THE EARTHIAN, Number Thirty-Six, January 3, 2023, 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 ARTICLES 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:
JANUARY 3, 2003
A new year has begun. Not likely to be very happy for most Earthian humans. Here’s an interesting perspective in the below article. Yes, in many ways democracy is a lie, especially with respect to the USian government. Most Earthian humans think the USian government is a democracy. It never was a democracy. It was, as Benjamin Franklin pointed out shortly after it got established, answering the question someone asked about what kind of government it was, “a republic if you can keep it.” This republic offered supposedly democratic elections that provided “representatives” who would supposedly do your bidding who would create the laws that would rule you. I am a great believer in real democracy, direct democracy, with regards to discussions about what to do. I am not so sure about voting on specific things to do. If a majority of poorly informed not very bright participants who do not understand what they are considering vote for something you will probably wind up with a tyranny of the majority. The author of the below article is viewing reality through a Marxian lens using the standard words Karl Marx recommended in order to correctly perceive society. As an undergraduate economics major I studied to some extent Marxist communism, and other “isms”, such as socialism and capitalism. To my knowledge I do not now believe in any kind of ism, a system of dogmas and doctrines. I grew up under Methodism, but I gave up believing in it long ago, believing now more like a Primitive Baptist. Seems to me the best you can do is try to understand situations as best you can and make the best decisions you can using whatever accumulated knowledge you have at your disposal, knowing you do not “know” precisely what is right, as if there were a “right” answer. All possible answers are of course not equally probable, and it behooves you to put your money on the answer with the highest probability of being right. Comment by RJS
“Is Democracy The Big Lie?,” by Nick Pemberton, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/03/is-democracy-the-big-lie/?fbclid=IwAR16NEqzeHhDZeqmbXqph4pITZcE6ogjD6pKh0b_efGlaXo7bpZrqbaODAM.
January 3
What next?
“Putin Planned Before Invasion to Cut Off Ukraine’s Electricity During the Winter,” by Mike Ludwig, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/putin-planned-before-invasion-to-cut-off-ukraines-electricity-during-the-winter/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1wSV0PsOeU26RslGkIn_nBWcHFsBlQUi8Pq2b3cHyQAChsUsizRqcozJQ.
January 3
How to reduce the need for more food production? Reduce the production of Earthian humans. RJS
“Agroindustry Lobby Is Using the Ukraine War to Push Unsustainable Farming Policy, by Dave Goulson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/agroindustry-lobby-is-using-the-ukraine-war-to-push-unsustainable-farming-policy/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2EL-5sB5geDrppLTDiujuBI72E98nP-Vs4bNh_5RNlK1yxo2xH_LZliX0.
December 31, 2022
I saw and heard the whole spectacle and speech on MSNBC–Earthian humans being shown and told what the powers that be wanted them to see and hear about the Ukraine War–including genuine suffering and pathos, hubris, and warmongering, as televised by MSNBC and others. …Read on » RJS
“Could televising Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech in the US House ignite WWIII?,” by Richard John Stapleton, EFFECTIVE LEARNING REPORT, https://blog.effectivelearning.net/4294-2/?fbclid=IwAR2wi7-fu0zYRyXMb4q-66qAIAWMGt5Jw9RZKinbp8lSUX5IWKRyBWu3qvY.
December 31
Supremacists respect their own presumed supremacy earned because of having been accidentally born in certain races and because of having been inevitably psychologically contaminated by supremacist ideologies. Fairness and justice as they relate to race and ideologies are irrelevant to supremacists.
This article is the best legal exposition of the Israeli/Palestinian problem I have read. RJS
“Indeed, it is an interesting paradox that so many who decried as clichéd the UN General Assembly resolution which “determined that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” half a century later, themselves, reduce all who oppose Zionism as inescapably anti-Semitic.
“In the United States dozens of laws have been passed to sanction those who support BDS or oppose Israeli policies by way of other non-violent iterations. Against the backdrop of the convenient mantra “they hate us, because we are Jews” … or “self-hating Jews” … students, faculty, journalists, political activists and businesses alike have been intimidated and silenced; have lost employment; or been forced to spend limited resources to defend themselves against a finely fueled and funded attack by Zionist hawkers ultimately underwritten by the political or financial coffers of Israel.
“So let us walk forward not with empty words but open eyes. For more than a century boycotts worldwide have served as a peoples’ alarm against policies and practices that have not just mocked human rights, dignity and justice, but taken the liberty and lives of tens of millions for little more than their faith, skin tone or political beliefs. Be it the voice of Jews against the arrival of Hitler; Americans who toppled Jim Crow; a world that said no to the Boers of South Africa; or the principled refusal by many across the globe to accept a supremacist Zionist nation state today, boycotts have been the historical foundation of international resistance.
“The universal right of self-determination is a fundamental cornerstone of international law and human rights. With this no principled person or schooled scholar can disagree. At its core stands a settled age-old collective norm that people and movements can confront, indeed must defy, political and economic power born of religious, cultural, or historical supremacy. To do otherwise is to surrender to the deadly tyranny of majoritarian rule and eventual ethnic cleanse. Nowhere is that call more compelling today than it is as against Israel, a racist colonial project.
“Legendary Anarchist Emma Goldman born of an Orthodox Jewish family in Lithuania was not opposed to Jewish migration to Palestine, but only as a welcome refuge from the growing clouds of European national socialism. She was however an ardent anti-Zionist seeing “Zionism as the dream of capitalist Jewry the world over for a Jewish state with all its trimmings, such as Government, laws, police militarism… in other words a Jewish state machinery to protect the privileges of the few against the many.”
“Goldman, who was imprisoned in the United States on multiple occasions for inciting to riot, urging draft resistance and illegal distribution of information about birth control, and who was deported to Russia for sedition following the Palmer Raids, understood well that principled resistance exacts a heavy personal price, to be sure. For those who fight Zionism all these years later, be it through BDS or other forms of struggle, Goldman left behind sage words of inspiration which echo from the historical pathways of resistance:
“‘The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause. If, then, from time immemorial, the New has met with opposition and condemnation, why should my beliefs be exempt from a crown of thorns?'”
Quotes by the author in the article below.
What is BDS? Boycott, Divest, Sanction. RJS
“Seeking Justice in the Name of Hate: In Defense of BDS,” by Stanley L. Cohen, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/30/seeking-justice-in-the-name-of-hate-in-defense-of-bds/?fbclid=IwAR26wvx0KiIKIceZlkbj63oVqqAXsyaYDm1XQoUY5t3vBQzwIIXDaOns_bU.
December 31
Here’s the essence of the story
” + Trump embraced “Big Lie” election fraud propaganda, despite being repeatedly told by his aides and administration that the claims were unfounded, to undermine public confidence in Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.
” + Trump brazenly and illegally sought to overturn the results of Georgia’s election outcome favoring Biden, demanding Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger produce 11,780 votes so he could “win” the state.
” + Trump endorsed and pushed a multi-point plan with aides like John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress to refuse to certify Biden’s win, to declare his victories in swing states invalid, to announce that Trump was the winner, and when Democrats protested, to turn the certification vote back to states and alternative slates of electors that would presumably vote for Trump in red and battleground states.
” + Trump stoked insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol, who represented a serious threat to the safety and lives of members of Congress, by encouraging mass outrage over alleged voter fraud, by persuading his supporters to travel to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” and refusing to mobilize the National Guard to stop them when they occupied the building to shut down the election certification.” Excerpts from below article
“White Supremacy and January 6: What’s Missing from the Congressional Report,” by Anthony Dimaggio, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/30/white-supremacy-and-january-6-whats-missing-from-the-congressional-report/?fbclid=IwAR0sQDu3SMkwQGVBpwTH0L5N-9JvE3bIu9dskfSu6Zkr5Yt1KEBDLbd3EtY.
December 31
Have USians been lulled into a sense of complacency in recent weeks with the Ukraine war and other things?
Here’s the only good news in the article below. RJS
“But the midterm slump appears to show that the far right’s influence on the GOP as a whole has stalled, and Republicans are not united behind Trump for his new bid for power. If his campaign fails to inspire his own far right base, it may be that the movement will become isolated from its access to mainstream conservatism.”
“While Trump Floundered in 2022, His Far Right Acolytes Built a Movement,”by Spencer Sunshine, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/while-trump-floundered-in-2022-his-far-right-acolytes-built-a-movement/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR3AKaJcLpxypG9q8DB8JKMHL3dezNwpufd7abms3Ca7GdNnrE9tkOpJOzo.
December 29
Yes, most USians want freedom to choose abortions. This is tyranny of the minority. RJS
“This Year, the Reproductive Justice Movement Showed Us What It Means to Fight, by Gannet Henderson, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/this-year-the-reproductive-justice-movement-showed-us-what-it-means-to-fight/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR1-21etM257D6px7gkfVMqYIvEyz3OVqZXdos3FMb67dSF45oMJ640hVkg.
December 29
Say it ain’t so Joe
“Russians fleeing Putin’s war join migrants trying to get into U.S., by Katelyn Caralle, DAILY MAIL, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11580089/Russians-fleeing-Putins-war-join-migrants-seeking-asylum-U-S.html?ito=facebook_share_article-top&fbclid=IwAR2AyBJaokeErmarjRpAYbUMUz7foCOaXwyvy3TgcYfgIt2d9tmA2Kqji0Q.
December 29
Seems to me the meme is referring to Earthian humans in general. Maybe you really do know everything, but it’s unlikely. RJS
“Stuff you know and don’t know,” by Asmaa Saber, JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE AND COSMOLOGY, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10160595027053184&set=gm.868156407560340&idorvanity=663488548027128.
December 28
Well, at least the 1/10 of a nanosecond (a ten-billionth of a second) fusion announced recently produced more optimism than was put in it for a few weeks. RJS
“Nuclear Fusion: Don’t Believe the Hype!,” by Brian Tokan, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/28/nuclear-fusion-dont-believe-the-hype/?fbclid=IwAR39k2swvbhfMye6XVgAJYI1P4doVMeVOOhtDE6GvRoswMpeow4aXyy6IA8.
December 28
Bertrand Russell on why Earthian human free will probably does not exist
“Is Free Will an Illusion,” by Bertrand Russell, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=714141950073625&set=a.280894120065079.
December 27
Biden’s hyperbole and thoughtlessness. Could not agree more with the thoughts of this author. RJS
“The Consequences of ‘For as Long as It Takes,” by John Whitbeck, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/27/the-consequences-of-for-as-long-as-it-takes/?fbclid=IwAR3hUIEFeK_g2NPcKoDrBLUc8NZUtnexrTcGOsAahckavz4liOqsZoAkqV8.
December 27
Wow, this woman just will not stop with her truth telling as she sees it.
“Markets and Technology Won’t Solve Climate Crisis. We Must End Capitalism,” by Eve Ottenberg, TRUTHOUT, https://truthout.org/articles/markets-and-technology-wont-solve-climate-crisis-we-must-end-capitalism/?utm_campaign=Truthout%20Share%20Buttons&fbclid=IwAR2OT8vQwgbaJL6VK8Q4cG1rAoG-VMQv11u2PgkJxpRpP95puAgFMLcX-k8.
December 26
Nor could I have imagined such a thing.
“A Brave New World,” by Howard Lisnoff, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/26/a-brave-new-world/?fbclid=IwAR0GeReIFVGnKIGbw452tV8iYb_NCe_SmvN8wlBLa0mhNBS5hyKguyjUgJY.
December 26
Ukraine is not the only basket case around Spaceship Earth. On the other hand, maybe Spaceship Earth itself is also a basket case. RJS
“Israel’s New ‘Government of Darkness’: the most Underreported Story in the Middle East,” by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/26/israels-new-government-of-darkness-the-most-underreported-story-in-the-middle-east/?fbclid=IwAR1cvNkLcmjZ4nJmx7Wy-wIyq1oRCjUsRhHd6_v5RKR9fXAZHzRJxlGcGDo.
December 26
Ought to be against Spaceship Earth law to do this sort of thing until there is hard evidence the supposed cure won’t be worse than the disease. RJS
“A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak climate change,” by James Temple, MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/24/1066041/a-startup-says-its-begun-releasing-particles-into-the-atmosphere-in-an-effort-to-tweak-the-climate/?fbclid=IwAR2OT8vQwgbaJL6VK8Q4cG1rAoG-VMQv11u2PgkJxpRpP95puAgFMLcX-k8.
December 21
Not another nothing burger. It shows for sure what a lousy businessman Trump really is, a poster boy for how to look rich by losing money, having been given some $400 million by his father. According to these income statement data he lost about $30 million most years from 2015-2019. it also shows how right F. Scott Fitzgerald was in The Great Gatsby about how the elite rich are not like you and me. How Trump could sleep at night with all this going on amazes me. Apparently it psychologically pays not to know the value of a dollar. On the other hand, these data say nothing about what kind of shape Trump’s balance sheet is in. He may have been an even bigger loser based on balance sheet data. His liabilities could be greater than the true market value of his assets, making him no kind of naire at all, not even a millionaire, based on his true net worth. Also these data tell you nothing about what his cash flow situation is. You would need to see cash flow statements to know this. He may have a real need to sell millions of Trump superman cards at $99 apiece to make his personal ends meet. He may be able to keep on getting away with grift and scams for the rest of his life if he can keep on paying the right kind of lawyers to protect him. I would not want to be in his shoes, no matter how rich or poor he is. RJS
“Dems Dump Trump Tax Data in Tuesday Night Release,” by Tyler Durden, ZEROHEDGE, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/six-years-trump-tax-returns-made-public-dems-unleash-new-political-weapon?fbclid=IwAR0MvUXXfxfcAQtD0UnNqAMgE1_A3QYCQcXZP1fVV-GW100yjTKpBJ0YXko.
December 20
Well worth a watch and listen. Great podcast by Eric Draitzer. He’s done his homework. What caused the Ukraine war? Seems to me it was greedy power-hungry oligarch fascists in Russia who criminally invaded Ukraine and fascists in Nato, the US, and Ukraine playing psychological Games expanding Nato up to the Russian border, which they said they would not do if Russia gave up communism. Game-playing rich fascist oligarchs like Putin were out to get even richer trying to win a psychological BALANCE SHEET Game. I could not agree more with Eric that several wrongs do not make a right, and real compromise on a host of global issues is necessary to bring the Ukraine war to an end, asap. RJS
“Challenging the Fake Antiwar Left on Ukraine,” by Eric Draitser, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/20/challenging-the-fake-antiwar-left-on-ukraine/?fbclid=IwAR17bRgwEsOL_uXhMKemhnl3rnRqW7zz2rhbH4nZA0NGyS2NAGsKVf8D9CE.
December 18
Setting the record straight
It takes a long time for Earthian humans to screw up a good country, but they have about done it in the case of the US. By the end of WWII, the USian government and economic system had evolved into a pretty good country. After about a century of Earthian humans in the US fighting for some semblance of economic justice strong unions and strong anti-trust laws protecting workers had evolved in the US, and the USian economy had evolved the best industrial system aboard Spaceship Earth, enabling Earthan humans living in the US to make a decent living working in several good industries. At the same time, the US had evolved a pretty good monetary and banking system after dealing with the Great Depression and creating laws such as the Glass-Steagal Act that forced banks to operate conservatively and relatively safely. And the USian military up to the start of WWII had been kept to a rational size compatible with the original goal of the US to not keep standing armies. And the US had rational tax rates that prevented the rich from getting richer at the expense of the poor, subjecting the elite rich to marginal tax rates in some cases of ninety percent.
But in the ensuing seventy-six years since the end of WWII greedy USian humans bribed politicians, primarily in the Republican party, but also in the neo-liberal Democratic party, to change the rules of the Game in their favor. Federal tax rates for the rich have inexorably been lowered and now the elite rich pay about the same tax rates as middle income taxpayers. Once powerful USian factories and mills have inexorably been sent overseas to exploit cheap labor, the power of USian labor unions has waned, the conservative Glass-Steagal Act was replaced by the liberal Republican Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that set banks free to speculate using depositor money in risky schemes and strategies. Instead of downsizing the USian military after winning WWII the USian government used its military to expand the American Empire and prevent unemployment in the US while ostensibly fighting communism, gradually establishing permanent USian military bases around Spaceship Earth, now about eight hundred of them.
And consequently, the poor in the private sector of the US now get poorer year after year while the elite rich of the US get exponentially richer year after year.
Meanwhile the USian supreme court has been stacked by Repug presidents with lightweight political operatives of the Repug party who vote to change USian laws even more in favor of the elite rich and to appease the religious beliefs of the far right. RJS
“Once upon a time the US taxed the rich,” by Sam Pizzigati, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/37064?fbclid=IwAR1h3aJOXhPuI0gKvnR-44IzmVtnfd-5ZpVwv7ad-gghJeda5ZueLsz3cp4.
December 17
“This biodiversity is crucial to tame or reduce the violence of the anthropogenic climate chaos. Greenhouse emissions enter the atmosphere in the billions of tons. About 50 percent of those Earth-warming gases are absorbed by the oceans and land. Healthy forests and wetlands sequester greenhouse gases. Marshes and swamps store twice as much carbon dioxide than forests. Seagrasses and mangroves sequester carbon four times the rate of forests. The natural world with plenty of biodiversity is our best defense against the climate dragon.
“Yet animals, plants, trees, fish, coral reefs, other sea wildlife and plankton, birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, and invisible microbes – are in trouble. This is bad news because we are nothing without these forms of life. They give us the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. And yet we keep hunting, eating, shooting, cutting down, starving, and poisoning our natural benefactors. In addition, animals, trees, and other wildlife have no less rights for life than humans do. In fact, they are seniors to humans, having been on Earth much longer than us. Some of them, like Sequoias live for hundreds and thousands of years.”
Quote from below article.
“Humans are Weapons of Mass Extinction,” by Evaggelos Vallianatos, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/16/humans-are-weapons-of-mass-extinction/?fbclid=IwAR1cvNkLcmjZ4nJmx7Wy-wIyq1oRCjUsRhHd6_v5RKR9fXAZHzRJxlGcGDo.
December 17
“Declining crop yields effectively reverse the impact of the storied Green Revolution, aka: The Third Agricultural Revolution of some 50-70 years ago which saw dramatic increases in crop yields and production. Whereas a couple of generations later we’re going backwards, but the global population of 3 billion in 1960 has exploded to 8 billion today. Astonishingly, we’ve added 5 billion people during one lifetime! Whew! Meanwhile, global warming’s impact of less crop yield in the face of nearly triple population numbers has grave implications.”
Quote from the below article.
“Multiple Breadbasket Failures as Radicals Stop Private Jets,” by Robert Hunziker, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/16/multiple-breadbasket-failures-as-radicals-stop-private-jets/?fbclid=IwAR1qnQCxEPSEwZ5MatIip83KRAXfg7e7Rg95bIJwD9wsOff_Bkp5b4dL7os.
December 17
Agree. See my recent novel AS THE ROOSTER CROWS EARTHIAN OKness INCREASES for a new management system using AI and supercomputers to operate Spaceship Earth, Inc. RJS
“How to avoid another world war,” by Henry Kissinger, THE SPECTATOR, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-push-for-peace/?fbclid=IwAR1k17XG-a7eRgpAFYnU_p62PAK2jJDTASym0MRaBLkVEfz1qYUnrRe0yaE.
December 17
Earthian humans now seem to be heading for some more dreadful times caused by obsolete economic and political systems and GWCC and MNWP, global warming and climate change and militarization and nuclear weapons proliferation. RJS
“A Conversation with Betrand Russell,” NBC WISDOM SERIES, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=701308811356939&set=a.280894120065079.
December 16
Agree. This issue was discussed at some length in my recent novel AS THE ROOSTER CROWS EARTHIAN OKness INCREASES. RJS
“Only in laziness can one achieve a state of contemplation,” by John Steinbeck, POETIC OUTLAWS, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=445880954413017&set=a.394323576235422.
December 16
Say it aint so joe
“The CIA is putting President Biden in a bad political position that’s at odds with the overwhelming majority of Americans as the poll results reveal,” Amandi told NBC News.
“Calling for further delays and redactions for six decades-old documents around the most important of issues in American history – the murder of a president inside our borders – doesn’t just raise additional suspicions, it borders on tacit admission by the agency that something’s very rotten at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.”
Quote from the below article
“Biden releases most JFK assassination records – but withholds thousands,” by Matt Caputo, NBC NEWS, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-releases-jfk-assassination-records-rcna61286?fbclid=IwAR2r6GwQ_1Hi2pdqco3MwC50MXbskPz1572Z6owOjzRWEDC58Tad9hPVaTw.
December 15
Ain’t that somethin’
See my comparison and contrast of Donald Trump and Elon Musk in my recent novel AS THE ROOSTER CROWS EARTHIAN OKNESS INCREASES. RJS
December 14
Say it ain’t so Joe
“Say it ain’t so, Joe.” is a phrase attributed to a reporter speaking to Shoeless Joe Jackson about Jackson’s admission that he cheated in the 1919 World Series.”
Comment by Wikipedia
“Putin readies nuke missile able to strike UK & US for launch in chilling threat,” by Will Stewart and Tariq Tahir, THE SUN, https://www.the-sun.com/news/6911324/putin-readies-nuke-launch-missile/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb&fbclid=IwAR00dfXcx7JYHtZ4_vue8i7izlrnOkvpjUlW3zo2Ytt1PTtc9vvWe8t3iC4.
December 14
“Better to fight economically than militarily” by Victor Cha, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/how-stop-china-coercion-collective-resilience-victor-cha?utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR1xtWH-QpP8jxeqBowxieNI3vd7PgpG4QO9OGnhFDVZ7U4r5CvpdORku44.
December 14
Another enlightening article by financial whiz Ellen Brown
“The Real Goal of Fed Policy: Breaking Inflation, the Middle Class or the Bubble Economy,” by Ellen Brown, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/13/the-real-goal-of-fed-policy-breaking-inflation-the-middle-class-or-the-bubble-economy/?fbclid=IwAR0P7L7aJeZqu06Y3bP-0mnT8v1_gQXKIvXQnh4IDXes8F_ivOEJqTJBMMU.
December 13
So it seems
“US Supreme Court wants to make America more bigoted again,” by Thom Hartmann, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/37089?fbclid=IwAR133QascPZFQKwGi-UC14Kdv7DAJZoNvP16JVGll0ctUnRrCcnb3ghTKdo
December 12
A lot to digest here
What? Me worry? The USian fed reserve system will just create enough new funny money out of thin air to buy however many more billions of USian treasury debt it takes to cover another humongous federal govt budget deficit. USian federal congresspeople and presidents of all stripes are just too liberal, human, practical, or cowardly, spending real taxpayer money and funny money with abandon to stay in office and to prop up the USian economy, while they give their constituents all the tax breaks they can. Who knows how much of this spending bill is pure pork? And, oh no, this is not just kicking the can down the road one more year.
If all else fails (tax receipts, sales of fed debt to private citizens and other governments, etc.), the USian Federal Reserve system will punch more digits into its computer system and call the resulting numbers money and then use that funny money to purchase more treasury debt (bills, notes, etc.) as necessary, and the USian government will then use that “money” to cover its military expenses, along with all its other expenses, plus the inevitable deficit. Will the USian ever-increasing $31 trillion federal debt ever be paid off? Most likely not. For how much longer however can this alchemic monetary process be perpetuated? How much longer can the debt be rolled over, i.e., sell new debt to pay back old debt when it comes due? Who knows. But USian congressional politicians and presidents will have preserved their jobs, and the USian economy, in the short run, by approving the yearly budget and the constant accumulation of more and more debt. The USian govt is not alone doing this. Most Earthian governments with so-called developed economies also require their central banks to operate a similar alchemic monetary system as they accumulate more and more debt. The USian federal debt to GNP ratio is now a little over one hundred percent, lower than the same ratio in some other countries. RJS
“What’s Inside the House-Passed Military Spending Bill,” by Joseph Lord, THE EPOCH TIMES, https://www.theepochtimes.com/whats-inside-the-house-passed-military-spending-bill_4912857.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge&src_src=partner&src_cmp=ZeroHedge&fbclid=IwAR2lxrwqAJLitZHGqd94bDDaZehcIipgWmEbwoL0v5-NWHntiz8LREFnzyA.
December 11
At least there’s a glimmer of hope
“U.S. to announce fusion energy ‘breakthrough’,” by Evan Halper and Pranshu Verma, MSN.COM, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-to-announce-fusion-energy-breakthrough/ar-AA15ahiG?cvid=f596aa99fbb44e0a95d7debb8c967d79&fbclid=IwAR3tiKaAnzcQ3Vl1qrzox-VGbCISOct_iwI1cYU1Q0lQVKmj-l0js0oo0_4.
December 10
Afraid the author is right about this
“The Predictable Resurgence of Fascism and Naziism On Both Sides of the North Atlantic and Its Consequences,” by Vincent Navarro, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/09/the-predictable-resurgence-of-fascism-and-nazism-on-both-sides-of-the-north-atlantic-and-its-consequences/?fbclid=IwAR08kVsD8iEWxZd3EIt2_kw_lKFQxi9cSFO9BYjqiTO5ORUYkUVRXclhi28.
December 9
The USian future, and the future of Spaceshiip Earth, is looking grimmer and grimmer. What these Repug moral moron supreme court judges are doing now is breaking up the US of A into a bunch of little podunk nations with the power to make up their own laws and rules about abortions, voter suppression, and what next? This is almost as bad as, or worse than, a civil war. Here you have the supreme court of the US legalizing the rights of states to rule themselves as they see fit based on their idiosyncratic biases and prejudices. All these morally and ethically deficient Repug political operatives on the USian supreme court, so-called judges, need do next to complete the process of de-nationalizing the US they allowed and encouraged (whether intentionally with malice aforethought or not) is to legalize the rights of USian states to create their own military forces. This will complete this process of shattering the US into fifty or so small nation state equivalents. This process is not only ethically and morally despicable, it’s absurd, and disastrous, for all Earthian humans. By all that’s holy, the USian supreme court should not have this kind of power. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the Repugs and Dems of the US are the largest competing anti-social gangs aboard Spaceship Earth. RJS
“Supreme Court seems ready to legalize the 2021 Trump coup tactics,” by Mark Gruenberg and John Wojcik, INTREPID REPORT, http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/37110?fbclid=IwAR0H4ajgjoB2w-Uc14IyhT1Fkk-TfOqXQ2e0byZBul08uRr49WS-LTm72G0.
December 9
Here’s the indefatigable Paul Street again telling it exactly like he sees it.
“‘Amerika’: Republi-Fascism, Despicable De-Railing Dems, Constitutional Termination, Lucy and Charlie, and Revolution,” by Paul Street, COUNTERPUNCH, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/09/amerika-republi-fascism-despicable-de-railing-dems-constitutional-termination-lucy-and-charlie-and-revolution/?fbclid=IwAR2CPDOAjvrY84f3FNZQ5xfztWbK2rI3Zgr8T_RMI3RgaQWITjizTOfci_o.
December 7
You might think this is just more hyperbolic book-promoting hype, but I don’t think it is. Seems to me Jeremy Griffith, a biologist in Australia, is a real deal with a profound explanation and recommendation for how Earthian humans got in the mess they are in, and how to get out of it, before it’s too late. And it really is free of charge. I watched and listened to the whole interview for about an hour. One of the best podcasts I have experienced. RJS
“The Great Transformation,” by Jeremy Griffith, WORLD TRANSFORMATION MOVEMENT, https://www.humancondition.com/?fbclid=IwAR1hLi0I-gXL2ZX1szvX8iEwqC1LuOqQr34AkzaQpEyB0Ynn9eiDzFlqCm0.
TOWARD THE CO-CONSTRUICTION OF A FAIR AND SUSTAINABLE LONG RUN EARTHIAN ECONOMIC SYSTEM
By Richard John Stapleton
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 billions 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 pipe dream, 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 can help bring this state of affairs about by maximizing the production of the necessities of life for all Earthian humans, taking into account constraints such as natural resource requirements and human biological needs,
Max CjXj, s.t. AijXj ≤, =, or ≥ Bi,
explained in more detail 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.
Egotistic 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 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 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 concepts such as Ego States, psychological Games, Scripts, and OKness, 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.
A world-class psychological Game player on the Earthian stage in recent years, playing BALANCE SHEET, is Donald Trump of the US, and he could 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.
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, overstating the value of assets, 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.
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 case writers 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/.
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