Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Senator Warren meets Jamie Dimon
See this article. Warren added an Afterword to her book A Fighting Chance wherein she recalls her 2013 meeting with Dimon. Dimon was whining that banks were over regulated and Warren disagreed. Dimon threatens Warren about his clout over confirming the CFPB Director, and Warren said if he followed through he'd be violating Dodd-Frank. To which Dimon replied to the effect of "so fine us, we can afford to buy our way out of it." Which is pretty much what JP Morgan did in 2014, paying $20 billion in fines for breaking the law, in essence buying their way out of it. It's just amazing that they can get away with just fines they can afford due to criminal activity on which they are never prosecuted.
Sustainable Development Solutions Network newsletter
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"I want my country back" means
What do regressives mean when they say this? See this article. It means they want to regress to a time when institutional prejudice and racism were rampant. When white males dominated the family and government. When (a white male) God ruled over all of them. When business could proceed unfettered to pollute the environment and people with impunity. When slavery was legal. And on and on. Bottom line: They want to regress backward. Hence why I call them regressives.
Monday, March 30, 2015
The Atlantic on Senator Warren for President
See it here. A few edited excerpts follow, many points I've made before:
"If Warren stands by that decision [not to run], she’ll do a tremendous disservice to her principles and her party. [...] Once the presidential contest begins in earnest, she’ll be pressured to join the cheering squad for the achievements of the Larry Summers-Bob Rubin years—and to keep silent as Hillary Clinton raises hundreds of millions of dollars from Wall Street Democrats.
[...] You know who plays a truly significant role in the national conversation? First-tier candidates for president, that’s who. [...] Warren plainly does want to do things—and is denying herself her best chance to get them done. If Elizabeth Warren did seek the Democratic presidential nomination, she’d seize the party and the national agenda. Rank-and-file Democrats seethe with concern about stagnant wages, income inequality, and the malefactions of great wealth.
"If Warren stands by that decision [not to run], she’ll do a tremendous disservice to her principles and her party. [...] Once the presidential contest begins in earnest, she’ll be pressured to join the cheering squad for the achievements of the Larry Summers-Bob Rubin years—and to keep silent as Hillary Clinton raises hundreds of millions of dollars from Wall Street Democrats.
[...] You know who plays a truly significant role in the national conversation? First-tier candidates for president, that’s who. [...] Warren plainly does want to do things—and is denying herself her best chance to get them done. If Elizabeth Warren did seek the Democratic presidential nomination, she’d seize the party and the national agenda. Rank-and-file Democrats seethe with concern about stagnant wages, income inequality, and the malefactions of great wealth.
Indiana's anti-gay discrimination bill
See this article about this recent bill, which proponents frame as religious freedom. There's quite a few of these going on around the country in the wake of the Supreme Corp's Hobby Lobby case. The photo below succinctly highlights the hypocrisy of such nonsense and it's blatant discrimination.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Lawrence Lessig supports Elizabeth Warren for President
Lessig recently endorsed Warren for President, noting only she can inspire change in our corrupt oligarchic system. Hillary is just part of the machine that will perpetuate it. Here's an excerpt of his announcement. He'll follow up with an in-depth speech on his reasons for this support on April 20.
"For the thing that she speaks so powerfully about — a rigged system — is rigged precisely because of the corruption caused by the way we fund campaigns. [...] She—and, I believe, she alone—could also galvanize the movement that we’ll need if the next president of the United States is to have a prayer of actually taking on this the hardest, most important issue of our generation — because only by solving this can we solve anything else."
"For the thing that she speaks so powerfully about — a rigged system — is rigged precisely because of the corruption caused by the way we fund campaigns. [...] She—and, I believe, she alone—could also galvanize the movement that we’ll need if the next president of the United States is to have a prayer of actually taking on this the hardest, most important issue of our generation — because only by solving this can we solve anything else."
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Subsidy Tracker
See Ralph Nader's article here wherein he provides a link to the Subsidy Tracker. The next time a regressive goes off on welfare, look up their company to see exactly how much it gets in government welfare. I tried Citigroup, the focus of Senator Warren's recent diatribe, and found the following, which is just a partial list from a comprehensive report. The amount starving kids get for food stamps pales in comparison.
Parent Company Summary
Parent Company Name:
Citigroup
Ownership Structure:
publicly traded
Headquartered in:
New York
Industry:
banking & securities
| Subsidy Summary | Subsidy Value | Number of Subsidies |
|---|---|---|
| State/Local | $288,386,116 | 71 |
| Federal (grants and allocated tax credits) | $161,999,228 | 2 |
| TOTAL | $450,385,344 | 73 |
| Loan / Bailout Summary | Total Face Value | Number of Awards |
|---|---|---|
| Federal loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance (not including repayments) | $2,591,415,050,066 | 728 |
Maher on PC liberals
He goes on another rant about this. I disagree in that those who disagree with an issue have every right to boycott it or criticize it, even if it's someone "on their team." That one thing that sets liberals apart from conservatives, in that the liberal's team is not mind-numbed followers that go along with one set of marching orders. Yes, it sometimes causes problems in trying to organize a coalition, not much of a problem for the regressives. But that's the price of intelligence and diversity.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Deaths caused by lack of Medicaid expansion
See this article: "As many as 17,000 Americans will die directly as a result of states
deciding not to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, according to a new study. Researchers from Harvard University and City University of New York
have estimated that between 7,115 and 17,104 deaths will be 'attributable to the lack of Medicaid expansion in opt-out states' in a
study published in Health Affairs."
Big banks are oblivious
See this story about big banks withholding Democratic Senate campaign contributions because of Senator Warren's so-called "anti-business" rhetoric. No, she is not anti-business. She is anti-criminal enterprise when big banks engage in via fraud. She is anti-rigging the system via big banks buying legislators to eliminate laws making what was previously criminal activity legal. She is anti-speculative gambling with the people's money for the bank's profit while decimating the economy for everyone else. Those activities are not how we should define business per se, but bad business. Yes, she is anti-bad business, not at all the same thing.
Another Governor proving regressive ideology wrong
Which is not all that hard; just present the facts.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
WikiLeaks releases TPP investment chapter
See their press release here, which has a link to the full chapter. It says: "The TPP has developed in secret an unaccountable supranational court
for multinationals to sue states. This system is a challenge to
parliamentary and judicial sovereignty. Similar tribunals have already
been shown to chill the adoption of sane environmental protection,
public health and public transport policies." There's also an analysis of this chapter by Public Citizen at the link.
Senator Warren on regressive values
As expressed by their recent budget resolution. She nails it yet again.
Corbett on a clash of integral ideas
Joe Corbett has a new Integral World article that is creating quite a stir given his conclusion of using ISIS to assassinate "key leaders of the global 1 percent." For example, see this heated FB discussion. A few of my comments from the latter are below.
Let's remember well that both the American and French revolutions were filled with justifiable violence against tyranny. Are we magically beyond that now? Can we really overcome global capitalistic oligarchy with peaceful reform? Just asking...
Remember Ken Wilber's essay "The war in Iraq" about justifiable violence. "There are second-tier reasons not to go to war. But there are also second-tier reasons to go to war." While I'm no tierant I'm just using Wilber as an example of a valid reason to use violence against injustice for those kennilinguists who cannot abide the idea.
Let's remember well that both the American and French revolutions were filled with justifiable violence against tyranny. Are we magically beyond that now? Can we really overcome global capitalistic oligarchy with peaceful reform? Just asking...
Remember Ken Wilber's essay "The war in Iraq" about justifiable violence. "There are second-tier reasons not to go to war. But there are also second-tier reasons to go to war." While I'm no tierant I'm just using Wilber as an example of a valid reason to use violence against injustice for those kennilinguists who cannot abide the idea.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
What regressives say and do are two different matters
This captures it nicely, how they deliberately lie about what they actually do. And fools believe them instead of looking at their actions.
Nastia & Derek
Speaking of dance, this was the dance of the night on DWTS. This is only the second week and we're seeing performances like this already.
Dance, dance, dance
"Dance, dance, dance. Words can never make up for what you do."
I like this song, the music, the voice, the composition. And yes, the lyrics, in that they point to a way of expressing beyond words in dance. As a dancer I know full well this pre-linguistic 'language' that is engrossed in and enacted via image schema. A very primal and sophisticated form of communication that speaks volumes. Following up on this notion of primal and sophisticated, click "read more" below the video.
I like this song, the music, the voice, the composition. And yes, the lyrics, in that they point to a way of expressing beyond words in dance. As a dancer I know full well this pre-linguistic 'language' that is engrossed in and enacted via image schema. A very primal and sophisticated form of communication that speaks volumes. Following up on this notion of primal and sophisticated, click "read more" below the video.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Post-capitalism: rise of the collaborative commons
By Christopher J. Dew. The Introduction:
"This article is a follow-up to The Obsolescence of Capitalism: And the Transition to a Resource Based Economy, which
examined the effects of ongoing social and technological trends on the
capitalist economic system, and the potential for humanity to
restructure society and move from a system of scarcity to one of global
abundance. While the previous article presented a long-term vision for
transitioning towards an alternative Resource Based Economy of
abundance, this article will examine the more immediate conditions
affecting society and how, over the coming years and decades, the
capitalist market will increasingly be eclipsed, circumvented and
overshadowed by an emerging Collaborative Commons."
More facts on the regressive budgets
Robert Reich again lays out the facts of what they're proposing. It's obvious who benefits from these budgets, and it ain't you and me.
"The Senate budget contains over $1 trillion of tax cuts but doesn't specify where the cuts will come from. To find that out, you need to examine the House budget, which contains about $1.3 trillion in tax cuts, mostly benefiting the wealthiest Americans. The House budget would:
1. Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax increases, including a 3.8% Medicare surtax on unearned income of the wealthy and the 0.9% Medicare surtax on high wage and salary income. The revenue loss would be about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
2. Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, which ensures that higher income people pay at least some base level of tax. The revenue loss would be $330 billion, according to the Tax Policy Center, with 90% of the benefits going to the top 5% of households.
"The Senate budget contains over $1 trillion of tax cuts but doesn't specify where the cuts will come from. To find that out, you need to examine the House budget, which contains about $1.3 trillion in tax cuts, mostly benefiting the wealthiest Americans. The House budget would:
1. Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax increases, including a 3.8% Medicare surtax on unearned income of the wealthy and the 0.9% Medicare surtax on high wage and salary income. The revenue loss would be about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
2. Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, which ensures that higher income people pay at least some base level of tax. The revenue loss would be $330 billion, according to the Tax Policy Center, with 90% of the benefits going to the top 5% of households.
Selections from Open Humanities Press
From Open Humanities Press, a free open source book: Capital at the Brink: Overcoming the Destructive Legacies of Neoliberalism. Also see this: Plastic Bodies: Rebuilding Sensation After Phenomenology. Taking
a quick gander of Sparrow I'm pleased that the book cites some of my
embodied pals, like Lakoff, Johnson, Varela, Thompson, Clark and
Damasio.
Monday, March 23, 2015
The debate we should have but won't, unless
Elizabeth Warren runs for President. This is Robert Reich said on what Ted Cruz's Presidency, and regressives generally, are about in the next election. And what the progressive debate should be about. But it won't happen unless Warren (or Sanders) challenges Clinton. Because with Clinton we may get some of the populist rhetoric but it will be empty with little to no change in that direction. Here's Reich and he's right:
"Ted Cruz’s official entry into the Republican primary guarantees a battle during the next 16 months over exactly the wrong things: how to get even tougher on immigration, why we must repeal Obamacare, why taxes should be cut on the wealthy, why safety nets have to be shrunk further, why Medicare and Social Security have to be slashed, why abortions should be harder to get, and why the military should be expanded. Cruz and his likely opponents (Walker, Christie, Huckabee, Rubio, Paul, Jindal, Santorum, Perry, and Bush) will talk about little else.
"Ted Cruz’s official entry into the Republican primary guarantees a battle during the next 16 months over exactly the wrong things: how to get even tougher on immigration, why we must repeal Obamacare, why taxes should be cut on the wealthy, why safety nets have to be shrunk further, why Medicare and Social Security have to be slashed, why abortions should be harder to get, and why the military should be expanded. Cruz and his likely opponents (Walker, Christie, Huckabee, Rubio, Paul, Jindal, Santorum, Perry, and Bush) will talk about little else.
Governor Jerry Brown on Senator Ted Cruz
Brown calls out Cruz on his climate change ignorance and thinks it disqualifies him as a Presidential candidate. Sure, if science-based reason was the criteria, but we know that is most obviously not the case with regressives. Quite the contrary.
Governor said Ted Cruz 'rendered himself... by ewillies
Governor said Ted Cruz 'rendered himself... by ewillies
Senator McConnell tells States to break federal law
Yes, he actually did this. Since he's beholding to the coal industry he sent a letter to the States telling them to ignore the EPA's regulations on its pollutant standards. This is a clear violation of federal law, which has jurisdiction here. And it's a clear violation of his oath to uphold the Constitution. Yeah, the regressives are the Party of law-abiding citizens all right. Not when it goes against the hand that feeds them campaign contributions.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Senator Sanders on the regressive budget
From this week's Bernie Buzz. This is what the majority of duped Americans voted for. Still believe their lies? Still want them in office?
"The full Senate on Monday is set to take up a budget that will shape national priorities for the coming year. “Devastating,” is how Bernie summed up the Republicans’ proposal. They would throw millions of Americans off health insurance. Their budget would cut $4.3 trillion from programs like Medicare, food stamps and Medicaid. Education programs would be scaled back. Pell Grants for college students would be frozen. Wall Street regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis would be scaled back. What it doesn’t do may be even worse. It doesn’t address the 11 percent real unemployment rate in the United States. It doesn’t create any jobs. It doesn’t fix crumbling roads and bridges. It doesn’t make college more affordable. It doesn’t raise the minimum wage. Despite Republicans’ professed concerns about deficits, their plan would leave in place tax loopholes that let the wealthy and big corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Bernie tried to make the budget better in committee, where he is the ranking member, but his amendments all fell on party-line votes. He will try again to improve the budget when the debate moves this week to the Senate floor."
"The full Senate on Monday is set to take up a budget that will shape national priorities for the coming year. “Devastating,” is how Bernie summed up the Republicans’ proposal. They would throw millions of Americans off health insurance. Their budget would cut $4.3 trillion from programs like Medicare, food stamps and Medicaid. Education programs would be scaled back. Pell Grants for college students would be frozen. Wall Street regulations passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis would be scaled back. What it doesn’t do may be even worse. It doesn’t address the 11 percent real unemployment rate in the United States. It doesn’t create any jobs. It doesn’t fix crumbling roads and bridges. It doesn’t make college more affordable. It doesn’t raise the minimum wage. Despite Republicans’ professed concerns about deficits, their plan would leave in place tax loopholes that let the wealthy and big corporations avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Bernie tried to make the budget better in committee, where he is the ranking member, but his amendments all fell on party-line votes. He will try again to improve the budget when the debate moves this week to the Senate floor."
Saturday, March 21, 2015
More facts contradicting regressive ideology
You hear them always complain about the leaches on food stamps, and how that program is bankrupting us. See the chart below. And food stamps is only a small part of the food and agriculture piece of the pie. So their budget wants to cut food stamps further and increase the already bloated military budget.
Bandito by Day Labor
At this link, courtesy of Balder. I
was immediately struck by a resemblance to Cake, which I like. Then it
appeared the melody in the first section was similar to Hotel
California, only with a reggae and Mexican twist. Later on the
instrumental section again reminded me of Cake. Very nice. Full LP here.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Stewart on Fox's hypocricy
Granted it's an easy target, since it occurs several times daily on Fox. This time it's on their treatment of the Justice Department's report on Ferguson. The only thing Fox focused on from that report was that there was no "hands up, don't shoot" narrative. They skipped all the rest of the report on the rampant racism within the department. So Fox then demands that the liberal media apologize for the "hands up, don't shoot" reporting. Stewart turns the tables on them for their Benghazi reporting over two years which turned out to be completely false. And yet no apology from them?
Krugman on the regressive budget
See his recent piece here. Bottom line: Both the House and Senate GOP budgets make rich people richer, and the middle class and the poor poorer. Of course if they admitted this no one would support them, even their rabid idiotic base. So they lie about their agenda. Their budget actually increases the federal deficit by several trillion dollars in the first decade. It drastically cuts food stamps and Medicaid, while repealing Obamacare and giving further tax breaks to the rich. All under insidiously planned spin to couch it in 'fiscal responsibility' and 'government waste' etc. They lie, cheat and steal from everyone else to give to the rich, Robin Hood in reverse. If people can't see what they doing and continue to vote for these crooks they get what they deserve.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Be a citizen co-sponser of the CPC budget
Following up on this post, support the Congressional Progressive Caucus budget by endorsing it here. The petition states:
Our message to the Members of Congress,
Our message to the Members of Congress,
I support the People’s Budget to get America back on track and on the path to prosperity.
I stand as a citizen co-sponsor because the People’s Budget will:
I stand as a citizen co-sponsor because the People’s Budget will:
- Help create an economy that works for all of us. The budget creates 8 million good jobs by 2018; expands childcare to low-income families with children younger than three; increases the minimum wage and protects the right to bargain collectively.
- Set the country on the path to prosperity. The budget increases funding to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, makes college affordable for working families, invests in clean and renewable energy and green manufacturing, and enhances the social safety net that protects veterans, women, and working families.
- Make corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. The budget pays for these new investments by ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs and profits offshore and restoring the tax on the wealthiest to the Clinton-era rates. It expands tax credits for working families, and eliminates the lower tax rate paid by millionaires on investment incomes.
- Endorse Social Security expansion. Social Security is a solution to a looming retirement income crisis, the disappearing middle class, and growing income inequality. While improvements to the program should be made separately from the federal budget process, we can extend the lifespan of the trust fund and increase Social Security benefits for all by asking the very wealthiest Americans to pay into Social Security at the same rate as everyone else.
The People’s Budget is right for my family and right for working families across America. I urge you to support it today.
Regressive predictions wrong
As usual, but the facts don't penetrate their ideology or the wrong predictions they made therefrom on jobs, the stock market, deficits, healthcare etc. The President reams them in the following video, an excerpt below.
"The leader of the House Republicans -- a good friend of mine -- (laughter) – he captured his party’s economic theories by critiquing mine with a very simple question: Where are the jobs, he said. Where are the jobs? I’m sure there was a headline in The Plain Dealer or one of the papers -- Where Are the Jobs? Well, after 12 million new jobs, a stock market that has more than doubled, deficits that have been cut by two-thirds, health care inflation at the lowest rate in nearly 50 years, manufacturing coming back, auto industry coming back, clean energy doubled -- I’ve come not only to answer that question, but I want to return to the debate that is central to this country, and the alternative economic theory that’s presented by the other side."
"The leader of the House Republicans -- a good friend of mine -- (laughter) – he captured his party’s economic theories by critiquing mine with a very simple question: Where are the jobs, he said. Where are the jobs? I’m sure there was a headline in The Plain Dealer or one of the papers -- Where Are the Jobs? Well, after 12 million new jobs, a stock market that has more than doubled, deficits that have been cut by two-thirds, health care inflation at the lowest rate in nearly 50 years, manufacturing coming back, auto industry coming back, clean energy doubled -- I’ve come not only to answer that question, but I want to return to the debate that is central to this country, and the alternative economic theory that’s presented by the other side."
On cultural advances and regressions
Following up on the last post, DavidM58 commented on it at IPS, noting how Stewart might support his thesis on a transition from a competitive to a cooperative social shift. My response:
Have you explored Eisler to support your thesis? As noted in her thread,
she see's an alteration between cultural periods of male dominance and
partnership societies. The former are an unbalanced regression of
dominator hierarchies, whereas the latter are balanced actualization
hierarchies. I also made the spiral dynamics connection of alternating
individual and social levels. SD however sees both as spiraling upward,
whereas I suggested that perhaps the more individually (male) oriented
are really much more like Eisler's regressive dominators. Hence not
really an ongoing upward evolutionary spiral per SD (and Wilber etc.)
but an uneven spiral up and down.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Visser on Stewart
Following up on this post, I also posted that as a comment to Frank Visser's latest Integral World article. Frank's reply:
"Yes, I know Stewart's ideas very well have posted some of his
writing on Integral World, some of which is originally written for this
website. He is so much more interesting and knowledgeable than Wilber
when it comes to evolution. Especially relevant is his emphasis on
individual holons becoming more cooperative during evolution -- across
micro and macro levels -- where Wilber gives a more transcendentalist
presentation in which individual holons transcend and include previous
holons, each with their own social counterparts. Wilber needs a
metaphysical drive towards complexity to get this all off the ground,
Stewart doesn't. But above all, Stewart engages the relevant literature
(Gould, McShea) where Wilber is lost in his sound bytes that are only
meant to impress and cater to the ignorance of his audience."
Here's a link to Stewart's IW articles.
Here's a link to Stewart's IW articles.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
The CPC budget
Continuing from the last post, and proving Reich right, compare the regressive budget with the one from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. HUGE difference. Some highlights:
FAIR INDIVIDUAL TAXES
Implements a new Hard Work Tax Credit for households earning less than $150,000.
Returns to Clinton tax rates for households making over $250,000 and implements new brackets for those making over $1 million.
Equalizes tax rates for investment income and income from a hard day’s work.
FAIR CORPORATE TAXES
Eliminates the ability of U.S. corporations to defer taxes on offshore profits.
Enacts a Financial Transaction tax on various financial market transactions.
Implements Chairman Dave Camp’s financial institution excise tax.
FAIR INDIVIDUAL TAXES
Implements a new Hard Work Tax Credit for households earning less than $150,000.
Returns to Clinton tax rates for households making over $250,000 and implements new brackets for those making over $1 million.
Equalizes tax rates for investment income and income from a hard day’s work.
FAIR CORPORATE TAXES
Eliminates the ability of U.S. corporations to defer taxes on offshore profits.
Enacts a Financial Transaction tax on various financial market transactions.
Implements Chairman Dave Camp’s financial institution excise tax.
Robert Reich on the regressive budget
From his FB post here.
"Today House Republicans unveiled their budget. It (1) decimates programs for the poor (huge cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell grants for college students from poor families); (2) cuts federal aid to education; (3) turns Medicare into a voucher system (that doesn’t keep up with expected increases in healthcare costs); (4) repeals Obamacare (which is now providing health insurance to 16.4 million people who otherwise wouldn’t have it); (5) boosts military spending by nearly $40 billion next year (through an off-budget war funding account); (6) increases military spending in subsequent years while further cutting domestic discretionary spending; and (7) doesn’t raise a dime of taxes on the wealthy and doesn’t close any tax loopholes used by the rich.
"Today House Republicans unveiled their budget. It (1) decimates programs for the poor (huge cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and Pell grants for college students from poor families); (2) cuts federal aid to education; (3) turns Medicare into a voucher system (that doesn’t keep up with expected increases in healthcare costs); (4) repeals Obamacare (which is now providing health insurance to 16.4 million people who otherwise wouldn’t have it); (5) boosts military spending by nearly $40 billion next year (through an off-budget war funding account); (6) increases military spending in subsequent years while further cutting domestic discretionary spending; and (7) doesn’t raise a dime of taxes on the wealthy and doesn’t close any tax loopholes used by the rich.
Evolution's direction
From "The direction of evolution: the rise of cooperative organization." In Biosystems, Volume 123, September 2014, Pages 27–36
An excerpt:
"The hypothesis that seems to have gained most support is that selection tends to drive increasing complexity as evolution proceeds. [...] It is obvious that complexity per se is not favoured by selection. There are numerous possible changes in organisms that would increase complexity but are not advantageous in evolutionary terms. And changes that are less complex are not always inferior.
An excerpt:
"The hypothesis that seems to have gained most support is that selection tends to drive increasing complexity as evolution proceeds. [...] It is obvious that complexity per se is not favoured by selection. There are numerous possible changes in organisms that would increase complexity but are not advantageous in evolutionary terms. And changes that are less complex are not always inferior.
"Proponents of this claim have
been unable to identify how known evolutionary processes would drive
the supposed trend towards increasing complexity. This is a serious
deficiency that also bedevils other attempts to demonstrate an overall,
driven trend in evolution. To demonstrate such a trend, it is not
sufficient to identify some supposed large-scale pattern in evolution
and to marshal empirical evidence that substantiates the existence of
the pattern. The pattern may be an artefact and not driven by selection
that directly favours the pattern. It is therefore also necessary to
provide the claimed directionality with micro-foundations at the level
of natural selection that show how the pattern is driven by selection
and related processes.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Silent Lucidity
Even though this song came out in 1990 I just heard it for the first time recently on the radio. I was immediately attracted to it, thinking at first it was early Pink Floyd. Then midway through it sounds like some of the Beatle's orchestral compositions. The lyrics appear to be about lucid dreaming.
7 year old baffles Governor Walker
No surprise really, given Scott Walker's typically 5 year old mentality. This kid asks him about climate change and Walker hems and haws about completely unrelated topics because he doesn't even recognize climate change, something most 7 year olds have a grasp on.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Affluenza
Maher rips those lazy no good for nothings who've never worked a day in their lives. No, not the poor, the inherited rich. Funny how regressives never go after these ne'er do wells.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Tell them no to TPP fast track
See Robert Reich's FB post on the White House pressuring Congress to approve fast track in this hideous Bill. He urges us to contact our representatives to voice our dissent. This was my letter to the relevant representatives. You can find yours at this link. Please be active on this issue.
Do not approve fast-track for the TPP. And for that matter, do not approve of the TPP at all. Please see the Progressive Congressional Caucus statement on trade and only approve trade deals consistent with it.
Do not approve fast-track for the TPP. And for that matter, do not approve of the TPP at all. Please see the Progressive Congressional Caucus statement on trade and only approve trade deals consistent with it.
What good is the Republican Party?
Nowadays not much, if any. Thom Hartmann reviews the Party's history and notes that early on it actually did the country some good. E.g., it was part of the anti-slavery movement. It invented income tax. Teddy Roosevelt railed against the 1%. Eisenhower provided government funding for schools and infrastructure. None of that is now recognizable in that Party, whose sole purpose is kowtowing to that 1% and destroying the rest of us and democracy along with it. Hartmann is right that it's time for this defunct Party to go extinct before they destroy the rest us and the planet.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
How big business makes a profit
See this article, which states unequivocally: "None of the world's top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use." They get the public to pay for that, which is how they roll. Privatize the profits, socialize the losses.
Of brains and consciousness
See this
recent article supporting Thompson's notion that in heightened states
of self-awareness brain waves are synchronized, coordinated and
distributed in whole brain networking.* An edited excerpt:
"Vanderbilt University researchers took a significant step toward answering these longstanding questions with a recent brain imaging study, in which they discovered global changes in how brain areas communicate with one another during awareness. [...] Focal theories contend there are specific areas of the brain that are critical for generating consciousness, while global theories argue consciousness arises from large-scale brain changes in activity. [...] Unlike the focal results seen using more conventional analysis methods, the results via this network approach pointed toward a different conclusion. No one area or network of areas of the brain stood out as particularly more connected during awareness of the target; the whole brain appeared to become functionally more connected following reports of awareness.
"Vanderbilt University researchers took a significant step toward answering these longstanding questions with a recent brain imaging study, in which they discovered global changes in how brain areas communicate with one another during awareness. [...] Focal theories contend there are specific areas of the brain that are critical for generating consciousness, while global theories argue consciousness arises from large-scale brain changes in activity. [...] Unlike the focal results seen using more conventional analysis methods, the results via this network approach pointed toward a different conclusion. No one area or network of areas of the brain stood out as particularly more connected during awareness of the target; the whole brain appeared to become functionally more connected following reports of awareness.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Fight Congressional legislation to undo net neutrality
From freepress.net, who led the charge to get the FCC to approve real net neutrality in the first place. The petition is here.
It's easy to see why these particular co-sponsors signed on: They've received tons of campaign contributions from companies like Comcast and Verizon and from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, an industry lobbying group. This bill goes against everything millions of people like you have fought for. We must stop this bill in its tracks and expose it for what it is: a betrayal of the open Internet.
1. H.R. 1212, the Internet Freedom Act: http://blackburn.house.gov/uploadedfiles/internet_freedom.pdf
Stop Marsha Blackburn's Anti-Net Neutrality Bill
This is what it looks like when members of Congress try to kill Net Neutrality. Rep. Marsha Blackburn has already lined up 31 co-sponsors for her new bill, which would destroy Net Neutrality and undo everything the FCC has done to protect the open Internet.1It's easy to see why these particular co-sponsors signed on: They've received tons of campaign contributions from companies like Comcast and Verizon and from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, an industry lobbying group. This bill goes against everything millions of people like you have fought for. We must stop this bill in its tracks and expose it for what it is: a betrayal of the open Internet.
1. H.R. 1212, the Internet Freedom Act: http://blackburn.house.gov/uploadedfiles/internet_freedom.pdf
Awakening Christ consciousness
Balder posted a FB IPS thread on this here. Cameron Freeman had an interesting comment, to which I replied:
I see Derrida's influence here too Cameron, by way of Caputo, in his critique of the metaphysics of presence. I find that sort of metaphysics rampant in kennilingus, in that we have direct and privileged access to the absolute via satori experience. Hence there is no ambiguous gap or absence of the kind you mention; it gets lost in the sort of Hegelian reconciliation one finds in that type of dialectics.
I see Derrida's influence here too Cameron, by way of Caputo, in his critique of the metaphysics of presence. I find that sort of metaphysics rampant in kennilingus, in that we have direct and privileged access to the absolute via satori experience. Hence there is no ambiguous gap or absence of the kind you mention; it gets lost in the sort of Hegelian reconciliation one finds in that type of dialectics.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Regressives commit treason, again
At the very least these criminals should be prosecuted for very clear violations of the Logan Act. To do the latter as well see this link.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Much ado about hierarchy
There
seems to be much ado about the role of hierarchy in the Commons, as if
the latter somehow does away with it in some mean green fashion, thereby
inducing flatland with no qualitative distinctions. Not so in Eisler's
case. She is where Wilber in SES
gets the notions of dominator and actualization hierarchies. In that
light I offer an excerpt of John Heron's old essay, wherein I see IPS
as one such group from the last category:
"There seem to be at least four degrees of such [cultural] unfolding:
"There seem to be at least four degrees of such [cultural] unfolding:
- Autocratic cultures which define rights in a limited and oppressive way and there are no rights of political participation.
- Narrow democratic cultures which practise political participation through representation, but have no or very limited participation of people in decision-making in all other realms, such as research, religion, education, industry, etc.
- Wider democratic cultures which practice both political participation and varying degree of wider kinds of participation.
- Commons peer-to-peer cultures in a libertarian and
abundance-oriented global network with equipotential rights of
participation in decision-making of everyone in every field of human
endeavour, in relation to nature, culture, the subtle and the spiritual.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Universal healthcare
I wonder why the US has failed to join the rest of the developed countries in this regard?
Bill O'Reilly is a liar
And Fox doesn't care because they are not a news organization and don't give a shit about the truth. Is there really any doubt about that for anyone with half a brain?
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Riane Eisler
Since I'm reading some of her work now, and
consider her worthy of her own thread at IPS, I'll copy and
paste some previous posts on her to start.
Me:
From Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade:
"In that classic Marxist work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Friedrich Engels was one of the first to link the emergence of hierarchies and social stratification based on private property with male domination over women" (45).
Thus the partnership societies of old Europe (chalice) were invaded and conquered by the warriors from the north and south (blade), and with it hierarchical relationships that led to slavery, private property and domination. Capitalism is a direct outgrowth of this dominator culture, which unconsciously infects to this day the sorts of hierarchical models we continue to use in the name of evolution. Wilber even has a term for it: dominator hierarchy. Unfortunately he doesn't seem aware how his own hierarchical model is unconsciously affected by this inherent cultural bias via capitalism and private property.
DavidM58:
Me:
From Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade:
"In that classic Marxist work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Friedrich Engels was one of the first to link the emergence of hierarchies and social stratification based on private property with male domination over women" (45).
Thus the partnership societies of old Europe (chalice) were invaded and conquered by the warriors from the north and south (blade), and with it hierarchical relationships that led to slavery, private property and domination. Capitalism is a direct outgrowth of this dominator culture, which unconsciously infects to this day the sorts of hierarchical models we continue to use in the name of evolution. Wilber even has a term for it: dominator hierarchy. Unfortunately he doesn't seem aware how his own hierarchical model is unconsciously affected by this inherent cultural bias via capitalism and private property.
DavidM58:
Friday, March 6, 2015
The Real Wealth of Nations
This IPS post has a copy of the summary chapters to this book. From chapter two:
Opposing Economic Societal Structures
The domination system allows only for dominating or being dominated. Hierarchies of domination result in scarce trust, high tension, and system cohesiveness based on fear and force. Leaders control and disempower. To succeed, a domination system suppresses caring and empathy.
In contrast, a partnership system supports mutually respectful and caring relations. Hierarchies of actualization allow for accountability, bi-directional respect, and input from all levels. Leaders facilitate, inspire, and empower. Economic policies and practices support needs: basic survival, community, creativity, meaning and caring – the realization of highest human potentials.
No society is pure partnership or domination system – it’s always a matter of degree. The top-down domination system is a holdover from earlier feudal and monarchic times.
Opposing Economic Societal Structures
The domination system allows only for dominating or being dominated. Hierarchies of domination result in scarce trust, high tension, and system cohesiveness based on fear and force. Leaders control and disempower. To succeed, a domination system suppresses caring and empathy.
In contrast, a partnership system supports mutually respectful and caring relations. Hierarchies of actualization allow for accountability, bi-directional respect, and input from all levels. Leaders facilitate, inspire, and empower. Economic policies and practices support needs: basic survival, community, creativity, meaning and caring – the realization of highest human potentials.
No society is pure partnership or domination system – it’s always a matter of degree. The top-down domination system is a holdover from earlier feudal and monarchic times.
Bibi for US President
Following up on this post, Netanyahu seems the perfect regressive US Presidential candidate in 2016: "He loves to bomb the Middle East, he will do anything to win an election, and enjoys meddling in other countries affairs."
Harris interviews Wood on the Islamic State
At IPS Balder post a link to the above. I'm struck by this early on statement that has a much broader
application for those of us who too rigidly try to fit everything into
our hegeholonic categories and ideologies:
"Much of the initial wave of reaction has come from people who desperately wanted it to say one thing or another, and who reacted by assuming that it fell into their predetermined classifications of pieces about politics, Islam, or terrorism. It is gratifying to write a story so resistant to classification that people have to pretend it says things it doesn’t just so that it fits in their mental categories."
Wood also makes clear distinctions about Islamophobia, in which he most definitely does not find Harris to engage. Those who claim such are being led per above by their own prejudices.
"Much of the initial wave of reaction has come from people who desperately wanted it to say one thing or another, and who reacted by assuming that it fell into their predetermined classifications of pieces about politics, Islam, or terrorism. It is gratifying to write a story so resistant to classification that people have to pretend it says things it doesn’t just so that it fits in their mental categories."
Wood also makes clear distinctions about Islamophobia, in which he most definitely does not find Harris to engage. Those who claim such are being led per above by their own prejudices.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
More evidence that corporations are just plain greedy
And could give a shit about their employees. See this article. Big corps are using their profits to buy back their own stock, thereby reducing its availability and raising its price. They do this instead of using those profits to reinvest in their business and to give pay hikes to their employees, something they used to do. It's all about short-term, increased profits for their executives and shareholders and to hell with any other consideration. It didn't used to be this way, with companies spreading the wealth to the people that actually make it for them, their employees. Another indicator of the end of a capitalism gone horribly wrong and on its deathbed.
DOJ report of Ferguson
Find it here. From the summary:
"Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community. Further,Ferguson’police and municipal court practices both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes. Ferguson’s own data establish clear racial disparities that adversely impact African Americans. The evidence shows that discriminatory intent is part of the reason for these disparities. Over time, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular."
"Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community. Further,Ferguson’police and municipal court practices both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes. Ferguson’s own data establish clear racial disparities that adversely impact African Americans. The evidence shows that discriminatory intent is part of the reason for these disparities. Over time, Ferguson’s police and municipal court practices have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular."
Robert Reich on the Democratic Presidential nominee
See his article here. While he doesn't say it outright, he's describing Senator Warren and definitely not Hillary Clinton. He says what we need in a candidate is someone who will take on the moneyed interests, like the big banks, Wall Street and corporations. Someone who will resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act, break up the big banks, impose jail sentences on criminal banking practices, enact a financial transactions tax. Someone who will end corporate welfare, oppose unfair trade agreements, make the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, reverse Citizens United. This is the agenda needed to restore democracy in the US. Nothing less will do. And between Warren and Clinton, we absolutely know which one will fight for this agenda and which one will give it lip service while enabling it further.
Senator Warren on regressives screwing labor, again
Please, please run for President Senator. Here she lambasts Congress for proposing a Bill that would thwart the National Labor Relations Board from more efficiently doing its job of handling labor disputes. The regressives complain about government bureaucratic inefficiency, yet when the NLRB proposes new rules to make the process more efficient they don't want it. What they want is an ineffective labor movement, preferably no labor movement. Oligarchy what they are working to fully implement, and without the likes of Senators Warren and Sanders they will complete that mission, which is almost there now.
Bibi's regressive blow job
Jon Stewart makes light of Netanyahu's political speech before Congress recently. If the Democrats had done this during a Republican President's tenure, make no mistake they'd bring charges of treason.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Hoes and ploughs
Following up on the last post, I sent it to a local discussion group we're having on the integral model. John responded:
"Talk about outdated "science." It's been pretty widely accepted within cultural anthropology that cultures which are male dominant vs those that are more egalitarian are those where men's greater strength is more useful to where it is less useful. The classic distinction is that cultures that depend on intensive agriculture with plows are male dominant, cultures that do their agriculture with hoes are more egalitarian. It has nothing to do with "warrior cultures" or the other commonly accepted mythologies. Here's a discussion of a 2010 paper that puts a bit of statistical rigor behind the idea. . It's fairly long, and Razib Khan expects that his readers will have the background to understand what he's saying without a lot of hand-holding."
My reply:
"Talk about outdated "science." It's been pretty widely accepted within cultural anthropology that cultures which are male dominant vs those that are more egalitarian are those where men's greater strength is more useful to where it is less useful. The classic distinction is that cultures that depend on intensive agriculture with plows are male dominant, cultures that do their agriculture with hoes are more egalitarian. It has nothing to do with "warrior cultures" or the other commonly accepted mythologies. Here's a discussion of a 2010 paper that puts a bit of statistical rigor behind the idea. . It's fairly long, and Razib Khan expects that his readers will have the background to understand what he's saying without a lot of hand-holding."
My reply:
The chalice and the blade
Many women have noted how there seems to be a dearth of feminine
values in the integral model. To provide context, this is from Riane Eisler's The Chalice and the Blade:
"In that classic Marxist work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,
Friedrich Engels was one of the first to link the emergence of
hierarchies and social stratification based on private property with
male domination over women" (45).
Thus the partnership societies of old Europe (chalice) were invaded
and conquered by the dominator warrior societies from the north and south (blade), and with
it hierarchical relationships that led to slavery, private property and
domination. Capitalism is a direct outgrowth of this dominator culture,
which unconsciously infects to this day the sorts of hierarchical
models we continue to use in the name of evolution. Wilber even has a
term for it: dominator hierarchy. Unfortunately he doesn't seem aware
how his own hierarchical model is unconsciously affected by this
inherent cultural bias via capitalism and private property.
Monday, March 2, 2015
President Obama knows about trans-partisanship
Following up on the last two posts, if
anyone has tried trans-partisanship it's President Obama. He tried and tried to
work with the regressives, himself believing it possible.
Thankfully he finally came to his senses in this speech, some of it
following:
"You’ll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there’s gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible. And there’s a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses. But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific. We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who don’t think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country you’re not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.
"You’ll hear if you watch the nightly news or you read the newspapers that, well, there’s gridlock, Congress is broken, approval ratings for Congress are terrible. And there’s a tendency to say, a plague on both your houses. But the truth of the matter is that the problem in Congress is very specific. We have a group of folks in the Republican Party who have taken over who are so ideologically rigid, who are so committed to an economic theory that says if folks at the top do very well then everybody else is somehow going to do well; who deny the science of climate change; who don’t think making investments in early childhood education makes sense; who have repeatedly blocked raising a minimum wage so if you work full-time in this country you’re not living in poverty; who scoff at the notion that we might have a problem with women not getting paid for doing the same work that men are doing.
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