This is an older Dredd Blog series (Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) which began (on August 30, 2009) with the sentence: "In a series of posts I want to show that the federal robe wearers who control money want to hide some of the economic facts from us."
It is difficult to keep this kind of series free of boredom, so I settled for shocking statements about the banksters (a.k.a. robber barons) to relieve the boredom.
In today's post I will use a different tactic, and let a professor of economics reveal some of the "interesting" history we have now slid backwards into.
A well known person explains that, while doing a book promotion tour, he discovered the deep and widespread dissatisfaction with "the establishment" in the hearts and minds of the American public.
A discovery that is now playing out before our eyes in this "oddest presidential election" he says he has ever witnessed.
He explains that, during the book tour, he became quite surprised at patterns in dialog during interactions with the audiences attending his book tour venues.
It even got to the point, eventually, where many things surfaced that liberals and conservatives agreed on.
For example, after the tour he and David Brat, the politician who defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary, found that they agreed upon some fundamentals in the context of money corrupting politics and traditional American ideology (Reich is a liberal, Brat is a conservative - both are economics professors).
Anyway, here is the video, with a lot of anecdotal fun and facts (he speaks 30 minutes, then the question answer session follows). 28:30 "What we are facing today is not all that different from what we faced 120 years ago just before the progressive era. [It was] the guilded age ... the [age of the] robber barons who not only monopolized industry, but changed the rules of the game of capitalism for themselves ..."
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
The singer and songwriter Bob Dylan, one of the world’s most influential musicians, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” in the words of the Swedish Academy. He is the first American to win the prize since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, was a surprise: Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized. “Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman, a journalist, wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing for Mr. Dylan to get the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless; and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.” Sara Danius, a literary scholar and the permanent secretary of the 18-member Swedish Academy, which awards the prize, called Mr. Dylan “a great poet in the English-speaking tradition” and compared him to Homer and Sappho, whose work was delivered orally. Asked if the decision to award the prize to a musician signaled a broadening in the definition of literature, Ms. Danius jokingly responded, “The times they are a changing, perhaps,” referencing one of Mr. Dylan’s songs.
(NY Times). Here is an apropos section from his Encyclopedia of Awareness Literature:
Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions
Are they lost or are they found
Have they counted the cost it’ll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they’re gonna have to abandon?
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend ...
Next, Professor Chomsky explains what that slow train is. The next Nobel should go to Noam Chomsky:
It would be medical malpractice for a doctor to say "nothing to see here folks, move along now" after diagnosing a patient who had viral hemorrhagic fever, and was bleeding from every body orifice.
It is not that way in global warming dialogue however, because, in this the 21st Century, Humble Oil-Qaeda is able to have influences on the news media to cause them to do just that.
Consider that Greenland and Antarctic glaciers have a case of "ice sheet hemorrhagic fever" and are leaking fluids from their orifices:
Supraglacial lakes (SGL) are formed by accumulation of meltwater in surface depressions on a glacier or ice sheet above impermeable snow/ice layers ... SGLs influence ice sheet mass balance and dynamics in several ways. Their presence reduces the albedo of the ice sheet thus increasing surface melt ... The rapid ([less than] 24 h) drainage of SGLs to the bed through hydrofracture ... locally increases the water pressure in the subglacial hydrological system, which reduces the basal friction and causes transient ice-flow speedups ... Besides the direct effects on ice flow, the formation of surface-to-bed connections and an efficient subglacial drainage system could (1) enable the rapid transfer of surface meltwater to the ice sheet margin, thereby reducing the retention and refreezing of meltwater on the surface ... (2) transfer heat into the ice sheet reducing ice viscosity and promoting faster ice flow ... and (3) affect the magnitude and timing of freshwater and nutrient delivery to the oceans ...
UCL Professor Duncan Wingham, who led the team, said: "Previously, it was thought water moves underneath the ice by very slow seepage. But this new data shows that, every so often, the lakes beneath the ice pop off like champagne corks, releasing floods that travel very long distances.
"A major concern has been that by drilling down to the lakes new microbes would be introduced." he added. "Our data shows any contamination will not be limited to one lake, but will, over time, extend down the length of the network of rivers.
"We had thought of these lakes as isolated biological laboratories. Now we are going to have to think again."
Meanwhile, some people are getting a taste of what 21st Century (i.e. right now) sea level rise will be like:
"Hurricane Matthew is still with us ... rivers still rising ... court system still shut down ... highways shut down ... dam could break ... bridges may be closed ... the water is flowing so fast you have to see it to believe it ... prison evacuated" - N.Carolina Governor (10/12/16)
IV. The Prey Must Pray
This brings up religious memories and sentiments in different ways:
Gore said "every single night on the television news is like a major hike through the book of Revelation" with all of "the floods and the droughts and the mudslides and the fires and the incredible downpours." (Al Gore Stumps for Hillary, Says Nightly News Like 'Hike Through Book of Revelation', emphasis added)
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin wants God to help the state’s ailing oil and natural gas industry.
The Republican governor originally issued a proclamation inviting Christians to “thank God for the blessing created by the oil and natural gas industry and to seek His wisdom and ask for protection,” the Progressive Secular Humanist blog reported.
A new version of the “Oilfield Prayer Day” proclamation calls on everyone to thank a deity, declaring that “people of faith acknowledge such natural resources are created by God.”
“There was some question about whether it was one particular faith or another, so we just amended it to say all faiths,” Fallin told The Associated Press. “There are many people suffering right now who have lost their jobs in the energy sector ... there are a lot of families who have been hurt, and I think prayer is always a good thing, for anyone.”
Humble Oil-Qaeda is trying to get the prayer wars going in a manner that will melt the glaciers faster and faster.
The rivers, lakes, and oceans are on the rise, but those have been created by the rise in the vast ocean of ignorance, the great lake of denial, and the increasing wind of change.
Video 1: Amazon-sized river system under Antarctic ice sheet ...
Video 2: Lake / river systems under Greenland ice sheet ...
In this series, the systemic nature of the global climate system has been emphasized.
The reason for that is the simple reality that "parts is parts" has a place within the vast realm of ignorance, but it has no place in systems science:
The Earth system is often represented by interlinking and interacting "spheres" of processes and phenomena. The atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere form the simplest collection, though some would add the cryosphere as a special element dealing with polar regions and processes, and others would add the anthroposphere emphasizing human dimensions and impact on the planet. The difficulty with any representation that divides the system is the danger of continuing a deconstructed perception of the holistic Earth system - in reality no part of the Earth system can be considered in isolation from any other part.
(Earth System Science in a Nutshell, emphasis added). At all times we are either moving toward "parts is parts" ignorance, or away from ignorance toward the awareness to be gained by the systemic knowledge of Earth Systems Science:
Our shared goal is to understand, predict, and respond to human-caused environmental change at local to global scales. To take on this challenge, we strive to investigate the complexity of the global system, including the interactions, synergies, and feedbacks that link the oceans, atmosphere, land surfaces, and freshwater systems. A global perspective has emerged that challenges the research community to view and study the planet as a singular, highly-interactive system, moving past disciplinary approaches to evaluate the interactions among chemical, biological, and physical processes across the Earth's surface. Through the graduate and undergraduate programs, we will train a new generation of scientists that comprehend the multiple facets of environmental processes, and who are able to think synthetically, evaluating change in our oceans, water, air and land processes as part of an integrated and connected system.
(Stanford, Earth Systems Science, emphasis added). The Earth System is composed of integral subsystems that seamlessly compose the whole.
The Global Climate System is one such integral system.
II. How To Stay Systemically Ignorant
The first thing to do, if you want to be a part of the vast system of ignorance, is to isolate a part of an episystem then fail to consider it to not be part of that episystem:
Today's post has to do with one specific meme that is on the edge of the climate change denier meme complex.
A meme which the President perpetuated in his news conference yesterday:
"[oft heard meme] ... no single weather event can be linked directly to ... global warming."
("President OBAMA: You know ... we can’t attribute any particular weather event to climate change.")
(see Katrina & Global Warming). Notice that according to this meme every single big weather event that makes the fossil fuel industry and government look bad (such as Hurricane-Superstorm Sandy or Hurricane Katrina) "can't be linked directly to global warming."
"Why is that meme a false meme as the title of today's post indicates?" you may ask.
Since we deserve an answer, let's contemplate this problem with an exercise in deductive logic, premised on the false meme under our consideration today:
1) No single weather event can be linked directly to global warming;
2) all weather events are single weather events;
3) therefore, weather events can't be directly linked to global warming.
(see Doctors of Philosophy Make Phd. Mistakes). To see what the propagandists and/or apologists (who originally fabricated this false meme) are advancing, let's analyze this a bit further by considering a realistic meme:
1) Weather is a function of the global climate system;
2) all single weather events are parts of the global climate system;
3) the global climate system has been damaged by global warming;
4) therefore, all single weather events are part of the global climate system that has been damaged by global warming;
III. Ask The Proper Question If You Want A Proper Answer
The reality is that any global system that is damaged cannot be diagnosed by beginning the diagnosis with a postulation such as: "we can't tell if the performance of a subsystem removes it from the episystem."
In other words, don't analyze any weather anywhere in the context of determining whether or not it is part of the damaged global climate system or not.
It is.
The proper question is "when a part or subsystem evinces either damaged behavior or proper behavior, is it still part of the episystem in both instances?"
The answer is that any subsystem is always part of its episystem, period.
Thus, we must ask a more intelligent question.
A more useful question is "how do we repair the damage to the episystem in a manner that will also repair the damage to its subsystems?"
That will improve the analysis of the situation by removing the ignorant question "is this broken arm a part of the body like the other one is that is not broken?"
IV. The Future Looks
The future looks a certain way when we ask the dumb questions (Dumb & Dumber -> Bleak & Bleeker), but if there is to be any "light at the end of the tunnel" we have to go there with questions that have progressive answers.
I have contemplated, since the current election in the U.S.eh? is so demented (This Is Not About Donald Trump), whether this election is just a charade put on by the epigovernment playwrights (The Ways of Bernays).
In the debate last night, the protagonist emoted:
“We are now, for the first time, energy independent,” said Clinton. “We are not dependent on the Middle East ... We have got to remain energy independent,” she said. “It gives us much more power and freedom than to be worried about what goes on in the Middle East.
(HuffPo). In other words, our power, freedom, and independence are based on the control of fossil fuels regionally.
Carried further, our next president implies that we are only free if we have our own poisons with which to damage the global climate system further.
Good American freedom and independence consists of poisoning ourselves with home-grown American poison rather than poisoning ourselves with poison we purchased from the bad guys in the middle-east?
The option at the moment for many people seems to be to follow the advice of Rust Limbaugh and/or Matt Sludge:
"The deplorables are starting to wonder if govt has been lying to them about Hurricane Matthew intensity to make exaggerated point on climate" - M. Sludge ...
"people shouldn’t trust the government’s warnings because the government is likely biased. He claimed that the government was inflating fears of the storm’s damage. Limbaugh said people shouldn’t worry because his house was hit by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and was just fine." - Rust L.
