The COVID-19 economy is Alive!

To put this rant in context, we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic (recall pandemic means entire planet is affected) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. U.S. intelligence services had been warning "POTUS" DJT for months that the growing epidemic in China would become a major problem in the U.S. In those same months, DJT and Republicans raised no alarms to the American public nor did they make any preparations for the oncoming epidemic. In fact, one Republican warned rich donors of a possible economic downturn and he, along with other public servants sold stocks ahead of the recent stock market decline.

It wasn't until March 13th that DJT declared a state of emergency... after tens of people died in Washington State, after hundreds of Americans tested positive, after the lack of testing became an international embarrassment and even now, we do not know the extent of the problem due to lack of infection data... So the Administration was seemingly taking the problem seriously (I can't even talk about the lie filled clownish daily Coronavirus media events staring "POTUS DJT").

But with the past two days, three media statements:

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick: 

“No one reached out to me and said as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren. "And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”

DJT tweeted/said:

WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!

“We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself”

From Buzzfeed:

President Donald Trump suggested Monday that he may encourage businesses to reopen and encourage people to stop isolating “very soon,” contradicting public health experts who say businesses may need to stay closed and workers stay home for several months to help contain the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s bad, and obviously the numbers are going to increase with time and then they’re going to start to decrease,” the president said at his daily coronavirus press conference, before quickly pivoting to say, “We’re going to be opening our country up for business because our country was meant to be open and working with others.”

DJT wants the economy 'working' again... because his rich friends and donors are losing money from falling stock prices and most of the Trump brand hotels are closed and losing money from stay-at-home and social-distancing recommendations.

My issue with so called 'getting the economy working again':

1. The economy is working. (Most) Essential goods and services are being produced and delivered on a timely basis. Shortages are due to panic buying and not a supply problem. The shortages of protective equipment for medical staff are the result of larger global production trends - outsourcing all production to cheapest producing countries. This could be addressed by invoking the Defense Production Act to force private industry to make essential goods/services.

2. The stock market is not the economy. Economies exist and function without stock markets so stock prices are a moot point in terms of economic activity.

3. Economies are emergent properties of human interactions. So long as two or more people exist, an economy exist from the exchange between them. Neither epidemic nor pandemic endanger the existence and/or function of economies.

4. People engage in exchange to benefit each other; to improve their lives; to improve their standard of living; to live longer and safer. If stock prices are the reason to justify the end of life-saving social-distancing, then stock markets are endangering people's lives; stock markets are doing the opposite of what economies exist to deliver... stock markets are anti-economic. Stock markets should either be banned from trading during the duration of the emergency or perhaps eliminated altogether for the benefit of humanity. [A standard debate question has long been "Has religion been a benevolent or malevolent influence on mankind?" ... A much more important and relevant question would be "Have stock markets been a benevolent or malevolent influence on mankind?"]

Data Hacking Elections

Democracy Now has an interview with a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower and others about data hacking of elections on the lines of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. The cost to democracy and even self autonomy is very high... we are all being manipulated by our information consumption in ways we cannot untangle. It's very much worth viewing.

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/7/the_great_hack_cambridge_analytica

What if...

Claus von Stauffenberg and his conspirators had succeeded? Will future historians look back at our time and wish for an equivalent plot? Will there even be future historians or will the policies of today obliterate any viable path to continue the human species and/or culture?

It's hard to be optimistic in the face of so many authoritarian-minded national leaders. A short list that immediately comes to mind includes Brazil’s Bolsonaro, Duterte in the Philippines, India's Modi, Netanyahu in Israel and DJT in the U.S. They all actively repress free speech and expression to advance their own standing and power to benefit those of their class. Scary times ahead...

What does it take to be a Trump supporter?

DJT is an objectively horrible person and an objectively horrible POTUS. He's a misogynist, racist... autocrat. His failings are so obvious that his supporters must completely lack analytical thinking and all judgement to vote for him.

So I'm wondering how dependent DJT supporters are on the benefits of civilized society? Would DJT supporters be able to grow & raise their own food, educate their children, doctor their ills, organize themselves to produce everything they need for a functioning society?

Modern republicans and libertarians forget that society and culture is in itself 'socialism'. Economic 'socialism' is about shared economic ownership but in the larger context, socialism is about some shared aspect; for example, insurance is socialism in the sense of shared risk. Culture is shared experience and context. The spread and integration of new technology is the socializing of innovation. In other words, innovators/inventors benefit the society at large. The most telling examples are modern medical technologies that saves lives.

Would DJT's supporters exist without socialized innovations? Does the socialism of cultural norms protect them from the outcomes of their poor judgement? Without seat belt laws, drunk driving limits, built in safety features, vaccination rules, etc., what proportion of DTJ's supporters would Darwin Award themselves out of existence?

I'm not a Democrat but the cruelty of Trump Republicans is goes beyond pale.

Monoculture of nation-states

Barack Obama held a town hall in Berlin recently. [As an aside, his intelligence and oration are such a refreshing contrast to POTUS DJT.] Part of his answer to a question was (~20:10):

[in a democracy]... you never get 100% of what you want...

So far as it goes, this is true. But there also seems to be the presumption that what the consensus agrees to is the 'right' or 'best' answer... what if it's not? The political consensus on nuclear weapons had the U.S. build and stockpile thousands of nuclear warheads, enough to push the entire planet into nuclear winter several times over. And the slow pace of political solutions to climate change would see the likely decimation of the human population due to wars, famines and disease brought about by climate disruption before a 'political' solution is considered.

This reminds me much of the dangers of agricultural monoculturing, when corporate commercial farming grows only the most productive/mechanization friendly strain of any single crop and through their neglect, lose the genetic diversity of less 'useful' strains. Small farms will grow other strains for other reasons (flavor, growth conditions, resistance, etc.). Monoculturing only preserves the information of one strain while the vast information in other strains are lost. Nation-states are similar in that the ideas and memes of the powerful become dominant and other ideas are muted to the point of loss. The lack of diversity in ideas and approaches also means little to no opportunity to test social solutions. Smaller units of governance means more units of governance which increases diversity and diversity/flexibility of thinking is the source of innovation. Small units of governance are flexible in contrast to the rigidity of large nation-states.

Do robots serve us or do we serve the robots?

Amy Goodman interviewed Shoshana Zuboff who wrote: “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power”. Her premise is that the frontier of capitalistic innovation is capitalizing prediction of individual (and likely) group behavior. These themes have explored in science fiction and coming to fruition in reality. We need to decide if we serve the interests of our (collective human) creations or do the controllers of these creations control our destinies?

Part 2 of this interview emphasizes the role of information control/secrecy in these developments... a theme I've been writing about for years.

Reality Asserts Itself with Lester Earnest

Paul Jay at TRNN has a series of interviews posted with Lester Earnest, an early computer innovator. It is well worth watching.

A Trump metaphor

This came to my mind when I read a C&L post:

Trump and his peeps are the dung beetles of today's culture. They are burrowing deep into the middens of history and recycling its least humanistic ideas for modern consumption. As receptacles of the rejected, middens are repositories of death and disease. The Resistance has the crucial role of defending the U.S. and the larger global community from the toxins unearthed by DJT & Co. Ideally, his influence can be contained, destroyed and if possible, immunized against.

response:

Dung beetles have a constructive purpose . . . GOParasites don't.

my response:

Indeed, dung beetles recycle organic matter from organic waste back into the ecosystem. DJT & peeps are recycling the worst tendencies of humanity. Everyone needs to heed the words of Martin Niemöller: 

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews [asylum seekers], and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew [an asylum seeker].
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

How do the GWB and DJT administrations differ?

Based on the economic/social 'shocks' described by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine:

GWB had the 'civility' to wait for economic/social 'shocks' to occur before triggering his anti-democratic agenda. In particular, September 11 to change the balance of power in the Middle East and any number of domestic power grabs.

Every incident of DJT operating outside of 'normality' is DJT throwing bombs to purposefully manufacture economic/social 'shocks': travel ban, trade wars, 'good people on both sides', Dropping Paris Climate Agreement, dropping Iran Nuclear Deal, meeting Kim Jong-un, splintering asylum seeking families... As this is happening, DJT's Cabinet and the Republican Congress are destroying consumer/environmental protection, civil rights protection, and stacking the courts against democratic governance. And that's only the start.

posted as comment as C&L

Watergate X.0

I noticed someone calling DJT's scandals Watergate 2.0. As someone who has no particular fondness for the Democratic Party, I am of the impression that one hairline difference between them and Republicans is actually significant. And just to be clear, this pertains only to the modern parties (FDR til today). Democrats generally hold true to the letter of the Constitution if not always the intent. So far as I am aware (and please correct me if I am wrong), every Republican since and including Nixon has challenged Constitutional precepts in some form:

Nixon:
Watergate 1.0

Reagan:
Debategate (Watergate 2.0)
Iran-Contra (Watergate 2.1)

Bush 41:
Iran-Contra (Watergate 2.1)

Bush 43:
Declaring War on Terror (Watergate 3.X) - metaphorical war that justified a state of perpetual war and all the actions the administration took to push actual war and hide their lies. Includes outing Valerie Plame, enabling torture (John Yoo), Colin Powell lied to the U.N., forced rendition to CIA black sites, etc.
Lawyergate (Watergate 3.X) - firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons
Warrantless spying on Americans (Watergate 3.X)

Trump:
Russian involvement with presidential campaign (Watergate 4.X)
Emoluments violations (Watergate 4.X)
Using Congress to attack agencies of the executive branch (Watergate 4.X)


Carter did not instigate any major scandals and Clinton's scandals were of a personal nature - he did not pose any major challenge to Constitutional precepts. It was terrible that Obama advanced the prosecution of whistleblowers initiated by Bush 43 and upped deportations but in comparison to his recent predecessors, he was at least faithful to the letter of the Constitution.

The major failing of Democrats with regards to Republicans trashing the Constitution is their acquiescence. Their token fight is meaningless in light of the successive erosion by Republican presidents of Constitutionally guaranteed rights and limits.

Large powerful nation-states are not the best way to organize society.

Universal Establishment against the Resistance

At TRNN, Charles Derber talks about the need to universalize the resistance to fight the establishment. My comment:

"...on the one hand, this universalization, but on the other hand, are we becoming more fragmented?... How does that go together, on the one hand the universalization and on the other hand this fragmentation?" 

The establishment, also known as the system, is unified and highly successful in fragmenting the working people of the world. They use identity and social issues to splinter voters into opposing groups so they are disinclined to organize significant resistance. For example, the Republican and Democratic Parties don't particularly care abortion; so long as individual politicians can get the medical care they seek for their families, they aren't concerned if poor women have access to abortion or reproductive care. They care about policies that their donors want. Abortion is useful because it polarizes their electorate and generates a mock conflict between the pro and anti sides (like pro-wrestling) which distracts the real policy intent of the Republican and Democratic Parties which is to always advance the concentration and transfer of power/wealth to their donors. 

The key to resist voter fragmentation is not to ignore the differences but to unify to respect these differences and advocate for each others' rights to those positions. The poor, brown, white, low wage, immigrant, women, LGBT and other groups are not outsiders; they are insiders, part of the group. In this country, they are all known as Americans but workers should not overlook the same systemic pattern of deliberate fragmentation that is also exercised abroad. The system uses competition between native and foreign workers to sow division internationally. The entire point of corporate/trade globalization is to create wage competition to force down production costs. Worker unity must also cross national borders if the establishment/system is to be contained.

Commonalities

I caught a little bit of the NPR program 1A on hazing. A male guest (academic anti-hazing advocate) said that given the opportunity, he would choose to repeat his experience because it produced strong bond with his friends...

This sounds a lot like the bonding that happens in the military which can result from the shared torture of basic training or combat.

This also sounds like tight sibling bonds that occur in chaotic households, think abusive situations.

...so questions: Do these phenomena have same psychological basis? If so, can they be triggered without trauma... how can be triggered without trauma? The point is informed decision making by people who choose to join the military or fraternity.

Looting by any other name

 DWT has a post discussing the effect of the Ryan-Trump Tax Bill on education. My comment:

-Leverage buyout 'investment' (see Mitt Romney a la Bain Capital).-Agriculture caused desertification (Dust Bowl, expanding deserts in Africa, desertification in Latin America).
-Surface mining (includes strip mining, open pit mining and mountain top removal). All forms of looting with specialized knowledge. They are characterized by (1) speed - victims don't have time to realize danger and mount defenses; (2) dirty - function of speed; (3) crude - function of speed; (4) cheap operating costs - minimum investment in workers, capital, safety, etc. The goal is to strip a resource of everything that can be sold for money as quickly and cheaply as possible. The result is rich looters and no resources - businesses without capital to produce; land without water for farming; land without clean water, soil capable of supporting life and contaminated with introduced toxins and mine tailings. The Ryan-Trump Tax Bill loots the public commons by tax policy. Taxes are the resources of a nation; they pay for the public commons of education, healthcare, infrastructure, public services, defense, etc. By reducing the tax payments of the wealthy, this tax plan is effectively looting the public commons. The danger is the destruction will be so deep and thorough, recovery will be nigh impossible.

Opposition Strengthens

TRNN re-posted a series of interviews with Ed Herman who died recently. I watched the first one and left this comment:

Thanks for highlighting this interview. I will listen to the other segments when time permits. One take home lesson from this segment is the importance of opposition. As a leftist, Herman was attacked by other leftist for being too left. A strong version of left tribalism today are HRC supporters who fault Bernie's supporters for her loss and the Bernie-or-bust tribe. Unquestioning tribalism is how bad ideas become entrenched and normalized. Our Founding Fathers understood this so they made press freedom and free speech the first among guaranteed rights. Diversity is a strength of the Democratic Party. When the party establishment suppresses opposing ideas and challenges, they are rejecting the aspiration ideals of the Constitution the party is modeled after and they weaken the party overall.

What makes for good journalism...

I just listened to a story on NPR by Ofeibea Quist-Arcton about The Boko Haram 'Brides' and it struck me the stigma these girls face on returning to their families and homes might be shared by the journalists and translators reporting their stories, after all, like all people, journalists are the products of their environments... so...

(1) do foreign reporters bring a useful outsider perspective to reporting?
(2) do local/native reporters bring better insight?
(3) what biases are brought by each group of reporters and (a) how to minimize its effect on reporting and (b) would it help to inform the audience of reporters' biases?
(4) similar issues of editorial bias...

BTW, I am not accusing Ofeibea Quist-Arcton of bias. I know I consume information with my own bias and wondered how bias in journalism can be managed to best serve news consumers.

Information transparency is better resistance

Ever since DJT assumed the position of POTUS, there has been a sustained effort to resist his words and actions from numerous groups on the left and progressive fronts. As an embodiment of concentrated power and wealth, DJT is very worthy of resistance... however, the resistors do not deserve the eventual outcome of resistance. What I mean is that movements need leaders and any position of leadership is imbued. The system we are fighting is one that concentrates power. A resistance that concentrates power to resist concentrated power will eventually fall into the same pattern of concentrated power... and the cycle continues endlessly. 

A much better way to fight the concentration of power is to distribute the power more equally. So resistance then becomes figuring out what makes individuals powerful so the what can be dispersed... and the answer is information. Controlling information is how individuals gain, hold and increase their power. Corporations (major stockholders) are rich and powerful because they control valuable intellectual property. Governments are powerful because they control information about corporations (regulation), foreign entities (spying) and the military (armaments, capabilities, deployment, etc). If valuable information were widely dispersed, no single or few individuals could concentrate power as  happens now. Increasing transparency makes better resistance.

Good Trump thing?

In a way, DJT has done Americans a service by shredding the coded civility that masks establishment political doublespeak. He has also fortified the divisions which the country needs to overcome in order to solve our problems. During a recent CNN Trump supporter panel, distrust of the media lead some to rely on uncorroborated social media for information. This degree of distrust and division destroys the general trust necessary for fundamental social interactions which, in turn, are necessary to build political movements needed to change the system. The cracks have widened into chasms. To cure these wounds, we need to build bridges and trust.

BTW, increasing transparency would automatically do this over time.

Sixth mass extinction

I've written about how ecosystems are a metaphor/model for economies.

In Part 5 of the series, Figure 6 illustrates that economies rely on functioning ecosystems. In this TRNN interview, Professor Gerardo Ceballos talks about his research suggesting an ongoing mass extinction which threatens the stability of many ecosystems. If only for selfish reasons, the future of humanity requires the preservation of natural environments.

The real enemies

Comment at Truthout:

Governments organize people into large collectives so economic leaders can put them to work and skim the fruits of their labor. [CEOs, major stock holders, central committee members (communist countries), etc don’t actually make a product or service that their companies sell for profit. They take credit for the goods made by their workers and are given the value of the goods as payment.] Wars are the forceful taking of other land *and* workers by governments for their economy. Wars are a way for governments to get more workers from whom they can take labor and gift them to their economic leaders.

The common narrative has always been nations are at war but the stakes of war tell a different story. Workers are at constant, unending conflict to protect them/ourselves from the ravages of economic leaders. It’s time to realize that the real conflict is between workers and economic leaders who concentrate their power by profiting from workers. United we workers stand, indeed.

Trumpism isn’t politics or ideology; it’s idolatry, a cult

Comment at DWT:

The Rise of Trumpism
(1) Sensory organs evolved over billions of years to provide animals mechanisms to detect and interact with their natural environments in order to survive.
(2) Theistic religions disengage human sensory input from knowledge of the universe/environment. Believing does not require seeing; invisible god(s) are real.
(3) Right wing media feeds the cognitive dissonance opened by religion (Christian Right) an unending stream of logical fallacies about American culture and politics. This completely hobbles the critical thinking ability of their audience and makes them ever more receptive to, as the Bible would say, false idols.
(4) Enter Donald J. Trump, who spent a lifetime gilding his own image with gold colored dust, onto the pedastal built by right wing media to elevate idols to the level of God.

Trumpism isn’t politics or ideology; it’s idolatry, a cult. The cure will involve mass cult recovery.

Only the most gullible among us, who believe in the existence of all powerful beings in the universe can disengage reality from rhetoric to actually believe the response of Sarah Huckabee Sanders in this exchange:

[A reporter asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders, POTUS DJT's spokesperson,] "Clearly there is a concern from some Republicans that the president is not always being as truthful as he could be," Hallie Jackson continued. "How does he plan to address that?" 

[She answers,] "I think by being truthful and transparent as he has every single day."