fter years of consideration, meditation and deepest mentations, I must at last, if I am to be honest, say that the GOP and the values of the vast majority of its adherents, admirers who so self-identify with its principles that they count themselves as one among many, beings afflicted with the painful conditions of poverty, and addiction, just as the poor do; in fact, the poor are so confused by their own lack of information, despite plenty of opportunities for access to important information which might bring happiness that they constantly walk this path harming themselves unable to stop.

Certainly they are not possessed of happiness now, and have little chance of finding it.  They are like beings who are tortured by so deep an itch that when they come to their moment of wealth, instead of enjoying it, they scratch the itch in so frenzied a manner (which in itself leaves little opportunity for and peace and joy.) But instead, the poor and the wealthy alike are fed wrong information by the moneyed conservativeist purview, who are the root cause of all problems on earth.

The problem is that in lifetime after lifetime they never find happiness and have no way of handling their misery other than with overindulgence.  Much as one would like to have compassion for them the reality is that drag down civilization.  Having accrued large amounts of wealth, they feel it is their right to therefore wreak their own reflection on the planet.  Unhappily their reflections are ugly and devoid of grace and goodness.

When most our paths have been smoothed, especially by wealth, based on what we know of samsara, or the Matrix, the smoother the pathway the more rot is crumbling the roadway from underneath, even as we travel.

So what is the answer?

As the Buddha said:
Stop doing evil.
Do only what is good.

And do not think that because you wish to do good things that the Universe will let you.  No.  It takes a million small things, before you are allowed near the big things.  Until they fully understand the terror of their situation they will continue to avoid it --- until one day they die and all of that energy goes to the moon.

SSI & Transitioning from Type Zero Civilization to Type One

e need to expand Social Security and not reduce it, nor privatize it so that Wall Street criminals who wait like jackals can devour it.  President Obama seems always ready to cut Social Security before the Republican Leadership even asks for it.  

He puts it right on the table.  

If he does it even one more time, I, for one, will be happy to see him impeached.  He seems always ready to dance to the tune of the War Profiteers.  (Doesn't anybody see war profiteering as a bad thing anymore?) The Military Industrial Complex is an abomination.  And those work work there need to seek more gainful employment.  Otherwise, they, too, the little guys are enemies of humanity.  

They are pawns in the corporate zero sum game of backward looking exploitation of planetary resources. They are why we live in what is now being called the Type Zero Civilization and the little guys who work for them are willingly participating in the ruination of this planet for all time.  

Renowned scientist Michio Kaku, who has written extensively popularizing advanced ideas in physics, discusses, in the video below, the three major stellar civilizations. What is a Type One Civilization; a Type Two Civilization through Type Three Civilization?  And where do we here on this planet fit in?  

Our global civilization exploits our own natural resources a million times faster than they can be replaced.  

We are therefore a Type Zero Civilization.  

We are not even close to being a Type One Civilization.

Please play the video and listen carefully as Kaku discusses the various stellar and interstellar civilizations. You will begin to see how today's orgy of greed for money and power is not merely holding back this country, but is criminally endangering our planet and destroying humanity's bid for survival.  

It is obvious that such an accomodation as Social Security is actually a step along the way toward the transition from a near-jungle mentality which some are pleased to call civilization here on earth, to a Type One Civilization.  And so is Solar Energy, Wind Power, Geothermal energy, and the like.  And the consumption of natural resources such as oil and coal for burning to create energy are a fool's way to a destitute planet.  

This old school animalistic King of the Hill, chest beating, sort of civilization is a long ago worn out model worthy only of being dropped into the sewer of the legion of already dead planets.

Take, for example, a criminal outfit such as BP who has already fouled one previously beautiful ocean, not to mention the other oil and gas and coal corporations, and tell me why they are they not in jail?  I know the usual answer.  They are the rich and powerful corporations; and people like me are considered outsiders --- to say the least, if not total lunatic fringe, wishing for Utopia.  

The problem is that there isn't any more time to waste indulging the conservatives their ancient and not very satisfactory vision of civilization.  We are so much closer to extinguishing the possibility of human life surviving on this planet than conservatives can imagine.  They think there is all the time in the world and even if we do fuck things up badly and we already have done, some ingenious soul of a scientist or conservative engineer will come along and fix everything.  

This is a foolish Utopian dream.

The time has arrived for the visionaries to step forward.  Only they can lead humankind into a sustainable  future.         

§

§

Click to Enlarge Image



Expand Social Security infographic via Democracy for America

Edward Snowden, Barak Obama, and the TPP

The Obama White House has confirmed that there will be no pardon for Edward Snowden despite the fact that he did the American people a big favor when he blew the Whistle on the NSA's secret surveillance of the American people.  White House officials are calling his actions unlawful and suggesting that he should come back to this country so they can brand him as a traitor and then murder him.  Just a little vengeance; that's all they want.  Seems awfully unreasonable of Ed boy to not give them their Dog and Pony Show.

Well, in a word --- no.

What the American people see is that Snowden really is a hero no matter how hard the Republicans try to paint him with the "traitor" brush.  No doubt should he return of his own free will, they will dig up many other and far more odious actions from his "past".  It is just the way they operate when they've been caught with their pants down and their hands in the cookie jar.  Look at the legislators who wear the biggest, and ugliest snarls on their public faces.  Most are Republicans.  Lindsay Graham, for one, can't seem to keep his mouth shut about just about everything anyway.  Then there's the ever treacherous Diane Feinstein, who is  ostensibly a Democratic Senator.  What a blessing it would have been for Americans if only Feinstein had been replaced in the last election by her much more liberal opponent.  Indeed, I think of Feinstein as a DINO, (Democrat In Name Only) the Democratic counterpart of the Republican RINO.

Given all of this, our Democratic president should have been, if not ecstatic, then certainly happy to have discovered the top secret programs which the NSA lied about so blatantly.  First, James Clapper lied to the United States Congress during their investigation of said surveillance, saying that there were no such programs; and when it was no longer possible to lie about it, then he lied about how very effective those secret programs which didn't exist really were.  And rather than being punished for lying outright to Congress, which carries a very heavy punishment and is properly called contempt, he's been kicked upstairs, instead, to a more responsible position, which, by the by, gives him total oversight of the secret federal agencies, such as the NSA, CIA, and the FBI, and more.

How do we know this?

Because we know that President Obama has promised him that position of Surveillance of the American People Czar.

Now, we arrive at the bigger questions; namely,

why did Obama make such a promise to Clapper.

And why does the president and the Congressional Republicans want to wreak vengeance on such a little guy by the name of Edward Snowden?

Could it be that they are, collectively, the traitors to We, The People of these United States?  Could it be, unthinkable as it sounds on the surface, the very traitor which they accuse him of being?

And how does the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership enter into this?

There will be more of this essay soon.

    

Who are the Republicans?

The IRS, who weighs heavily, and often with savagery, on the poor, whose tax burden is in excess of 11 % of their income, so that even the working poor, and the average husband and wife, each working at two or three jobs can never get ahead, and on the middle class, who shell out more than 6% of their income to the IRS, but the tax guys look the other way when it comes to making the rich pay up.  This is despite the fact that the rich pay less than 2% of their income in taxes, to begin with.  And the stalwart Republicans, the GOP, who now are holding the American people hostage, for the purpose of negotiating with Obama to take even more money away from Main Street to put into the hands of the 1% elites and on Wall Street.  The yokels are the step'n'fetch it boys for the rich ---

Ah!  the Rich, whose hideous tragedy is that they just don't seem ever to have quite enough money --- so would we all mind terribly looking the other way while they help themselves to ours --- just to make the likes of David A. Koch and his brother Charles, the Koch brothers, don'chya know, dry their their eyes of bitter tears and smile, darn ya, smile!

My fervent wish is that the people of America would stop making the Koch brothers and their pals, (for a list of their pals, click here so happy.  Simply giving up with a sigh, as my parents did, with a wispy smile and resignation in their hearts, saying, "Well, that's the way life is, what can you do?"

You can imagine that your children are starving and get off your ass and take charge of your life.  That's one thing you could do.  You could join with others who are oppressed and take charge of your lives.

Finally, since all you did when Occupy Wall Street was going was criticize them for being unwashed and wondering where they went to the bathroom, you could lend a hand.  And revive Occupy The Planet.

You could begin writing letters to the editors of your local newspaper's Op-Ed page.  And write with fire and poison in your pen!  Or you could donate to progressive causes which are online all over the place.

Or you could become a serf!  And your children and their children will thank you for being a piece of shit wimp!

Obama's War On Freedom of the Press

The Obama Whitehouse once again demonstrated that Obama is the enemy of democracy, an enthusiastic  violator of First Amendment freedom of the press, and a cocksucker of and for the plutocracy.  What it also says is that the skirmishes with the GOP driven House of Representatives, his battles with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are nothing but outer theater.  A dog and pony show for the masses.

The release of Yemeni journalist Abdulalelah Haider Shaye has not made the Whitehouse happy.  Shaye has already served 2 years in Yemeni prison as a political prisoner.  His crime?

Telling the truth.

When telling the truth entails a blatant disregard for career and money, it becomes an act of Civil Disobedience in this money mad culture we now find ourselves in.  

More Agitprop Against Critics of Surveillance State

uth Marcus's current column, which, btw, The Oregonian gave pride of place today, on the Op-Ed page, is one of the, well, I was going to say worst, but on second thought, let's say most transparently propagandistic pieces of nonsense I've read in many a day.  "Snowden's No Hero"  the headline reads.  Marcus is no doubt aware that Snowden has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wonderful idea! I'd say.

Speaking from her megaphone at the Washington Post, her article appears an arrow aimed at puncturing any such design.  What I see is the White House sending signals of displeasure at the notion that the same committee that made such a gross blunder when they awarded Obama that very award in 2008, might try to over correct by awarding it to a real hero.

As if to display her liberal creds, she uses Martin Luther King as an example of how a hero ought to proceed.  She quotes MLK extensively.  But she disregards the reality that civil rights concerning the black community was more than forty years ago and worlds away from this issue.  There is no model for how to be heroic in this era of very high-tek.  This world is dominated by the likes of Booz Allen Hamilton --- a giant hi-tech surveillance contractor who is accustomed to getting those no-bid multi-billion dollar contracts from the NSA.

Even here, the way to truth is to follow the money.  And the money leads directly to Booz Allen's door. And to Barack Obama's door.  Obama garnered well over a hundred and forty seven thou from Booz Allen alone. Not to mention very generous donations to Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and John Kerry campaigns among a host of other very well known politicians too numerous to name here. For an excellent discussion of the intimate, nay, cozy relationship between NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as both political parties, see the well documented article by David Sirota

"Simply put," Sirota says, "there are huge corporate forces with a vested financial interest in making sure the debate over security is tilted toward the surveillance state and against the critics of that surveillance state."

In describing heroic action, Marcus mentions Socrates, actually Plato's evocation of him in the Crito, where Socrates refutes Crito's plea to escape prison and death.  She mentions this as a way to show Snowden isn't really a hero because he is unwilling to hang around and accept a corrupt government's prosecution against him.

I have referred to the same dialogue, the Crito, to contrast the philosophy and actions of Ayn Rand with those of a real philosopher, namely, Socrates.  Rand railed against the philosophical underpinnings which helped to create Social Security and Medicare.  Then she availed herself of both at the end.  Rand was not a hero, by any stretch, nor even, when you hold her up to Socrates, a decent philosopher.  She was a hypocrite.  A nothing.  Not worthy of mention.

Marcus mentions Socrates, but avoids the name of Thomas Drake.  Drake did his best to alert the NSA and the CIA, and the FBI, and finally Congress about the threat of an attack on the World Trad Center on 9/11.  Thomas Drake was thanked by being fired from his job, his name deliberately smeared, and threatened with imprisonment, for his trouble.

The Real Criminal Class

he Psychology department at U of CA at Berkeley has added a big exclamation point to the long held poetic suspicion that the rich are rotten to the core and the poor are inherently more virtuous, more compassionate and more giving.  I must add that I have seen evidence of this sort of behavior and now this data merely confirms what we've all, folk wisdom people and poets and playwrights, always known. Now comes the latest and very conclusive results that the richer they are the more likely they are to steal candy from a baby.

Literally,

Steal candy from a baby.

Remember this is based on a thorough research study for nearly a decade.  But as far as I can tell, this experiment is far from the first study to show sad and dramatic differences in the ethical and moral differences between rich and poor.

And as far as I am concerned, there is the same difference between Republican and Progressive.  If you have a hard time with my findings you can set up your own experiments.  I have set up and completed my own research.  One cannot help but notice that Republicans are far more likely to lie, to cheat, and to bully, than Progressives.  Not that all Progressives are perfect models of virtue all the time, but the likelihood of a conservative evincing rude behavior among his or her perceived inferiors, whether they were actually inferior or not is huge.  This set of observations runs side by side with Lord Acton's famous dictum that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

Strange.  You would think it was just the reverse.  That those with plenty would be more liberal and more virtuous while the poor would wish to conserve more stringently and not help out their neighbor.  But the American Taliban, the Evangelical Christians many of whom make up significant portion of the Tea Party, are the least virtuous, most hypocritical and un-Christlike, bigoted, slanderous and judgmental of any group in America. In other words --- rich conservatives are human trash.

And that is not to say that all Republicans are appalling snobs.  Mostly it seems to be the richest and the loudest.  The leadership.  The broadcast voices: The Rushes.  The Michael Savages.  The Lars Larsens.

Big Voices, tiny men --- moral midgets, really.

And by wealthy we are speaking of relatively modest income, such as one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand dollars a year.  A pittance compared to Wall Street banksters who pull down 20, 40 60, million a business quarter.

*  *  *  *  *

We cannot forget that we have a list of men of immense wealth, billionaires, who have chosen to act as a force for good at the very least in their community, if not the entire planet.  But  and really, though those who do add their names to the list of great generosity, the studies show they tend to live longer and to be healthier, and get a better night's sleep, and generally report happier lives, than their stingier colleagues, the rich are, nevertheless, rather slow to add their names.