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.

Wayne Lapierre's gun deaths

Comment at C&L where father of murder victim fights Wayne Lapierre and the NRA:

According to everytownresearch.org, there are approximately 12,000 gun homicides per year in this country (when suicides are included, gun deaths exceed 32,000 per year). Wayne Lapierre has been head of the NRA since 1991. A gun death wall in the style of the Vietnam Memorial Wall (a little over 58,000 names) for the period of Lapierre's reign would run 5-15 times the size of the Vietnam War Memorial; it would take 40-115 hours to read all the names. The policies promoted and advocated by Mr. Lapierre doesn't put guns in the hands of 'good guys' who disarm 'bad guys'; they put guns in the hands of gun enthusiasts, criminals and terrorists who committed those and future deaths. Under the Patriot Act, Wayne Lapierre is guilty of providing aid and material support to terrorist; under many local jurisdictions, he is an accomplice to arming criminals... he should be prosecuted as such. 

I stand with Alison Parker's father in his efforts to demote Wayne Lapierre.

Economics of pollution

Comment at TRNN where economist Bill Black discusses the economic drivers of pollution:

Excellent piece. Economic considerations rule many if not all areas of public life; therefore it is important to understand and inform the public of the effects and outcomes of economic drivers. 

Bill Black answered the question of why pollution occurs... polluters profit from pollution... and how to prevent pollution... don't let polluters profit (by way of regulation). 

A similar prevention is a better definition of economies: self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants... Anyone/any institution whose activity is not self-sustaining (in larger context of entire economy) is anti-economic and not allowed to persist.

TRNN: Pollution Kills 9 Million People a Year

Guns are anti-democratic

I written a lot about how the concentration of power is the underlying systemic imbalance in many of today's problems and how the over-sized influence of the powerful skews all policy in their economic favor. Based on my preferred definition of economy (economies are self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants), I've argued that guns, the military industrial complex and war are all anti-economic...

On that note, guns, the military industrial complex and war are also anti-democratic because they impose the power of the wielders onto those of the oppressed. At the smallest level, a person holding a gun can intimidate everyone in their range from any number of actions including speech and movement. This is the opposite of society where everyone is free to express themselves.

Government anti-transparency

Reality Winner has been denied bail for 'allegedly passed[ing] a top-secret document to The Intercept that claimed that Russian military intelligence conducted a cyber attack on at least one U.S. voting software company just days before the 2016 election.'

This is part of an interview of Amy Goodman with Julian Assange. I have written positively about Julian Assange in the past. His actions during the 2016 presidential election brings up lots of questions about his motives. I don't know nor do I have sufficient information to form a reasonably informed opinion. But aside from his motives, releasing information for public perusal is an important mechanism of empowerment. Legitimate decisions can only be made by informed people. 

On that note, Reality Winner is a hero for informing the public of an event that was kept under wraps. She should not be imprisoned for enabling democracy.