

SOURCE: “One Minute to Midnight: Latest US Sanctions Propel Nations Towards Risk of War,” by Martin Sieff, STRATEGICCULTURE.ORG, https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/08/21/one-minute-midnight-latest-us-sanctions-propel-nations-towards-risk-war.html.

August 27

It is an established fact that the Jewish Holocaust happened, recognized as a matter of Judicial Notice, established in the Mel Mermelstein case posted above.

SOURCE: “Against Holocaust Denial,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/04/against-holocaust-denial/.

August 27

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Trump really was the greater evil in 2016 and I should have voted for Killary instead of Jill Stein of the Green Party.

SOURCE: “This is a Freak Show, Not a Democracy (Thanks, Founders),” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/24/this-a-freak-show-not-a-democracy-thanks-founders/.

August 26

About time

SOURCE: “Sanders praises Dem move to limit role of superdelegates in picking nominee,” by Tal Axelrod, THEHILL.COM, http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/403601-sanders-praises-decision-to-limit-role-of-superdelegates-after-2016-primary#.W4NoJIF3Sb8.facebook.

August 26

An infallible pope begs for his god’s forgiveness, but what is he going to do about pedophile priests, regardless of whether his god forgives him?

SOURCE: “Pope ‘begs for God’s forgiveness’ for sexual abuse scandal,” by Catherine Marciano, YAHOO.COM, https://www.yahoo.com/news/pope-hold-giant-mass-dublin-abuse-victims-rally-030337491.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb.

August 23

There is no justice under the sun, as Solomon figured out in the bible. Have the too big to fail Wall Street banks, and big non-bank capitalistic corporations, bailed out by US charity and socialism in the 2008 financial crisis with US tax money and US funny money created by the Federal Reserve, enjoyed their filthy luchre? Especially the money the big Wall Street banks saved by not having to pay off on their credit default swaps they sold to Greek creditors? Pity the poor Greeks who were sacrificed for the global gods of finance.

SOURCE: “Genocide of the Greek nation,” by Paul Craig Roberts, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/24921.

August 23

Truth dies if all you care about is having the power to get what you want.

SOURCE: “The Orange King, Yellow Journalism, and the Death of Truth,” by John G. Russell, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/23/the-orange-king-yellow-journalism-and-the-death-of-truth/.

August 23

Amen

SOURCE: “Julian Assange and the Fate of Journalism,” by Lawrence Davidson, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/23/julian-assange-and-the-fate-of-journalism/.

August 22

Say it aint so Joe

SOURCE: “‘We are climbing rapidly out of humankind’s safe zone’: New Report warns dire climate warnings not dire enough,” by Jon Queally, INTREPIDREPORT.COM, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/24907.

August 23

Agree

SOURCE: “Trump Supporters: the Joyous Cult Bound by Shared Story and Ritual,” by Kenneth Culton, COUNTERPUNCH.ORG, https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/21/trump-supporters-the-joyous-cult-bound-by-shared-story-and-ritual/.

August 17

This article contains one of the best videos I have listened to on how to get the world, especially the US, out of its ongoing financial predicament. For more detail on how this scenario might sort out read my article,“The Evolution of Spaceship Earth, Inc”.

The anonymous creator/narrator of this video attended Harvard Business School. I hold three degrees from the Texas Tech business school.

SOURCE: “The Annals of Roacheforque: Implications of a free gold market and transition to the next global monetary system,” anonymous narrator, https://roacheforque.blogspot.com/search?q=rob+kirby.

Feel free to forward, share, print, reprint, copy or otherwise disseminate this issue of The Earthian any way you see fit.

TO RESPOND:

Do Your Duty! As an equal virtual Spaceship Earth, Inc. stockholder, owning one share of virtual stock, just like everybody else around Earth, tell other stockholders what you think the problems are, what the alternatives are, and what you think should be done to better manage Spaceship Earth, Inc.

Go to my Facebook Page and say whatever you want to say in regard to anything I or anyone else has said herein

But, Please, no vicious attacks, no slanders, no profanity. Say whatever you want to say in response to the facts of what was said, pro or con, but please no ad hominem attacks, i.e., don’t try to prove you are right because the person you are arguing against in your opinion is not OK, or less OK than you are, by virtue of personal characteristics, beliefs, feelings, or behaviors.

As I read articles on the Internet during a month from various publications here and yon I post some of them to my Facebook page and then use most of them as sources for The Earthian. After you get to the Facebook page you can find most of the articles listed as sources in The Earthian posted on the Facebook page, and you can respond beneath them with any comment you want to make about the article or what anyone has said about the article.

Like a reincarnation of Don Quixote I gain satisfaction from trying to give moral support to Earthians of any sort in their battles for survival, giving back a little in my retirement years, having survived many personal threats and battles in my long life, still standing in relatively good shape. I got bored with hunting, fishing, playing golf, and traveling some time ago, especially after being forced to obey and accept militaristic TSA attitudes, rules, intimidation, indignities, and stress to board airplanes, thanks to Bush II’s insane War on Terror, an aggressive offensive war that did irreparable harm to the social fabric of the US, not to mention the incomparably greater irreparable harm inflicted on millions of humans and other Earthians in other nations, caused by dropping bombs on them.

I have no desire to sell subscriptions or advertising or solicit donations for this blog, but I would like to sell more books. If you feel you have gained value from this blog or any page on our website and want to reciprocate please go to our Effective Learning Publications page , Amazon.com , or any brick and mortar bookstore and purchase one or more of my books.

Best wishes, RJS

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