After more than a year of grim scientific projections and growing activism, world leaders, and the public alike are increasingly recognizing the severity and urgency of the climate crisis. And yet nothing has been done.
Collective action works; we have proved that. But to change everything, we need everyone. Each and every one of us must participate in the climate resistance movement. We cannot just say we care; we must show it. (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
For more than a year, children and young people from around the world have been striking for the climate. We launched a movement that defied all expectations, with millions of people lending their voices – and their bodies – to the cause. We did this not because it was our dream, but because we didn’t see anyone else taking action to secure our future. And despite the vocal support we have received from many adults – including some of the world’s most powerful leaders – we still don’t.
Striking is not a choice we relish; we do it because we see no other options.
Striking is not a choice we relish; we do it because we see no other options. We have watched a string of United Nations climate conferences unfold. Countless negotiations have produced much-hyped but ultimately empty commitments from the world’s governments – the same governments that allow fossil-fuel companies to drill for ever-more oil and gas, and burn away our futures for their profit.
Politicians and fossil-fuel companies have known about climate change for decades. And yet the politicians let the profiteers continue to exploit our planet’s resources and destroy its ecosystems in a quest for quick cash that threatens our very existence.
Don’t take our word for it: scientists are sounding the alarm. They warn that we have never been less likely to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – the threshold beyond which the most destructive effects of climate change would be triggered.
Worse, recent research shows that we are on track to produce 120% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with the 1.5°C limit.The concentration of climate-heating greenhouse gases in our atmosphere has reached a record high, with no sign of a slowdown. Even if countries fulfill their current emissions-reduction pledges, we are headed for a 3.2°C increase.
Young people like us bear the brunt of our leaders’ failures. Research shows that pollution from burning fossil fuels is the world’s most significant threat to children’s health. Just this month, five million masks were handed out at schools in New Delhi, India’s capital, owing to toxic smog. Fossil fuels are literally choking the life from us.
The science is crying out for urgent action, and still our leaders dare to ignore it. So we continue to fight.
After a year of strikes, our voices are being heard. We are being invited to speak in the corridors of power. At the UN, we addressed a room filled with world leaders. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, we met with prime ministers, presidents, and even the pope. We have spent hundreds of hours participating in panels and speaking with journalists and filmmakers. We have been offered awards for our activism.
Our efforts have helped to shift the wider conversation on climate change. People now increasingly discuss the crisis we face, not in whispers or as an afterthought, but publicly and with a sense of urgency. Polls confirm changing perceptions. One recent survey showed that, in seven of the eight countries included, climate breakdown is considered to be the most important issue facing the world. Another confirmed that schoolchildren have led the way in raising awareness.
With public opinion shifting, world leaders, too, say that they have heard us. They say that they agree with our demand for urgent action to tackle the climate crisis. But they do nothing. As they head to Madrid for the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we call out this hypocrisy.
On the next two Fridays, we will again take to the streets: worldwide on November 29, and in Madrid, Santiago, and many other places on December 6 during the UN climate conference. Schoolchildren, young people, and adults all over the world will stand together, demanding that our leaders take action – not because we want them to, but because the science demands it.
The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it.
That action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities.
Some say that the Madrid conference is not very important; the big decisions will be made at COP26 in Glasgow next year. We disagree. As the science makes clear, we don’t have a single day to lose.
We have learned that, if we do not step up, nobody will. So we will keep up a steady drumbeat of strikes, protests, and other actions. We will become louder and louder. We will do whatever it takes to persuade our leaders to unite behind science so clear that even children understand it.
Collective action works; we have proved that. But to change everything, we need everyone. Each and every one of us must participate in the climate resistance movement. We cannot just say we care; we must show it.
Join us. Participate in our upcoming climate strikes in Madrid or in your hometown. Show your community, the fossil-fuel industry, and your political leaders that you will not tolerate inaction on climate change anymore. With numbers on our side, we have a chance.
And to the leaders who are headed to Madrid, our message is simple: the eyes of all future generations are upon you. Act accordingly.
Greta Thunberg is a youth climate strike leader in Sweden.
Luisa Neubauer is a German climate activist.
Angela Valenzuela is a coordinator of Fridays for Future in Santiago.
Emerson: “Like the New England soil, my talent is good only whilst I work it. If I cease to task myself, I have no thoughts.”
If we want to be a writer we must write; a dancer must dance, a musician must play. Along the way we develop skill, we attain higher levels of expression. Nothing comes to us if we wait to write or dance or play. Can we do the same with love? Should we wait for love to come to us or would it be wise to love right now. Do we really need an object to love? How much of our precious time do we spend on longing for something and not seeing how accessible it is right now?
There are many varied forms of everything we desire. We may very well think we have met the right person to love but if love is not active in us first, what is the attraction? It would not be anything lasting. Give love to your pets, your friends, your co-workers, your family. Be alive in it and love will reveal itself in many different ways.
The same principle holds true in all things.
This week of American Thanksgiving we are focused on gratitude. We like to state the things we are thankful to have in our world. What about you doing things to help others feel gratitude? What can you give today, express today, circulate today that enhances someone else’s experience? Don’t wait to have more to give more. Give anyway. Love no matter what. Be the answer to someone’s prayer. You are not rehearsing to be alive, to be you. This is it! Let’s make the best of it by giving the best of ourselves.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Increasing Instead of Decreasing
by John Lawrence, November 29, 2019
Last year more Greenhouse gasses were emitted into the environment than ever. This trend is going in exactly the opposite direction that it needs to if planet earth will ever be a safe and welcoming place for our species and many others in years to come. Scientific American reported:
Global carbon emissions reached an all-time high in 2018, an extraordinary watermark in Earth’s history that underscores the need for faster and stronger action to address accelerating climate change, according to dozens of scientists.
A report released yesterday by a consortium of researchers known as the Global Carbon Project finds that global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are likely to have increased by about 2.7 percent in 2018, after a 1.6 percent increase in 2017.
What are we thinking? That the free market system is going to solve this planetary crisis? It is going to take concerted government action and the cooperation of governments around the world to deal effectively with this problem. The Green New Deal is absolutely essential in order the switch from a fossil fuel based economy to a renewable economy. The US needs to lead the rest of the world in this development in cooperation with China and other nations. If the earth is to survive as a livable planet, radical action needs to be taken now although nothing will be done till Trump and his Republican henchmen are out of office. That means that 2019 and 2020 will probably see even further increases in global greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever is happening now in this regard is totally ineffective.
It is going to take the rapid development of India assisted in great part by the US and China in bringing the poverty stricken in that country up to developed world standards in clean water and sanitation. They have to be pulled into the modern world by outside forces and at the same time converted to a renewable energy economy. It is going to take radical changes from a cow based diet to a plant based diet. It is going to take a whole new mindset regarding food, transportation, housing and everything else. The inhabitants of planet earth will either make these radical changes or else future generations, not those living now, will have to live with the consequences or die with them as the case may be.
Sustainability, not economic growth, has to be the bellwether and the keynote. A sustainable economy will be one unlike the economic systems existing on planet Earth now. We will need to consume less not more in an attempt to grow the economy. The economy has to fundamentally change, not grow but become sustainable, plant based and renewable energy based. People will have to radically alter their lifestyles. Consumption will have to decrease. The basics of life will have to be provided for all people. Poverty and war must be eliminated replaced by cooperation if Earth is to survive climate change.
High taxation nations like Sweden are full employment economies because they provide everyone with a job. If they can't find one in the private sector, government creates one by taxing the wealthy to get the money. Very little money is, therefore, spent on unemployment related welfare. This has to happen here with a Green New Deal providing the jobs. Sweden is what social democracy is all about. Bernie Sanders is well acquainted with this form of economy, and that's why he is the best candidate to lead this country and win the election in 2020. We don't need moderate action at this time. We've tried that, and it has failed. We need radical action before the Earth becomes a terminal case destroying the lives of future generations.
We can afford these things. With inequality reaching new extremes, and corporations and the wealthy rigging the tax code to their benefit, we can pay for them without raising taxes on middle- and low-income Americans.
How can our society thrive if we condemn the best of the next generation to a life burdened by debt? (Photo: Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images)
“Too radical, impractical, too costly, impossible, can’t pass the Senate.”
Those are the terms centrist Democrats use to describe the bold reform ideas put forth by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic presidential primaries.
“Venezuela, socialist, communist tripe, crazy” are the jibes preferred by President Donald Trump and Republicans.
All this begs the same question: What do they plan to do to meet the challenges we face?
For most Americans, this isn’t a rhetorical question. The economy, Trump boasts, is as good as it has ever been in terms of the top line unemployment figures, but it still doesn’t work for most Americans.
Wages have been inching up, but they aren’t rising as fast as the cost of basics—housing, college, health care. Working families—whether middle or low income—are struggling simply to stay afloat.
Depths of despair are soaring, particularly among the young. Illness is still the leading cause of bankruptcy.
Half of all Americans have no retirement plan other than Social Security. The climate emergency is a clear and present danger, costing more lives, more displacement and billions in damage each year.
If we are going to address these challenges, we need reforms that correspond with the size of the problem. An adhesive bandage won’t stop a leg hemorrhage. A wall can’t shut out the cataclysmic storms, droughts, floods and tides of the climate emergency.
The Green New Deal—mocked by Trump and Republicans who continue to deny the existence of manmade climate change—is ambitious and costly—but only because it tries to meet the goals that scientists say are necessary if we are not to become an endangered species.
Getting to a clean energy, zero carbon emissions economy requires massive investment, new innovation and dramatic changes in transportation, housing, energy and more.
The transition will generate millions of new jobs, while displacing some from old jobs. The Green New Deal proposes a job guarantee to make certain that no one is left out in the transition.
Critics say it costs too much—but it costs far less than the price we will pay if we don’t act boldly and now.
Or consider higher education. Student loan debt continues to rise, now over $1 trillion, exceeding even credit card debt.
More students have to put off college or drop out for years in order to earn enough to get the education that all agree is vital to our country and to their future.
More students graduate with debt that will burden their lives, making it harder to afford to have children, to save for a house, to put money away for retirement.
Debt is crushing a generation that tries to do the right thing. It is particularly brutal on people of color who have less of a chance to have parents with the wealth to help pay for tuition.
These basic reforms—the right to adequate health care, the right to an education, the addressing of the existential threat posed by the climate emergency—are not left or right. They represent the moral center.
Tuition-free college—mocked as a costly giveaway—simply argues that publicly provided education or advanced training should be extended beyond kindergarten through 12th grade.
At a time when college education or advanced training is deemed essential not simply for the individual but for the country, why wouldn’t we make that available for all who qualify?
How can our society thrive if we condemn the best of the next generation to a life burdened by debt?
This is one of the richest countries in the world. We can afford these things. With inequality reaching new extremes, and corporations and the wealthy rigging the tax code to their benefit, we can pay for them without raising taxes on middle- and low-income Americans.
The argument that these necessary reforms are not "practical" makes no sense.
Centrists suggest that only modest, piecemeal, admittedly inadequate reforms have a chance to gain the support needed to pass. But pre-emptive compromise doesn’t inspire fear or fervor.
What’s needed is a clarion call that lays out what is essential—and builds the public support necessary to tackle those standing in the way.
Republicans opposed Social Security and Medicare as socialism, or communist notions. They passed because Roosevelt and Johnson built the majorities and claimed the mandate to get them passed.
The argument that these reforms are too radical, too “left” also fails on its face.
These basic reforms—the right to adequate health care, the right to an education, the addressing of the existential threat posed by the climate emergency—are not left or right.
They represent the moral center. The values they express are not un-American; they are central to the American dream.
It isn’t radical to suggest that all have health care, or all have access to a good education. It is just common sense. And we are badly in need of a strong dose of that.
Jesse Jackson is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to form Rainbow/PUSH.
We love happy endings. You may recall my blog about Bodhi the puppy we rescued and for whom we got medical attention. Well, he has been adopted! I m told he is being spoiled by his new family. Isn’t that great news? Every prayer treatment I do includes the vulnerable children of the world. Like a lost, injured puppy, kids all over the planet are starved, abused, living in war zones, being trafficked and are victims of all manner of deprivation: lack of sanitation, clean water, food, medical help, education, safety. They will become adults and they will either bring anger with them or perhaps solutions.
My vision for our world is one in which every child is safe with every adult. They are cherished, encouraged, loved, educated, spiritually free to discover their own inner potential. They are seen as windows into the future. They are listened to and mentored by wisdom and gentle strength. HH the Dalai Lama has said if all 8 year old kids today were taught to meditate, we would have a transformed world in one generation. I know how powerfully liberating meditation is to the soul and how beneficial to the body. If you have children in your life, show them the value of silence. Help them be still. You could benefit from it, too!
Bodhi has had a happy beginning. Let’s make part of our daily practice the vision of a world of compassion, love, joy, peace, prosperity and liberty for all. Dogs, kids, all of Nature are part of our shared good. Since everything begins in mind, let’s activate some very high ideas for how we choose to live together on this little blue planet. Let’s have a happy ending and a visionary beginning.
In the US everyone has a FICO score which is a number between 300 and 850. In general, scores above 650 indicate a very good credit history. In contrast, individuals with scores below 620 often find it difficult to obtain financing at favorable rates. In China they are giving everyone a social index score which not only measures credit worthiness but a whole lot of other things to determine how good a citizen you are. It might be called a citizenship index. To facilitate this they have cameras everywhere and they can identify and watch every person out in public to see how well they're behaving. In addition to deterring crime and identifying criminal acts, they take the smallest things into account. For instance, if a person drops a piece of paper on the sidewalk and doesn't pick it up and deposit it in a litter box, they might get points deducted from their social score. On the other hand, if a person helps an old lady across the street that might get points added to your social score.
In the US cameras are getting more ubiquitous as well, but they are largely used to deter crime and to identify criminal acts. This I think is more acceptable than the Chinese idea of surveillance in which the smallest acts, good or bad, contribute to some overall rating of the individual. This is just too much. Deterring crime and identifying criminal acts is a legitimate use of cameras, but examining every little act criminal or not and using it to tote up a social index is definitely in the realm of Big Brother watching you. It is creepy to think that the government has that much control over you.
On the other hand there is not much privacy in the US either. The DMV can sell your information to private parties for use in evaluating you. Facebook and other companies gather information about your buying habits so they know how to pitch you with advertising. In the US it's all about financial and consumer data. In China they are also concerned about what kind of a citizen you are in general. I suppose this is not too far fetched from what colleges do when they look up your SAT scores, your grades, your extra curricular activities and evaluate what kind of a person you are when they are making a judgment about letting you into college.
So in the US private entities are evaluating you while in China it's the government that's doing it in general. Not that the US government doesn't also have tons of information on its citizens of both a financial and criminal nature. It's just that the US government is not interested in the finest detail about you unless you are suspected of some nefarious activity. You are allowed full privacy inside your home, but that holds true in China too. Their cameras are only trained on their people when they are in public places. Law enforcement cannot enter you home without a warrant. in the US or in China. So privacy rights in both countries are similar. Where the countries differ is that in China the government keeps tabs on all its people; in the US private corporations keep tabs on all the people with government playing a minor role in that regard.
"It should be clear that, in spite of the increases in GDP, in spite of the 2008 crisis being well behind us, everything is not fine," writes economist Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001. (Photo: Local Future Project)
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is warning the world that unless the obsession many world leaders have with gross national product (GDP) comes to end, there will be little chance of adequately fighting back against the triple-threat of climate destruction, the scourge of financial inequality, and the crises of democracy now being felt around the globe.
In an op-ed published Sunday in the Guardian, Stiglitz says that these interrelated crises of environmental degradation and human suffering have solidified in his mind the idea that "something is fundamentally wrong with the way we assess economic performance and social progress."
"Something is fundamentally wrong with the way we assess economic performance and social progress."—Joseph StiglitzDefining GDP as "the sum of the value of goods and services produced within a country over a given period," Stiglitz points to the financial crash of 2008—and the so-called "recovery" which has taken place in the decade since—as evidence that the widely-used measurement is not up to the task of providing an accurate assessment of the economy, let alone the state of the world or the people living in it.
"It should be clear that, in spite of the increases in GDP, in spite of the 2008 crisis being well behind us, everything is not fine," writes Stiglitz. "We see this in the political discontent rippling through so many advanced countries; we see it in the widespread support of demagogues, whose successes depend on exploiting economic discontent; and we see it in the environment around us, where fires rage and floods and droughts occur at ever-increasing intervals."
A central argument of his new book—co-authored by fellow economists Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Martine Durand and titled "Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being"—Stiglitz says that studying the last ten years of the global economy has showed him with increasing clarity why governments "can and should go well beyond GDP," especially with the climate crisis knocking down the planet's door. He writes:
If our economy seems to be growing but that growth is not sustainable because we are destroying the environment and using up scarce natural resources, our statistics should warn us. But because GDP didn't include resource depletion and environmental degradation, we typically get an excessively rosy picture.
These concerns have now been brought to the fore with the climate crisis. It has been three decades since the threat of climate change was first widely recognized, and matters have grown worse faster than initially expected. There have been more extreme events, greater melting of glaciers and greater natural habitat destruction.
Everything is not fine, Stiglitz argues, but says economists have been working hard on providing new ways to measure economic health. Embraced more broadly, new economic measures that include accounting for human happiness and environmental well-being could help change the course of humanity.
As he notes in the op-ed, "If we measure the wrong thing, we will do the wrong thing."
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Last year at just this time a large white Snowy Egret arrived on the property. We reveled in his presence for about a month, watching him fly up to the rooftops, preening and stretching out his long neck, the way ET did. He would stealthily move about the grounds, occasionally standing at the edge of one of the many ponds on the property, dipping down quickly to snag an unsuspecting insect. He (or she) was a holiday gift, then was suddenly gone at the end of December. I had named him Roger Egret. I felt a loss and wondered if he would ever return.
Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on my balcony thinking about that amazing bird, wishing I could see him again, when I caught some movement across the way, a flash of white as Roger, flapping his huge wings floated to the ground. I remained motionless while he treated me to a show of his prowess flying from rooftop to the ground and then up again. He would stand on the chimney on the building across from mine and slowly turn so I could see his beautiful tail feathers.
Imagine a sentient being who can fly; who knows just when to take off for Florida or Costa Rica and who also knows how to get there. Nature is such a miracle to me. The other day I found a wasp struggling on its back, trying to get upright. I slipped a magazine page under him and set him on the balcony railing. After a long time he flew off. Again, I am humbled by the sheer intelligence inherent in every living thing. That includes the trees around me who are shedding their leaves. They do so without remorse, merely letting go, allowing for the natural cycle of rebirth to take place. For that to happen there has to be a period of regrowth where things look bare and bleak. If we pay attention, Nature is our greatest teacher.
Gross Domestic Product is Not a Good Measure of Economic Health Any More
by John Lawrence, November 26, 2019
Trying to maximize GDP is what's destroying the environment and will kill planet earth from global warming. Capitalism is insistent on growing the economy. Wall Street insists on short term growth or your corporation will be downrated. The only valid criterion is stock market value and return to shareholders. This mentality supports pollution, resource depletion, greenhouse gas emissions and increasing inequality. What is needed is an economy which values the well being of all people and a respect for the health of the planet rather than the depletion thereof. Growth in and of itself is not what's needed; steady state sustainability is much more important in this stage of human evolution. The unlimited despoiling of the environment and production of unrecyclable and unremitting waste can no longer be acceptable.
GDP does NOT measure: 1. health, 2. infant mortality, 3. morbidity, 4. suicide rates, 5. crime, 6. poverty, 7. environmental health/decay and destruction of the natural environment, 8. infrastructure such as highways and bridges, 9. family breakdown, 10. loss of leisure time, 11. cost of commuting to work, 12. lack of civility in communities, 13. lack of concern for future generations, 14. income gap (women/men; poor/wealthy)
The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) attempts to shift the prevailing definition of progress from economic growth to people's sense of quality of their lives. The GPI assigns value to the life-sustaining functions of households, communities and the natural environment so that the destruction of these, and their replacement with commoditized substitutes, no longer appears as growth and gain. Quality of life has deteriorated at an accelerating rate since 1970 - the GPI went down as the GDP went up in the US.
Insistence on "the American Way of Life" is insistence that things will remain the same even as extreme weather events become more and more common and even though many areas of the earth will become uninhabitable within a very short time. This will lead to mass migrations and more war as nations that are inhabitable fight to keep the migrants out. Consumption is 70% of GDP, and increased consumption is what is driving global warming. If the US and other mass consumption cultures cannot find a way to bring into being a sustainable economy which is environmentally viable, global warming which is directly tied to the pursuit of increased GDP will make the generation which will leave the earth within the next few years, namely the baby boomers, the last generation to enjoy "the American Way of Life."
Despite warnings from scientists and activists, global greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing according to a new UN report with the US and China being the chief culprits. "There is no sign of [greenhouse gas] emissions peaking in the next few years," the authors write. Every year that emissions continue to increase "means that deeper and faster cuts will be required" to keep Earth from warming more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
While the Democratic presidential candidates are debating full Medicare for All, giant insurance companies like UnitedHealthcare are advertising to the elderly in an attempt to lure them from Traditional Medicare (TM) to the so-called Medicare Advantage (MA)—a corporate plan that UnitedHealthcare promotes to turn a profit at the expense of enrollees.
Almost one third of all elderly over 65 are enrolled in these numerous, complex MA policies the government pays so much for monthly. The health insurance industry wants more enrollees as they continue to press Congress for more advantages.
Medical Disadvantage would be a more accurate name for the programs, as insurance companies push to corporatize all of Medicare, yet keep the name for the purposes of marketing, deception, and confusion.
“All this anxiety, dread, and fear, all these arbitrary denials of care—prompted by a pay-or-die commercial profit motive—all these restrictions of what doctors or hospitals you can go to, do not exist in Canada.”
Elderly people enrolled in MA will experience its often merciless denials when they get sick. As hospital expert—attorney, physician, Dr. Fred Hyde put it: “It’s not just what you pay, it’s what you get.”
Start with the cross-subsidy of MA from TM. In 2009, the Congressional Budget Office estimated these overpayments would cost the federal government $157 billion over the coming decade. Obama’s Affordable Care Act started to reduce these subsidies to the giant insurers, but they still amount to many billions of dollars per year.
Add that with Medicare Disadvantage you are restricted to networks of vendors. That restricts your choice for competence and skills, and sometimes, requires you to travel longer distances for treatment. This could mean fewer enrollees will utilize their healthcare and more profits for the insurance companies.
Under Medicare Disadvantage you are subject to all kinds of differing plans, maddening trapdoor fine print, and unclear meaning to the insurers arguing no “medical necessity” when you’re denied care.
The advertisements for Medicare Disadvantage stress that you can sometimes get perks—gym memberships, hearing aids, and eyeglasses, as enticements, but they avoid telling you they are not so ready to cover serious needs like skilled nursing care for critically ill patients.
Under Medicare Disadvantage, there is no Medigap coverage as there is for TM. Co-pays and deductibles can be large. Under a recent Humana Medicare Advantage Plan in Florida, your co-pay for an ambulance is up to $300, up to $100 co-pay for lab services, and another $100 for outpatient x-rays.
A few years ago, UnitedHealthcare corporations dismissed thousands of physicians from their MA networks, sometimes immediately, sometimes telling their patients before telling their physicians.
Dr. Arthur Vogelman, a gastroenterologist, said he received a termination letter in 2013 from UnitedHealthcare. He appealed, documenting his successful treatment of many patients. The company denied his appeal, with no reason, as it had for thousands of network physicians.
Dr. Vogelman called it “an outrage. I have patients in their 80s and 90s who have been with me 20 years, and I’m having to tell them that their insurer won’t pay for them to see me anymore. The worst thing is I can’t even tell them why.” Except that the company wanted more profits.
After a lengthy protest by national and state medical societies in 2013, UnitedHealthcare began to be less aggressively dismissive.
Studies show the main reason MA enrollees return to TM is how badly the corporate insurers treated them when they became sick.
Medicare itself is getting overly complex. But nothing like the ever changing corporate rules, offerings, and restrictions of Medicare Disadvantage. How strange it is that AARP, with its Medigap insurance business run by UnitedHealthcare, doesn’t advise its members to go with the obviously superior Traditional Medicare. AARP reportedly receives a commission of 4.95% for new enrollees on top of the premiums the elderly pay for the Medigap policy from United Healthcare. This money—about seven hundred million dollars a year—is a significant portion of AARP’s overall budget.
AARP responded to my inquiries into their Medicare Advantage policy saying that it does not recommend one plan over another, leaving it to the uninformed or misinformed consumer. That’s one of AARP’s biggest cop-outs—they know the difference.
There is no space here to cover all the bewildering ins and outs of what corporations have done to so-called managed Medicare and managed Medicaid. That task is for full-time reporters. The government does estimate a staggering $60 billion in billing fraud annually just on Medicare—manipulating codes, phantom billing, etc. You need the equivalent of a college-level course just to start figuring out all the supposed offerings and gaps.
Suffice it to say that, in the words of Eleanor Laise, senior editor of Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, “the evidence on health care access and quality decidedly favors original Medicare over Medicare Advantage, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation review of 40 studies published between 2000 and 2014.”
All this anxiety, dread, and fear, all these arbitrary denials of care—prompted by a pay-or-die commercial profit motive—all these restrictions of what doctors or hospitals you can go to, do not exist in Canada. All Canadians have a Medicare card from birth; they have free choice of health care vendors. There are few American-style horror stories there; patients have better outcomes, and almost never even see a bill. The whole universal system costs half per capita of that in the U.S., where over 80 million people are uninsured or underinsured—still! (See singlepayeraction.org, for civic action to rid Americans of this perverse chaos).
On my first trip to India in 1997, we stayed in New Delhi at a businessman’s hotel in a rather desperate neighborhood. Arriving in the wee hours of the morning, all we saw was deep darkness with a bit of light coming from the small cooking fires on the street, where a few women were making chapatti. It was quite the shock for western eyes that had come from the sanitized cities of North America.
The next morning when we ventured out, our surprise and delight were uncontainable. There before us was the beautiful sight of a street faire, a bazaar, with colorful wares for sale and tantalizing aromas in the air. It was crowded with happy, chattering customers and vendors. The transformation was stunning.
The difference between ugliness and beauty is often what people do with where they are. We can create both with our attitude, our desire, our expectations. If there is beauty in the heart, it tends to shine through in any environment. At the same time, the most beautiful landscape is ruined by anger and fighting. War is ugly, even when it is fought in a field of flowers. We make our own experience by what we bring into it.
What kind of beauty can we create today? If there is always a choice, why would we choose ugliness? Could it be that we are the deciding factor in the quality of our experience?
Free Housing for Military Members, But Not Enough Money to Build Housing for Homeless and Low Income
by John Lawrence, November 25, 2019
Military families get basically free housing while hundreds of thousands of homeless people roam the streets. It's called Basic Allowance for Housing, and of course, there's an acronym - BAH. BAH covers 95% of housing expenses with service members paying 5% of their housing expenses out of pocket. Recently it has come to light that some service members are suing Hunt Military Communities, a private developer that provides military housing because of mold, mildew, cockroaches etc. What piqued my interest was how little these military families pay for this housing, not the mold and mildew affected kind but the kind that looks like normal housing in a normal community and is up to adequate standards, and why are these communities created by private developers who stand to profit from their relationship with the military?
It stands to reason that private developers like Hunt Military Communities would not provide adequate maintenance in order to increase their profit margins just like any other private developer of rental housing, but that's entirely another issue. Providing off base military housing is a big deal. Approximately 65 to 70 percent of service members live in housing in the private sector. So in addition to the cost of building such housing, US taxpayers are also paying to profit private developers, a cost that could be saved if everyone lived on base in housing build by the DoD itself. Under the question, "Why is DoD interested in privatizing military housing?" from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment - Facilities Management - Military Housing Privatization Initiative website, we find this interesting promotion for privatized military housing:
The MHPI [Military Housing Privatization Initiative] program was created to address two significant problems concerning housing for military service members and thier families. The first problem was the poor condition of DoD-owned housing. At the beginning of the program, DoD owned worldwide approximately 257,000 family housing units both on and off-base. Over 50 percent of the units needed to be renovated or replaced because over the past 30 years they have not been sufficiently maintained or modernized. The second problem was a shortage of affordable private sector housing of adequate quality.
This situation led to a decline in readiness and morale among Service members. DoD was unable to address the critical housing needs because of existing budgetary constraints. Using the traditional approach to military construction, it would cost taxpayers nearly $25 billion and it would take 20 years to solve this housing problem. MHPI provides a creative and effective solution to addressing the quality housing shortage. For DoD, MHPI results in the construction of more housing built to market standards, for less money than through the military construction process. Commercial construction is not only faster and less costly than military construction, but private sector funds significantly stretch and leverage DoD’s limited housing funds. At the same time, developers and financiers are interested in participating since privatization opens the military construction market to a greater number of development firms, stimulates the economy through increased building activity, and the projects can provide a continuous inflow of capital to investors over a long period of time.
What a bunch of mumbo jumbo in praise of the private sector! I wonder how much lobbying real estate developers did to get the law changed so that this private/public partnership could be enacted on February 10, 1996 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1996. It is obviously very lucrative for private developers like Hunt Military Communities. These developments, which amount to public housing, look like any other private development. Housing is provided on a huge scale for members of the military practically for free, but there is not enough government money available to build public housing for the homeless and for low income communities who are increasingly being forced into homelessness as rents are increasing each year. Senior renters are especially vulnerable. What are they supposed to do if their money runs out before their life does?
The above website touts private housing for the military: "DoD provides “on-base” privatized housing or military construction housing only when the private sector cannot provide adequate affordable housing." Wow, do they love the private sector except when the publicity for this boondoggle is negative such as it presently is for Hunt Military Communities. The article from Military Times went on:
Citing all-too familiar scenarios ranging from houses overrun by cockroaches to mold-blackened walls, eight military families have filed a lawsuit against a privatized housing company alleging fraud in connection with their homes that were uninhabitable.
The complaint, filed Tuesday in federal court in San Antonio, alleges that Hunt Military Communities failed to properly maintain the houses at Randolph Air Force Base and Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, “subjecting tenant service members and their families to atrocious conditions, including pervasive mold and other airborne toxins.” It alleges the company was aware of the condition of the houses, but misled the families by leasing houses that were uninhabitable and not safe for human occupancy.
The families are from the Army, Air Force and Navy.
The lawsuit cites examples of human waste deposited under houses because of plumbing that was disconnected for years; mold growing on the rim of a child’s toothpaste tube in a mold-infested bathroom; floors detaching from walls, leaking roofs, and asbestos and lead-based paint filling the air.
Many of the service members and their family members have fallen ill with a variety of respiratory and other symptoms, have lost nearly all their personal possessions because of mold contamination, and paid their full base housing for the “woefully substandard” housing, according to the lawsuit.
I guess privatized military housing is not all it was cracked up to be. Maybe government built housing both for the military and low income and homeless community would be a better option. At least that option should be explored.
How My Conservative Friends Were Duped by Russian Bots
by John Lawrence
During the buildup to the 2016 election some of my conservative friends sent me cartoons that were downright derogatory towards Hillary Clinton. Russian bots created hundreds if not thousands of ads for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that were then circulated all over the internet and sent by email to people like me. I now ask my conservative friends, "How does it feel to have been duped by Russian bots?" Ads depicting Hillary as a servant of the devil, ads depicting her as being unpatriotic, not caring about dead US veterans, ads vilifying the Clinton Foundation. The following is a sampler:
I'm not Hillary's greatest fan. There's a lot I can find to criticize about her support for wars in the Middle East, her taking big donations from Wall Street bankers etc. But compared to Trump's turpitude, Hillary is a paragon of moral righteousness. Compared to Trump's knowledge of and experience with government in all its aspects, Hillary is a veritable genius.
Should Facebook, Twitter et al ban these kinds of cartoons and ads? Absolutely. They are meant simply to emotionally inflame the situation. At the very least the person or organization which placed the ad should be identified. But more to the point, any respectable news outlet shouldn't traffic in this rubbish. Any demeaning image should be suspect. Whether or not a Russian bot created it or a red blooded American, stuff like this should not be published and circulated around on the internet. If you want to call this censorship, so be it. First of all, the First Amendment only forbids government from suppressing free speech. Any private entity can censor all they want. If you don't believe it, try handing out politically motivated pamphlets in a shopping mall. You will be asked to leave the premises.
Material on social media or any media regarding political elections or issues should be home grown or clearly labeled by the foreign entity that created it. That way if someone in some other country wants to have an opinion about American politics or issues, it can be taken with a grain of salt if it is clearly labeled where it came from.
Donald Trump and his enablers have been making claims of widespread voter fraud, alleging millions of people are voting illegally in order to rig our elections.
Baloney. Let’s look at the facts and debunk their myths once and for all.
They claim millions of Americans are voting twice, using multiple registrations in different districts.
So how often does double voting really occur? An analysis of the 2012 presidential election found that out of 129 million votes cast, 0.02% – that’s two one hundredths of one percent – were double votes – which were likely the result of measurement error. This is a far cry from Donald Trump’s claims that millions of people were registered in two different states in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump and his enablers claim non-citizens are voting in droves. Trump himself said that thousands of undocumented immigrants voted in 2016.
Another lie. According to the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice, of 23.5 million votes cast in districts with high populations of non-citizens only 30 – I repeat, thirty – possible incidents of improper non-citizen voting were referred for further investigation.
They claim voter impersonation is rampant at the polls.
False. A 12-year study of election data found only 10 cases of voter impersonation out of 146 million registered voters. Ten.
So if voter fraud really isn’t a problem, why do Trump, Republicans in Congress, and their allies at Fox News keep perpetuating this myth? For one simple reason: To enact restrictive voting laws intended to keep voters from the polls.
Policies established in the name of election security – including voter ID laws, needless registration deadlines, limited access to polling places, and purges of the voter rolls – make it harder for Americans to vote. It is the same tactic that has been used throughout our history to disenfranchise low-income Americans and people of color.
Luckily, many of these laws have been struck down in the courts. In 2016, a district judge in Wisconsin found “utterly no evidence” of widespread voter fraud justifying its voter ID law. In Texas, another judge found their voter ID law violated the Voting Rights Act, making it harder for African-Americans and Latinos to vote.
But many of these laws are still on the books because in 2013 the Supreme Court gutted crucial aspects of the Voting Rights Act.
Congress needs to update the Act to prevent states from suppressing votes.
Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans in Congress are turning a blind eye to the real threats facing our democracy: election fraud, and foreign interference.
In 2018, a Republican operative stole votes from Democrats in a North Carolina congressional race with a quote, “coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme.” After the ballots were counted, the Republican candidate appeared to have won by about 900 votes. But the fraud was so glaring that the state board of elections refused to certify the results and called for a special election.
The other real threat is foreign interference in our elections, as Russia did in 2016.
We now know for a fact that Trump is encouraging foreign leaders to interfere in our elections — asking the President of Ukraine to investigate his political opponents in exchange for military aid and publicly calling on Russia and China to also interfere.
In the Senate, Mitch McConnell continues to block common-sense legislation to protect our elections against future foreign interference, such as requiring all voting machines to have backup paper ballots and imposing automatic sanctions for nations that interfere in elections. To have safe and secure elections in 2020 and beyond, we need to pass this legislation.
The next time you hear Trump and his enablers claim widespread voter fraud, know the truth. Their lies are intended to make it harder for millions of Americans to vote, while they ignore the real threats to our democracy.
Emerson remarked that we are always getting ready to live and never living. He went on to list all the stages of life where we are preparing for life; “but the work of self-improvement—always under our nose—nearer than the nearest, is seldom engaged in. a few, few hours in the longest life.”
He had a point, don’t you agree? In some cultures, it is the intention of married couples to pursue spiritual matters after the children are grown, once one has retired from work. Then one or the other partner might go off on a vision quest or enter an ashram to study with a meditation master. In that way they can give their full attention and energy to self-discovery.
Here in the West, retirement often means boredom or adult games like golf and ballroom dancing lessons. Our spiritual life is not on the top of the list of intended pursuits. That is why it is so gratifying to see so many New Thought adherents giving self-discovery the time and attention it deserves. Our whole aim is not to worship an outer power, but to learn how to live up to our inner potential. It is a life-long endeavor, simply because there is no end to us. We are infinite beings on the spiritual side of things. Our potential is forever expanding according to our self-awareness.
We are never too young or too old to turn inward and to seek the power that resides in us. New Thought spirituality is a very effective path to take. With classes and inspirational literature, there is a clear road to take. It might be the one less traveled, but it is the choice of the sincere seeker. Join us!
"There is evidence that the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is increasing rapidly as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels," coal researcher James R. Garvey wrote in 1966. (Photo: Marcel Kusch/picture alliance via Getty Images)
A new report shows conclusively that the coal industry was aware of the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels as far back as 1966—and, like other sectors of the fossil fuel industry with knowledge of the consequences of their business model, did next to nothing about it.
The revelation was published in an article by Élan Young at HuffPost Friday.
"It wasn't just big oil that knew about climate change decades ago," tweeted HuffPost editor Kate Sheppard.
The story uses a discovery by Chris Cherry, professor of civil engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to show industry foreknowledge of the ramifications of extractive technologies over 50 years ago. Cherry found the evidence in a 1966 copy of the Mining Congress Journal he was given by his father-in-law.
A 1966 article in the Mining Congress Journal shows that #CoalKnew about the climate risks of burning fossil fuels decades before the industry engaged in a campaign of climate denial that continues today https://t.co/JxxQw3HPxxpic.twitter.com/Wite2HesGw
In the journal, James R. Garvey, president of now-defunct research firm Bituminous Coal Research Inc., describes the future consequences of coal.
"There is evidence that the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is increasing rapidly as a result of the combustion of fossil fuels," Garvey wrote. "If the future rate of increase continues as it is at the present, it has been predicted that, because the CO2 envelope reduces radiation, the temperature of the earth's atmosphere will increase and that vast changes in the climates of the earth will result."
Garvey added that the result of the changes in climate could include melting icecaps and rising seas.
"Such changes in temperature will cause melting of the polar icecaps, which, in turn, would result in the inundation of many coastal cities, including New York and London," wrote Garvey.
"This is astonishing," tweeted historian Brad Simpson.
The article sent shockwaves across the environmental movement.
"The entire fossil fuel industry knew about the risks of climate change and covered it up for decades all to make a buck," saidEarther reporter Brian Kahn.
As Young writes in her article, though, it's difficult to know what the revelations in her reporting will result in as far as damages or accountability.
"Even as the Trump administration has promised a coal resurgence and rolled back Obama-era regulations, the industry's profitability continues to experience a downward slide," writes Young. "If the slogan 'Coal Knew' ever does take off, it's unclear who'll be left to sue."
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Seeking Dirt on a Political Opponent from a Foreign Government is Enough to Impeach
by John Lawrence
It doesn't matter whether or not Trump was holding up military aid until he got what he wanted. It doesn't matter whether or not he "pressured" Zelensky. Just the fact that he tried to get a foreign government to dig up dirt on Joe Biden is enough. If he gets away with that, the US is on its journey down the rabbit hole to dictatorship and fascism. Don't forget Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Hindenburg in 1933. After Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler assumed the role of President. All this happened very democratically. However, after Hitler assumed power, things moved very quickly as Hitler took control to become the Fuhrer or dictator of Germany.
Donald Trump has set the stage for his taking absolute power in the US. Congress has become totally ineffective and stalemated thanks to Trump's henchman, Mitch McConnell. The only thing holding Trump back is the judiciary although Trump's stacking the Supreme Court with Republican supporters means that that domino is going to fall as well. If the House does not impeach Trump over this offense, it means he can get away with practically anything just as Adolf Hitler did in the thirties. Hitler adopted what amounted to a "Germany first" policy just as Trump has adopted "America first."
The last bulwark of democracy in the US is the House of Representatives controlled by the Democratic Party. If they can't stop the Trump steamroller by impeaching him, they're sending a clear message that it's OK for the President of the US to use the mantle of the Presidency to further his own political and personal interests at the expense of the people of the US. He's already done this in myriad ways by his tax cuts for the rich that's putting the US into more debt to the tune of a trillion dollars a year which is just about the amount that interest on the debt is costing. Trump has already stripped the US of environmental protection and ignored the looming threat of climate change.
It will take awhile even if a Democrat is elected President in 2020 to repair the damage Trump has done and then get on with the business of recreating a democracy that could have the moral values that the rest of the world would look up to again.
Happy people are more likely to be blame free than others. That is, they do not blame anyone or anything for their current experience. They might have been on the receiving end of a natural disaster, yet they do not curse Nature. They see it as a challenge but one in which they can find something of value. Happy people are less likely to feel frightened by the news. They see it all as an opportunity to know the spiritual truth and to stick to it. They see violence as an effect of a cause and they know cause is not the power. The mind that created the cause is the power.
Happy people are deeply invested in change but they know it begins in our shared consciousness. They spend time everyday cultivating inner peace and affirming the best for humanity. Happy people never give up on an idea that is for the greater good of all. They promote it, praise it and participate in it. They fund it, vote for it and expect it. Happy people are movers and shakers. They are the ones who can sustain the vision through thick and thin.
Happy people are the most spiritually advanced people on the planet. HH the Dalai Lama has answered the question “what is our purpose” with this: “Our purpose is to be happy. Happy people do not cause problems. They solve them.” It is a grave mistake to equate happiness with foolishness. Nothing good and lasting has every come from anger and aggression.
Social change comes from non-violent assistance, not resistance. We assist the better idea and help it to grow and spread. Try it. Try thinking about humanity as good and lovely and creative and compassionate and wise and spiritually awake. You will feel the shift. If nothing else, you will be a much happier person.
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) smiles during the Democratic presidential debate at Tyler Perry Studios November 20, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
"We're going to win," declared Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday in response to a new national Emerson poll showing the Vermont senator and former Vice President Joe Biden tied for the top spot in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race.
Sanders and Biden are tied with 27% support, according to Emerson. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) polled in third place at 20%, and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg trailed far behind at just 7%.
"Senator Bernie Sanders is gaining momentum in the race for the Democratic nomination, increasing 2 points from October," Emerson noted. Biden's support has held steady since Emerson's October survey, while Warren declined one percentage point.
The poll had a margin of error +/- 4.6% and a sample size of 468 likely Democratic voters.
"Biden and Sanders continue to hold their bases, which should concern Warren, as she has waited for one of the front runners to slip these past few months—yet, their support seems to be crystalizing," said Spencer Kimball, Director of Emerson Polling.
Compared to Biden, the Emerson poll found Sanders has much stronger support among key demographics. According to the survey, Sanders garnered 37% support from voters under 50 compared to Biden's 15%. Among Latino voters the split was 36% for Sanders and 23% for Biden. And for voters who identify as "very liberal," Sanders, not surprisingly, claimed 45% compared to Biden's 16%.
According to the new survey, the Vermont senator is the only 2020 Democrat leading President Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.
Yoshida Kenko, a monk who lived in a ten foot square hut in the mountains of Japan, observed; “beginnings and endings are always the most interesting.”
It is the bud about to blossom that holds our attention, yet the fallen petals are beautiful. It is the sunrise and the sunset we love. Births and funerals are equal in importance, as are weddings and partings. Who doesn’t love the anticipation of a great evening in the theatre when the orchestra plays the overture? There is also the wonderful experience of giving the performers a standing ovation at the end of the program.
What about the middle? Do we fully engage with the time in between the beginning and the ending? Perhaps we would be more present if we did not suppress the truth that all things end or transition. Henry David Thoreau, who also lived by himself in the woods on Walden, wrote: “live each season as it passes; breathe the air; drink the drink; taste the fruit; and resign yourself to the influences of each.”
This life is a moving, fluid river of consciousness. Our experience is what we hold to be sacred, important, worth our time and attention. We interrupt the flow with our resistance to change. We put a stop to the energy of creation with our fear of endings. We deny ourselves the joy of discovery when we insist on permanence. It does not exist in the real world. That simple truth ought not to make us sad, but give us a sense of the wonder of it all and the preciousness of the life we are living.
Affirm: “I give myself into this moment and the next and the next and the next. I am alive with the presence of Now.”
The US Refuses Under Trump to Do Its Part to Ameliorate Worldwide Refugee Crisis
by John Lawrence, November 22, 2019
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of January 2019, there were 70.8 million refugees worldwide. Many are the result of US wars in the Middle East and of US policies around the world yet the US under Trump is reducing the number of refugees it admits to the US practically to zero. After framing refugees as a security threat, Trump slashed admission numbers for refugees to just 22,491 for fiscal year 2018. The number of Muslim refugees is down by 90 percent since fiscal year 2017, and Latin American refugee numbers are down by almost 40 percent, even though these asylum seekers are coming from regions that produce some of the highest numbers of refugees due to civil wars and violence. Just 62 Syrian refugees were resettled in the U.S. in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
More than half the world's refugees are children. There are 6 million Syrian refugees alone total with half of them being children living in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and other places. Many of these children have never known any other life outside of refugee camps. This is what the Arab Spring touted by President Obama created. No matter how big a bastard Bashar al-Assad is, was this outcome worth it in a failed attempt to get rid of him? Obama supposedly set a "red line" which if Assad crossed it would result in massive retaliation by the US, but Assad crossed it without any retaliation. The larger question is red line or no red line, was whatever happened in Syria worth the creation of 6 million refugees? This was never considered.
Obama used the phrase "red line" in reference to the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, saying, "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation." The phrase became a source of contention when political opponent John McCain said the red line was "apparently written in disappearing ink," due to the perception the red line had been crossed with no action. On the one year anniversary of Obama's red line speech the Ghouta chemical attacks occurred. Obama then clarified "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war," a reference to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie noted that the agency’s appeal for Syrian refugee support continues to be underfunded.
“When UNHCR’s Syria response was only 50% funded last year, and this year it is only 17% funded, there are terrible human consequences. We should be under no illusions about this. When there is even not the bare minimum of aid, refugee families cannot receive adequate medical treatment,” Jolie said. “Women and girls are left vulnerable to sexual violence, many children cannot go to school, and we squander the opportunity of being able to invest in refugees so that they can acquire new skills and support their families.”
2/3 of all refugees come from just 5 countries. 🇸🇾 Syria 🇦🇫 Afghanistan 🇸🇸 South Sudan 🇲🇲 Myanmar 🇸🇴 Somalia Imagine what peace in just one of those countries could mean. https://t.co/2oJw96hAtMpic.twitter.com/ZI0ghcH9sM
— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) June 19, 2018
It's understandable that the US doesn't want illegal immigrants in the country, but it should be helping out with the refugee crisis especially since it helped to create it by its Middle East regime change wars. Some of the refugee camps hold 100,000 people or more. They are like little cities. We are not investing in the next generation in those places so what do we expect when the children there grow up and become terrorists themselves. Right now they have no future, and that does not bode well for the situation on planet Earth for the next generation. As a host country, Jordan is estimated to spend $870 million a year supporting Syrian refugees; if treated as a traditional donor, it would have contributed 5,622% of its fair share. While the US has resettled refugees in the US, Trump is trying to whittle the number down to zero. As far as I could research it, the US pays nothing to support the refugee camps in Jordan and elsewhere. On a positive note, the International Rescue Committee and Sesame Workshop are teaming up on a major new effort to help young Syrian refugee children, including a new Sesame show in Arabic.
Republicans and even some Democrats are out to scare you about Medicare for All. They say it’s going to dismantle health care as we know it and it will cost way too much.
Rubbish.
The typical American family now spends $6,000 on health insurance premiums each year. Add in the co-payments and deductibles that doctors, hospitals, and drug companies also charge you — plus typical out-of-pocket expenses for pharmaceuticals – and that typical family’s health bill is $6,800.
But that’s not all, because some of the taxes you now pay are for health insurance, too — for Medicare and Medicaid and for the Affordable Care Act. So let’s add them in, again for the typical American household. That comes to a whopping $8,975 a year. Oh, and this number is expected to rise in the coming years.
Not a pretty picture. If you’re a typical American, you’re already paying far more for health insurance than people in any other advanced country.
And you’re not getting your money’s worth. The United States ranks near the bottom for life span and infant mortality. Or maybe you’re one of the 30 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance coverage at all.
You see, a big reason we pay so much for health insurance is the administrative costs involved in private for-profit insurance. About a third of what you pay goes to the people who oversee billing and collections. And then of course there are the marketing and advertising expenses, and the profits that go to shareholders or private-equity managers.
What happens if we have Medicare for All?
Let’s first consider a limited version that keeps private insurance — as proposed by candidates including Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Kamala Harris. The insurance costs remain the same because it’s the same private insurers and the same co-payments and deductibles. The only difference is more of this would be paid through your taxes, rather than by you directly, because the government would reimburse the insurance companies.
This could help bring down costs by giving the government more bargaining leverage to get better prices. But we don’t know yet how much.
Now, let’s talk about a different version of Medicare for All that replaces private for-profit health insurance, as proposed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. In this version, total costs — including a possible combination of premiums, co-payments, deductibles, or taxes — are even lower. This option is far cheaper because it doesn’t have all those administrative expenses. It’s public insurance that reimburses hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies directly and eliminates the bloat of private insurance companies.
Economists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst say Medicare for All that replaces private for-profit insurance would reduce costs by about 10 percent, mostly from lower administrative and drug costs. The Urban Institute estimates that households and businesses would save about $21.9 trillion over ten years, and state and local governments would save $4.1 trillion.
You’d pay for it through a combination of premiums, fees, and taxes, but your overall costs would go way down. So you’d come out ahead. And everyone would be covered.
You’d keep your same doctor or other health-care provider. And you could still buy private insurance to supplement Medicare for All, just like some people currently buy private insurance to supplement Medicare and Social Security. The only thing that’s changed is you no longer pay the private for-profit corporate insurers.
Any Medicare for All is better than our present system, but this second version is far better because — like Medicare and Social Security — it’s based on the simple and proven idea that we shouldn’t be paying private for-profit corporate insurers boatloads of money to get the insurance we need.
We live in two realities but are usually more aware of only one. There is a spiritual realm and an earthly one. Some say we ought to be completely invested in this earthly one. Others proclaim the best path is to renounce the world and to spend one’s life contemplating the spiritual. Then along comes a master teacher who said “be in the world but not of it.” Probably the greatest advice humanity has ever been given.
It has always been my perception that he was trying to teach us how to be human, knowing that our spiritual nature was fully intact. His teachings were about being informed by the spiritual, through communion and prayer, and to take that awareness into the realm of experience. There is an aspect to you and me that is decidedly unworldly, yet when in the form of a physical being, tends to reside in the background, ready to come forward when called.
My daily blogs always end with “Stay tuned in” a reminder to myself and others, if they choose, to keep our mind actively aware of our origins in the spiritual, and to reveal what is then known in the world. What will be known will be love, peace, joy, vitality and intelligence. We have it all, ready to be brought into the world by us. Remember the other most important truth attributed to the master teacher? “It is done (through) you as you believe.” What else do we need to know?
But I have a constructive suggestion as to what Boeing can do with them: convert them back to regular 737s. The 737 MAX is a kluge. What they did instead of redesigning the plane from scratch was to take two bigger engines and put them on the 737 that was designed for the smaller engines. This made the plane aerodynamically unstable. They tried to make up for this instability with software. It wasn't a very good idea. The software known as MCAS wasn't up to the task of keeping an aerodynamically unstable plane in the air. Consequently, in short order two of the planes crashed taking everyone with them.
Therefore, Boeing should just take the new engines they put on the 737 fuselage, that was designed for the smaller original engines, off and put the original 737 engines back on. Thus the planes which have a long and safe track record as 737s could go back into service as 737s, and the 737 MAX could be retired permanently. The engines that were taken off could be set aside awaiting a completely redesigned airplane that was designed aerodynamically for those engines. Thus nothing would be wasted, and they wouldn't have to just scrap all those 737 MAXs that are sitting on the ground somewhere. One thing is certain: no one wants to board a 737 MAX again even if Boeing says they have all the kinks worked out.
"I want to be the party of the New Deal again," says the progressive congresswoman from New York. "The party of the Civil Rights Act, the one that electrified this nation and fights for all people."
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks during the Climate Crisis Summit before introducing Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at Drake University on November 9, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa. Ocasio-Cortez has been campaigning in support of Sanders after endorsing him last month in New York City. (Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
As part of a wave of reaction to comments made by former President Barack Obama who reportedly suggested to "liberal wealthy" party donors late last week that some Democrats were going "too far left," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded by saying progressives are not pushing in some new, radical direction but rather trying to bring it back to where it came from.
"I want to be the party of the New Deal again," tweeted the freshman Democrat from New York on Saturday, referencing the era of progressive change under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt last century.
"The party of the Civil Rights Act, the one that electrified this nation and fights for all people. For that, many would call us radical," she said.
"We aren't 'pushing the party left,'" Ocasio-Cortez concluded, "we are bringing the party home."
The tweet also included a new campaign ad for Sen. Bernie Sanders, who Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed in the Democratic presidential primary. The two recently campaigned together in Iowa where they championed the need for a Green New Deal and spent time with local residents in the early voting states.
I want to be the party of the New Deal again.
The party of the Civil Rights Act, the one that electrified this nation and fights for all people.
For that, many would call us radical. But we aren’t “pushing the party left,” we are bringing the party home.pic.twitter.com/wLeDaxCHkZ
"This is about a people's movement in the United States," Ocasio-Cortez tells Iowans during a living-room meeting featured in the ad, "and this campaign is a part of that and electing Bernie Sanders is the beginning of a transformational movement in the direction of working people in America."
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Sometimes there is a feeling of ‘let down’ after a big event is over, one that has been in the planning for months. That is not the case today. Our 70th anniversary Gala was a great success, well attended with high energy and a sense of optimism for our shared future. I feel ‘lifted up’ rather than let down. Everything necessary is in place for us to take a leap into substantial growth.
Looking forward is easy, but in the meantime we have to do the work involved to bring our desire into attainment. You know yourself that once one goal is reached, you are not done. It is another beginning point and there are steps to take to keep things moving. We need new ideas, all the time. The energy of the new idea will fortify us and keep us moving into success.
Our part in the creative process is to continually ask “what is mine to do today? What would help my new idea to unfold? What thoughts support it? Where ought my attention be?” It is so easy to be distracted by doubt or fear or worry. We tend to give much energy to those kinds of mental states and when we do, there is no room for the new idea to lead us. Stay with the positive thought! Be the change you wish to see, as Gandhi advised. Don’t let yourself down, stay in the vision and it will enliven the mind, stabilize the emotions and carry you forward. Plan that party and don’t forget to send out invitations.
Trump's Tax Cuts Forcing the Fed to Buy Up US Treasurys
by John Lawrence, November18, 2019
Republicans used to stand for fiscal conservatism. But they're only fiscally conservative when Democrats are in power. When they control the purse strings, they spend like drunken sailors with the result that the national debt is now $23 trillion. During FY2019, the federal government spent $4.45 trillion and collected approximately $3.46 trillion in tax revenue. A little simple arithmetic shows that the US Federal government has to borrow almost a trillion dollars a year in order to make ends meet or 82.5 billion dollars a month. And this will go on and only likely increase ad infinitum.
"The belief in Washington and on Wall Street has long been that the U.S. government could just keep issuing debt because people around the world are eager to buy up this safe-haven asset. But there may be a limit to how much the market wants, especially if inflation starts rising and investors prefer to ditch bonds for higher-returning stocks."
However, there is another scenario. The Federal Reserve could just keep eating the debt much as it did during the various stages of quantitative easing (QE). The Fed paid the Wall Street banks in cash for the Treasury bonds it took on its balance sheet. This cash provided the liquidity which allowed the banks to keep functioning after the Great Recession of 2008. However, the Fed promised to start selling those Treasury bonds back into the market thus unwinding its balance sheet, what you might call a quantitative tightening. But the Fed didn't get very far with that until the liquidity of the big banks started to be a problem again. So the Fed is back to QE again although now it's not calling it that. However, it is infusing $60 billion a month into the repo market, and taking that much in Treasury bonds off the Wall Street banks' books.
Wall Street banks are required to buy US Treasury bonds thus soaking up US government debt, that is if no other country or individual or other entity wants to buy it. Increasingly, it's getting difficult for the Treasury to sell its debt as other countries like China, which holds the largest amount of US debt, are cutting back on their purchases especially in light of Trump's use of the US dollar in trade wars and sanctions. US debt is not seen as the gold standard that it used to be. Therefore, the debt piles up on the balance sheets of Wall Street banks, and there is the threat of another liquidity crisis as there was in 2008. That's why the Fed is stepping in to buy up US Treasury debt and disappear it on its balance sheet thus providing liquidity to the Big Banks.
Primary dealers are banks and other financial institutions approved to trade with the Federal Reserve. In return for that privilege, they are obligated to place bids at the U.S. Treasury Department’s debt auctions.
With the federal fiscal deficit widening, dealers have bought up an increasing amount of government debt, constraining their ability to provide liquidity to funding markets when needed, but only a small proportion of those holdings are in shorter-term Treasury bills.
U.S. Treasurys held by primary dealers stood at $206 billion in the week ending Sept. 25. This compared with their holdings of Treasury bills which averaged $22.9 billion over the last six months, according to Fed data.
So US Treasurys, largely as the result of Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy, are clogging up the system, and the Fed must step in again after it had promised to unwind its balance sheet comprising trillions of US government debt when economic times returned to normal. But what is normal these days? A lot of pundits think there will be QE, like strawberry fields, forever. That would be the new normal. But wait until there's a Democratic President, and Republicans will start screaming bloody murder again about the national debt.
"Article misses a key 'expert' perspective: The climate scientists who are saying we need to radically transform every aspect of our economy in the next decade if we want even a 50 percent chance of averting catostrophic climate crisis."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) introduce public housing legislation as part of the Green New Deal outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, November 14, 2019. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
The New York Times sparked fierce backlash from environmentalists Friday for publishing a news story that leads with a matter-of-fact comparison between Sen. Bernie Sanders' plan to finance the Green New Deal by taxing and fining the fossil fuel industry and President Donald Trump's claim that Mexico would pay for the construction of a border wall.
"Sanders' $16 trillion vision for arresting global warming would put the government in charge of the power sector and promise that, by 2030, the country's electricity and transportation systems would run entirely on wind, solar, hydropower, or geothermal energy, with the fossil fuel industry footing much of the bill much as Mexico was to pay for the border wall," wrote Times climate reporter Lisa Friedman in her article's opening paragraph.
"Why in the hell are youth striking in every country on Earth? It's because of shit like this." —Eric Holthaus
Friedman appeared to be referring to the portion of Sanders' sweeping Green New Deal proposal that calls for "making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies"—which constitutes just one part of Sanders' plan to finance the Green New Deal.
Critics were quick to condemn the notion that Sanders' call for taxes and fines against big oil is in any way on par with Trump's farcical insistence that Mexico would foot the bill for his proposed wall on the southern border.
"The difference? The [fossil fuel] industry owes Americans and global community an uncountable debt for poisoning our communities," tweeted Isa Flores-Jones, a press fellow with the youth-led Sunrise Movement. "Not to mention all those billions of dollars in subsidies owed to the American people. Which brings us to a daily reminder that we pay FF industry $5.2 trillion a year to destroy us."
Josh Orton, Sanders' national policy director, ridiculed the Times story:
BERNIE on FOSSIL FUEL EXECS: they knew of deadly product for 30 years, made hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars killing planet and badly harming communities of color. They should pay.
TRUMP on MEXICO: they’re sending rapists and we need a racist wall
Progressives didn't merely have a problem with the opening paragraph of the Times story.
The headline of the article states that "experts aren't impressed" by Sanders' ambitious Green New Deal plan, which calls for a 10-year mobilization to transition the U.S. economy to 100 percent renewable energy.
But as the left-wing magazine Current Affairs and others pointed out on Twitter, the "experts" cited by the Times include an adviser to South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a business professor and maxed-out Hillary Clinton donor, and a Democratic strategist who does public relations work for the chemical industry.
"This is pure propaganda, nothing whatsoever to do with science," tweeted Current Affairs. "If you want a scientific assessment have climate scientists evaluate the plan. Pretty galling that the New York Times doesn't disclose the obvious political biases of its sources."
NYT article claims that "experts" think Sanders' climate change plan is unscientific, implying it means experts on climate change. But actually quotes people like: a business school professor/maxed out Hillary donor and a former Hillary staffer & PR guy for the chemical industry pic.twitter.com/hGiSD4cVq9
🙄How does the @nytimes publish an article about "expert" takes on climate policy w/out discussing climate science?
Maybe this article should mention the fact that we're heading towards civilizational breakdown & need an energy revolution to salvage any shot at a livable future https://t.co/NDB6ki8hcl
Critics also took aim at the Times story's broad assertion that "climate scientists and energy economists say the plan is technically impractical, politically unfeasible, and possibly ineffective."
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus tweeted that the "experts quoted here get it wrong."
"The Bernie Sanders GND is the only federal climate policy ever proposed in line with what [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] scientists say is necessary: 'transformative change' in 'all aspects of society,'" said Holthaus. "If experts don't agree with that, they're not experts."
Why in the hell are youth striking in every country on Earth? It's because of shit like this.#loggingoff
In a series of tweets Friday, Sunrise Movement political director Evan Weber said the Times "article misses a key 'expert' perspective: The climate scientists who are saying we need to radically transform every aspect of our economy in the next decade if we want even a 50 percent chance of averting catostrophic climate crisis."
"As someone who spends almost all of his time straddling policy experts, political strategists, and social movements... I'm incredibly disappointed but not surprised by this article," Weber wrote. "Where has 'reasonable and measured' gotten us in the last 40 years? It's gotten us to the point of societal extinction. Now is the time to demand what we need, not what we think might be feasible."
"Fossil fuel CEOs didn't hold back for fear of it being 'impossible' for them to get away with cooking the planet for decades," said Weber. "We need to be as relentless as our opponents."
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US President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the White House in Washington, DC on November 15, 2019. A"lexander Hamilton described 'high crimes and misdemeanors' as 'violations of the public trust,'" writes Nader. "Trump is the poster boy for this yardstick." (Photo illustration: Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty Images & CD overlay)
Amid the worst Republican President and Republican Party in modern times, the Democrats are playing the politics of low expectations. This is not the time for Democrats to be in disarray. On Capitol Hill, the prevailing view of most Democrats is that they will cling to their House majority and they shouldn’t expect to regain the Senate in the 2020 elections. The Democrats should be using massive rebuttal evidence, relayed with invincible vibrant rhetoric, toward a “wave election win” as occurred in 1936, when President Roosevelt won 61 percent of the popular vote and the Democrats won large majorities in both the House and Senate.
Tyrant Trump is the most impeachable president in the country’s history—hands down. Before he resigned, Richard Nixon was sure to be impeached and convicted in 1974 due to his obstructions of the Watergate scandal investigation. Selected president Donald Trump has committed many more serious offenses than Nixon. Trump’s abuses amount to repealing the gains of the American Revolution against monarchical rule, and they eviscerate the U.S. Constitution’s “separation of powers” system of presidential accountability. Moreover, major protections for the American people against big corporate crime, power and greed are all on Trump’s unlawful chopping block. His offenses and violations are more than enough to require his removal from office!
"This is not the time for Democrats to be in disarray."
The Democrat’s narrow impeachment move on Trump focuses on his attempted extortion of Ukraine for personal political gain. The current House inquiry does not yet include the far more serious systematic “high crimes and misdemeanors” he is brazenly committing. These affect the daily livelihoods, freedoms and just treatment of all the people where they live, work and raise their children.
A president who lies and fabricates by the hour is destructive to life-preserving science, reason, truth, and public trust. Trump separates those who believe his delusionary tweets and rantings from the realities they need to confront. No family, neighborhood, community, or workplace can operate under such thunderous falsifications. Trump even lies about his promises when challenged—such as his claim that Mexico will pay to build the wall.
Alexander Hamilton described “high crimes and misdemeanors” as “violations of the public trust.” Trump is the poster boy for this yardstick. He tells Americans they have cleaner air, water, food, forthcoming wonderful health insurance, tons more manufacturing jobs and “clean, beautiful coal.” He continues to maintain these fictions when just the opposite is occurring due to his deliberate destruction of existing health, safety and economic protections. He is subordinating people to increased corporate control. Trump caves to corporate demands for more tax escapes, taxpayer subsidies, stalled or frozen minimum wages and other mechanisms to stop the people from getting what they have earned.
"A president who lies and fabricates by the hour is destructive to life-preserving science, reason, truth, and public trust."
Trump’s income taxes on corporations and his own businesses are the lowest in modern U.S. history. Some companies—like the big banks and General Electric are nearing tax-exemption, so little do they pay into the U.S. Treasury. And Trump’s use of the presidency to enrich himself and his businesses is shameless.
Remember all the factories that he said were coming back to America and the trade deficit he was going to diminish and the federal deficit he was going to reduce? Well, his actions have made a mess of all these matters. Manufacturing output and manufacturing jobs are down, the trade and federal deficits are up. Irregular Gig economy jobs with low pay and no-benefits are replacing good jobs. Consumer debts, including student debt, are at an all-time high.
Overall, average inflation is low, but this is not helping low-income people paying higher rent, rising uncovered health care bills and public transit hikes. Home ownership is sliding, especially for African-Americans. Average life expectancy in America is declining for the first time.
Hand it to Donald Trump. Sometimes he really means what he says. His cruel attacks on immigrants who take tough jobs, such as being home health care aides that nobody else wants, and his brutish treatment of women and minorities matches his rhetoric. He really has illusions of megalomania. “I am the chosen one,” he said recently.
Trump trumpeted dictatorially: “Under Article 2, I can do whatever I want as President.” Which is what he is doing in violation of many sections of our Constitution, starting with sweeping contempt of exclusive Congressional authorities under our Constitution. These violations involve the appropriations, war and confirmation powers. He has violated surveillance rules, campaign finance laws and encouraged voter suppression of citizens likely to vote against Republicans. He is engaged in an attempted coup, not the Democrats.
"What are the Democrats waiting for? Present to the American people the many demonstrable impeachable offenses, which entail very harmful “kitchen table” impacts. A comprehensive impeachment inquiry will engage more of the public and will produce the critical broader public support for impeachment."
No other president has regularly violated more provisions of our Constitution, some of which also involve statutory crimes. No other president has engaged in more personal violence against women, openly incited violence against critics and reporters at his mass rallies. No other president has been more ineffective regarding fulfilling his boastful promises to his betrayed supporters.
There is never a “last straw” fulmination by Donald Trump. The winner thus far is his latest incitement that “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,'” Trump quoted from a Baptist pastor’s statement. Such a crazy, dangerous incitation would have been decisively actionable to our founding fathers, not to mention Mr. Republican himself – Abraham Lincoln, whose presidency was engulfed by Civil War.
What are the Democrats waiting for? Present to the American people the many demonstrable impeachable offenses, which entail very harmful “kitchen table” impacts. A comprehensive impeachment inquiry will engage more of the public and will produce the critical broader public support for impeachment.
Send ‘Trump and company’ back to Mar-a-Lago so they can contemplate the rising sea levels which he calls a “Chinese Hoax.” Set the stage for the crucial election of 2020 to end the supremacy of grasping corporations placing their “Tories” in what Thomas Jefferson called “the People’s House.”
President Trump wants negative interest rates, but they would be disastrous for the U.S. economy, and his objectives can be better achieved by other means.
The dollar strengthened against the euro in August, merely in anticipation of the European Central Bank slashing its key interest rate further into negative territory. Investors were fleeing into the dollar, prompting President Trump to tweet on Aug. 30:
The Euro is dropping against the Dollar “like crazy,” giving them a big export and manufacturing advantage… And the Fed does NOTHING!
When the ECB cut its key rate as anticipated, from a negative 0.4% to a negative 0.5%, the president tweeted on Sept. 11:
The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term.
And on Sept. 12 he tweeted:
European Central Bank, acting quickly, Cuts Rates 10 Basis Points. They are trying, and succeeding, in depreciating the Euro against the VERY strong Dollar, hurting U.S. exports…. And the Fed sits, and sits, and sits. They get paid to borrow money, while we are paying interest!
However, negative interest rates have not been shown to stimulate the economies that have tried them, and they would wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, for reasons unique to the U.S. dollar. The ECB has not gone to negative interest rates to gain an export advantage. It is to keep the European Union from falling apart, something that could happen if the United Kingdom does indeed pull out and Italy follows suit, as it has threatened to do. If what Trump wants is cheap borrowing rates for the U.S. federal government, there is a safer and easier way to get them.
The Real Reason the ECB Has Gone to Negative Interest Rates
Why the ECB has gone negative was nailed by Wolf Richter in a Sept. 18 article on WolfStreet.com. After noting that negative interest rates have not proved to be beneficial for any economy in which they are currently in operation and have had seriously destructive side effects for the people and the banks, he said:
However, negative interest rates as follow-up and addition to massive QE were effective in keeping the Eurozone glued together because they allowed countries to stay afloat that cannot, but would need to, print their own money to stay afloat. They did so by making funding plentiful and nearly free, or free, or more than free.
This includes Italian government debt, which has a negative yield through three-year maturities. … The ECB’s latest rate cut, minuscule and controversial as it was, was designed to help out Italy further so it wouldn’t have to abandon the euro and break out of the Eurozone.
The U.S. doesn’t need negative interest rates to stay glued together. It can print its own money.
EU member governments have lost the sovereign power to issue their own money or borrow money issued by their own central banks. The failed EU experiment was a monetarist attempt to maintain a fixed money supply, as if the euro were a commodity in limited supply like gold. The central banks of member countries do not have the power to bail out their governments or their failing local banks as the Fed did for U.S. banks with massive quantitative easing after the 2008 financial crisis. Before the Eurozone debt crisis of 2011-12, even the European Central Bank was forbidden to buy sovereign debt.
The rules changed after Greece and other southern European countries got into serious trouble, sending bond yields (nominal interest rates) through the roof. But default or debt restructuring was not considered an option; and in 2016, new EU rules required a “bail in” before a government could bail out its failing banks. When a bank ran into trouble, existing stakeholders–including shareholders, junior creditors and sometimes even senior creditors and depositors with deposits in excess of the guaranteed amount of €100,000–were required to take a loss before public funds could be used. The Italian government got a taste of the potential backlash when it forced losses onto the bondholders of four small banks. One victim made headlines when he hung himself and left a note blaming his bank, which had taken his entire €100,000 savings.
Meanwhile, the bail-in scheme that was supposed to shift bank losses from governments to bank creditors and depositors served instead to scare off depositors and investors, making shaky banks even shakier. Worse, heightened capital requirements made it practically impossible for Italian banks to raise capital. Rather than flirt with another bail-in disaster, Italy was ready either to flaunt EU rules or leave the Union.
The ECB finally got on the quantitative easing bandwagon and started buying government debt along with other financial assets. By buying debt at negative interest, it is not only relieving EU governments of their interest burden, it is slowly extinguishing the debt itself.
That explains the ECB, but why are investors buying these bonds? According to John Ainger in Bloomberg:
Investors are willing to pay a premium–and ultimately take a loss–because they need the reliability and liquidity that the government and high-quality corporate bonds provide. Large investors such as pension funds, insurers, and financial institutions may have few other safe places to store their wealth.
In short, they are captive buyers. Banks are required to hold government securities or other “high-quality liquid assets” under capital rules imposed by the Financial Stability Board in Switzerland. Since EU banks now must pay the ECB to hold their bank reserves, they may as well hold negative-yielding sovereign debt, which they may be able to sell at a profit if rates drop even further.
Investors who buy these bonds hope that central banks will take them off their hands at even lower yields (and higher prices). No one is buying a negative yielding long-term bond to hold it to maturity.
Well, I say that, but these are professional money managers who buy such instruments, or who have to buy them due to their asset allocation and fiduciary requirements, and they don’t really care. It’s other people’s money, and they’re going to change jobs or get promoted or start a restaurant or something, and they’re out of there in a couple of years. Après moi le déluge.
Why the U.S. Can’t Go Negative, and What It Can Do Instead
The U.S. doesn’t need negative interest rates, because it doesn’t have the EU’s problems but it does have other problems unique to the U.S. dollar that could spell disaster if negative rates were enforced.
First is the massive market for money market funds, which are more important to daily market functioning in the U.S. than in Europe and Japan. If interest rates go negative, the funds could see large-scale outflows, which could disrupt short-term funding for businesses, banks and perhaps even the Treasury. Consumers could also face new charges to make up for bank losses.
Second, the U.S. dollar is inextricably tied up with the market for interest rate derivatives, which is currently valued at over $500 trillion. As proprietary analyst Rob Kirby explains, the economy would crash if interest rates went negative, because the banks holding the fixed-rate side of the swaps would have to pay the floating-rate side as well. The derivatives market would go down like a stack of dominoes and take the U.S. economy with it.
Perhaps in tacit acknowledgment of those problems, Fed Chairman Jay Powell responded to a question about negative interest rates on Sept. 18:
Negative interest rates [are] something that we looked at during the financial crisis and chose not to do. After we got to the effective lower bound [near-zero effective federal funds rate], we chose to do a lot of aggressive forward guidance and also large-scale asset purchases. …
And if we were to find ourselves at some future date again at the effective lower bound–not something we are expecting–then I think we would look at using large-scale asset purchases and forward guidance.
I do not think we’d be looking at using negative rates.
Assuming the large-scale asset purchases made at some future date were of federal securities, the federal government would be financing its debt virtually interest-free, since the Fed returns its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs. And if the bonds were rolled over when due and held by the Fed indefinitely, the money could be had not only interest-free but debt-free. That is not radical theory but is what is actually happening with the Fed’s bond purchases in its earlier QE. When it tried to unwind those purchases last fall, the result was a stock market crisis. The Fed is learning that QE is a one-way street.
The problem under existing law is that neither the president nor Congress has control over whether the “independent” Fed buys federal securities. But if Trump can’t get Powell to agree over lunch to these arrangements, Congress could amend the Federal Reserve Act to require the Fed to work with Congress to coordinate fiscal and monetary policy. This is what Japan’s banking law requires, and it has been very successful under Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and “Abenomics.” It is also what a team of former central bankers led by Philipp Hildebrand proposed in conjunction with last month’s Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers, after acknowledging the central bankers’ usual tools weren’t working. Under their proposal, central bank technocrats would be in charge of allocating the funds, but better would be the Japanese model, which leaves the federal government in control of allocating fiscal policy funds.
The Bank of Japan now holds nearly half of Japan’s federal debt, a radical move that has not triggered hyperinflation as monetarist economists direly predicted. In fact, the Bank of Japan can’t get the country’s inflation rate even to its modest 2 percent target. As of August, the rate was an extremely low 0.3%. If the Fed were to follow suit and buy 50% of the U.S. government’s debt, the Treasury could swell its coffers by $11 trillion in interest-free money. And if the Fed kept rolling over the debt, Congress and the president could get this $11 trillion not only interest-free but debt-free. President Trump can’t get a better deal than that.
Yesterday as I was walking up the front steps of our Center to open for the day, a chattering group of about twelve children, who were waiting for their school bus, began bombarding me with questions. “Do you live here? Why not? Why are you going in? What do you do here? It looks like a house. Can we come in and see it? Can we see the backyard? ” There were two adults with them, also quite young themselves, whom I asked if I could show the kids around. Off we went, a ragtag bunch of diversity, from about age 6 to 13, many different ethnicities, all smiling. They loved the sanctuary, the “secret” meditation garden and asked if they could see upstairs.
I told them they might miss their school bus, but, if they came back that afternoon, I would show them upstairs. Later that day a few of us were decorating the hall for our 70th anniversary banquet tonight when there was a clamor at the front door. A volunteer asked me, “these kids said you invited them to take a tour upstairs. Did you?” I laughed at the unashamed confidence of youth. They oohed and ahed at my office. A small boy said “I like the word Love up there.” They marveled at the bathrooms which are large and have big bathtubs. “Do you live here, they asked again?”
We are in a low income neighborhood. Our little Center must have seemed like a palace to some of them. I began to see it through their eyes. It really is unique. The overriding experience for me was one of connection, not only with those beautiful kids but with youth itself. Seeing things as if for the first time is what sparks awe and wonder. It would have been easy to chase them off, but I felt flattered that they wanted to engage with me. Finally the real point of the whole thing came at the very end. They wanted to know what kind of church it was. I said “the kind that teaches you how powerful your mind is and how important your thoughts are.“ They were silent, big eyes looking up at me. Perhaps someday they will remember those words and go looking for a place like ours wherever they may be.
We heap praise on the military, but how many stop to think that there are people who have served their country in the Peace Corps that never get thanked. The Peace Corps is not even on most folks' radar. Peace Corps, what Peace Corps? You mean there still is a Peace Corps? Well, you say, people in the military risk their lives. People in the Peace Corps don't. That's the difference. Think again. Peace Corps members serve in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, and they don't even carry a gun to defend themselves. Since the Peace Corps began in 1961, more than 235,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in 141 countries. Of these dedicated men and women, 309 have sacrificed not only their energies and time, but also their lives while pursuing the Peace Corps mission.
Peace Corps Response Volunteer Donovan Gregg, 31, of Beaverton, Oregon, died following a car accident July 23 in Rwanda. Peace Corps Response Volunteer Alan Hale, 80, of Bellingham, Washington, died in a bicycling accident in his site in the Philippines on July 11. Hale arrived in Southern Leyte province in October 2018 and worked with local officials to improve solid waste management. He delivered training to more than 2,000 people with a focus on eliminating trash burning and littering. Thomas “Tom” Maresco died as a result of a gunshot wound on Sept. 3 in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The investigation into this incident is ongoing, but at this time it appears it may have been an attempted robbery. Among 8,655 volunteers there are on average 22 Peace Corps women who report being the victims of rape or attempted rape each year.
While a lot of Peace Corps fatalities have been in automobile accidents, it is no secret that people in the world trying to make it a better place are often targeted by terrorist groups. In Nigeria villagers have reported being threatened by Boko Haram fighters to avoid the polio vaccine. And in 2013 a number of vaccinators were attacked and killed by the extremists, leading some of their colleagues to disguise their vaccine carriers or hide them under their hijabs. These vaccinators were not in the Peace Corps, but people trying to do good throughout the world are often attacked. On November 13, 2019 Patricia Ann Anton, 63, was found dead in her apartment in Cabarete, on the country's rural northern coast, with her hands and feet tied, the Dominican Republic National Police said. Nancy Coutu was murdered in the spring of 1996 during a Peace Corps mission in Madagascar.
While the Peace Corps is almost forgotten, businesses are heaping rewards on what has become a cult of the military. USA Today reports:
Restaurants aren't the only businesses showering veterans and active military with freebies and deals this Veterans Day. Businesses across the nation are offering services – everything from free haircuts, car washes, flu shots and car-care checks. While several retailers have weekly or everyday discounts, some are offering extra for the federal holiday. Through Monday, Kohl's is doubling its normal 15% discount Military Monday and offering 30% off to active and former military personnel, veterans and their families.
The Peace Corps' official mission is to provide social and economic development abroad through technical assistance. People in the Peace Corps are providing clean water and sanitation, building schools, providing health care. However, the benefits are pretty skimpy when compared to the military. They don’t earn a salary, but do receive a living stipend to pay for basics like food, some transportation, and other living expenses. On the other hand here are some of the benefits of being in the military:
• A guaranteed paycheck and Cash Bonuses • Education Benefits like having college paid for • Advanced and Specialty Training • 30 days annual paid vacation • Travel • Option for full-time or part time service • Tax-free room, board and allowances • Health and Dental Care • Use of commissary and Military Exchange stores • Special home loans and discounts • Unparalleled sense of patriotism, duty, honor and selfless [sic] service • Highly sought-after skills, leadership and training experience • A pension after 20 years
So where are the honors and accolades for those serving in the Peace Corps past and present? Where are the medals? The benefits are a sham compared to military servers. They are in a lot of danger in many parts of the world with no support system to defend themselves. So who is really a patriot? Peace Corps members are Patriots of the World. They are helping the people who need help the most while the military is only interested in vanquishing our supposed enemies. The last honorable war was World War II. Since then Korea, Vietnam, Iraq have all been dishonorable wars yet that is no reflection on ordinary, soldiers, sailors and airmen. but the cult of the military heaps praise on them while ignoring the larger picture of failed and disastrous wars that have created millions of refugees and millions of dead persons. The true patriots are people like Bill Gates who is almost singlehandedly trying to eradicate disease in developing countries by providing good sanitation and clean water, the lack of which dooms Third World children to dying of preventable diseases.
Bill Gates idea for combating global warming is a very modernized and improved nuclear power generator. His design would actually eat the nuclear waste that is already being stored. His model was developed with supercomputers whereas the last one built was designed with a slide rule. He was all set to build a prototype in China when the Trump government nixed it saying that would give China too much expertise. So while the US under Trump denies global warming, intelligent people like Bill Gates are actually using their money to make the world a better place in the same ways that the Peace Corps is doing. China is doing the same thing with peaceful development albeit at a higher technological level with its Belt and Road initiative. So there is some hope for a better, more peaceful, demilitarized world if enough people and nations decide that rather than trying to dominate each other militarily to make the world safe for rich people, the world's poor people can be brought to a higher lifestyle, and the environment can be protected from pollution and global warming.
Can peace among peoples and nations ever become a reality or will we go down in war and global warming flames? Next time you meet a Peace Corps member past or present say, "Thank you for your service."
"This bill shows that we can address our climate and affordable housing crises by making public housing a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency."
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) field questions from audience members at the Climate Crisis Summit at Drake University on November 9, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Framing the climate crisis as both an existential threat and a "tremendous opportunity" to fundamentally transform American society, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday unveiled a Green New Deal for Public Housing that would eliminate carbon emissions from federal housing, invest $180 billion over ten years in retrofitting and repairs, and create nearly 250,000 decent-paying union jobs per year.
"Faced with the global crisis of climate change, the United States must lead the world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy," Sanders, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement.
"We can create millions of jobs in this country by actually rising to the challenge of addressing what this crisis is going to represent." —Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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"The Green New Deal is not just about climate change," the Vermont senator added. "It is an economic plan to create millions of good-paying jobs, strengthen our infrastructure, and invest in our country's frontline and vulnerable communities. This bill shows that we can address our climate and affordable housing crises by making public housing a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency."
The 54-page Green New Deal for Public Housing Act (pdf), which Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will introduce at a press conference Thursday afternoon, was co-sponsored in the Senate by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and endorsed by more than 50 climate and affordable housing organizations.
In an interview with the Washington Post Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said the bill demonstrates that fighting the climate crisis "is not a jobs versus environment paradigm."
"We need electrical workers. We need construction workers. And it doesn't have to just be fossil fuel pipelines that create these kinds of jobs," said the New York Democrat. "We can create millions of jobs in this country by actually rising to the challenge of addressing what this crisis is going to represent."
Today is a very big day!
We’re unveiling our FIRST-ever Green New Deal infrastructure bill!👷🏽♀️🌎
The GND for Public Housing Act will: 🏙 Decarbonize the entire US public housing stock 👨👨👧👦 Improve quality of life for residents 📈 Create 100s of thousands of jobs in the process https://t.co/z8h3EPby00
According to a summary (pdf) released by Sanders' office, the legislation would:
Transition the entire public housing stock of the United States, as swiftly and seamlessly as possible, into zero-carbon, highly energy-efficient developments that produce on-site renewable energy;
Address the substantial public housing capital backlog by ensuring all public housing is brought up to safe and sanitary condition;
Expand federal programs to provide residents with meaningful work investing in their communities;
Expand resident councils so that public housing residents have a seat at the table for important decisions regarding their homes; and
Repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which limits the construction of new public housing developments.
HuffPost's Alexander Kaufman called the bill "one of the boldest efforts yet to legislate the Green New Deal movement that, since its debut in mainstream politics with a series of protests a year ago, has reframed the global climate policy debate, providing a popular alternative to the market-friendly dogma that's dominated Western politics for decades."
Last weekend, Sanders was joined by Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed the candidate's presidential bid last month, at a rally in Iowa focused on the climate crisis and the need for a Green New Deal.
According to a Data for Progress analysis released Thursday, the Green New Deal for Public Housing Act "would retrofit over 1 million public housing units, vastly improving the living conditions of nearly 2 million residents and creating over 240,000 jobs per year across the United States."
"These green retrofits would cut 5.6 million tons of annual carbon emissions—the equivalent of taking 1.2 million cars off the road," Data for Progress found. "Retrofits and jobs would benefit communities on the frontlines of climate change, poverty, and pollution and the country as a whole. Our analysis shows the legislation would create 32,552 jobs per year in New York City alone."
In a statement, Ocasio-Cortez said the legislation would "improve the quality of life" for all public housing residents.
"I am proud to begin the hard work of codifying the Green New Deal into law with my friend and colleague, Senator Bernie Sanders," Ocasio-Cortez added.
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What if this time in the evolution of human consciousness is necessary for us to take a quantum leap into a new way of Being? What if this is our cocoon? What if we have initiated this unconsciously, led from a higher knowing? What if it is all Good, not as a comforting thought, but actually? What if each one of us is absolutely necessary to making this change? What would our role be?
Would it make sense to release all resentments regarding old relationships? Would we be helping if we turned away from worst case scenarios and placed our faith in the higher nature of Humanity? Are we actually that involved in the future of humankind to think our daily consciousness is important? Well, we are, and it is.
There is no “they” out there. There is only WE right here. Each one of us is part of the collective WE. What we think, say, do feel is either contributing to an awakened world or it is supporting the old one. It is time for us in the spiritual community to take our place seriously in the elevation of consciousness that will be the way into a bright, peaceful, prosperous and loving future together.
Now is the time and we are the people. As Dr. Jean Houston has asked “If not us, who? If not now, when?
Why is the Fed Giving Billions to the Big Banks Again?
by John Lawrence, November 14, 2019
After the Great Recession of 2008, the Federal Reserve gave $16.8 trillion to the big Wall Street banks. Now again there is not enough money in the repo market so the Fed has to step in and provide more money to keep the system going even though it said quantitative easing (QE) was over. Under normal circumstance banks would borrow from each other in the repo market to balance their books overnight. That's the purpose of the repo market - short term lending so that everything checks out on a daily basis. So why are banks so short of cash that the Fed has to provide liquidity now? The reason that the Treasury has to issue so much in bonds every month is to cover the Federal budget deficit. The Treasury Department plans to borrow $1.23 billion in 2019. The big banks act as the middle man or conduit to offload this debt onto investors. If they can't offload it, they are stuck with it and become cash short. That's when the Fed has to step in and supply liquidity by taking the Federal debt off the Big Banks' hands. In addition to the short term loans in the repo market, where the Fed purchases Treasury debt, the central bank recently said it would provide emergency liquidity by buying some $60 billion of Treasury bills a month, expanding its balance sheet. So essentially the Treasury debt caused by the Federal budget deficit caused mainly by Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy is being purchased to a high degree by the Fed which disappears it on its balance sheet after it passes through the hands of the middle men. The Fed by law can't buy Federal debt directly.
China is the largest holder of US Treasury debt at about $1.12 trillion. However, China has cut its purchase of US debt recently and its holdings are down about $20 billion. What does this portend? The US has weaponized the dollar applying sanctions liberally. It has put sanctions on Chinese tech giant Huawei and also ZTE. It is engaged in some kind of trade war with China, but as the largest holder of US debt, China has all the cards. It can weaponize right back by not continuing to purchase US deb among other thingst. This will have the effect of creating a glut of Treasuries in the hands of the middlemen, namely the big US banks and hence the liquidity crisis. If no one wants to purchase US Treasuries, the Fed has to do it and put them on its balance sheet essentially disappearing and eating US debt.
So it raises the question, if the Fed can disappear US budget deficits which are caused by tax cuts for the wealthy as well as a bloated trillion dollar defense budget, why couldn't the Fed eat the deficits caused by a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. It seems like more people want to expand the ACA (Obamacare) with a public option than want Medicare for All. This boils down to broad support for a Medicare for All Who Want It plan which is supported by the Democratic moderates like Joe Biden. At any rate Republicans will try to demand from the Democrats a balanced budget as a way to put the damper on bold Democratic initiatives while they effectively spend like drunken sailors and let the Federal Reserve buy the excess debt that China and other nations are increasingly reluctant to buy in light of the weaponized dollar.
Meanwhile, on November 1, 2019, The World Trade Organization ruled that China can impose sanctions on up to $3.6 billion worth of U.S. goods over the U.S. government’s failure to abide by anti-dumping rules with regard to Chinese products. Oh, so two can play that game. I'll sanction you, and you'll sanction me, not that the US ever cared a fig about the World Trade Organization or what it said.
The Democrats can and will play the same game as far as deficits are concerned. Let the Federal Reserve eat the Federal debt that other nations will increasingly not be buying. Both a Green New Deal and a national health care plan are crucially important. In the long run a lot more people will die if we don't get global warming under control than will die with our current patchwork medical system. Most of them will die in other parts of the world, but the US will be heavily impacted as well which is already starting to happen in the present day.
Trump's liberal use of sanctions has created a backlash from the rest of the world especially China which is US' largest creditor. It's as if you go to your rich uncle hat in hand asking for more money while at the same time telling your rich uncle how to live his life. Other nations are building alternative banking institutions in order to bypass the use of the US dollar and that portends bad news for the dollar as the world's reserve currency. When China and other nations start selling instead of buying US debt, teh Fed will have to step in as it's already doing and swallow that debt. In other words perpetual QE even though the Fed doesn't want to call it that.
A message from Germany as the climate emergency intensifies. (Markus Spiske / Unsplash)
In an unprecedented step, more than 11,000 scientists from 153 nations have united to warn the world that, without deep and lasting change, the climate emergency promises humankind unavoidable “untold suffering.”
And as if to underline that message, a US research group has predicted that – on the basis of experiments so far – global heating could reduce rice yields by 40% by the end of the century, and at the same time intensify levels of arsenic in the cereal that provides the staple food for almost half the planet.
And in the same few days a second US group has forecast that changes to the world’s vegetation in an atmosphere increasingly rich in carbon dioxide could mean that – even though rainfall might increase – there could be less fresh water on tap for many of the peoples of Europe, Asia and North America.
Warnings of climate hazard that could threaten political stability and precipitate mass starvation are not new: individuals, research groups, academies and intergovernmental agencies have been making the same point, and with increasing urgency, for more than two decades.
New analysis
The only argument has been about in what form, how badly, and just when the emergency will take its greatest toll.
But the 11,000 signatories to the statement in the journal BioScience report that their conclusions are based on the new analysis of 40 years of data covering energy use, surface temperature, population growth, land clearance, deforestation, polar ice melt, fertility rates, gross domestic product and carbon emissions.
The scientists list six steps that the world’s nations could take to avert the coming catastrophe: abandon fossil fuel use, reduce atmospheric pollution, restore natural ecosystems, shift from animal-based to plant diets, contain economic growth and the pursuit of affluence, and stabilise the human population.
“Despite 40 years of major global negotiations, we have continued to conduct business as usual and have failed to address this crisis,” said William Ripple of Oregon State University, one of the leaders of the coalition. “Climate change has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected.”
Both the warning of catastrophic climate change and the steps to avoid it are familiar. But researchers at Stanford University in the US say they really did not expect the impact of world temperature rise on the rice crop – the staple for two billion people now, and perhaps 5 bn by 2100 – to be so severe.
The Stanford group report in the journal Nature Communications that they looked more closely at what climate change could do to rice crops. Most soils contain some arsenic. Rice is grown in flooded paddy fields that tend to loosen the poison from the soil particles. But higher temperatures combined with more intense rainfall show that, in experiments, rice plants absorb more arsenic, which in turn inhibits nutrient absorption and reduces plant development. Not only did the grains contain twice the level of arsenic, the yield fell by two-fifths.
“We have continued to conduct business as usual and have failed to address this crisis. Climate change has arrived and is accelerating faster than many scientists expected”
“By the time we get to 2100, we’re estimated to have approximately 10bn people, so that would mean we have 5 billion people dependent on rice, and 2bn who would not have access to the calories they would normally need,” said Scott Fendorf, an earth system scientist at Stanford.
“I didn’t expect the magnitude of impact on rice yield we observed. What I missed was how much the soil biogeochemistry would respond to increased temperature, how that would amplify plant-available arsenic and then – coupled with temperature stress – how that would really impact the plant.”
And while the rice croplands expect heavier rains, great tracts of the northern hemisphere could see vegetation changes that could have paradoxical consequences. In a wetter, warmer world plants could grow more vigorously. The stomata on the leaves through which plants breathe are more likely to close in a world of higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, meaning less water loss through foliage.
And while this should mean more run-off and a moister tropical world, a team at Dartmouth College in the US report in the journal Nature Geoscience that in the mid-latitudes plant response to climate change could actually make the land drier instead of wetter.
Water consumption rises
“Approximately 60% of the global water flux from the land to the atmosphere goes through plants, called transpiration. Plants are like the atmosphere’s straw, dominating how water flows from the land to the atmosphere. So vegetation is a massive determinant of what water is left on land for people,” said Justin Mankin, a geographer at Dartmouth.
“The question we’re asking here is, how do the combined effects of carbon dioxide and warming change the size of that straw?”
The calculations are complex. First, as temperatures soar, so will evaporation: more humidity means more rain – in some places. As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels soar, driven by fossil fuel combustion, plants need less water to photosynthesise, so the land gets more water. As the planet warms, growing seasons become extended and warmer, so plants grow for a longer period and consume more water, and will grow more vigorously because of the fertility effect of higher carbon dioxide concentrations.
The calculations suggest that forests, grasslands and other ecosystems will consume more water for longer periods, thus drying the soil and reducing ground water, and the run-off to the rivers, in parts of Europe, Asia and the US.
Avoiding the worst
And that in turn would mean lower levels of water available for human consumption, agriculture, hydropower and industry.
The world has already warmed by almost 1°C above the long-term average for most of human history. So both papers shore up the reasoning of the 11,000 signatories to the latest warning of planetary disaster. But that same warning contains some steps humankind could take to avert the worst.
“While things are bad, all is not hopeless,” said Thomas Newsome, of the University of Sydney, Australia, and one of the signatories. “We can take steps to address the climate emergency.”
A stop sign stands outside the Environmental Protection Agency building on May 24, 2013 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Advocates of strong public health protections responded with alarm to a Monday night New York Timesreport on the Environmental Protection Agency's new draft proposal for the Trump administration's drawn-out effort to dramatically scale back the scientific research that can be used in government policymaking.
"Let's call this what it is: an excuse to abandon clean air, clean water, and chemical safety rules," said Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This is a blatant removal of well-established science from the policymaking process, to the benefit of polluters and at a huge cost to the marginalized communities who face the biggest threat from pollution."
Trump Administration is making it easier to pollute our air and water for the profit of corporations. This literally does not make us great again. It makes us sick.
E.P.A. to Tighten Limits on Science Used to Write Public Health Rules https://t.co/d9oYS0vCh1
The draft proposal (pdf), titled "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science," would force the agency to only consider research that discloses all raw data, including private medical files. It follows a similar proposal unveiled by former EPA chief Scott Pruitt in April 2018 that provoked nearly 600,000 comments from the public, the majority of which were critical.
Pruitt's successor as EPA administrator, ex-lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, delayed the prior proposal, purportedly to consider concerns from environmental and public health groups. However, the new version "headed for White House review and obtained by The New York Times shows that the administration intends to widen its scope, not narrow it."
According to the Times:
The measure would make it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules because many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements. And, unlike a version of the proposal that surfaced in early 2018, this one could apply retroactively to public health regulations already in place.
"This means the EPA can justify rolling back rules or failing to update rules based on the best information to protect public health and the environment, which means more dirty air and more premature deaths," said Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Lung Association.
Public health experts warned that studies that have been used for decades—to show, for example, that mercury from power plants impairs brain development, or that lead in paint dust is tied to behavioral disorders in children—might be inadmissible when existing regulations come up for renewal.
One key example of scientific research that wouldn't be permissible for government use under the EPA proposal is a 1993 Harvard University project known as the Six Cities study, which connected air pollution to premature deaths and subsequently informed nationwide air quality policies.
"A separate internal EPA memo viewed by The New York Times shows that the agency had considered, but ultimately rejected, an option that might have allowed foundational studies like Harvard's Six Cities study to continue to be used," the newspaper reported Monday.
As journalist Emily Atkin put it in her HEATED newsletter Tuesday: "In other words, air pollution denial is becoming U.S. policy for the first time." She noted that this proposal "is a key priority of Steve Milloy, a former tobacco and fossil fuel industry lobbyist who served on Trump's EPA transition team."
Atkin recalled speaking with Stan Glantz, a professor of tobacco control at the University of California San Francisco, when reporting on Pruitt's version of the proposal last year. The tobacco industry, Glantz told her, "realized that, rather than fighting every single study that came out linking them to cancer, if they could get the rules of evidence changed, they wouldn't have to worry about it."
The Times report on Wheeler's revived and expanded version elicited impassioned warnings and critiques on Twitter:
If somebody had a long-term plan to return us to the Dark Ages, this would be one of the steps. https://t.co/BQRA0Ftixo
A dangerous move that will impact the health of our communities today & for decades to come. Also attacking rigorous scientific research; data on vulnerable populations must be protected to assure the best science and true public health protections https://t.co/cncrXXQBBA
The safety of the air we breath and water we drink shouldn’t be partisan. But sadly is, as R lawmakers in the pocket of industry work to unwind significant protections. Care about the health and safety of your kids? Vote them out. #TX21https://t.co/cgHjVOksoK via @NYTimes
An EPA spokesperson told the Times in an emailed statement that "the agency does not discuss draft, deliberative documents, or actions still under internal and interagency review." Wheeler, for his part, said in September that "we're moving forward [with the proposal] to ensure that the science supporting agency decisions is transparent and available for evaluation by the public and stakeholders."
UCS's Rosenberg said Tuesday that "Wheeler's claims about the need for these restrictions don't pass the laugh test. Everything about this rule makes a mockery of the EPA's claim that this change is necessary for transparency. This rule was driven by political operatives. It's being rushed through with minimal opportunity for public comment. And it introduces pointless hurdles and delays into the policymaking process that will compromise the federal government's ability to protect the public."
"The Trump administration has a clear pattern of sidelining science and undermining public health protections," he added. "If this rule is finalized, it would be one of the most damaging and far-reaching policy changes enacted by the administration. It would put the entire enterprise of developing science-based public health safeguards at risk."
The Times report came ahead of a Wednesday morning hearing planned by the Democrat-controlled U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee about the Trump administration's effort to restrict the use of scientific research in federal policymaking, which will feature testimony from various scientists and public health experts.
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When I was a young girl, a friend asked if I believed in God. I remember replying “I think it’s some kind of energy.” At that time I had no real idea what that meant, but have since discovered there is truth in it. It seems to me that God is intelligent, inert energy until, from within its own field, it is prompted to move and it becomes seen. It becomes alive-ness in form. In the past we were told to not question God but to just have faith in it. That is fine to a point but in a scientific, technology driven world, the mind needs to fit God into the mix or it becomes superstition. It becomes too easy to dismiss all concepts of a spiritual nature.
In the 20th century a man named Ernest Holmes placed God in the context of a modern world. He realized that although we cannot see God, we can see the evidence of its reality. We can see what it does. It makes things out of itself and inhabits them as sentient life. If a person fervently believes God to be a person in the sky, this line of thinking will be frightening. But to the open minded, this is joy-producing, thought provoking Good News! There is no blasphemy in it, only a door into greater freedom than we have ever known.
Holmes also realized that the very qualities we deeply desire are the qualities that the more enlightened ancients attributed to God. Love, Joy, Peace, Power, Intelligence, Supply, are inherent in our own aliveness. That is why we desire them. They are the inert energies wanting release through us. Our role as the image and likeness of God, is to express them into form and experience. That is how we get what the heart desires.
President Trump himself set up this false dichotomy by saying right off the bat, "There was no quid pro quo." Trump successfully got everyone arguing over whether or not there was one.The point is whether or not there was a quid pro quo is irrelevant. What he did by extorting Zelensky was a "high crime and misdemeanor." If it wasn't, what the heck is? The Constitution doesn't define in detail what high crimes and misdemeanors actually are. Therefore, it's left up to the Congress. But what Trump did looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck. Therefore, it's a duck.Trump's strategy from the very beginning was to act like nothing of significance happened. He took pains not to look like he was hiding anything. He took pains to sound like it was just another day in the office. Ho. Hum.
However, the evidence is mounting. The real nitty gritty is Trump's tax returns which he has been fighting in court to prevent the release of. When these come to light, this will be the coup de grace on Trump's Presidency. The arcane legal arguments are almost too difficult to follow for the average layperson. Here are the key points thanks to CNBC:
1) A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday [November 11] dismissed President Donald Trump’s legal effort to bar a House committee from using a New York state law to obtain his state tax returns.
2) The ruling by Judge Carl Nichols does not mean that Trump’s state tax returns will be released to the House Ways and Means Committee anytime soon. The committee has not tried to use the new law to get his state returns.
3) The committee sued the U.S. Treasury Department and the IRS in early July to obtain Trump’s federal income tax returns.
The question might be asked why the House committee has not used the New York state law to get Trump's returns which mirror his Federal returns. Can't they walk and chew gum at the same time? There are always a myriad legal workarounds and by passes and subterfuges that can be used by skillful lawyers to keep this game or any legal game going as long as possible. The longer it goes on, the more money lawyers make. "A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit seeking to bar a House committee from using a New York state law to obtain his state tax returns, suggesting the president’s legal action belonged in another courthouse." There you go. If you can't win in one courthouse, there's always another courthouse you can try. Just try the wrong courthouse first. This eats up the clock. There are other avenues, other approaches when that one fails. Just because one judge threw out Trump's lawsuit, doesn't mean anything. The judge as much as said, "Go try your luck elsewhere." Nothing is ever definitive; nothing is ever final. There's always another way to deal with the problem as long as you keep on paying the lawyers.
As it turns out, neither of three House committees has invoked the New York State law to get Trump's tax returns. What were they waiting for? "[Judge] Nichols’ ruling in Trump’s own suit had failed to establish that a judge in Washington federal court had jurisdiction over a challenge to New York’s law, known as the TRUST Act." So what did the Judge's ruling establish? Not a heck of a lot to be sure. Who can challenge New York's law? Nobody knows. This is just all too convoluted to understand for the average layperson. It is a labyrinth of lawyerly mumbo jumbo and a mire of obfuscation There are just too many courts at too many levels so that no court knows what the other court is doing or is capable of doing or has the jurisdiction to do.
"Nichols’ ruling said that Trump did not establish a conspiracy between the Ways and Means Committee and New York officials, which could have established that a Washington court had jurisdiction over the suit." Why should the House Ways and Means Committee have to conspire with New York officials to get Trump's state tax returns in the first place, but if it did, that would mean a Washington court had jurisdiction over the suit? Well since they didn't conspire, that should mean that a New York court has jurisdiction over the suit, but a New York court just said that it didn't have jurisdiction over the suit. What is this a freakin' merry-g-round? Around and around we go, and where we stop, nobody knows. The ball is in your court; no, the ball is in your court. Let's toss the ball around some more.
It only makes sense that Congress should be able to get ahold of the President's tax returns since every President prior to Trump has voluntarily released them. Where is a whistleblower when we need one? Couldn't someone just leak Trump's tax returns? Now Judge Nichols is suggesting that Trump could refile his suit alleging said conspiracy since his lawyers failed to mention said conspiracy in the original suit. Judge Nichols, you are just wasting we taxpayers' time. Either Trump should be compelled to cough up his tax returns or the IRS or the state of New York should just be compelled to hand them over without Trump even having to be involved. After all both New York State and the IRS have the tax returns in their possession. But the judges and lawyers just want this game to continue going round and round in court. After all they make more money that way.
Billionaires are wailing that Elizabeth Warren’s and Bernie Sanders’s wealth tax proposals are attacks on free market capitalism.
Warren “vilifies successful people,” says Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
Rubbish. There are basically only five ways to accumulate a billion dollars, and none of them has to do with being successful in free market capitalism.
The first way is to exploit a monopoly.
Jamie Dimon is worth $1.6 billion. That’s not because he succeeded in the free market. In 2008 the government bailed out JPMorgan and four other giant Wall Street banks because it considered them “too big to fail.”
That bailout is a hidden insurance policy, still in effect, with an estimated value to the big banks of $83 billion a year. If JPMorgan weren’t so big and was therefore allowed to fail, Dimon would be worth far less than $1.6 billion.
What about America’s much-vaulted entrepreneurs, such as Jeff Bezos, now worth $110 billion? You might say Bezos deserves this because he founded and built Amazon.
But Amazon is a monopolist with nearly 50 percent of all e-commerce retail sales in America, and e-commerce is one of the biggest sectors of retail sales. In addition, Amazon’s business is protected by a slew of patents granted by the U.S. government.
If the government enforced anti-monopoly laws, and didn’t give Amazon such broad patents, Bezos would be worth far less than $110 billion.
A second way to make a billion is to get insider information unavailable to other investors.
Hedge-fund maven Steven A. Cohen, worth $12.8 billion, headed up a hedge fund firm in which, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department, insider trading was “substantial, pervasive, and on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry.” Nine of Cohen’s present or former employees pleaded guilty or were convicted. Cohen got off with a fine, changed the name of his firm, and apparently is back at the game.
Insider trading is endemic in C-suites, too. SEC researchers have found that corporate executives are twice as likely to sell their stock on the days following their own stock buyback announcements as they are in the days leading up to the announcements.
If government cracked down on insider-trading, hedge-fund mavens and top corporate executives wouldn’t be raking in so much money.
A third way to make a billion is to buy off politicians.
The Trump tax cut is estimated to save Charles and the late David Koch and their Koch Industries an estimated $1 to $1.4 billion a year, not even counting their tax savings on profits stored offshore and a shrunken estate tax. The Kochs and their affiliated groups spent some $20 million lobbying for the Trump tax cut, including political donations. Not a bad return on investment.
If we had tough anti-corruption laws preventing political payoffs, the Kochs and other high-rollers wouldn’t get the special tax breaks and other subsidies that have enlarged their fortunes.
The fourth way to make a billion is to extort big investors.
Adam Neumann conned JP Morgan, SoftBank, and other investors to sink hundreds of millions into WeWork, an office-sharing startup. Neumann used some of the money to buy buildings he leased back to WeWork and to enjoy a lifestyle that included a $60 million private jet. WeWork never made a nickel of profit.
A few months ago, after Neumann was forced to disclose his personal conflicts of interest, WeWork’s initial public offering fell apart and the company’s estimated value plummeted. To salvage what they could, investors paid him over $1 billion to exit the board and give up his voting rights. Most other WeWork employees were left holding near-worthless stock options. Thousands were set to be laid off.
If we had tougher anti-fraud laws, Neumann and others like him wouldn’t be billionaires.
The fifth way to be a billionaire is to get the money from rich parents or relatives.
About 60 percent of all the wealth in America today is inherited, according to estimates by economist Thomas Piketty and his colleagues. That’s because, under U.S. tax law – which is itself largely a product of lobbying by the wealthy – the capital gains of one generation are wiped out when those assets are transferred to the next, and the estate tax is so tiny that fewer than 0.2 percent of estates were subject to it last year.
If unearned income were treated the same as earned income under the tax code, America’s non-working rich wouldn’t be billionaires. And if capital gains weren’t eliminated at death, many heirs wouldn’t be, either.
Capitalism doesn’t work well with monopolies, insider-trading, political payoffs, fraud, and large amounts of inherited wealth. Billionaires who don’t like Sanders’s and Warren’s wealth tax should at least support reforms that end these anti-capitalist advantages.
William Morris advised “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
That is sensible when we prepare for a yard sale, but it is brilliant when taking a mental inventory of the house we actually occupy. Why would we hang on to ideas, thoughts or feelings that are neither useful nor beautiful? Are we capable of discerning which ones need to be removed or updated? One of the great benefits of regular meditation is the space it creates between us and our thoughts. We become aware of thoughts as merely ideas that appear on the screen of our consciousness. We are not actually attached to them, therefore they are under our control.
We tend to think useful ideas will either protect, defend or elevate us in the world. The question is, do we need to be protected, defended or elevated? From what and to whom? Our actual identity, our real life, our true nature is intact and under the umbrella of what the world calls God. We enter into this incarnation with the ability to guide our lives by our beliefs, perceptions and expectations. Are they useful and beautiful? Things can change rather quickly with a change of heart, which is preceded by a change of mind.
It is never too late to put our house in order, so to speak. Take a look at the most dominant fear you may have and deconstruct it to an idea. Is it true? Replace it with what makes your heart happy; what calms your emotions; what rings true. Affirm it. Declare it. Insist that it proves its reality in your experience.
Like this: “Who I am is beyond the slings and arrows of opinion. I am wholly intact. I am both useful and beautiful in this world.”
Artificial Intelligence Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be
by John Lawrence, November 11, 2019
Supposedly the next big thing, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already fueling a heady competition between the US and China. The difference between AI and a computer program is that AI can learn from its mistakes and go on to not make them again. This is what is driving the development of self driving cars. If a self driving car with AI makes a mistake and kills someone, it will never make that same mistake again having learned from the experience just as a human might. Already Google has made an AI version of Go. Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago and is believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to the present day. A 2016 survey by the International Go Federation's 75 member nations found that there are over 46 million people worldwide who know how to play Go and over 20 million current players, the majority of whom live in East Asia.
Recently an AI version of Go called AlphaGo developed by Google beat the world champion who is considered in the same famous light as a world master of chess might be. Like in the self driving car Google's Go will learn from its mistakes never making the same one twice. It is also creatively thinking of moves even Go masters have never considered. But the self driving car is a different matter. It cannot afford to learn from the mistake while killing another human. And self driving cars are not ready for human consumption. Already two people have been killed by them, one with an Uber test model and the other with a Tesla on Autopilot. Elon Musk discussed the autopilot system publicly in 2013, noting "Autopilot is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars."
The first publicized fatal accident involving a Tesla engaged in Autopilot mode took place in Williston, Florida, on May 7, 2016. The driver was killed in a crash with an 18-wheel tractor-trailer. The big rig was making a left turn at an uncontrolled intersection across a four lane highway, and Autopilot failed to notice it. Neither did the driver who was watchng a movie. According to Tesla, "neither autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor-trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied." The car attempted to drive full speed under the trailer, "with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S." Tesla also stated that this was Tesla’s first known Autopilot-related death in over 130 million miles driven by its customers while Autopilot was activated. According to Tesla there is a fatality every 94 million miles among all type of vehicles in the U.S.
So self driving cars and trucks will be justified on statistical grounds that they are statistically safer than human driven cars and trucks. The AI will learn from those statistical errors driving down the percentage of self driven cars involved in accidents. This, I suppose, is all well and good, but it means that a lot of truck drivers will lose their jobs, not to mention a lot of taxi and Uber drivers. AI will result in a lot of human beings losing jobs in all kinds of fields as AI and robots will have taken over even those manufacturing jobs they have not already taken over.
Some entrepreneurs will become billionaires while many more average people will be forced into homelessness having lost their jobs. Technology literally is a job killer, yet both China and the US are going full speed ahead with AI. It's seen as the sine qua non of the next generation. AI and 5G will be integrated in such a way as to speed up all kinds of network and communications processes. Put simply, 5G speeds up the services that you may have on the cloud, an effect similar to being local to the service. AI gets to analyze the same data faster and can learn faster to be able to develop according to users’ needs.
So what does AI do to solve the problem of global warming? Not much. It's all about the technological takeover of everyday life in such a way that it will probably eliminate your job. The economic divide will become more precipitous. A few billionaires will possess most of the world's wealth. What will AI do for the people living in poverty and those that are homeless. It will probably makes those problems worse.
In China roughly 600 million people were taken out of extreme poverty between 1981 and 2008. That is a remarkable achievement. In America by contrast the number of people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered locations increased for a second straight year by 9% between 2016 and 2017 according to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. This issue is partly caused by a lack of affordable housing, by job loss and/or a medical catastrophe.
AI and 5G represent people living in a techie fairyland both in the US and China. China will use AI to accumulate a dossier on every single living Chinese. Face recognition technology will track everyone in public so that a numerical score can be given to each individual which will represent their value to society. Cameras are ubiquitous. While I favor cameras being used to solve crimes in the US, giving everyone a social score seems ridiculous. There were no cameras at a Church's chicken restaurant in Chula Vista a few days ago which meant that the man who shot 3 people killing one got away without being detected. Although I resent the extent to which China tracks each individual which AI will make possible, every American has a credit score which makes it impossible to buy a car, rent an apartment or buy a house without a credit check so data is kept on each American as well as each Chinese. Background checks on Americans can also reveal prison records and other data so the two countries aren't really all that different in their quests to keep tabs on all their citizens.
It will be interesting to see how the two consumer societies, China and the US, handle the lack of jobs brought about by AI. China is already exporting its workers to build infrastructure in other parts of the world in accordance with its Belt and Road initiative. The US solution is to let anyone without a job join the military. Sadly, it's China that's following the course of peaceful development in the world while the US takes the course of military domination of the world. What the world really needs is for both China and the US to put excess labor to work mitigating climate change, converting to renewable energy and bringing Africa and India out of poverty. But while China is creating friends and trading partners, the US is hell bent on military action and sanctions to get its way in the world. I wonder what Jesus would say.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will be joined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, author Naomi Klein, climate activists Isra Hirsi and Zina Precht-Rodriguez, and his Iowa campaign co-chair Stacey Walker at a summit on the climate emergency in Des Moines on Saturday. (Photo: Bernie Sanders)
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Sen. Bernie Sanders was joined at a Climate Crisis Summit in Des Moines Saturday afternoon by author Naomi Klein, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and other influential figures in the grassroots effort to pass a Green New Deal and achieve environmental justice for all.
Ahead of the summit, Klein said on Twitter that she was planning at the event to announce her endorsement of the senator's 2020 presidential campaign.
"The world is on fire and our most credible hope of beating the arsonists is Bernie Sanders," Klein tweeted.
I’ve written about my preferences but I have never formally endorsed a candidate for President in my life - never mind spoken at a campaign rally.
The Sanders campaign sent an email to supporters on Friday highlighting a number of polls showing that the Vermont independent senator is seen as a climate leader in the Democratic primary.
"Bernie's leadership on climate is set to be particularly critical to his Iowa campaign, because the state has already been so battered by climate change," wrote the campaign. "Climate-intensified flooding in Iowa has caused billions of dollars of damage and bludgeoned the state’s agriculture sector—all while fossil fuel corporations have polluted the state with pipeline leaks and oil spills."
Also joining Sanders at Drake University on Saturday was Isra Hirsi, a leader of the U.S. Climate Strike movement; Zina Precht-Rodriguez of the Sunrise Movement, and Sanders's Iowa campaign co-chair, Stacey Walker.
The summit was scheduled to begin at 12:00pm central time/1:00pm Eastern.
Watch the summit below:
An overarching message of the summit echoed Ocasio-Cortez's call at a rally in Council Bluffs on Friday night, where she asked the 2,400 people gathered in the room to join in solidarity with people across the country whose struggles may differ from theirs.
The congresswoman again introduced Sanders, garnering applause as she spoke about her rejection of the perennial question "How are we going to pay for it?" regarding the Green New Deal and explained how her answer lies within frontline communities across the country. Americans across the country, she argued, have spent years paying for the inaction of a government beholden to the climate-warming fossil fuel industry.
"As though the Midwest wasn't underwater this year, as though 3,000 Americans didn't die in Puerto Rico in Hurricane Maria, as though Hurricane Katrina didn't happen," she said. "As though sea levels aren't rising, as though California isn't on fire. How do we pay for that? The way that we pay for this is through a people-powered movement, we're going to come together."
"When it comes to a #GreenNewDeal, people say 'How Are You Going To Pay For It,' as tho we're not paying for it now. As if the midwest wasn't underwater, as if Hurricane Katrina didn't happen, as if sea levels aren't rising, as if CA isn't on fire. HOW DO WE PAY FOR THAT?" @AOCpic.twitter.com/p73AEkEbNX
What if what is going on in our world right now were the most significant chain of events in human history? If now were the point in our collective story where a dramatic Plot Twist is possible, what would be our part in it? We are all in this together, you know. Individually and collectively we are the way through. What looks like chaos predicts the new order; a higher level of interaction with each other, with Nature, with our common Source, with the universe.
The best things always happen suddenly, have you noticed? It seems like they drag on in the same old stuck-ness for a long time, but when the shift happens it is NOW! It is more like a leap than a crawl over barriers. We do not come into it battered and broken but are renewed, reawakened, remade in the image of wholeness and open-ended possibility. We are, in a real sense, reborn.
If we can keep our wits about us personally, we will be contributing to the whole in a healthy way. By this I mean that we look at our own situation as the micro of the macro. Our problems are also points in our story than can catapult us into new ways of seeing ourselves and into higher levels of self-expression. The problem is not the worst thing that has ever happened but it may well be the most significant. This is not quite the same thing as “getting the gift” or “learning the lesson.”
This is affirming: “I let the energy of change be my travelling companion. I allow myself to be taken and lifted. I am ready to co-create my own new world, knowing I play a part in the awakening of humanity. “
One of the most corrupt branches of the military-industrial complex is BAE System located in the US and the UK. The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) is a UK-based campaigning organisation working towards the abolition of the international arms trade. It was founded in 1974 by a coalition of peace groups. It has been involved in several campaigns, particularly its legal challenge against the Serious Fraud Office's decision to suspend a corruption investigation into BAE Systems in 2007. BAE represents how the hand-in-glove military alliance between the US and the UK works.
BAE Systems formerly British Aerospace, is the world's second largest arms dealer. BAE's arms are sold around the world. It has military customers in over 100 countries and in 2010 it was listed by SIPRI as having 95% of its sales as military. CAAT has long campaigned against BAE, highlighting allegations of corruption and political influence, rebuking claims about jobs, attending AGMs as critical shareholders, and through legal action.
BAE is prominent in the San Diego port area which also houses General Dynamics' NASSCO. The roots of BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair date back to the mid-1970s. They service US Navy ships at the shipyard, at the Naval Station San Diego, and at neighboring shipyards. They repair, overhaul, and modernize both U.S. Navy surface warfare ships and commercial vessels.
In September 1985 BAE was a signatory to the UK's largest ever arms deal, the Al Yamamah contract to sell and service military planes to the government of Saudi Arabia. This ongoing contact has evolved through several phases and by 2006 had brought them £43 billion.
Shortly after the contract was signed, corruption allegations emerged concerning bribes paid to Saudi officials through a £60 million pound slush fund. On 12 September 2003 the Serious Fraud Office began an investigation into possible corruption. There were also SFO investigations in BAE dealings in Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Tanzania. However, on 14 December 2006 the Government, under the personal intervention of Prime Minister Tony Blair, discontinued the Al Yamamah probe on the grounds that its conclusions might embarrass the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and threaten Britain's national security.
The US and UK are competing to sell arms to Saudi Arabia since the Saudis have tons of money to buy them so Brits and Americans are foaming at the mouth to profit off of arms sales to a big spender. Corruption ran rampant as certain high ranking Saudis including Prince Bandar were paid off in order to insure an arms and planes deal. These items were used to slaughter men, women and children in Yemen. The Guardian reported:
The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain's biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today. A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channeled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.
It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.
It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002.
The US and UK and their arms dealers were anxious to profit off of Saudi corruption and maintain jobs in the arms industry. President Trump is all about selling military procurements to the Saudis, and he doesn't hide his motives. “It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous economic development, and much additional wealth for the United States,” Trump said in a statement. So selling arms to a human rights violating murderous regime is being justified on the grounds that it will provide wealth for the US - filthy lucre to say the least. The deal supposedly included a Saudi order for $110 billion-worth of US military equipment and weapons.
Corruption and human rights violations are at the core of US and UK dealings with Saudi Arabia. They are US and British allies simply because they have money to buy arms and create profits and jobs for these countries despite their abominable human rights record including murdering journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This in and of itself makes the US and UK human rights violators one step removed. Some ally!
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says he’ll run political ads even if they are false. Jack Dorsey of Twitter says he’ll stop running political ads altogether.
Dorsey has the correct approach but the debate skirts the bigger question: Who is responsible for protecting democracy from big, dangerous lies?
Donald Trump lies like most people breathe. As he’s been cornered, his lies have grown more vicious and dangerous. He conjures up conspiracies, spews hate and says established facts are lies and lies are truths.
This would be hard enough for a democracy to handle without Facebook sending Trump’s unfiltered lies to the 45 percent of Americans who look to it for news. Twitter sends them to 68 million users every day.
A major characteristic of the internet goes by the fancy term “disintermediation”. Put simply, it means sellers are linked directly to customers with no need for middlemen.
Amazon eliminates the need for retailers. Online investing eliminates the need for stock brokers. Travel agents and real estate brokers are obsolete. At a keystroke, consumers get all the information they need.
But democracy can’t be disintermediated. We’re not just buyers and sellers. We’re citizens who need to know what’s happening around us in order to exercise our right to self-government, and responsibility for it.
If a president and his enablers are peddling vicious and dangerous lies, we need reliable intermediaries that help us see them.
Intermediating between the powerful and the people was once mainly the job of publishers and journalists – hence the term “media”.
This role was understood to be so critical to democracy that the constitution enshrined it in the first amendment, guaranteeing freedom of the press.
With that freedom came public responsibility, to be a bulwark against powerful lies. The media haven’t always lived up to it. We had yellow journalism in the 19th century and today endure shock radio, the National Enquirer and Fox News.
But most publishers and journalists have recognized that duty. Think of the Pentagon Papers, Watergate and, just weeks ago, the exposure of Trump’s withholding $400 million in security aid to Ukraine until it investigated his major political rival, Joe Biden.
Zuckerberg and Dorsey insist they aren’t publishers or journalists. They say Facebook and Twitter are just “platforms” that convey everything and anything – facts, lies, conspiracies, vendettas – with none of the public responsibilities that come with being part of the press.
Rubbish. They can’t be the major carriers of the news on which most Americans rely while taking no responsibility for its content.
Advertising isn’t the issue. It doesn’t matter whether Trump pays Facebook or Twitter to post dishonest ads about Joe Biden and his son, or Trump and his enablers post the same lies on Facebook and Twitter. Or even if Russia and Iran repeat the lies in their own subversive posts.
The problem is we have a president who will say anything to preserve his power, and two giant entities that spread his lies uncritically, like global-sized bullhorns.
We can’t do anything about Trump until election day or until he’s convicted of an impeachable offense. But we can and should take action against the power of these two super-enablers. If they’re unwilling to protect the public against powerful lies, they shouldn’t have as much power to spread them.
The reason 45 percent of Americans rely on Facebook for news and Trump’s tweets reach 68 million is because these platforms are near monopolies, dominating the information marketplace. No TV network, cable giant or newspaper even comes close. Fox News’ viewership rarely exceeds 3 million. The New York Times has 4.7 million subscribers.
Facebook and Twitter aren’t just participants in the information marketplace. They’re quickly becoming the information marketplace.
Antitrust law was designed to check the power of giant commercial entities. Its purpose wasn’t just to hold down consumer prices but also to protect democracy. Antitrust should be used against Facebook and Twitter. They should be broken up.
So instead of two mammoth megaphones trumpeting Trump’s lies, or those of any similarly truth-challenged successor, the public will have more diverse sources of information, some of which will expose the lies.
Of course, a diverse information marketplace is no guarantee against tyranny. But we now have a president who lies through his teeth and two giant uncritical conveyors of those lies. It is a system that invites it.
Rachel Carson: “It is the wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth to know wonder and humility.”
We had nothing to do with the creation of our planetary home. Its beauty, the sheer magnitude of its details, its astonishing diversity, are taken for granted by us. We rarely give it much thought. Yes, we love a sunset and to come upon a rainbow still delights us, but how often do we think of the unseen and intricate web of life forms that support our very existence?
On the other hand, when did we last look up at the night sky in awe of the immensity of the cosmos? We wouldn’t think to thank the moon for its gravitational effect on our oceans. Have we thanked gravity itself for keeping us from floating off into space? We complain if rain ruins our picnic but are we aware of its life-giving properties? Water is the most wondrous of all the elements. It can be ice, steam or liquid, yet it is always H2O. In any form it serves the purpose of supporting life.
There is something else that is always present and unseen. That is the very consciousness from which you and I have emerged, taken form, become individualized. It matters not one whit what we call it. It is real. There is a hidden Power right where we are, all the time, available to us to become whatever we decide to do with it. It is the open field of possibility that our personal consciousness is attached to and involved with in every moment of our life. Just considering what it has already done by means of us is awe inspiring and humbling at the same time.
A good prayer is “Thank You.” Meister Eckhart said if that is our only prayer, it is enough.
Will the Free Market Solve the Problem of Global Warming?
by John Lawrence, November 9, 2019
No, of course not. The free market is only interested in making global warming worse by selling more gas and oil and producing more gas guzzling cars. So what is the answer? Here it is: government will have to take control of this situation and restrict the activities of the free market. Furthermore, it will have to tax wealthy individuals to get the money to curtail global warming activities. This might sound like heresy to some who believe the free market is the answer to everything. Some would say that, if the problem of climate change can't be solved by the free market, then it shouldn't be solved at all, and the earth should just burn up.
Even setting aside the slanting of the market in favor of fossil fuels, there is no historical evidence that the free market can solve the climate crisis on its own—and certainly not within the 11-year time frame called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2017, the U.S. invested around $40.5 billion in renewables but it was still the world’s top oil and gas producer, surpassing traditional oil countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. And this is not unique to the United States. As the International Energy Agency explained in its 2017 Global Energy & CO2 report, even with renewables enjoying the “highest growth rate of any sources,” fossil fuel remains for more than three decades a flat 81 percent of the global energy mix.
The fact is that market incentives favor the fossil fuel industry. The owners of it cannot fathom leaving trillions of dollars of oil in the ground. Even at current lowered crude prices of $63 per barrel, the 1.7 trillion barrels of proven reserves alone have a value of $107 trillion. That's a lot of money to sacrifice in order to prevent global warming so what it boils down to is the fate of the earth versus some rich guys that own the oil reserves. Most of earth's people do not have a financial stake in exploiting that oil. Only a few already rich people do, but they have a lot of political power.
The Green New Deal would represent a massive takeover by the Federal government of the nation's energy policy. Is it worth it? I think yes if the earth is to survive as a viable planet for most of its peoples. The free market in energy will only hasten earth's destruction. It's up to young people who might want to have a livable planet to say no to the free market system at least when it comes to the energy markets. The Green New Deal is needed because the situation now is more dire than it was during the Great Depression at which time government stepped up to provide solutions that the free market not only wasn't able to deliver but also was exacerbating with the gap between rich and poor only growing as it is today.
In the 30s homelessness was rampant as it is today. Homeless encampments were called "Hoovervilles."
Homelessness followed quickly from joblessness once the economy began to crumble in the early 1930s. Homeowners lost their property when they could not pay mortgages or pay taxes. Renters fell behind and faced eviction. By 1932 millions of Americans were living outside the normal rent-paying housing market.
Many squeezed in with relatives. Unit densities soared in the early 1930s. Some squatted, either defying eviction and staying where they were, or finding shelter in one of the increasing number of vacant buildings.
And hundreds of thousands--no one knows how many--took to the streets, finding what shelter they could, under bridges, in culverts, or on vacant public land where they built crude shacks. Some cities allowed squatter encampments for a time, others did not.
Today they are simply called "homeless encampments." Maybe they should be called "republicanvilles." Since free market policies are leading us down the road of global warming and the eventual destruction of the earth, what will be the turning point when we wake up and try something different as they did in response to the Great Depression?
In 2009, Hollywood tried to get us to care about the nearly 50,000 homeless people in Los Angeles by releasing a film titled “The Soloist”. It starred Jamie Foxx as the real-life, trained classical musician Nathaniel Ayers who ended up on the streets as a result of schizophrenia. This chronic illness makes such people especially vulnerable when tax-starved municipal governments can no longer fund support networks. It was up to LA Times reporter Steve Lopez to tell his story, after happening upon him on the streets playing a cello (in the film, it was a violin). Ayers barely got by from the small donations he received playing on the streets. It was left to Lopez to rescue him from the hell of LA’s streets. You can see Ayers playing the violin here:
This year there’s hope for the salvation of another lost soul from the mean streets of LA. Like Ayers, Emily Zamourka studied in a conservatory. When a homeless man stole the violin that provided a livelihood, the landlord evicted her. She ended up on the streets singing opera, another of her skills. When a cop made a video of her singing in the subway, it soon went viral and led to articles just like the one Lopez wrote for Ayers. As an indication that she might have psychological problems that helped to land her on the streets, she just lost the recording contract because of not showing up for paying gigs.
For most Los Angelenos, the homeless are hardly worth noticing, if not a total infringement on their quality of life. In an October 22nd NY Times article titled “Backlash Against the Homeless As a Crisis Builds in California”, you get the picture of what solid citizens have to put up with:
For many, that breaking point was the worsening squalor in the streets of cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where open-air drug dealing is rampant in some spots and where human feces and scattered needles and syringes have been found lying about. Those scenes have also proved a potent symbol for Republicans like President Trump to showcase what they call the failures of liberal urban enclaves.
This year an appeals court ruled that Boise, Idaho did not have the right to make sleeping in public illegal. Dave Bieter, Boise’s Mayor, has now taken the case to the Supreme Court, where the rightwing majority will likely side with him and Trump, even if Boise can hardly be described as a liberal enclave. Oh, did I mention that Bieter is a Democrat and an early supporter of Obama for President in 2008?
Notwithstanding a film like “The Soloist”, the real need is for a documentary that shows what the homeless condition is like in LA and how people of good will are acting on their behalf. That film has arrived. Distributed by Cinema Libre Studios, a long-standing source of socially aware films, “The Advocates” will be available as VOD and DVD on December 11th. (Check their website around that time.)
The documentary focuses on caregiving individuals and nonprofits that do not make playing the violin or singing Puccini a litmus test. Indeed, its strength is in showing the dedication of social workers and volunteers in attending to society’s outcasts. It demonstrates that even if terrible things are being done in Christianity’s name, especially by Trump’s bible-thumping supporters, these are still people who take the story of Jesus cleansing a leper to heart.
We meet Rudy Salinas of Housing Works, who has the patience of a saint. His job mostly consists of trying to find apartments for homeless people provided by Housing Works and making sure that they don’t fall through cracks in the system. (We also hear from the LA writer Steve Lopez of “The Soloist” fame.) Salinas picks them up and drives them to medical appointments or government agencies that provide the meager funds they need for clothing, food and medicine. Each of the homeless people we meet on his daily rounds suffer from alcoholism, mental illness, or the bad habits accumulated over decades of living on the streets. Keeping his spirits alive in the face of a nearly Sisyphean task is a testament to the persistence of human solidarity that is under siege from both the White House and its “adversaries” like Dave Bieter.
In the press notes director Rémi Kessler explains why he decided to make this film:
People often ask why I decided to make this film. It all started about three years ago when I was having a coffee with a friend in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. We were sitting at an outdoor restaurant and were approached by someone asking for money. I brushed him off, but my friend took out his wallet, peeled off a $1 bill from a stack of singles and handed it to the man, wishing him a good day. On each of the dollar bills, my friend had written, “Feed the homeless and love them.”
LA’s homeless and those of other major cities are ground zero of the nation’s housing crisis. If you want to understand why this is happening, it is best not to dwell on the psychological flaws that undermined its victims in a dog-eat-dog world. Instead, it makes much more sense to understand the economic and political factors that impact not only them but just about everybody else who is making less than a million dollars a year or so.
In Los Angeles, the homelessness crisis can be traced back to the Reagan presidency when 70,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared, only to be replaced by low-paying jobs in the services such as dishwashing, security guards, parking attendants, hamburger flippers and the like. NY went through the same sea change. From the 1950s to the 1990s, it lost 750,000 manufacturing jobs while its land value went from $20 billion to $400 billion. For those trying to keep afloat in the service industries, it is difficult enough to survive in any city. However, when the rents began to skyrocket during the long neoliberal turn backed by both capitalist parties, it was all the more easy to become homeless.
The film depicts people at the very bottom, but the changing face of real estate has taken a toll on everybody except the super-rich. Young people who have just graduated college are often forced to live with their parents since their degree will not cover the rent in a place like LA or NY. Those who have begun to earn a decent salary can often no longer raise a family within a reasonable distance from work. More than 150,000 people in LA County spend three hours traveling to-and-from work. To compound the problem, many of them in LA (or the Bay Area) end up buying houses close to the forest and threatened by the epidemic of wild fires.
For the past half-century, the urban-suburban divide has taken on a new configuration. Many middle-class professionals decide to implant themselves inside the city rather than the countryside. They are more intent on being able to go to museums or trendy restaurants than they are on joining a country club and playing tennis. With a limited amount of land on the market, real estate developers are always looking for places to gentrify, including the neighborhood where I live. It was once called Germantown, a reference to the blue-collar workers who lived in four and five-story tenements no different than those on the Lower East Side. The real estate developer who built my complex took advantage of a tax abatement program provided by the Mitchell-Lama bill. Its sponsors hoped to create middle-class housing in NY in the days before FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) became king. Despite the original intent, the net result was to pave the way for luxury condominiums. That included my complex that exited the Mitchell-Lama program after it expired. My rent for a one-bedroom is $2,800 per month, a price out of reach for most young people entering the work-force.
For them, the answer is Williamsburg (or at least it was until it became gentrified) or other neighborhoods in the outer boroughs that our Sandinista Mayor Bill De Blasio has made available at bargain-basement prices to real estate barons. Under his rezoning bills, web developers will move in while elevator operators and hospital orderlies move out. As this pressure continues to exert itself, it will finally reach those who were in the most precarious conditions of all. Many working people are recreational drug users or alcoholics since this is what capitalist alienation breeds. Once they become unemployed, the next step is living on a relative’s sofa, in a car on the street, or on the street itself.
For a profoundly knowledgeable take on this process, I recommend Samuel Stein’s “Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State.” It makes the case that when it comes to such matters, there’s not much difference between Trump and those who want to impeach him. For those who expect the housing crisis to be relieved under a Bernie Sanders presidency, keep in mind that his socialism is nothing more than a repeat of the New Deal, as he assured us himself. Stein reminds us that one of the New Deal’s landmark legislation set the pattern for the ills we face today:
Even before bulldozers cleared the way for cranes, bankers and planners had set out on a stealthier form of urban neighborhood clearance, which established the preconditions for gentrification. In 1934 New Deal legislation established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to standardize, regulate and insure home mortgages. Not everyone, however, could access these loans. Along with the FHA, the federal government empowered bankers and developers to lead the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC). HOLC was tasked with quantifying the risk bankers would take in giving loans to particular people in particular places. This would allow the federal government and the banks to agree on rates for FHA loan insurance. To make these decisions, HOLC sent surveyors out to every residential block in just about every city in the country; those surveyors would look at a neighborhood and grade it on a scale from A (very safe) to D (very unsafe).
There were three main criteria HOLC used to determine risk: 1) the age of the building stock; 2) the density of housing; and, by far most determinately, 3) the racial composition of residents. Jews were considered communistic and likely to go on rent strike. Italians were characterized as dangerous gangsters. African Americans were written off entirely, and virtually any block with any Black people was given a low grade. Following real estate industry “best practices,” the FHA made segregation and suburbanization the United States’ de facto housing policy. Over time, as property owners in Black, immigrant and racially mixed neighborhoods were shut out of the finance system, many of their buildings declined, rents fell and some landlords resorted to abandonment.
The weight of real estate in the capitalist system staggers the imagination. Global real estate is now worth $217 trillion, thirty-six times the value of all the gold ever mined. It makes up sixty percent of the world’s assets. Within those assets, about 75 percent is in housing.
With so much wealth sloshing around, it should not come as a surprise that Blackstone is the largest landlord in the world. Run by Stephen Schwarzman, who spent close to $20 million on his 70th birthday party and is a good pal of fellow real estate magnate Donald Trump, it is the driving force behind gentrification everywhere. There is a dotted line between Schwarzman and the poorest sectors of the working class, some of whom eventually land on the street. To keep track of Schwarzman’s vulturistic practices, I recommend the Greedy Stephen Schwarzman website that mentions his role in prolonging California’s housing crisis:
Faced with worsening housing affordability and homeless crises, Californians sought to repeal statewide rent control restrictions in 2018. Schwarzman wouldn’t have it.
Blackstone and its subsidiary, Invitation Homes, shelled out $7.4 million to trick and confuse voters, stopping a grassroots effort that included labor unions, social justice groups, and tenants rights organizations.
Although behind a paywall in the 2020 Socialist Register, Karl Beitel’s “The Affordable Housing Crisis: Its Capitalist Roots and the Socialist Alternative” is about the best attempt I’ve seen to ground the housing crisis in Marxist theory. My advice is to find a friend (ahem) with a university account if you want a copy.
Reitel dismisses the neoliberal arguments why rents are “so damned high”. Markets will not bring them down, nor will ending regulations that keep a ceiling on them. What drives inflationary rents and mortgages is the particular role played by the real estate industry within the sphere of capitalist production overall. I cannot begin to recapitulate Beitel’s analysis, but it revolves around the question of land prices that are not subject to increased supply (especially on an island like Manhattan) or cheapening of per unit production costs. Another thing to keep in mind is the big difference between building high-rises and cars. GM can always move a factory to Mexico that not only replaces workers with robotics but pays them much less than if they were in Michigan or Ohio.
However, to put up a high-rise in LA or NY requires skilled labor that cannot be replaced by machines. Perhaps Donald Trump dreams of having a robot walking across a girder to tighten some bolts, but in real life that will never happen. When the trade union movement was much stronger in the USA, the construction workers commanded top wages because they enjoyed a closed shop benefiting white ethnics who maintained a job trust. Now the building trades are weaker and unable to prevent many buildings from operating as open shops. Yet the wages are still higher than average for those who have only a high school degree in many cases. The bottom line is that rents and mortgages in the most desirable neighborhoods will continue to go up short of a revolution.
These problems have been with the working class for well over a century. In 1872, Frederick Engels began publishing a series of articles collected in an edition titled “The Housing Question”. While much of it is polemics against Proudhon, an anarchist whose ideas had a very brief shelf-life, the most important observation made by Engels is an expansion on one of the demands raised in the Communist Manifesto:
On its own admission, therefore, the bourgeois solution of the housing question has come to grief—it has come to grief owing to the antithesis of town and country. And with this we have arrived at the kernel of the problem. The housing question can only be solved when society has been sufficiently transformed for a start to be made towards abolishing the antithesis between town and country, which has been brought to an extreme point by present-day capitalist society. Far from being able to abolish this antithesis, capitalist society on the contrary is compelled to intensify it day by day.
Cities such as New York, London and Paris arose during the industrial revolution. Newer metropolises such as Beijing, Jakarta, Istanbul and Mexico City replicate their features but under circumstances far more inimical to their well-being than when Engels wrote his articles. There are assaults on the environment that are the outcome of farms being distant from the mouths they are intended to feed and only possible through industrial farming. There is also downward pressure on wages that make housing increasingly impossible to afford. That is the outcome of the need for profits at the heart of capitalist production. All these problems have always existed but from now until the end of the twenty-first century they will reach a critical mass. At that point, workers will wake up from their slumber and act to abolish the class system in its totality, including the precariousness that makes every wage earner a candidate for homelessness given an economic system that has long outlived its usefulness. That system, rather than those it victimizes, should be without a home.
e.e.cummings said “the world is mud-licious and puddle-wonderful.”
My inner child knows exactly what he means! It is an invitation to come out and play with the natural world that has been gifted to humanity. Our adult worries are the construct of perceptions we derived, not from the mud-licious realm of Nature, but from superstitions and dogma. Somehow we became deaf to the calling of the Mother. We mistakenly thought we knew better than she did about how to live in this world. She promised uninhibited joy and delight but we opted for dominance and control.
She gave us trees to climb to achieve a higher vantage point, but we cut them down. She provided rivers of clear, clean water but we polluted them with abandon. She gave us beauty and we raped it. She asked us to care for her and we decided she was not worth the effort, leaving her to fight for her life. She is greater than the sum of her parts, however, and she will put herself to rights by eliminating the problem. Is it too late for humanity? Can we survive our own ignorance?
The answer is Yes! We are already waking up to our part in the current situation. There are young people coming up with the most innovative solutions to things like providing clean water to people in drought ridden climes; to the cleaning up of the islands of plastics floating in our oceans; to creative mini-houses for those who have been living on the streets. Young people are reclaiming the mud-licious, puddle-wonderful world. Let’s ask ourselves how we can play in their game.
Affirm: “ I am naturally drawn to my place in the great awakening of humanity.”