Nation or people

There's a post at DailyKos titled 'New Poll Reveals The Eight CRAZIEST Things Trump Voters Actually Believe'. It would appear that non-Trump voters, presumably Democrats, are less stupid/crazy... except the numbers don't reflect all that well of non-Trump voters, presumably Democrats.

If anything, this further reveals a failure of the U.S. Constitution. The ignorance reflected in these poll results is a measure of the lack of a free press. The failure of Congress to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court is the failure of the Constitutional power/duty of the sitting President to nominate Supreme Court justices. The Constitution is a 'living document', capable of revision, modification and change in order to strive for 'to form a more perfect Union'. Yet for all this built in flexibility, it has not been sufficient to correct a major representation imbalance in the presidential election system because not all votes for president carry the same weight.

Democrats needn't be smug over their seeming superiority over Republicans when little divides them in terms of their actions.

The U.S. Constitution essentially defines the nation of the United States of America. A major cause of its failures can be attributed to the elite advancing nationalistic themes to gain more power, economic and otherwise. It's high time to carefully consider the priorities of the larger population of any nation... is it the responsibility of citizens to support (pay for and populate) a country or is it the responsibility of a nation to support the wellbeing of its citizens? Bear the difference in mind after DJT becomes president; he will likely define 'what is profitable for DJT' as 'good for America'.

It goes back to money...

According to Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, much of internal Israeli policy regarding settlements in Palestinian land is about money. Much of U.S. aid to Israel is military in nature and justified as needed to help Israel defend itself from its enemies, including Palestinians.

It appears there two very powerful lobbies supporting Israel and both are about profiting themselves and not humanitarian concerns. One lobby is the group in Israel profiting from the control of land, property and resources of Israel and Palestine. The other lobby represents American military contractors who profit from the goods and services directly or indirectly given to Israel as aid.

From the linked video:

SHIR HEVER: And what do Israelis think about this when the government is willing to spend so much money on such a small group of people? Is there protests about it? 

GIDEON LEVY: Unfortunately, the Israelis stopped thinking a long time ago, and those issues don't interest anybody and are hardly on their agenda. Israelis are mainly concerned about their next vacation and their next new car and this very regretful but nobody makes the linkage between deep social problems and the money that goes for the settlers. It's somehow the Israelis remain totally indifferent and blind and there is no-one to wake them up.

It's important to remember that 'capitalists' and power brokers can only steal when we (the majority of people) look away. Unfortunately, they are experts at creating distractions - Israelis are distracted with their comfortable life and perhaps some 'keeping up with the Jones' cultural meme. Americans are distracted by social issues - racism, immigration, sexism, 'religious liberty, abortion, etc. We need to learn to look past the distractions and smoke & mirrors and really see what is being stolen from us.

A spot of silliness

Bernie Sanders has coined our PEOTUS 'tweeter in chief'. While perfectly true and completely valid, 'twit-in-chief' would also be accurate.

Who's the real enemy?

It was an odd presidential election to say the least. One of its outstanding oddities is Hilary's quick acquiescence to defeat and her unwillingness to pursue a 'recount' in the states where the vote count was dubious. Hilary Clinton is smart, strong willed and ambitious. After winning 2.8 million more votes than her opponent, she uncharacteristically declines make a perfectly reasonable legal query to challenge the election outcome. The question is why?...

Greg Palast has an explanation. According to him, the two primary reasons are:

(1) The DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) was started with $100,000 from the Koch brothers. This organization got Bill Clinton started in politics. So the Clintons have a debt to the brothers who have had a huge part in organizing the modern Republican Party.

(2) The establishment Democratic Party is as guilty of voter suppression as the Republican Party. The Democrats actively suppressed progressive voters during the primary against Bernie Sanders to ensure Hilary would capture the party nomination.

So the facts are:
-Republicans cry vote fraud to suppress minority (largely Democratic) voters.
-Democrats suppress progressive voters to game the selection towards corporate friendly nominees.

What's clear from this is that both major parties are on the same side. Neither party is looking after the interests of regular working people. They all use pretty worlds and flashy pictures to sell voters their version of 'The American Fairy Tale'. The real battle in American politics isn't between Democrat and Republican; they're on the same side, the side of their wealthy donors. The real battle is between wealthy donors and regular working Americans.

In the linked video, Greg Palast mentions that Al Gore was warned by Warren Christopher to not pursue a recount (it may be more accurate to say, Warren Christopher passed on a threat). In exchange for passing the presidency, Al Gore today is a Nobel laureate worth close to a billion dollars. Will passing the presidency net Hilary a substantial financial reward? She and Bill are doing pretty well as it is.

Now contrast the cultural and financial standing of Al Gore and Bill & Hilary Clinton to James Risen, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. The former were amply rewarded for not revealing the corruption inside the American political and electoral systems. The latter have been pursued/persecuted/jailed for revealing corruption in the U.S. military/intelligence gathering.

Finally, ask yourself who are the real enemies of the state and who are the real heroes of the state.


Update: It has been reported that Bill and Hilary Clinton will attend the upcoming Presidential inauguration. Supposedly 'She and President Clinton, the sources said, decided to do so out of a sense of duty and respect for the American democratic process.' A process that the Clintons, as prominent members of the Democratic establishment,
did much to damage beyond repair.

Accounts due

It common knowledge that climate related treaties do not count all contributions to greenhouse warming when deciding what industrial/economic sectors to target for mitigation. From a political perspective, this may make sense - for example, the politics and narratives of food production makes it a very difficult sector to modify in terms of public opinion and policy. But it is essential that we remember that the physical, geochemical, chemical and biological phenomena of climate change occur independent of human wishes, wants and intent. Natural systems don't care about human societies and politics. Human contributed changes in greenhouses gases alters natures' normal accounting of global climate. Global accounts, or 'books', cannot and will not change just because human policy decides that certain economic sectors are exempt from greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. By granting exemptions, we are essentially creating a false set of greenhouse gas accounts. The real greenhouse gas/ climate change accounts are kept by planet Earth. Cooking the books to ease the passage of international treaties won't save us when the climate accounts are due.

Independent media is essential for transparency

A major goal of this blog is to advocate for increase transparency. For most part, And although not always explicitly state, the directive tends to be primarily focused on economically valuable information along the lines of intellectual property - patents, copyright, proprietary information, etc. But a recent piece by Robert Reich about how Trump controls/manipulates the media should remind all of us of the importance of transparency at the level of power brokers. By controlling the media, Trump aims to control the narrative of his actions and decisions. How he is perceived and the support/opposition he garners is determined by his 'story'. By controlling the media, he controls the story regardless of its veracity. Independent media may not provide the entirety of 'truth' but it will be more than a controlled media. Thus independent media is essential to increasing information transparency.

Contraindicated

At this point, the world knows who won the electoral college and thus the recent presidential election in the U.S. But the final vote count clearly shows the other party won the popular vote. It seems that the weight of the votes of the majority of voters (mostly in the coastal states) is less that those of the minority of voters (mainly in southern and western states). What's interesting is that although many pundits say HRC lost because she did not campaign much/enough on the economic pain of voters, the states she won are among the economically most vibrant and robust. So the states with policies that support (slightly) more function economies lost to states whose economic policies leave their voters in dire straits. Letting the supporters of super-bad economic policy choose a president with policy power is not the best way to ensure good economic policy. As doctors would say, this treatment (President-elect Trump) contraindicates the disease/condition (poor economy).

What is an economy?

According to Wikipedia, an economy is an area of the production, distribution, or trade, and consumption of goods and services by different agents in a given geographical location. This came up because I just listened to the NPR story about the recent surge in black lung disease in Appalachia. It seems that the number of cases of advance black lung disease has hugely increased in the past several years even as coal production has dropped. The story ends with a coal miner saying "...if I had it to do over I would do it again, if that's what it took to provide for my family as long as I have."

 That got me thinking of economics on a meta-level: why *do* people work and often choose jobs which endanger their lives. From the coal miner's statement, it's clear that he works because he and his family need to survive. But there's an inherent contradiction in that a job that endangers his life does not support his survival. And that means the standard definition of economy is seriously incomplete. A much better definition would be a self-organizing, self-sustaining social entity that facilitates the production and exchange of surplus goods and services to promote the survival and wellbeing of all participants.

True economies take into account public heath issues and would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which harm public health. True economies would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which endanger nations of individuals. True economies would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which endanger the health of their workers, their children or their near and distant neighbors. True economies would not would not support the production, exchange and profiting from goods which destroy the life sustaining ecosystem of the planet.

Most of what the modern world calls 'economy' are not economies but more accurately defined kleptocracies which enable a small elite group to concentrate power. The innate consequence of the corruptive capacity of power ensures the elite will further concentrate their power, wealth and influence at the expense of workers and environment. Kleptocracies ensure economies are neither self-sustaining nor promote the survival and wellbeing of all participants.

Greed and Corruption in military economics

The Real News Network has posted a series of short clips of an interview with Andrew Feinstein, a former South African politician who has written and book called Shadow World which has been made into a documentary film. He describes the secret corrupt deal making that drives military spending and eventually bleeds into insurgent uprisings and 'wars on terror'. In brief, politicians and their friends/family receive kickbacks and bribes from military contractors for purchasing goods and services from said contractors. In the interview, Andrew Feinstein essentially says that in comparison to corruption in military contracting, organized crime is for amateurs.

This is more confirmation of the accuracy of my theory of economics. See here for the relevant links.

Rampant consumption is not needed for functional economy

My comment at a Truthout.org post:

Rampant consumerism/disposable consumption is the major enabler of income inequality in modern capitalist economies. Capitalized production of goods is how financial capital and power are shifted away from productive workers and concentrated in the hands of owners. 

The intellectual property of the capital goods determines much of its value and control of such information is legally mandated by government policy. The elites of any given economy/nation have enormous influence over policy. 

Mass consumption of disposable goods is not necessary for a functional economy. A functional economy only needs a continuous and constant exchange of goods *and* services so an economy powered primarily by the exchange of services can be functional. 

If intellectual property were not constrained, an economy based on services derived from freely available intellectual property is possible. For example, computer programming services to custom modify open source software for a specialized application; independent musicians free to interpret song covers for any occasion.
Control of intellectual property and other information is at the root of many global economic woes and other injustices. The truest reform is information transparency and that should start with universal whistleblower protection.

A regular and ongoing theme to my thinking.

A Trump administration...

... will change the trajectory of the U.S. economy to something more like China's. This is a comment I left at a Truthout post which partially lists the president-elect's appointees thus far:

This reminds me of a terrifying article by Richard Smith about the devastating environmental effects of unregulated industrial growth in China and the corrupt political system that enables it. American democracy has already been weakened by the GWB and BHO administrations (in all state relations, the poor and minorities are less equal than the rich and majority - police brutality; banking/investing fraud; voting access; fossil fuel related issues...). If the Trump cabal has its way, they will set the U.S. along a path similar to that of China. So long as the power, influence and wealth of the cabal increases, all else can to hell; workers will be poisoned by industrial pollution; starved of living wages; deprived of life saving medical care and cheated of their human dignity.

Of course, this is also true of Hillary but at a slightly slower pace.

Trump's primary meme during the election was 'make America great again'. But he never defined (1) what 'America' is and (2) 'again' implies it was great in the past which he never defined. His appointments suggests his slogan actually means 'make the American Trump cabal richer again'.

I highly recommend the article by Richard Smith. It's long but covers an incredible amount of ground... and considering how much American corporations and government keep secret, think of the implications for the U.S. economy. Then consider what would happen if no information were kept secret. The ultimate reform, economic, political and everything else, is information transparency.

Ugliness of Israeli settlements

I am not fond of Abby Martin's Empire files - I find her presentation to be over dramatized, even when I agree with her point of view. But in this instance, even if only a tenth of her report is true, Americans are doing bad things. This episode describes how the state of Israel not only tacitly approves of Israeli terrorism against Palestinians, but it's overtly abetting such activity. And considering U.S. aid covers close to one-quarter of Israel's military budget, Americans are indirectly sponsoring state terrorism.

Be informed. It's necessary to mount effective opposition.