Is it inevitable?

I just watched a segment on TRNN about the resurgence of right-wing fascism on Poland. The parallels to the rise of fascism during the period of the second world war are self evident and I was reminded of the repeating patterns of Mandelbrot fractals. My very simple understanding of Mandelbrot sets is that they are a mathematical model of a chaotic set (by definition, chaos cannot be predicted so it probably cannot be defined by an equation). An interesting property of these fractals is that they have very similar although not identical features and patterns at any and all levels of magnification... suggesting an inevitability cyclical pattern of events.

So I wonder... Based on patterns of the past, we are on a path to partly repeat the events of WWII Europe? How much momentum do these trends have? Having to repeat even a small measure of the tragedies of the past would immeasurably sad.

Long or infinite waits of Socialized healthcare

Harry Leslie Smith, a life long advocate for GB's National Health Service has died. His comments are worth hearing. 

My comment:

The most often repeated critique of 'socialized medicine' is long wait times. These same critics rarely point out the high costs of private-for-profit-socialized-health-insurance-medicine; costs that produce infinite wait times for patients without the wherewithal to pay for healthcare. In Harry Leslie Smith's youth, there were no 'long waits' to see a doctor; members of his community had variable waits for death, at times, very painful deaths. Today, many Americans have a similar long/moderate/short waits for death. Given the choice, most Americans chose the 'long wait' for care over the wait for death. We now have a Democratically controlled House and a number of States are under a Democratic majority; they must make this issue a priority. It's long past time to make healthcare affordable to everyone in this country.

Example of nurture over nature

The child of a family friend has recently joined the Air National Guard out of a feeling of patriotism (they have no financial pressure). IMHO, (1) this is a terribly dangerous time to join the military and (2) if this were my child, I would rather they be alive and living in a different country (resulting from invasion) than dead and myself still living in this nation... which got me thinking about the relationship between patriotism and love of offspring.

Patriotism is learned, a product of nurture. Love of offspring is a combination of biology (nature) and society (nurture). The willingness to send or allow your child off to possibly die in war is to value the existence of nation over existence of child. As a reflection of nurtured values over natural values, this is an example of how culture and society have a much stronger impact on individual human outcome than the genes inherited from parents. Nurtured impulses overruled natural impulses.

[For a little context, nature vs nurture often comes up in regards to disease: smoking and tanning are nurtured behaviors that promote cancer. But (natural) genes also play a role in developing cancer because not all smokers and tanners develop cancer nor do all people who avoid those activities escape cancer.]

U.S. Department of Defense failed audit

My comment at TRNN:

We have enabled a rich and powerful Military-Industrial-Complex to legally bribe politicians, policy makers and regulators through campaign contributions, political action committees, think tanks, ideological foundations, revolving door employment, etc. In return, all American taxpayers are forced to pay for ever more expensive, excessive and often unnecessary military hardware (with a side effect of excessively militarized local police) while less advantaged taxpayers send their children to become war fodder by foreign hands or self-destruction by suicide. We pay with our treasure, we pay with our future in our children, we pay with the future of our grandchildren. 

MIC and the military get away with this degree of theft by hiding information. An audit is information about how the military spends its funds. Their audit failure is not an inability to track and report their spending; it reflects an unwillingness by the military to report their spending and allow themselves to be held accountable to our elected representatives. [BTW, elected representatives who have been bought by the MIC and eager the stories told by the military.] It's not about the defense of nation from enemies; it's the offense of military, especially MIC, against Americans and anyone who might interfere with their profits.

It's all legal

Comment at Smirking Chimp (it's a quick and worthy read):

The true conflict is not between the U.S. and Russia/China/N.Korea/Syria/Mexico or Saudi Arabia & Yemen or any other nation-vs-nation aggression. The real fight is between the power elite and everyday working people on the planet. Any 'special' interest (such as Jeff Bezos, Koch bothers, Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, big pharma, oil industry, military industrial complex, health insurance industry) that lobbies Congress for policies/laws/rules that increases their profits at the expense of the well being (health/education/standard of living) of their workers and consumers is participating in a long campaign against public interests. 

As every maker knows, the quality of any end product is largely determined by the quality of the starting material. This also hold true for economies; the quality and productivity of an economy is largely determined by education and health of its starting material of workers and consumers. Neo-liberal economics are marketed on the contrary principle that strong foundations are not necessary for strong economies. The Trump tax cut directly depletes economic foundations by removing money from a slowly growing economy - and he tells taxpayers it will grow faster. Unless neo-liberals have cracked the secret of creating something from nothing (aka, Big Bang), our current economic trajectory offers no hope of better conditions to workers.