Yes, The Economy Is Booming #2!

The real question you have to ask yourself, as the collateral damage mounts, is this:

Why is that not necessarily a good thing? Even as we see, and feel, things flying apart all around us, but are always so distracted, and numbed, and inured to the suffering; both of the very fabric of life itself for the planet, but for our long suffering, and decaying, social systems (because people aren't being socialized in any coherent, and stable way, at all any more).

Well... Think of it like this:

First of all, let's make one thing quite clear. It is not a water wheel, or an old windmill, or a steam engine, or a combustion engine even (ignoring the small bit of electricity it might take for spark ignition), that is powering this old economic operating system any more. It is electricity! Electrons gathered even, as if by magic, from sunlight itself, as well as from a whole host of well informed, new processes, that have able to turn silicone into magicly structured, weaving machines; spinning ever more of everything into gold now, for the ones who control how the structuring is defined of course.

So, why is that so important?

It is because, with simply pouring on more electrons, as your real modus operandi, in putting the pedal to the metal, as it were now, what you are doing is creating an acceleration modality that so vastly surpasses what old mechanical, and old chemical methods of energy translation, in creating motive force, to turn a wheel, or to push something along in a straight line faster, that this pouring on is like comparing Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton, both shoveling coal into a railroad engine boiler, to a hyper velocity, electromagnetic rail gun, or somebody with quill pen, and ledger writing, to a modern, load balanced, transactional database.

Now, what is the consequence of that, you might ask?

It is this: Capitalism is a thing that was created for windmills, and water mills, and animal power, and even steam for a while. That heritage mandates a certain pace of things so that not only do the material aspects of what is produced get processed at a usually stoic pace, so does our ability to gain more knowledge, and thus upgrade process techniques, so as to improve efficiency; because of course profit and efficiency have become, knowingly, more mutually leveraging.

Now, however, that old pace of things is exactly a part of what we miss of simpler times.

And so the big wheels of production, for mass consumption, that has become the driving assumption of Capitalism, has to have amplified want to be the fuel to power the quite equally necessary, amplified rates of consumption (in a planet that can no longer tolerate that), because of course, the ever more efficient abilities makes every work effort, potentially much, much more productive; and all of that production must be sold or it interrupts the flow of money; and because money has been made as electrons, itself, moving through circuits via the path of least resistance, the acceleration that the idea of "putting the pedal to the metal" expressed, now gets locked into place.

And so now, not only is there no handle, or pedal, with which to slow the thing down with (that works very well any more, at least, and without creating horrific, cascading, collateral damages), the idea of process itself is made ever more controllable by the silicone weaving machines themselves, so that the electrons, and their least resistive demanding, new paths, are put in control, of more and more of everything (with all of the corruption, and addiction that entails).

The first part of the bottom line here is that, even without electrons, Capitalism was never all that structurally committed to real human need. It certainly could be responsive to it, in some ways, but because it has also been so susceptible to the inherent frailty of humans in the first place, because it has always been easier to induce people to buy into whatever if you use our baser instincts against us, as well as to say that it also feeds into the fear inherent in what drives greed, as is the nature of hoarding, but also of envy, and lust, for that is what powers the attractiveness of power in the first place.

Now consider electrified Capitalism under the rule of either a new human/machine tyrant, or just an AI tyrant. Do you really think it is going to be operating for very long with any regard for real human need? Beyond what might be some awful minimum to keep a biological backup to what the new rulers dictate is fodder, or grist, for the continuance of whatever continuing power accumulation, and utilization machine, the new tyrants, new found fantasies dictate?  Ever more addictive fantasies directing the satisfaction of ever more demanding lusts; because the amping up will always have to continue. Because the old thrill never lasts very long now, does it.

The second part of the bottom line here is that neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans, have any real interest in changing, in any fundamental way, this out of control, electrified money making, mutation machine. They can't have as they are both so caught up in, and infused by, electrified money, there is no hope of ever separating them.

No, if we want things to change we will have to demand it directly by unified, and organized across most major forms of employment, comprehensive work stoppages. And only by demanding that something completely new be put into place for what is so abundantly, and clearly, obsolete. Something where we, the working people of America, own the communities we do our newly defined work for. Newly defined work that makes sure everyone feels needed, is given meaning, and has a real voice in what happens in their community. And every community is given new freedom in deciding how they want to live.

Think about it and, as I have said before. Just make sure you understand the very difficult choices that are going to be absolutely crucial in deciding whether we all survive or not in the next few decades. Like the Oracle in The Matrix made clear, no one can see beyond a choice they don't understand.


Images for things accelerating to destruction

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The Truth Is Folks, We Have To Mobilize The Nation, For Several Important Reasons

The sad fact is, though, that even if we tried to do so now, for whatever the best of reasons might be, the suspicions of both sides of the political divide, coupled with the current corrupt regime in the White House, would make doing so a very problematic roll of the dice, as to whether one side, the other, or both, might take to the streets in great numbers, and with terrible passions unleashed.

And that hardly even begins the discussion of how we do the various debates that need to occur now to determine the priorities, and how those priorities might be addressed, that reasonable, and caring people, might see the need, to be a part of what such a national mobilization would be pressed to accomplish. And, one can only hope, to do it in a comprehensively integrated way, so that certain, common measures, would be leveraging the success of more than one of the identified priorities, and, just as importantly, not getting in the way of any of the others as well.

Doing it also without one side, or the other, working actively to sabotage the other, no matter what truth either side might want to sell the rest of us.

I am, as already stated, quite biased in this. A bias, I might add, that comes from over 25 years of doing software, and systems analysis, throughout most of the major parts of our economy (Banking, Law, Health Care, Public Power, Food Manufacturing and Sales, Aerospace, non profit social initiatives, and a variety of small businesses -- video stores, real estate, and maintenance businesses, etc). That experience, as well as my personal life experience, has led be to conclude that we must have a new means of doing social house hold; of doing work not only for individual prosperity, but for group prosperity as well; and which, by design, is automatically, environmentally sustainable.

In that biased view is also the personal conclusion that the two party system; the one that came about from the old version of Capitalism, and with it, has become just as mutated, and corrupt, as the mutated system itself.

And how could you have expected otherwise; especially given the way the richest, and most powerful, have lately begun to cement their absolute hold on power; corrupting the last court of recourse in this nation, as well as the district representational system we've used for centuries now, to have a House of Representatives (giving them a huge transfer of wealth in the bargain via "quantitative easing," and the Ryan Tax giveaway, while he was still Speaker of the House) pretend to work as a truly representational process.

That last sentence, though, should be a real indicator of just how much our new instrumentality has changed things. That we could still be thinking (indulging in "Rearview Mirror" vision, as Marshal McLuhan would say) that "Representation" could still work in the electrified age of facade, broad spectrum, carefully targeted, deep fakes propaganda, for all aspects of media, and the engineered messaging, all of the new tech makes possible. Which is, of course, why I have been saying we have to take responsibility for ourselves; not only in running our own cities (sharing in getting all of the tasks that takes done, on a constantly rotating basis -- so no one gets stuck doing, whatever comes to be the current, truly shitty work), or counties, or parishes, or whatever grouping we want to have for the general term of "City States," but also of becoming our own, direct vote, House of Representatives.

So. No matter what your bias is, unless we all come to terms with the idea of the necessity of finding a way to tolerate each other, and reach a "Grand Compromise," we will all lose.

Even those other nations, who seem to have become so adept at conflict in this new age of instrumentality; an age only speculative fiction writers were able to imagine a few decades ago. Even they will lose; lose because, in the end, the only thing any victor of such conflict will inherit is just a slightly less diminished view, of just how bad, the final set of cascade events will be, when both natural, and social systems, begin to collapse en mass.

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Images for the world cooperative effort required to address climate change


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What You Don't Know

Can put you into the hospital with no insurance. Can put you out on the street with no money, or recourse. Can put you somewhere even worse than the streets, getting you to the point that you only wish that it would kill you, and everything living around you.

And yet so many of you are ready to stop questioning power at all?

More than just a little surprising from my point of view, especially when it involves both political, and financial, power, at the same time. No matter which side of the political divide is in question. Simply because someone charismatic (that resonates for you, dear reader, because everyone has a type that they are vulnerable to) told you something you were already dying to hear. So many who pretend they have nothing to hide, even as they more brazenly deny any kind of real scrutiny at all.

This is but one reason why the terrible duality that is now money, and information, must be destroyed. And the only way to do that properly is to get rid of the mutated operating system that makes it, appear to work, in the first place. A kind of work that we can now plainly see has never had any real sense of nature, or of real human need either. Now that it has made it clear that it has control of the technology to make working people nothing more than convenient cannon fodder; both in the traditional sense, but also now in the economic sense; because they mostly only need us to die for them (either with the violence that addiction, and corruption dictate, in the reality of dictators, or the simple fact of addictive consumption in the first place); or, secondarily, to have us act as counterweights to those who might control robotic tech; so that those dependant on it can have a fallback option when needed, to fend the off predatory pricing of others.

Will you wake up before it is too Late? Only time will tell.

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The Two Party System In America Has Exhausted Us, And Itself, To A Breaking Point

Trying to live up to the dictum of an old joke, told a new way; as in:

"Hey there, big swinging dick, is that your bank role in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me, and my irresistibly naughty, new, money maker. One I'd be so happy to shake things up with, anyway you like."

And this goes far beyond the difficulty, this binary only system, has had in dealing with the campaign financing merry go round (now that both sides embrace dark money, and even as a good number of Progressive Liberals, of any note, are rich), getting to the core of greed inherent in the profiteering of those who feel, automatically, that manifest destiny, and making money, go hand in hand; so much so that self entitled privilege becomes its own, self perpetuating, vicious circle. A circle that then, must quite naturally turn in a place "above the law," which for everyone else, certainly, still relies on the access to a well funded team of legal tallent, with the right judges paid for via the right, demographically manipulated, districts; because that is what a mutated form of Capitalism does when it turns everything, with electrified magic, into a commodity.

This goes to the very bedrock of why the bad actors we are faced with now are merely symptoms of a much larger malady. Not to say that the symptoms aren't important, mind you, and still need to be dealt with (which may have a ray of hope now of actually occurring with the Mulvaney press conference), but to make clear that, big as those problems still are, it still doesn't get us to how to deal with the core problems. The very core problems that will only create more of these very bad actors.

It has also exhausted itself, and us, because the two sides can see things now only in terms of "anything the other side wins", is a an automatic loss for the opposing side. So each acts to fight, and sabotage, the efforts of the other, regardless of whether it might help the rest of us or not. Even to the point of using economic decisions, as weapons, to do actual economic damage (as in not only opportunistic capital flight, punitive placement of productive physical assets, and even aggressive currency speculations, but also with strikes, as well as general civil disobedience, to thwart certain economic activities, and even outright, physical damage, to key assets ) so as to make voters suffer for thinking they can challenge their economic betters, or the perceived moral imperatives, of very aggressive, environmental warriors (being a warrior of the heart is where the balance thing comes in, so as to not go too far in either direction).

And lastly, of course, is the fact that, by its very obsolescence, Capitalism's remaining proponents are running out of ideas to try and change it; at least for ideas that would ever have any hope of playing successfully to both sides of the political divide, as well as actually solving core issues. Nothing can be seen in a new way because everything must be seen, first and foremost, as it plays through the dictating lens of a cost based economy, and that, as already stated, everything is something that can, ultimately, be bought, and paid for, and held for private gain only. No matter how important it might be for the general public good.

With what we have to heal now, and the mind bending effort it is going to take, to have any chance of applying enough heal in time to make a difference, asking how much it will cost is like asking how long it will take. And just as you have to say, sometimes, that "it will take as long as it needs to take," so must you also say. "it will require whatever the effort, in the end, that it has to require, in order to get it done. Which then still leaves you with trying to address the hassle of arguing about who is going to be responsible for paying in the first place. The squabbling for which, so far, certainly, has marked much of the destructive codependency inherent in the ineffectiveness of our Two Party system.

Most of the very rich have already demonstrated that they don't think anything needs to be healed at all. And with the power, privilege, and the oh so luxurious, protective bubble, that has been afforded them, you can understand why. That leaves only working people left to do the healing, even if we can find a way to tolerate each other, and design a compromise alternative.

So the only question left for folks is, in my, quite admittedly, biased opinion, is this:

Is being rich, or at least the possibility of getting rich, more important to you than preserving life, and community?

If it is then maybe it's time for us all to recognize this split and negotiate a pain sharing way to separate amicably. That way the rich, and the rich wanna be, can go play at what they do best, while the rest of working American gets back to the basics of making both loving,and practical community work, while also working to fix the bad that has been done over several hundreds of years of Capitalistic neglect. And doing that because we won't be able to accomplish the first goals just stated if we do not.

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Everything Is A Potential Commodity In Capitalism

That is its strength, and it's terrible power now.

And when I say everything, I mean everything to our great peril.

The building blocks of life. Ideas. Everyday people. Legislators. Entire Institutions. Even Presidents, this nation's military might, and what constitutes accepted social reality.

And now that "Capitalism Mutated" has been given virtually unlimited power via electrons, photons, and self sustaining, iterative, information, and material, flow processes; whether you call them simply algorithms, or integrated collections of same, as various forms of reasoning engines, to the point of maybe even one day becoming true AI; now that you've given it all that, you have made it be the ever more accelerating force behind our current death spiral of ever more cutthroat competition. Spread out across all aspects of life precisely because all of life is now a commodity; something with which the commodity powerful can do whatever the hell they want to with, assuming they can control enough of it before the other guy does.

Which is why, unfortunately, there won't long be human agency behind any part of trying to control things, however illusory that control may have been in the first place, chaotic as its become with so many actors acting away for their own purposes. A new kind of control that might be way more frightening precisely because the AI will be able to work it's new form of reasoning without any human input at all. And who's to say what value we will have then.

Given all of this it is surprising to me just how surprising this sell out is to Liberals, and Conservatives, who still think in terms of higher human aspirations. And that they still think there should be these silly notion of human right, and wrong. When, in fact, all there really is is what you can get away with, and the power gained from taking that risk.

Come on guys. This is not the age any more of worrying about "Growing Up Absurd." This is now the age of the "Absurdity of Growing Up" at all.

After all, if you can sell out life itself for a bigger profit margin what small step must it take to sell out your country? Just like how easy it is to to sell people on the cheap when you've gotten to the point where you don't see people anymore at all; only untapped resource that needs to be put into the proper restraints of total control; maximizing various combinations of positive, and negative, reinforcements, as required.

If the majority of us are OK with all of this newfound zeal for "The Hard Sell," however it needs to be used, as well as with the mutated thing that makes it all possible, then perhaps the rude awakening that's coming for us all will truly be justice finally served.

I still have resolute faith that this is not true, and that enough of us will wake up in time to take it all back, so that we can be responsible for ourselves for once. To then do the hard things, compromising, and sacrificing, that will have to be done to heal us and the planet.

Time will tell.

Images Of Selling Out Our Country

Images Of Doing What It Takes

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This Is The Cycle That's Turning Us Around Ever Faster And Faster

This is the vicious cycle that is part and parcel of your "Booming Economy." 

It is so because every bad thing Capitalism does also creates a new market, or expands an old one, for a few to make more money on; whether its addiction treatment, or more burned out person treatment (assuming they haven't already imploded, or exploded -- though even the cleanup of that results in new, paying work, for someone), or simply more economic development that will, absolutely, create a few more jobs, even as it also creates fewer places that the workers are going to be able to afford to live in.

What else would you expect when median household incomes remain stubbornly stagnant as half of us earn only about $63K, or less a year, and most of the other half still earn less than $100k a year. Decade after decade of booms and busts, and the "Business As Usual" machinations of our Two Party Political system, and only partial recoveries, and this is all working people have to show for it. Even as Trillions of dollars were given away to the top percenters, via either Quantitative Easing (to get us out of the last big bust), or the Ryan forged tax cut (to just add insult to injury).

And all the while planetary systems get more unstable, just as our human systems get more unstable as well.

Not a good combination if you need to fix both at the same time. Of this I am quite certain.

You know how this will end if nothing truly Revolutionary is done. You know it in your gut and in your head, whether you want to admit it or not.

More of the same is only going to get you more of the same. We truly must find a completely new way of doing Social Household. Which will also absolutely require us to redefine what work should be now. There will be no other way to do this. Not if we want to heal ourselves, and the planet.

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[Post Note: Even though the particular story, just below here, isn't about American universities, it does illustrates similar stresses that the, more and more dominating, money aspect of things, creates; as is only too common here, as well as it is in the U.K. J.V.]

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What Do "Perfect Storms", And "Cascade Events" Have In Common?

A pretty good indication of what we are in store for?

The world seems to be becoming one big snarl of mouse traps with ping pong balls on them. You know, sort of like they used to use in explaining chain reactions for fission events. The ping pong balls, of course, representing the neutrons, that start creating even more triggering neutrons, that made the original big stick bang.

This is so because so much instability has been pumped into both our social systems, and the geophysical systems, that sustain us, that we don't need a highly enriched sort of mouse trap to have as a triggerable source at all. All we needed were centuries of neglect, and the selfishness that fosters, and sustains, the inability to account for the full effect of the, apparently unanswerable, question: How much is enough?

Especially if you have amassed the personal power to start making your own definitions, and the rest of the world be damned if they get in your way.

And the thing is... The more time passes, the smaller the "last straw," or even less significant than that famous "butterfly's wing beat" somewhere, that it will take to set it all off. Leaving you with not only a surfeit of ignition sources, in our ever more dangerously competitive world (precisely because of Capitalism), but also quite likely providing logarithmic like increases in difficulty, every hour, every day, at the very least, in ever hoping to stop it, once it does start. And that precisely because something that was never supposed to be electrified has now been thoroughly infused with greed fueled, free radicals of "disruptive" intent, to mutate a system that did make, at least some sense, for a while there, a long time ago.

Images for a perfect storm of perfect storms

Images for cascade events in highly integrated, complex systems


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And yet the "Streaming Wars" seem to be the conflict we're most concerned about now; with our interest and money. All the more shameful when we say we can't afford to help our desperate, any more than the other "Americans" (because they are of the Americas just as much as we are) at our borders, in desperate need, also asking for help. Because our disruptions are making them desperate, just as theirs are us, because everything is connected, whether we realize it or not, or like it or not. -- J.V.

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