The Common Good - 12

Not Common Enough?

The fundamental struggle which "groups" (nations, civilizations) must contend with in order to perpetuate themselves is the tension between the common good and the common bad.

That dynamic is discussed in two series here on Dredd Blog (The Common Good, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; How To Identify The Despotic Minority, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

The great historians have identified the issue as an existential one:

But always TCS ["The Creep State"] is primarily the population segment diagnosed as a despotic minority which the once most-often-quoted historian, Toynbee, fingered as one of the members of the trinity of extinction that he found in all civilizations that were about to become very successful at becoming extinct:

That something is the dementia that produces and ends up in suicide:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). There is no cure for the final symptom of that group dementia, there is only prevention by way of avoiding it altogether in the first place.

The components of that group dementia were pointed out in an encyclopedia piece concerning that historian quoted above:

"In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority" ...

(Encyclopedia Britannica, emphasis added). The show stopper, in terms of remedy, in this type of group dementia is that it is a contagious dementia.

(Etiology of Social Dementia - 18). That particular "minority" is not a racial or ethnic minority, rather, it is primarily composed of a destructive suicidal trance (Choose Your Trances Carefully, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

(Arrested Development: The Creep State). It seems that just about everyone in the world who is aware of current events knows that the USA is awash in that tentative situation.

Nations who are being overcome by the tyranny of a despotic minority begin to develop various outbreaks of cruelty and dishonesty within.

For example, horrific mistreatment of persecuted people seeking asylum (Asylum Officers: Trump's 'Remain In Mexico' Policy Is Against 'Moral Fabric' Of U.S.).

The majority is taken aback at first, not realizing the gravity of the situation, and therefore they focus on the illusionary, vain words "bipartisanship", "consensus", and the like.

That is, the majority does not realize that the despotic minority is only interested in capitulation from "the other" party, group, race, or religion.

The dynamic to focus on is that those "sins" ("the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority") are infectious and unlikely to be seen as a cultural disease.

They are eventually seen as virtues.

Once the majority realizes the mistake they have made, historically it is too late.

The common bad develops and the civilization commits suicide (fades away as a nation or civilization).

The previous post in this series is here.

Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money - 13

Progress: It's that way ! ... No, it's this way !

I. One Person's Progress is

Another Person's Regression

I began this series in August of 2009 (Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money).

It has covered a lot of ground since then (Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12).

I thought I would add another post to this series, since major tax legislation is in the works; one version passed in the House of Representatives and one version passed in the Senate.

The two bills are contrary to one another, so, as with any such bill it must go to a conference where elected politicians will struggle to make it unified.

If that takes place, then both houses will have to vote on it again before it can be sent to the president for final approval or disapproval (Another delicate challenge for Republicans: Reconciling House and Senate tax bills).

Members of both houses have spoken of "progress" when discussing this now bifurcated legislation, as have the bankers and citizen commentators (all Democrats in the Senate voted against this "progress" while all but one Republican in the Senate voted in favor of this "progress").

There has been "progress" ("a movement toward a goal") by Banker Jekyll who continues to want to Hyde our money, and there has also been "progress" by honesty-and-justice seeking working class members.

In other words, as I have said before, the word "progress" is a meaningless dog whistle,  a doublespeak word, which like a "coffee cup" can hold a refreshing beverage or a poisonous mixture that will kill anyone who drinks it.

The ambiguity in the word "progress" manifests because the word is bound, by definition, to "a goal."

As the dictionary link above reveals, in its core definition "progress" is "a movement toward a goal" (I sense that "one person's progress is another person's regression").

So, since the number of goals that exist in our universe is most likely infinite, the word has no real absolute meaning unless and until it is transparently linked to a goal.

The goal of the tax bill is not a goal that everyone seeks, thus there are several types of "progress" involved (The House and Senate tax bills, explained, From Tax Rates To Deductions: Comparing The House & Senate Bills To Current Law).

II. Deficit Considerations

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicates that the tax cuts to corporations and the

Senators Hatch up a Grassley story

wealthy will generate an increase in the federal debt by some 1.4 trillion dollars (PRELIMINARY: 8:49PM, December 1, 2017, SUMMARY OF THE DEFICIT EFFECTS, PDF; cf. this and this).

According to Senators Hatch and Grassley, the reason the taxpayer money is being taken from the poor and given to the rich is because the poor spend all their money on booze and women. and, like Americans of Puerto Rico will not lift a finger to help themselves (The Guardian).

III. Corporate Tax Rate

The "progress" according to one group indicates that corporate rates will drop to 20% from 35%, ostensibly because corporations are better persons than poor people are (now that the Supremes have made a corporation a person).

A past Labor Secretary had a different view of this "progress" and its goal:

"But the tax plan gives American corporations a $2 trillion tax break, at a time when they’re enjoying record profits and stashing unprecedented amounts of cash in offshore tax shelters. And it gives America’s wealthiest citizens trillions more, when the richest 1 percent now hold a record 38.6 percent of the nation’s total wealth, up from 33.7 percent a decade ago.

The reason Republicans give for enacting the plan is “supply-side” trickle-down nonsense. The real reason is payback to the GOP’s mega-donors.

A few Republicans are starting to admit this. Last week, Gary Cohn, Trump’s lead economic advisor, conceded in an interview that 'the most excited group out there are big CEOs, about our tax plan.' Republican Rep. Chris Collins admitted that 'my donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’ Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that if Republicans failed to pass tax reform, 'the financial contributions will stop.' "

(Robert Reich). I am reminded of the song with the lyrics "freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose" by Janis "Pearl" Joplin.

IV. Conclusion

"What we gonna do when the money runs out?" - David Gray (@Nightblindness)

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The previous post in this series is here.

Government Climate Change Report - 11

It's the law

This series concerns legislation passed by congress and signed into law by Bush I in 1990.

This series began almost half a decade ago (Government Climate Change Report, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10); the latest report engendered by this American law was just released.

So, between the lines below is the Executive Summary of that report:

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"Highlights of the U.S. Global Change Research Program

Climate Science Special Report

The climate of the United States is strongly connected to the changing global climate. The statements below highlight past, current, and projected climate changes for the United States and the globe.

Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe. These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales.

This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.

In addition to warming, many other aspects of global climate are changing, primarily in response to human activities. Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor.

For example, global average sea level has risen by about 7–8 inches since 1900, with almost half(about 3 inches) of that rise occurring since 1993. Human-caused climate change has made a substantial contribution to this rise since 1900, contributing to a rate of rise that is greater than during any preceding century in at least 2,800 years. Global sea level rise has already affected the United States; the incidence of daily tidal flooding is accelerating in more than 25 Atlantic and Gulf Coast cities.

Global average sea levels are expected to continue to rise—by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1–4 feet by 2100. A rise of as much as 8 feet by 2100 cannot be ruled out. Sea level rise will be higher than the global average on the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States.

Changes in the characteristics of extreme events are particularly important for human safety, infrastructure, agriculture, water quality and quantity, and natural ecosystems. Heavy rainfall is increasing in intensity and frequency across the United States and globally and is expected to continue to increase. The largest observed changes in the United States have occurred in the Northeast.

Heat waves have become more frequent in the United States since the 1960s, while extreme cold temperatures and cold waves are less frequent. Recent record-setting hot years are projected to be-come common in the near future for the United States, as annual average temperatures continue to rise. Annual average temperature over the contiguous United States has increased by 1.8°F (1.0°C) for the period 1901–2016; over the next few decades (2021–2050), annual average temperatures are expected to rise by about 2.5°F for the United States, relative to the recent past (average from 1976–2005), under all plausible future climate scenarios.

The incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Alaska has increased since the early 1980s and is projected to further increase in those regions as the climate changes, with profound changes to regional ecosystems.

Annual trends toward earlier spring melt and reduced snow pack are already affecting water re-sources in the western United States and these trends are expected to continue. Under higher scenarios, and assuming no change to current water resources management, chronic, long-duration hydro-logical drought is increasingly possible before the end of this century.

The magnitude of climate change beyond the next few decades will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally. Without major reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature relative to preindustrial times could reach 9°F (5°C) or more by the end of this century. With significant reductions in emissions, the increase in annual average global temperature could be limited to 3.6°F (2°C) or less.

The global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has now passed 400 parts per million (ppm), a level that last occurred about 3 million years ago, when both global average temperature and sea level were significantly higher than today. Continued growth in CO2 emissions over this century and beyond would lead to an atmospheric concentration not experienced in tens to hundreds of millions of years. There is broad consensus that the further and the faster the Earth system is pushed towards warming, the greater the risk of unanticipated changes and impacts, some of which are potentially large and irreversible.

The observed increase in carbon emissions over the past 15–20 years has been consistent with higher emissions pathways. In 2014 and 2015, emission growth rates slowed as economic growth became less carbon-intensive. Even if this slowing trend continues, however, it is not yet at a rate that would limit global average temperature change to well below 3.6°F (2°C) above preindustrial levels."

(USGCRP, 2017: Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I, emphasis added).

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Lyrics to the song in this video can be viewed here.

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The previous post in this series is here.

Government Climate Change Report - 10

History of U.S. Global Change Research Program

This report may be extinct since the Administration of Denial has pulled off a coup (A Tale of Coup Cities - 14).

By "this report" I mean the report required by Public Law 101-606, 104 Stat. 3096-3104 (PDF), passed by congress in 1990 then signed into law by President George H.W. Bush (Global Climate Change Research Act).

(The link under the graphic, above, details the history of that law.)

A copy of the latest draft version of the legally required report is now available (2017 US climate report,  PDF, final PDF).

Play it again Sam

This latest report may not see the light of day, because the Fake Based Administration is loony when it comes to Global Warming Induced Climate Change.

The one thing that denialists now in power do not want us to know is the truth that is based upon the facts (The Shapeshifters of Bullshitistan - 2, Agnotology: The Surge - 16).

I suppose we should read the report while we can ... so ... let's look at some of the content:

"CSSR TOD: DO NOT CITE, QUOTE, OR DISTRIBUTE
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About This Report

As a key input into the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) oversaw the production of this special, stand-alone report of the state of science relating to climate change and its physical impacts. The Climate Science Special Report (CSSR) serves several purposes for NCA4, including providing 1) an updated detailed analysis of the findings of how climate change is affecting weather and climate across the United States, 2) an executive summary that will be used as the basis for the science summary of NCA4, and 3) foundational information and projections for climate change, including extremes, to improve “end-to-end” consistency in sectoral, regional, and resilience analyses for NCA4. This report allows NCA4 to focus more heavily on the human welfare, societal, and environmental elements of climate change, in particular with regard to observed and projected risks, impacts, adaptation options, regional analyses, and implications (such as avoided risks) of known mitigation actions.

Much of this report is intended for a scientific and technically savvy audience, though the Executive Summary is designed to be accessible to a broader audience."

(U.S. Global Change Research Program, p. 3, PDF). Why would the Fake Based Administration not want information about the United States to be available for use by the United States?

Would it really hurt us that "bigly" to prepare, like we do in any insurance policy risk management scenario, for some of this?

For example, sea level change:

3. Relative sea level (RSL) rise in this century will vary along U.S. coastlines due, in part, to: changes in Earth’s gravitational field and rotation from melting of land ice, changes in ocean circulation, and vertical land motion (very high confidence). For almost all future GMSL rise scenarios, RSL rise is likely to be greater than the global average in the U.S. Northeast and the western Gulf of Mexico. In intermediate and low GMSL rise scenarios, it is likely to be less than the global average in much of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. For high GMSL rise scenarios, it is likely to be higher than the global average along all U.S. coastlines outside Alaska (high confidence).

4. The annual occurrences of daily tidal flooding—exceeding local thresholds for minor impacts to infrastructure—have increased 5- to 10 fold since the 1960s in several U.S. coastal cities (very high confidence). Rates of increase, which are accelerating in over 25 Atlantic and Gulf Coast cities, are fastest where elevation thresholds are lower, local RSL rise is higher, or extreme variability is less (very high confidence). Tidal flooding will continue increasing in depth and frequency in similar manners this century (very high confidence).

(ibid, p. 413, PDF). That sea level change section is bolstered by another report, from another source, that has already been released:

"Sea level rise caused by global warming is usually cast as a doomsday scenario that will play out so far into the future, it’s easy to ignore. Just ask anyone in South Florida, where new construction proceeds apace. Yet already, more than 90 coastal communities in the United States are battling chronic flooding, meaning the kind of flooding that’s so unmanageable it prompts people to move away.

That number is expected to roughly double to more than 170 communities in less than 20 years."

(National Geographic). Hey deniers, you can run but you can't hide, because you are in the same boat the rest of us are in.

Anyway, getting back to the U.S. Global Change Research Program Report, I was pleased to see that this report is more accurate and sophisticated than the most recent IPCC report (an international, rather than a national report).

The authors of this report understand that gravity is not a hoax, and even cite a paper by the professor who gives the presentation in the video below (Professor Mitrovica):

"Second, the location of land ice melting imparts distinct regional “static-equilibrium fingerprints” on sea level, based on gravitational, rotational, and crustal deformation effects (Mitrovica et al. 2011) (Figure 12.1a–d). For example, sea level falls near a melting ice sheet because of the resulting changes in the distribution of mass on the planet and thus in the planet’s gravitational field."

(ibid, p. 414, PDF, emphasis added). That is a very good development in the science of sea level change (The Gravity of Sea Level Change, 2, 3, 4), so don't give up hope that they will also pick up on "ghost water" (The Ghost-Water Constant, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Not only that, in another positive move, they are moving away from the "thermal expansion is the major cause of sea level rise in the 20th and 21st centuries" myth:

"Sea level change is driven by a variety of mechanisms operating at different spatial and temporal scales. Global mean sea level (GMSL) rise is primarily driven by two factors: 1) increased volume from thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms, and 2) increased mass from melt additions of ice locked in mountain glaciers and the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Satellite (altimeter and GRACE) and in situ (Argo) measurements show that, since 2005, about one third of GMSL rise has been from steric changes (thermal expansion) and about two thirds from the addition of mass to the ocean, primarily from melting land-based ice (Llovel et al. 2014; Leuliette 2015; Merrifield et al. 2015; Chambers et al. 2016). The overall amount (mass) of ocean water, and thus sea level, is also affected to a lesser extent by changes in global land water storage associated with dams and reservoirs, groundwater extraction, and global precipitation anomalies (Reager et al. 2016; Rietbroek et al. 2016; Wada et al. 2016), such as associated with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)."

(ibid, p. 414, PDF, emphasis added). "One third" (thermal expansion) is not a major factor when compared to "two thirds" (ice melt water flowing into the oceans).

On that issue they are moving in the proper direction, however, they still have a ways to go, because "one third" is demonstrably in error, in terms of being way too high (On Thermal Expansion & Thermal Contraction - 21).

Now, go spread the good and bad news.

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

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We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident - 2

Dr. Mann

I. Background

The first post in this series focused on a lawsuit by climate scientists in a federal court in the state of Oregon.

They had broken through the first obstacles thrown at them by climate change deniers in cahoots with the Obama Administration.

At some coming phase, they will have to face the Trumposphere denialism, in a sicker, less kind, nation.

II. Foreground

In today's post, I want to talk about another lawsuit brought by another climate scientist that was not brought in a federal court, but rather was filed in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia (Complaint).

That libel complaint was filed by plaintiff Dr. Michael Mann against defendants The National Review, Inc., The Competitive Enterprise Institute, bloggers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn.

Oh how, when served with the complaint, they scorned the case at The Lettuce & Bacon Talk (BLT) and The Volkswagen Conspiracy blogs (VW I, VW II).

The defendants, evidently encouraged by the blogging bloviators' refusal to retract their libelous writings, moved to dismiss the complaint as an infringement of their First Amendment rights.

They evidently do not understand that, outside the Trumposphere, the First Amendment does not protect low energy brain waves that take the form of libel or slander.

Nor do they appear to understand that, as a matter of law and fact, global warming induced climate change is not a hoax ... it is serious as a lawsuit (Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law).

III. Reality Cookies For Kookies

When the appellate court ruled yesterday, it said that Dr. Mann can take his case to the jury:

Dr. Mann has supplied sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that statements in the articles written by Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn were false, defamatory, and published by appellants to third parties, and, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants did so with actual malice. We, therefore, affirm the trial court’s denial of the special motions to dismiss the defamation claims based on those articles and remand the case for additional proceedings in the trial court with respect to these claims.

(Appellate Court Decision, p. 105). First will be the discovery phase of the litigation, which will bring their libelous brain waves into the under oath zone, which changes one's countenance.

IV. Conclusion

Congratulations to Dr. Mann and his competent lawyers, and may the jury sock it to the bloviating climate change deniers !

Their Agnotology work is a shame on humanity (Agnotology: The Surge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).

The previous post in this series is here.

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Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law - 2

Fig. 1 Is Saturn's Hexagon defying the law?

Once upon a time scientists explored events and described "laws" (e.g. NASA Cassini).

The law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, and other natural laws were and still are within their province.

This concept was not altogether alien to the civil laws of cities, states, or nations.

That is known as comity.

As it turns out, one very basic reason for that comity is due to the common sense recognition that law was back then, and still is, a simple matter of sorting out who had or has "the say":

“The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right ... It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department [the judicial branch] to say what the law is. ”

(Marbury v Madison). That province of the judicial branch of the U.S. Government includes hearing the words and reading the works of professional scientists supplied as facts in various cases:

Based on respected scientific opinion that a well-documented rise in global temperatures and attendant climatological and environmental changes

Fig. 2 Thou shalt not have sharp edges @ 300 mph

have resulted from a significant increase in the atmospheric concentration of “greenhouse gases,” a group of private organizations petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to begin regulating the emissions of four such gases, including carbon dioxide, under §202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act, which requires that the EPA “shall by regulation prescribe . . . standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class . . . of new motor vehicles . . . which in [the EPA Administrator’s] judgment cause[s], or contribute[s] to, air pollution . . . reasonably . . . anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” 42 U. S. C. §7521(a)(1). The Act defines “air pollutant” to include “any air pollution agent . . . , including any physical, chemical . . . substance . . . emitted into . . . the ambient air.” §7602(g). EPA ultimately denied the petition, reasoning that (1) the Act does not authorize it to issue mandatory regulations to address global climate change, and (2) even if it had the authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards, it would have been unwise to do so at that time because a causal link between greenhouse gases and the increase in global surface air temperatures was not unequivocally established.
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Massachusetts and other state and local governments, sought review in the D. C. Circuit [... which held...] that the EPA Administrator properly exercised his discretion in denying the rulemaking petition.
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[Supreme Court Conclusion:] The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

(Global Warming Induced Climate Change Is A Matter of Law, quoting Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 127 S. Ct. 1438 (2007), emphasis added).  That case was decided by seven Republican-appointed justices, and two Democrat-appointed justices.

As with cases involving speeding laws, when we are stopped for exceeding the speed limit, it is of no moment to tell the police officer that we do not believe in speeding laws.

Fig. 3 Downtown Deniersville

Nevertheless, there are various underpinnings of just that within the ongoing political discourse coming out of the new York White House (Fig. 3) following the coup parade (A Tale of Coup Cities, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13).

The Administrative Department has lost its way (You Are Here, "mad bull lost your way" - Rolling Stones @ Gimme Shelter), and in the tradition of the W Direction (The W Direction = The Perilous Path), now thinks it is the one with the say to make the laws rather than administer the laws.

They don't believe in any of that stinkin' clean air or stinkin' water jargon ("so what if I was exceeding the speed limit, I don't believe in speeding laws officer").

Not only that, they have even sent invaders into the realm of those who are required to enforce the law of the land.

Yes, and they are doing that nonsense even though the supreme law of the land (ruled as such by the Supreme Court) is contrary to their beliefs.

But, ignoring the legislative law of the congress, and the case law of the judicial branch of U.S. Government, they hazard this:

President-elect Donald Trump's Energy Department transition team sent the agency a memo this week asking for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers, alarming employees and advisors.

The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and seen by Reuters on Friday, contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years.

(Trump Team Alarms Energy Department, emphasis added). They are alarmists of the authoritarian sort (The Authoritarianism of Climate Change). 

UPDATE: The McCarthyite request was rescinded after the DOI refused the request and congress members wrote them to say it was an abuse of authority (NewsMax).


To the contrary, I am an alarmist of the Paul Revere sort, holding two lanterns aloft while exclaiming "one if by land, two if by sea".

Anyway, it boils down to them wanting a list of the names of government employees who obey the law in "a government of laws, and not of men" so that those obedient government employees can be punished (The Queens of Stalingrad - 2).

Trust trumps paranoia.

The previous post in this series is here.

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The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust?

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The Common Good - 10

Some of those who focus a very accurate eye upon the economic dynamics of American culture use the word "oligarchy" to describe those dynamics (dynamics which actually constitute what is technically a "plutocracy"). 

The use of "oligarchy" is a ~2,300 year old mistake commenced by Aristotle (Wikipedia: Oligarchy), but it is still in use by a lot of people in the alternate media who contemplate the structures of our "economy."

As the video at the bottom of this post shows, Chris Hedges uses the word "oligarchy" tens of times, as Aristotle was wont to do, in order to describe what is technically a plutocracy (Wikipedia, Plutocracy), not an oligarchy.

The improper use of the term, however, does no damage to his understanding of the Ferengi system (Life In The Ferengi Home World - 3) he is describing.

Truth be known, the economic system is complex, so, analyzing it is somewhat akin to the ancient story of the blind men describing an elephant.

The economic system looks and feels a bit different, depending on the part of it that one uses for an analysis.

For example, I have used the terms "plutocracy", "plutonomy", "wartocracy", "military-oil-media-complex", and "American Feudalism" to describe "it."

IMO, the main thing, in any valid analysis of "it," is to determine what is being done, in terms of doing the common good v. doing the common bad (The Common Good, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

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

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Interview of Chris Hedges:

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Interview of John Perkins (reformed economic hit-man) ...

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Agnotology: The Surge - 15

I. Introduction

The king of American Agnotology, as it regards climate change (Senator Inhofe), informed us that global warming is the "greatest hoax" ever.

In the previous post of this series, Dredd Blog pointed out that people voted king Inhofe's assertion to be the biggest lie of 2014.

The democrats in the Senate forced a vote on these issues, using several amendments to a bill working its way through the legislative process:

It is nearly 27 years now since a Nasa scientist testified before the US Senate that the agency was 99% certain that rising global [average temperatures] were caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

And the Senate still has not got it – based on the results of three symbolic climate change votes on Wednesday night.

The Senate voted virtually unanimously that climate change is occurring and not, as some Republicans have said, a hoax – but it defeated two measures attributing its causes to human activity.
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Unless Senators are prepared to acknowledge the causes of climate change, it is likely they will remain unable and unwilling to do anything about it.

Democrats had planned the symbolic, “sense of the Senate” votes as a way of exposing the Republicans’ increasingly embarrassing climate change denial.

(Guardian, emphasis added). Thus, the Republicans in control in the U.S. Senate ignorantly hold that there is nothing we humans can do, one way or another, about global warming induced climate change, so "move along, nothing to see here folks."

II. The Agnotology of It All

Agnotology is the study of ignorance generators within a society, the study of entities which misinform, propagandize, or otherwise generate ignorance in the public consciousness and/or the public subconsciousness.

The Senate is now part of those ignorance generating institutions in American culture, and is fully teamed up with Oil-Qaeda.

The Democrats are also generating ignorance, because they know that being number one in very crude oil extraction is an imminent danger to society (Government Climate Change Report, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

Yet, democrats brag about being number one in the crude oil extraction business that is bringing danger to all living things on this planet we find ourselves on (You Are Here).

III. How Come Dis?

"How could this happen?" must be on a lot of people's minds, because what has been touted as the greatest debating institution of all governing bodies on Earth is becoming daft and absurd.

IV. The Snaky Trail of Oil-Qaeda

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has chronicled and tracked the snaky trail of Oil-Qaeda, a criminal enterprise that created this lethal legacy over a century or so span of time (e.g. Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch, 2, 3, 4).

That Dredd Blog tracking includes how Oil-Qaeda misled government, how it caused civilization to put fossil fuels into its "lifeblood" --thereby becoming Petroleum Civilization (e.g. The Universal Smedley - 2, Viva Egypt - 2, The Peak Of The Oil Wars - 10, The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil, The Peak of Sanity - 3).

V. End of The Trail: @The Doors of Epigovernment/Private Empire

The trail ends in our day and age, our time, with the saga of how Oil-Qaeda teamed up with vehicle manufacturers, banksters, and military oriented industry to become the Epigovernment (e.g. Epigovernment: The New Model, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10), a.k.a. The Private Empire (MOMCOM: The Private Parts, 2, 3, 4, 5), a.k.a. the corporate monster (e.g. Corp Germ > Corp Seed > Corp Monster, 2, 3, 4), and finally, according to the Supreme Five, a "person" with more right to impact public elections and debates than you or me (Citizens United v FEC).

VI. The Impact of Oil-Qaeda on Governance

The chief spokesperson for the Epigovernment is the U.S. President, because, at this time the mainstay strategy of Oil-Qaeda is to substantially harbor its vast power in the "United States."

In the most recent State of the Union Message, the president summed up that reality:

"The United States is on top of the world in terms of energy production, President Barack Obama said during his sixth State of the Union ... “We believed we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our planet,” he said during his Jan. 20 address. “And today, America is number one in oil and gas" ...

(Petroleum Civilization: The Final Chapter ..., emphasis added). The cultural trance created by oil addiction clearly emerged in the SOTU for all to see (Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala).

That cultural trance (which leads one to believe that it is cool to be the number one polluter and to be a prime leader in Oil-Qaeda, while destroying the basis of civilization, and all that without negative consequences) is psychotic (Choose Your Trances Carefully, 2).

The U.S. has become a plutocracy, with a plutonomy instead of a democratic economy (The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9).

That we practice the dynamics of a feudal society is of no moment to them either (American Feudalism, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

VII. Conclusion: Dissent Will Not Shake Us From The Trance

No amount of dissent is a cure for psychopathy, no, it takes professional psychoanalysis followed with professional psychotherapy / treatment.

Unfortunately, there is no such treatment available, or in existence, for groups of this sort, as Freud intimated:

If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization —— or epochs of it —— possibly even the whole of humanity —— have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39]
...
Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this —— hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]

(Civilization and Its Discontents, S. Freud, 1929, emphasis added). Thus, we are left to watch the catastrophe unfold, emanating from this lethal trance.

We are left to watch the political pundits, in their own well-honed trance, think and say that politics can cure these psychopaths.

We are left to watch other intellectuals, academics, activists, together with all manner of other well meaning individuals, labor under the illusion that current civilization is exceptional, unlike those that went down before us:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History,  by Arnold J. Toynbee). Meanwhile, the reality is that long ago Oil-Qaeda chose a trance recklessly, a trance that only a catastrophe it can't handle can shake it out of.

In other words, too little and too late is the nature of its fate.

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

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"No Time", by Guess Who (lyrics here)

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Agnotology: The Surge - 14b

The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance

The greatest ignorance took the form of a grandiose lie in the year 2014.

Voters identified this bit of ignorance as “Climate change is a hoax” (The People Have Spoken: This Is The Most Brazen Lie of 2014).

This lie is fostered by Oil-Qaeda, the criminal enterprise that kills more people than any other (Oil-Qaeda: The Indictment).

Oil-Qaeda has convinced those in the most powerful seats of the U.S. Congress that this lie is the truth.

You may be wondering "how in the world could that happen?"

More on that shortly.

When governments become criminally insane, as NAZI Germany did for a few years long ago, ignorance in many formats arises.

Eventually this type of wide-spread ignorance gave rise to the discipline of Agnotology, which Dredd Blog introduced in the first post of this series (Agnotology: The Surge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13).

If you are not yet convinced of the long overdue need for such a discipline, take note

King Denial I

that the première climate change denier is now the chair of a relevant Senate Committee:

This year [Jim Inhofe] takes over the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — the panel most associated with climate policy oversight — and says he plans to continue his role as a “one-man truth squad” on the issue.

(Washington Post, emphasis added). This Oil-Qaeda operative, "King Denial I", is financed with big dirty oil bucks, and is backed up by probably the largest propaganda campaign of recent history:

Around the world, carbon-based fuels are under attack. Increasingly grim economic pressures, growing popular resistance, and the efforts of government regulators have all shocked the energy industry. Oil prices are falling, colleges and universities are divesting from their carbon stocks, voters are instituting curbs on hydro-fracking, and delegates at the U.N. climate conference in Peru have agreed to impose substantial restrictions on global carbon emissions at a conference in Paris later in the year. All this has been accompanied by what might be viewed as a moral assault on the very act of extracting carbon-based fuels from the earth, in which the major oil, gas, and coal companies find themselves portrayed as the enemies of humankind.

Under such pressures, you might assume that Big Energy would react defensively, perhaps apologizing for its role in spurring climate change while assuming a leadership position in planning for the transition to a post-carbon economy. But you would be wrong: instead of retreating, the major [Oil-Qaeda] companies have gone on the offensive ... minimizing the potential for renewables to replace fossil fuels in just about any imaginable future.

(Carbon Counterattack, How Big Oil Is Responding, emphasis added). This type of doubling down is the signature psychopathology of Oil-Qaeda and its operatives.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has noted this cultural disorder in previous posts:

Therefore, both psychopaths and sociopaths are capable of committing heinous crimes; however, the psychopath would commit crimes against family members or “friends” (as well as strangers) and feel little to no remorse.
...
The last main difference between psychopathy and sociopathy is in the presentation. The psychopath is callous, yet charming. He or she will con and manipulate others with charisma and intimidation and can effectively mimic feelings to present as “normal” to society. The psychopath is organized in their criminal thinking and behavior, and can maintain good emotional and physical control, displaying little to no emotional or autonomic arousal, even under situations that most would find threatening or horrifying. The psychopath is keenly aware that what he or she is doing is wrong, but does not care.

(When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2, cf. The Peak of Sanity - 5). Regular readers also know that Dredd Blog has often identified this problem as being psychological.

But more than that, it has been identified as an episode of an ongoing mass-murder-suicide (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 5).

The serious danger is quite real, and it is well beyond the time to begin to try to do something about it.

Something besides deluding ourselves that elections alone are a sufficient cure for these psychological problems.

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

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Take heed ...

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Arcade Fire, Rebellion (Lies); lyrics here

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Epigovernment: The New Model - 10

Tu no lo sabes

Many people feel that the officials in political government are merely fronts that do the bidding of some unseen group.

That thought occurs so often because those politicians are not seen as working for the betterment of the citizenry (the 99%); but, at the same time, "this could not be the reality" the citizenry also surmises, even though the father of public relations (spin & propaganda) declared that to be the true case (The Ways of Bernays).

I feel a bit playful today, so I thought I would do a parody of a once-popular song's lyrics to 'splain some of these things (the actual lyrics and the actual song are at the bottom of today's parody format):

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I Write The Wrongs

I've been alive forever
And I scripted the very first wrong
I put the words and the policies together
I am epigovernment and I write the wrongs

I write the wrongs to make the whole world cling
I write the wrongs of Rove and political queens
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the wrongs

My home lies deep within you
And I've got my own place in your soul
Now when I look out through your eyes
I'm young again, even though I'm very old

I write the wrongs to make the whole world cling
I write the wrongs of rove and political queens
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the wrongs

Oh, my script makes you dance
And gives you spirit to risk a chance
And I prepared lock 'n' load so you can reprove
Dogma fills all thought, well, that's my place to start

It's from us, it's for you
It's from you, it's for us
It's an empire's symphony

I write the wrongs to make the whole world cling
I write the wrongs of Rove and political queens
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the wrongs

I write the wrongs to make the whole world cling
I write the wrongs of Rove and political queens
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the wrongs

I am epigovernment and I write the wrongs

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I Write The Songs
(written by Bruce Johnston)
(lyrics link)

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The Barry Manilow version

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