New Drug Dealer - Same Addiction

Climate Change Divides America

After listening to the speeches at the two political conventions, it is clear that we still don't have a choice between sanity and insanity in our national elections.

Let's follow some of the hoopla of the two political conventions to their logical conclusions to illustrate that point.

Consider that one similar theme at the two conventions was "let's get off foreign oil", that is, let's use local oil instead of foreign oil so that we will be more secure.

This theme will eventually give rise to "all oil is local", but how does that help with the addiction to dirty oil, because we must still ask "is local oil clean, is local coal clean, and is local pollution clean?"

Additionally we must ask "is the big issue concerning oil addiction who the dealer is?"

If we simply become our own oil drug peddler, does that heal our oil addiction?

Are we brazen enough to think that our oil is not addictive, our oil does not pollute, in effect saying "our you know what does not stink?"

The only sane way to look at this issue is of course to grasp the reality of the damage which the addiction does, and to stop using the drug no matter who is selling it, because not using the oil drug anymore is the only solution:

In this series Dredd Blog has been exploring the history of massive errors that civilization made long ago, through "captains of industry" and government, when they addicted civilization to non-renewable dirty oil (see The Peak of Sanity - 3).

An addiction which has been polluting the environment in many ways ever since (see A Closer Look ...).

The Dredd Blog System has honed in on the history of climate science as well, and has also mapped the struggle that has ensued once the private oil empire and climate-science-environmentalists collided ideologically (see e.g. The Exceptional American Denial).

(The Peak of Sanity - 5). The two political conventions are utterly irrelevant, utterly impotent, and utterly lost when it comes to discerning this critical issue.

And this seems to be how they always have been, otherwise we would not be addicted to substances that are destroying us, wouldn't be so economically troubled, and wouldn't be so utterly divided still.

The democratic convention, as was mentioned in a previous post, gets the reality of the damage which the addiction does, but the republican convention is in denial of that damage:

Let's take a look at the global warming induced climate change aspect of the two political platforms to further illustrate the issue.

The Democratic Platform:

We know that global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation -- an economic, environmental, and national security catastrophe in the making. We affirm the science of climate change, commit to significantly reducing the pollution that causes climate change, and know we have to meet this challenge by driving smart policies that lead to greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a range of economic and social benefits.

(Huffington Post). The Republican Platform:

The environment is getting cleaner and healthier. The nation’s air and waterways, as a whole, are much healthier than they were just a few decades ago. Efforts to reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success.

(NeoCon Planet: The Presidents of Kolob). The democrats have the science correct, the republicans have institutionalized ignorance and have given rise to the new science of Agnotology (see Agnotology: The Surge).

(U.S. Political Parties And "Political Science"). To the credit of the republicans, however, it was a republican president who stated correctly, in a state of the union address no less, that the nation is addicted to oil.

The democratic platform points out that we know that "global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation -- an economic, environmental, and national security catastrophe in the making."

But the "solution of local oil" is no solution at all, it is a myth, a hallucination, the cognition of a polluted brain that thinks in a fog of political nonsense:

The speed of the Arctic ice melt is astounding, scientists say. "It is a greater change than we could even imagine 20 years ago, even 10 years ago," Dr. Kim Holmen, international director of the Norwegian Polar Institute told the BBC. "And it has taken us by surprise and we must adjust our understanding of the system and we must adjust our science and we must adjust our feelings for the nature around us."

(British Broadcasting, BBC, emphasis added). The problem with the model being used til now has consistently been that they use a linear projection when it should have been a model based on acceleration because the global warming equation reality is non-linear (warming rate is increasing, not staying steady).

The melting ice allows the ocean to absorb more heat because there's no more reflection back to space of the light containing the heat, which is like a time warp that immediately has the affect of decades of CO2 damage:

Prof Wadhams calculates this absorption of the sun's rays is having an effect "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man".

(BBC News, emphasis added). The bi-partisan call to use less foreign oil, replacing it with more local oil, is not a solution, it is simply another business as usual problem.

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Colorado Public Television and 9/11

This post on Washington's Blog cites to various publications and official statements which detail the several nation states that were accused of taking part in some degree in the attacks of 9/11.

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The following PBS video details why AIA Architects, structural and chemical engineers, scientists, academics, and other professionals do not accept the NIST or 9/11 Commission investigations and reports of 9/11.

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The following video features a discussion by various psychologists about the powerful subconscious denial mechanism that builds a wall around even considering that the government could have dishonest people within it who would give false reports to the populace about 9/11:
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U.S. Political Parties And "Political Science"

Wee The People

Every four years the platforms of the political parties tell us about the way members of those meme complexes reason or don't reason.

The sections or parts of the platforms that the presidential candidates reject tends to tell us what portions they think are unpopular to the larger general population.

That is one observation of "political science", but the actual meaning of "political science" is a bit more real than the machinations of politicians.

For example, the American Political Science Association indicates that "Political scientists use both humanistic and scientific perspectives and tools and a variety of methodological approaches to examine the process, systems, and political dynamics of all countries and regions of the world" (What Is Political Science?).

Clearly, this shows that many U.S. politicians do not practice political science, rather, many of them are much closer to practising political fantasy.

Let's take a look at the global warming induced climate change aspect of the two political platforms to further illustrate the issue.

The Democratic Platform:

We know that global climate change is one of the biggest threats of this generation -- an economic, environmental, and national security catastrophe in the making. We affirm the science of climate change, commit to significantly reducing the pollution that causes climate change, and know we have to meet this challenge by driving smart policies that lead to greater growth in clean energy generation and result in a range of economic and social benefits.

(Huffington Post). The Republican Platform:

The environment is getting cleaner and healthier. The nation’s air and waterways, as a whole, are much healthier than they were just a few decades ago. Efforts to reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success.

(NeoCon Planet: The Presidents of Kolob). The democrats have the science correct, the republicans have institutionalized ignorance and have given rise to the new science of Agnotology (see Agnotology: The Surge).

However, President Obama is not complying with the democratic platform in the sense that he is doing all he can to bring grave risk to the Arctic environment by personally accelerating the pollution permits to Shell Oil (see Hottest Month (July) on Record).

The political strangeness that has replaced political science continues with Romney-Ryan agreeing with Obama-Biden on that aspect of political fantasy, which is a very dangerous reality as the democratic plank, quoted above, points out.

Both presidential campaigners evince warmonger ideologies as well, so what choices do the people have anymore?

As we have pointed out time and time again, the voting public has no say in the issues that are the greatest danger to civilization: global warming and nuclear world war:

One can't help but notice the similarities that exist when a comparison is made among politicians running for office this election cycle.

That comparison would be to compare them to the pilot captain of the Costa Concordia pictured in its place of unrest above left.

In the first post of this series Dredd Blog pointed out that none of them are really what they say they are, nor can they really do what they say they will do, thus the ship of state awaits an uncertain demise, a place of unrest.

Some of those who lie, cheat, steal, and beg for your vote, are not as competent as the captain of the ill fated ship in the photo above.

Yet, they promise you that they will be a heroic Sky Pilot In Chief, while commanding a vast armada of ships, planes, tanks, and nuclear WMD, spread around the world.

"Fake me to your leader" is an apt description of this phenomenon, which will be analyzed more deeply later in this post.

(The Elections of Pontius Pilots - 2, see also The W Direction = The Perilous Path). We must find a way to break out of our national stupor, if not for ourselves, then for our progeny.

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The scientist in the video below mentions that the Earth is being heated each day with the equivalent heat of 400,000 Hiroshima type nuclear explosions:

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The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy - 6

1% Boldt Castle, New York

The traditional "are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" is being asked by pundits, but Dredd Blog posits another question, which  is, "how bad was it 4 years ago?"

That is a question the pundits are not even asking, so it follows that the pundits are certainly not concerned with how bad it was 4 years ago, one reason being that substantial portions of McTell News were and still are substantially unaware of how bad it was 4 years ago ("What economic problems" - John McCain shortly before the economic collapse of 2008).

Vice President Biden says "Osama Bin Laden is dead but General Motors is alive" as 23 million Americans are still out of work, so if we are better off now than we were 4 years ago, then it must have been really, really bad 4 years ago!

So, today let's explore how bad was it 4 years ago when Bush II left office amidst the first or second greatest economic downturn in U.S. history, when the democrats took back the office of the president by defeating John McCain and Sarah Palin.

In this series which began with The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy a year ago we have been discussing the reality of the actual structure of The United States as taught to us by our Civics textbooks and economists, then comparing that with census and other related data.

Along the way we have noted that the traditional words used to describe the national fabric, such as "republic", "democracy", "constitutional republic", or "constitutional democracy", have begun to take a backseat to the terms "oligarchy", "plutonomy" and "plutocracy".

We cannot tell how well off we are or how bad off we are, unless and until we understand what is required to get better off or get worse off, where it begins, and where it ends.

Not only that, but we must also consider who has the economic power to bring about a better economic reality and who does not have that power (gives new meaning to "the haves and the have-nots").

Today, we will also consider why it is not well known that the U.S.A. is a plutocracy with a plutonomy, which replaced a constitutional republic which had a middle class driven consumer economy, even though a large circulation financial newspaper has published this:

... the U.S. is becoming a Plutonomy – an economy dependent on the spending and investing of the wealthy. And Plutonomies are far less stable than economies built on more evenly distributed income and mass consumption.

(The Graphs of Wrath, quoting WSJ). In that post the Wall Street Journal was quoted talking about a subject made infamous by what are called "The Plutonomy Memos" from CitiGroup that had been published in 2005 (see video below).

A plutocracy can be symbolized to some degree by the aerial photo of Boldt Castle on Heart Island in the State of New York (see photo @ top of post), but the data supporting the theory tells the story just as well:

Let's revisit some numbers before we get into the dynamics of how this plunder of America has taken place:

Upon closer inspection, the Forbes list reveals that six Waltons — all children (one daughter-in-law) of Sam or James “Bud” Walton the founders of Wal-Mart — were on the list. The combined worth of the Walton six was $69.7 billion in 2007 — which equated to the total wealth of the entire bottom thirty percent!

(The Few, the Proud, the Very Rich). This "30% of Americans" equates to about 100,000,000 American people, who have collectively as much "wealth" as those 6 Wal-Mart children.

(The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy - 3). That is pretty bad when the spending of 6 children from the 1% can challenge the spending of one hundred million Americans from the 99%, because a plutonomy is unstable:

Economists pointed to a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard.

“This is truly a lost decade,” Mr. Katz said. “We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.”

The bureau’s findings were worse than many economists expected, and brought into sharp relief the toll the past decade — including the painful declines of the financial crisis and recession —had taken on Americans at the middle and lower parts of the income ladder. It is also fresh evidence that the disappointing economic recovery has done nothing for the country’s poorest citizens.

(NY Times, Sept. 2011, emphasis added). The lost decade began in 2000 with a new president taking over with a budget surplus, but ending with record deficits, poverty, and wars.

That was the decade of the Bush II presidency, the "lost decade" not mentioned at the Republican national convention (NeoCon Planet: The Presidents of Kolob), so yes 4 years ago was so bad that Romney - Ryan did not want to mention it.

It was so bad 4 years ago that improvement leaves us still in a bad place, still a plutonomy, which requires big spending by the 1% or we stay in this bad place.

The platforms for the election are very different on that subject, the democrats wanting to let the Bush II tax cuts for the 1% expire, but continue those tax cuts for the 99%, and of course the republican platform wants to extend the tax cuts for the 1% who don't need those tax cuts.

But allowing the tax cuts to expire is one way to get the 1% to "spend money" to stimulate economic activity.

That is not enough, however, as the author of "The Price of Inequality, How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future" explains:

If politicians and those around them do not pay their fair share of taxes, how can we expect that anyone else will?

Mitt Romney's income taxes have become a major issue in the American presidential campaign. Is this just petty politics, or does it really matter? In fact, it does matter – and not just for Americans.

But public goods must be paid for, and it is imperative that everyone pays their fair share. While there may be disagreement about what that entails, those at the top of the income distribution who pay 15% of their reported income (money accruing in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens may not be reported to US authorities) clearly are not paying their fair share.

There is an old adage that a fish rots from the head. And if no one does, how can we expect to finance the public goods that we need?

Democracies rely on a spirit of trust and co-operation in paying taxes. If every individual devoted as much energy and resources as the rich do to avoiding their fair share of taxes, the tax system either would collapse, or would have to be replaced by a far more intrusive and coercive scheme. Both alternatives are unacceptable.

More broadly, a market economy could not work if every contract had to be enforced through legal action. But trust and co-operation can survive only if there is a belief that the system is fair. Recent research has shown that a belief that the economic system is unfair undermines both co-operation and effort. Yet, increasingly, Americans are coming to believe that their economic system is unfair; and the tax system is emblematic of that sense of injustice.

The billionaire investor Warren Buffett argues that he should pay only the taxes that he must, but that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that taxes his income at a lower rate than his secretary is required to pay. He is right. Romney might be forgiven were he to take a similar position. Indeed, it might be a Nixon-in-China moment: a wealthy politician at the pinnacle of power advocating higher taxes for the rich could change the course of history.

(Joseph Stiglitz, Guardian). In the Dredd Blog post The Ways of Bernays and in the series Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy, we exposed the ideology of propaganda the 1% impose on the 99%.

That philosophy is a religious matter for Romney - Ryan, who feel that lying is sometimes "doing the Lord's work":

D. Michael Quinn called the use of deception by LDS church leaders, "theocratic ethics." (The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, page 112) Smith lied to protect himself or the church; which was an extension of himself. Dan Vogel in his excellent work, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, described Smith's viewpoint; he was a pious deceiver. Smith used deception if in his mind; it resulted in a good outcome. Smith had Moroni, an ancient American prophet and custodian of the gold plates declare, "And whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do good is of me; for good cometh of none save it be of me. ( Moroni 4:11-12). Translation: if deception was necessary to do good, or bring a soul to Christ, then it was worth it, as long as God approves. Smith believed he knew when God approved of lying.

(Lying For The Lord, see also Book of Abraham). The 1% control the government, so it is no surprise to realize that the government also lies to the 99% as a matter of domestic and foreign policy.

That we must change or perish.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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John Lennon's opinion:

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U.S. Plutocracy and Plutonomy explained by former bank regulator (begins at 1:11):

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NeoCon Planet: The Presidents of Kolob

Bush II Transferred to Kolob

Regular readers know that recently Dredd blog discussed the 2012 GOP Platform (The Dogma of The High Priest in Chief).

That was the platform for the convention that did not mention their most recent president, Bush II.

Is "selective memory" just another word for "The Names That Shall Not Be Mentioned" at their convention designed to extol GOP virtues, and is the GOP straw-man chair on stage to always and forever be empty when they feature celebrity speakers who will talk to invisible, imaginary folks they have made up in their own imagination?

The empty RNC chair of all presidents who come out of their dogma closet to wreak havoc upon the Earth, then return to Bullshitistan, their favorite province on their favorite retirement planet Kolob? (more about Kolob below)...

In that recent post we wondered what planet that 2012 GOP Platform was talking about when it said:

The environment is getting cleaner and healthier. The nation’s air and waterways, as a whole, are much healthier than they were just a few decades ago. Efforts to reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success.

(The Right Is Wrong - 3). Well, upon further research we have found out that the GOP Platform for 2012 was in reference to a certain planet where old republican presidents go when they leave office:

Kolob is a star or planet described in Mormon scripture. Reference to Kolob is found in the Book of Abraham, a work published by Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. According to this work, Kolob is the heavenly body nearest to the throne of God ... Kolob has never been identified with any modern astronomical object and is not recognized by scholars as a concept associated with any ancient civilization.

(Wikipedia, "Kolob"; see also Book of Abraham and Kolob). The theme song of the 2012 Republican Convention might as well have been done by Donnie & Marie: "Make The World Go Away" (Recorded at Kolob Recording Studios).

I have to concur with Bill Maher that there should be some new rules concerning presidential campaigning by presidential candidates who may want to later make rules for planet Earth:

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