Is Gen Y Too Obsessed With Apocalyptic Futures? 'Yes!' According to One Prof (But They Have a Right To Be!)

"If you were born after 1960, you are more likely to die from starvation, disease or violence." - Jay Hanson, in essay at 'Dieoff.org
















Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Ira Chernus, has proposed the Gen Y demographic is too obsessed with apocalyptic visions and ideation - and gravitate excessively to dystopic fare like 'The Hunger Games',  'The Walking Dead' and likely the new flick, 'Divergent' too.  In the case of 'The Walking Dead' (which btw, I also watch, though it's not necessarily my "favorite") Chernus observes (Colorado Springs Independent, March 5-11, p. 21):

"It's no surprise that 'The Walking Dead', a zombie apocalypse series, is their favorite TV show since it reveals (and revels in) what one TV critic called the 'secret life of the American teenager'"

Leaving open the question of why those of us who are in the elder demographic also find the series riveting.  Hint: It has nada to do with any "secret life" of horrific ideation, but because it's very well done!  Also, maybe we grew up loving horror flicks, and still do. In our reckoning, there's no "statute of limitations" in terms of age, on loving horror flicks.

Having basically denigrated a particular demographics' love of a great zombie series, Chernus does admit we do inhabit an era wherein potential apocalypses are everywhere. One can think of global warming leading to the runaway greenhouse effect, for example, which would effectively wipe humans off the face of the Earth within perhaps 200 years - and all other species too.

Then there is the prospect of real thermo-nuclear war. Most of today's youngsters, though they may have seen a few atomic disaster flicks, have no conception of how horrific a nuclear war would be. Fortunately, one daring British film entitled 'Threads' showed it - from the original exchanges of thousands of megatons - to the nuclear winter that follows over decades.

Threads is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted but I do think all those yammering for war or confrontation with Putin and the Russians need to see it and let its message soak in. In fact, I think every critically-thinking red blooded citizen ought to see it, if for no other reason to be motivated to let their belligerent  reps know this thing isn't on - not now or ever.  In this sense, our political leaders could also use the therapy of seeing 'Threads' next time they're inclined to use antagonistic rhetoric.

Though based on a hypothetical Soviet invasion of Iran, (which possibility now reverts to a U.S. -Israeli bombing of Iran),  the projected invasion of a U.S. and NATO strike force remains accurate to any unfolding future scenario,  since the present day Russians have plowed enormous investment  into Iran and its reactors.. Anyway, from the initial strikes on a nuke reactor at Isfahan, to the accidental sinking of the Russian ship Kirov in the Straits of Hormuz, to the accidental exchange of 2 tactical nuclear weapons (with radiation blowing over Pakistan) and the escalation to a full scale nuclear war - with 3,000 megatons exchange (210 megatons on the UK alone) this movie will keep you on the edge of your seat.

It should also give sober citizens (of whatever age) nightmares and motivate them to scream down all the warmongers in this country with a boner to pick a fight....with whomever. In this sense, Chernus is right that "apocalypses are everywhere" in the political process for change. For example, the most powerful political process today, mostly for negative change (which is to say, the benefits of it redound only to the few, the wealthy, the multinational corporations) is Neoliberalism.  The Neoliberal dynamic and imperative is to "flatten the Earth" in terms of holding all global citizens to the dictates of the global market. These dictates demand all nations 'play by the rules' which means they do nothing to resist Neoliberal expansion irrespective of what form it takes. This is exactly why Obama and the U.S. are so pissed at the Russians for reverting to their original geographical interests and re-claiming Crimea. In addition, the Russians by their actions are messing up assorted trade deals that would have mightily benefited capitalists in the U.S.

As one astute commenter in the UK Guardian forums put it:

"The EU "trade deal" with America would allow American Corporations to take over "outsourced" public sector contracts in Ukraine"

So the negative impetus to confront the Russians is directly tied to this deflection of the Neoliberal imperative to enslave the Ukrainians in another "austerity" governed hellhole, like Greece. But is it worth having a nuclear war over? We have to wait and see. In the meantime one hopes more sober heads come to the fore in the Obama administration.

Chernus goes on to write- and this could certainly apply to the siren song of Neoliberalism:

"A better future is often implied between the lines but it seldom gets much attention because it's even harder to imagine such a future much less believe it."

For many of us, in the case of climate change this is certainly true, since there's almost NO upside, zero - if we should hit the critical thresholds identified by Bill McKibben. Thus, exceeding a carbon load (for the atmosphere) of 550 gT is the start of the road to climate hell, while exceeding the 2770 gT limit is the road to certain hell and the end of the game for humanity.

Thus it is understandable that upsides and positive images get less attention. We're already seeing the negative effects play out in massive droughts, wild fires, severe heat waves and storms, so why should we expect the future to be better - especially if humans aren't doing a damned thing to effect significant change? We keep growing our numbers, spewing more chemicals (including massive water pollutants) and CO2 out, even as the fossil fuel wizards now want to frack the whole planet into the ground.

In terms of the Neoliberal imperative, we already see the 'race to the bottom' played out in numerous nations for which the Neoliberal virus has become embedded. We behold millions and millions of unemployed and under-employed as well as people barely able to eke out a living on minimum wage. We also see the yen to cut social insurance, whether in the U.S. or Barbados - because for the Neoliberal,  security is not to be allowed. It is anathema because people are expected to either work for their money, or get if from investment in the (Neoliberal) gamed markets. Those who refuse are punished by extremely low yields and the creeping cancer of inflation eating up their savings (especially as the Neolibs continue to game the system and measure only certain types of inflation in their cost of living assessments)

Since we can see the dire effects of Neoliberalism (those of us with eyes to see) then looking for upsides to it, irrespective of what the Neolib pols spout, is a fool's errand.

As for Prof. Chernus, his heart is in the right place - in terms of trying to spread a more positive overtone to our rapidly approaching dystopic world - but his knowledge is inadequate. In terms of allaying climate change he writes, for example:

"Scientists have shown that renewable sources like the Sun and wind could provide all the energy humanity needs. Alternative technologies are putting those theories into practice around the globe just not on the scale needed to transform human life."

Which is true, but he doesn't explain why. The reason is that fossil fuels remain the energy sources with the biggest bangs for the buck, and sources like solar and wind are too dilute - not concentrated enough - to be useful. The Physicist's Desk Reference notes, for example, all the alternative energy sources taken together barely account for 1 EJ (exajoule) while oil-coal account for 15-17 EJ.

Unlike energy derived from fossil fuels, energy derived from solar power is diffuse and also extremely intermittent: it varies constantly with weather or day/night. If a large city wants to derive a significant portion of its electricity from solar power, it must build fossil-fuel-fired or nuclear-powered electricity plants to provide backup for the times when solar energy is not available. Solar power has a capacity of about 20 percent. This means that if a utility wants to install 100 megawatts of solar power, they need to install 500 megawatts of solar panels. This makes solar power a prohibitively expensive and pragmatically poor replacement for the cheap and abundant fossil fuel energy our economy depends on, especially if one intends to use it operate missile factories.

Worse, calculations show that solar cells currently consume twice as much sej as they produce, so they're no bargain. Worse, an entirely solar civilization would most likely have to exist at the power output and potential (relative to electric grid capacity) of about one half where we are now. IN order to accomplish that we'd have to winnow the human population down to barely 2 billion - which is exactly the number that Alan Weisman pinpointed as the Earth's "Carrying capacity" or the maximum number of people the Earth can support given its resource base.  You simply can't have 7.5 billion people able to exist on solar power.  Their transport needs alone - never mind food - would make it impossible.

H.T. Odum's solar "eMergy" (eMbodied energy) measures all of the energy (adjusted for quality) that goes into the production of a product. Odum's calculations show that the only forms of alternative energy that can survive the exhaustion of fossil fuels are muscle, burning biomass (wood, animal dung, or peat), hydroelectric, geothermal in volcanic areas, and some wind electrical generation. Nuclear power could be viable if one could overcome the shortage of fuel. No other alternatives (e.g., solar voltaic) produce a large enough net sej to be sustainable. In short, there is no way out of the dire fossil fuel predicament any time soon, and we will likely exceed the 2, 770 gT calamity limit before we can implement massive alternate energy inputs.

Chernus ends by saying:

"In an age in which gloom, doom and annihilation are everywhere, it's vital to bring genuine hope - the reality, not just the word - back into political life."

This is true,  but the problem is that our politicos have shamelessly abused the word 'hope' too often, using it in the wrong context of election cycles and seeking to exploit in when the wherewithal (or will) wasn't there to effect it. Hence, by doing so, they've only made the population more cynical - not less. This doesn't necessarily mean they are 'hopeless' or totally without positivity - but that they seek people in political life who are able to balance hope and realism. The problem again is that these really courageous potential politicians will not likely get the adequate funding to compete in our money-soaked system, which also favors the Neoliberal puppet over any other types.

The true fact here is the Gen Ys are quite right to view the current U.S. scene through mostly negative and cynical eyes. They've been betrayed as have we all. The problem has been to be able to pinpoint who or what is to blame, but most of us finally know it is un-tempered Neoliberalism, with its adoration of the markets as some deus ex machina, and the exclusion of human capital and human priorities.

Until that changes, no one has any right to exude false hope - which is the only form in abundance right now.

As for the zombies on 'The Walking Dead' - they are all around us, but mostly inhabiting the Beltway, as they sully forth to do the Neoliberals'  bidding on autopilot - and ignore the rest of us. Look just at the recent approval of $1b for the Ukraine, while our own kids - 15.6 million of them- go to bed hungry each night because of recent food stamp cuts.

See also:  www.dieoff.org

And:  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/55026/nafta-at-20-a-vehicle-to-increase-profits-at-the-expense-of-democracy

It's Time to Increase Estate Taxes for the One Percent!

Author Michael Parenti, in his book, 'Dirty Truths', was the first to expose the lie that most wealth is amassed by plain old hard work. In fact, he showed - using census and other data not easily available- that 95 percent of wealth is accumulated by way of inheritance.  He believed this important to attend to, given how the Repukes, assorted conservative blowhards and other friends of the rich, often used the "hard work" mantra to beat the less fortunate over the head for their plight - blaming THEM - instead of the corrupted system that enabled the rich to do so well.

This is even more critical now for citizens to have on the radar, given the past ten years have seen 80% of Americans lose in income, many falling out of the middle class, meanwhile the other twenty percent have ratcheted up gains - especially the top 1%..  This as inequality in the U.S. has never been higher, now rivaling Mexico and the Philippines  - with a Gini coefficient approaching 0.5. (A Gini of 1.0 denotes total income-economic inequality, while 0.0 denotes complete economic equality.)

Incredibly, 15.6 million kids still go to bed hungry every night because of cuts to food stamps, most recently as part of a Farm Bill which delivers huge subsidies to rich, corpora-farms.  Economist Jared Bernstein has put it this way:

"It's like don't look at all the ways in which the economy is underperforming, and the benefits are flowing right to the top. Look at the people getting $4.50 a day for food stamps. It's an old trick but it continues to be used."

All this, as French economist Thomas Piketty released into the English-speaking world last week his 700-page work entitled  “Capital in the 21st Century,” setting off a firestorm of media commentary. In the book, Piketty painstakingly reconstructs the last couple of centuries of wealth and income inequality in the world and provides cogent theories to explain the origin and dynamics. He uses those theories and projections about future growth to predict what the next century of inequality will look like, and it’s not a pretty picture. Among other things, we will see the  further rise of inheritance as a major player in economic fortunes.

That means even more scions will be able to sit on their asses after collecting nice tidy sums of  forty million or more, while they castigate those in minimum wage jobs or those low-wage parents having to work two or more jobs just to feed their kids and keep a roof over their heads.

The U.S. itself, as Parenti noted (op. cit.) didn't always have inherited wealth play such an immense role in inequality.  That didn't really take off until the Reagan Years and conservative think tanks changed the language - using the term "DEATH TAXES" instead of Estate Taxes.  The Democrats- as they usually are (e.g. when Rs said in 2011 that eliminating the Bush tax cuts was "raising taxes")  were caught flat-footed and unable to  come up with a counter narrative.  Thus, they had to look on impotently as estate taxes were halved and then lowered further, and  have remained low since, allowing the rentier and parasite class to profit immensely.


Early in the country's history, however, inheritance played only a limited role, probably owing to historical accident. When you start out as a country of 3 million people and grow your population as rapidly as the U.S. has, inheritance can’t loom that large. The inevitable rapid population growth, and the overall national income growth that accompanied it, ensured that the bulk of the wealth at any given time had to be new wealth. It also ensured that year-over-year gains to stockpiles of old wealth couldn’t dominate everything else.

Because of these historically contingent factors,  and then reasonable estate taxes, inheritance and capital stockpiling weren't able to play the kind of role in the U.S. that they have in many European countries, most notably France and Britain. Even still, what we know of inheritance in the U.S. paints a bleak picture, especially from the time the estate tax was diluted.

A 2011 study by Edward Wolff and Maury Gittleman found that the wealthiest 1 percent of families had inherited an average of $2.7 million from their parents. This is 447 times more money than the least wealthy group of people — those with wealth less than $25K — had inherited. In between the wealthiest and least wealthy groups, inheritance levels ran in exactly the direction you would expect: the wealthier a group of people, the more they had inherited. From this the more inequality could be forecast over time.


How so?  As lopsided as these inheritance disparities seem, they only reflect half of the inheritance problem. Overlooked about piles of wealth is that they deliver to their owners passive, unearned streams of income called "rents":  dividends, profits, capital gains, interest and so on- hence the term Rentier. Those who get big inheritances can just park those inheritances in investment accounts that just get bigger and bigger without having to lift a finger to do a day's honest work. As a result, the gaping inheritance disparity actually grows more gaping each year after the inheritances have been received. Without estate taxes of fifty percent or more, or some other redistribution method to control them, the silver spoon set can run wild - frequenting all night clubs,  then sleeping their days away - while some poor guy at MickeyD's has to apply for food stamps to get enough to eat.

How can we halt this climb to more passive wealth accumulation? We can construct  more cogent and powerful ways to break up and limit wealth concentrations and intergenerational wealth transfers, most notably through large (50% or more) estate taxes and redistribution. The problem is that so many of our citizens have been brainwashed by conservo propaganda to react in 'dog whistle' fashion  to  “death taxes” -  as the meritocracy-loving conservatives and their media slaves call them.

"AEIEEEE! Yuh can't impose DEATH Taxes on these unfortunate little silver spooners!"

YES we can - and we do feel sorry that the rich and the Repukes mind-fucked you with the language embolism, but it can certainly be done!  We just need politicos with the balls to do it and not bought and paid for by the likes of the Koch brothers!  
 

These changes that would head off the horrific  inegalitarian future are politically possible but we need to make sure we elect the people with the nerve to do it - though we will likely have to flush the money "free speech" from the corrupt system first.

Obama's Hollow Threats: A Failure To Grasp Geopolitics – As He Defends Iraq War

"The vast human cataclysms of the 20th century will not likely repeat themselves. But the worldwide civil society that the elites thought they could engineer is a chimera. The geographical forces at work will not be easily tamed.......In geopolitics the past never dies and there is no modern world." - Robert Kaplan, in 'Old World Order', TIME, March 31, p. 35.


When a New York Times editorial takes you to task for over the top and antagonistic rhetoric you know you’re off the beam as a President. The Editorial (‘A Tortured Policy Towards Russia’) noted:

“THE United States has once again twisted itself into a rhetorical pretzel. As when it threatened military action against Syria if a “red line” was crossed, the Obama administration’s rhetoric about Russia and Ukraine goes far beyond what it will be willing and able to enforce. “

It went on to point out:

“Washington’s rhetoric is dangerously excessive, for three main reasons: Ukraine is far more important to Vladimir V. Putin than it is to America; it will be hard for the United States and Europe to make good on their threats of crippling sanctions; and other countries could ultimately defang them”.

All of which I wholeheartedly agree with.  And yet what do we behold Obama doing yesterday? Well,  continuing with his offal and hollow, belligerent rhetoric denouncing the “brute force” he said Russia used to intimidate neighbors like Ukraine and vowing that the United States “will never waver” in standing up for its NATO allies against aggression by Moscow.”   Of course, he knows as his incompetent aides do as well, that he can never ever back that up without being willing to have a nuclear war. Does he? I doubt it.

In a speech clearly written by Robert Kagan or some other Neocon idiot-  evident by its lack of intelligence and puerile bombast  -   Obama dismissed Russian justifications for its intervention in Ukraine point by point, as “absurd” or unmerited.  He also used the Neoliberal media trope that Russia was “re-drawing borders” totally oblivious to the geopolitics of the issue. To remind readers, geopolitics is basically the “battle for space and power played out in a geographical setting” (TIME, ‘Old World Order’, March 31, p. 32).

As the TIME piece adds: “This is a concept that hasn’t changed since antiquity yet one which to which too many Western diplomats  and academics have lately seemed deaf.”

The reason for that is that these “diplomats” and “academics” (sic) have tried to lend urgency and memetic superiority to the Neoliberal “New World Order” which purported to organize the 21st century according to economic arrangements, financial and trade agreements and abstract unions. The problem is that the reality of geography (and ethnicity)  trumps this hyper-bullshit for most humans, and in the case of Ukraine  (ibid.): “its very geography makes it nearly impossible to orient itself entirely toward the West.”  It is IN Russia’s sphere of influence, holds its most strategic sea port and hence there was no doubt Russia would claim it if the Neoliberal West pushed its advantage too hard – with expansion of NATO. Hence, Russia has far more invested in controlling this geography than the U.S. and would fight to the death to preserve its hegemony. Meanwhile, the U.S. has no business meddling, period.

This is grasped even by Mikhail Gorbachev, he who advocated originally for the New World Order (allowing the Soviet Union to break up), but saw successive U.S. Presidents break their promise not to expand NATO.  No wonder as TIME noted (‘Morning After in Crimea’, p. 12, Gorbachev- when asked his opinion of Putin’s actions on the eve of the referendum- pointedly noted that “Putin should not stop at Crimea but take all of southern Ukraine”.  Which makes sense from a geopolitical viewpoint given that otherwise Crimea is cut off from Russian supply lines, roads, etc.  Gorbachev emphasized this geopolitical view when he said (ibid.)

“In essence, southern Ukraine is just like Crimea. Its population is Russian. It was civilized by Russians.”

Does Obama get any of this? Clearly not.  Incredibly,  this guy even defended aspects of the Iraq war, which he had opposed as a junior senator, as a stark contrast to the way Russia has seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. One’s mind must boggle at this incomprehensible turnaround but of course Obama watchers have seen it before – many times- altering positions and policies from what he stoutly proclaimed in campaign mode. It’s almost becoming a pattern like a broken record.  So, we weren't terribly surprised when he  said:

“But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory. We did not grab its resources for our own gain. Instead we ended our war, and left Iraq to it people in a fully sovereign Iraqi state that can make decision about its own future.”

Of course, this is firstly devoid of any basic grasp of GEOPOLITICS!  Iraq, at over 6,000 miles distant from the U.S. - posed no remote geographical security interest or threat - unlike the Ukraine and NATO's incursion does for the Russians. Iraq was perpetrated purely out of bogus WMD bullshit hatched by a rat nicknamed "Curve ball". ON that basis, and because Saddam once made some vague threats about Pappy Bush, a full scale assault was launched that eventually cost hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions in treasure.

 Thus the Iraq War was indefensible as well as illegal from the get go, irrespective of whether the U.S. claimed one city, or one sand berm. The  truth is that the legitimate "international system" condemned the Iraq invasion and occupation since it violated Principle VI of the Nuremberg laws - the crimes against peace, and pre-emptive war.   Instead of contorting himself into such ridiculous positions to try to justify a verbal attack on Russia, he’d do better to watch and listen to the young Senator’s opposition to that disgusting pre-emptive war which imitated the Nazi invasion of Poland.  Meanwhile, Russia’s occupation of the Crimea was actually justified by a 1997  treaty with the Ukraine, which allowed a limit of 25,000 troops.

Obama - in his spiel yesterday- even conceded the U.S. itself has NO geopolitical stake in Ukraine:

"To be honest, if we define our interests narrowly, if we applied a cold hearted calculus, we might decide to look the other way. Our economy is not deeply integrated with Ukraine’s. Our people and our homeland face no direct threat from the invasion of Crimea.   Our own borders are not threatened by Russia’s annexation"


But he then bloviated that, oh we just had to get involved and be the Cop of the World, because "casual indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this continent."

Clearly, it appears Obama’s brain has been hijacked by the neocons and their disreputable endless war narrative. Where we once held out hope he’d rise to the level of a transformative President – like Kennedy did after the Cuban Missile Crisis – it is now evident Obama has regressed to his mean over the past 6 years.  The only difference now is his use of belligerent, antagonistic rhetoric when calm, thoughtful,  dispassionate response is sorely needed.  To repeat the words of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) on Chris Hayes’ ALL In show two weeks ago:

“This is not something that anybody needs. Not the West, not Russia, not the world, There needs to be an end to the polemics, as you showed from people like John McCain, an end of the passion, an end to the punditry, and a solution.”

Unlike Obama and the Neoliberal and neocon imps and lackeys in his administration, Col. Wilkerson proposed an actual pragmatic geopolitical solution: making Ukraine a buffer state between NATO and Russia which is a reasonable solution.  As he went on to point out –from the transcript:

“Ukraine needs to be the buffer state. Crimea needs to be exactly where it is, with Russia - where it's been for over three hundred and fifty years, and we need to stop the passionate statements and get down to business and work this out. We don't need a war."

Meanwhile, Obama continued on from his intemperate remarks the day before,  as if he’s begging for a war, asserting (New York Times, March 30 headline story, 'Obama Renewing U.S. Commitment to NATO'):

“We have to make sure that we have put together very real contingency plans for every one of these members, including those who came in out of Central and Eastern Europe. And over the last several years we have worked up a number of these contingency plans.”

More worrisome, and disclosing that the neocons have seriously egged him into rash, provocative actions, the NY Times (op. cit.) reported that:

The United States has already sent an extra six F-15C Eagles and 60 airmen to Lithuania and 12 F-16 fighter jets and 200 service members

And the provocations are likely to worsen, as the  NY TIMES continued, noting:

Aides said the president would bolster that presence by rotating more ground and naval troops for exercises and training in Poland and the Baltic countries; update contingency planning for specific countries and update NATO’s threat assessment in the region; and increase the capacity of a NATO quick-response force.

Sadly, we don’t know where this will end or how. We had expected the sober and pragmatic  response of a statesman and someone who could work with Russia in a serious way –  predicated on  feasible geopolitical solutions as opposed to Pax Americana fantasies. But it appears the neocons in Obama’s administration have had the last laugh in turning him into one of them (even accepting THEIR IRAQ WAR!) 

Even if they don’t get a new war with the Russians, the damage to the cooperative relationship with Putin appears permanent. And Mr. Putin is the key to keeping further wars in Syria and Iran from igniting.

This rending of the cooperative agreement may have been what the neocons likely  wanted all along, which is bad enough. One thing I can say I never thought I’d see is Obama turning into a neocon! Though truth be told, Oliver Stone in his ‘Secret History of the United States’ did show Obama’s policies vis-à-vis Iraq and the Middle East much chummier with Bush’s than many have realized. Perhaps another reason he didn’t prosecute Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld for war crimes, or enabling and approving the CIA renditions and tortures.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/55005/media-whoop-up-stampede-to-cold-war-hot-war-whatever

And:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/cameron-salisbury/55095/vladimir-putin-rock-star-made-in-America

 And (On Ukraine's  Nazis):

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/55086/ukraines-inconvenient-neo-Nazis
 

The Younger Demographic Abandons Religion - It's About Time!

As I've noted in earlier blog posts, religion is distinct from the belief in a transcendent Being. While the endless search for the latter is likely rooted in the brain, i.e. the brain’s orientation and association area(OAA) ,  see e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/peeling-back-layers-of-religious-brain.html

religions are cultural-social creations, arising from particular ethnicities and geography.

That is, while the brain and OAA engender the God-concepts which we embrace, these concepts are not dependent on having a religion.


Religion - by contrast- is an entirely human artifact generally contrived for the purpose of control of a population via mind viruses.  Religion has been described as a "reaction to the experience of the transcendent" - and this may carry more truth than all the religious books one could ever read in a lifetime. It means that at some phase religion short circuits itself by inveighing against the natural instinct for spiritual self-discovery in most humans. It means that religion's warp and woof is to filter out the transcendent so its power implications are dispersed into assorted secondary human channels or  "media" (e.g. priests, popes, rabbis, ministers etc.)  as opposed to being allocated to the individual to exercise on his own. (Which would allow him to become too much like the ancient Gnostics).

Thus, religion FEARS too much self-autonomy, independent thought and questioning which is why it often retains an absolutist stance regarding the nature of the transcendent- and has historically held out assorted punishments when it beholds any transgressions of concept, or "belief", i.e. for heretics:















Heretics undergo torture at the hands of the Inquisition, for their rejection of basic Catholic tenets.

The mind virus basis for most religions (except the impersonal) was first articulated by biochemist Jacque Monod in his book Chance and Necessity. On page 155 Monod observes:

"The human group upon which a given idea confers greater cohesiveness, greater ambition and greater self-confidence thereby receives from it an added power to expand which will ensure the promotion of the idea itself. Its promotion value' bears no relation to the amount of objective truth the idea may contain."

He goes on to note (ibid.):

"The might of the powerful armament provided by a religious ideology for a society does not lie in its structure, but in the fact that if this structure is accepted, that it gains command".

And indeed, we already detect this playing out on the national stage as a group of powerful religious interests, as embodied in 'Hobby Lobby' - seeks to have certain contraceptive provisions in the ACA overturned by the Supreme Court so that they do not have to comply. As Justice Elaine Kagan noted in one of her ripostes, "What next? Will another religion choose to reject vaccinations? Another choose to reject sex education? Where does it end?"

But this is the point given that the most powerful and insidious memes- mind viruses are those dedicated to the spread of religious beliefs.  The most pervasive as well as pernicious are those that hijack political or social power  using what Monod, for example, calls their innate "infectious power", or how easily they are spread.  (One reason one must always be wary of proselytizers in any form! They all clearly seek to enhance the "propagation value" of the virus)

All of this is why it's so gratifying to now learn that of those aged 18 to 35, three in 10 say they are not affiliated with any religion, while only half are “absolutely certain” a god exists. These are at or near the highest levels of religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the 25 years the Pew Research Center has been polling on these topics.

In fact, the numbers could be even more favorable, and they might be closer to 4 in 10 unaffiliated with a religion. Why? A clue is provided by columnist Tina Dupuy, who  observes. “When it comes to self-reporting religious devotion Americans cannot be trusted. We under-estimate our calories, over-state our height, under-report our weight and when it comes to piety—we lie like a prayer rug.”

So 'Muricans are too chicken shit to divulge their real leanings and predilections in many polls- namely those bearing ultra-sensitive topics like weight, religious belief etc.. So what's new?

Anyway, even more satisfying is that e very piece of social data suggests that those who favor faith and superstition over fact-based evidence will become the minority in this country by or before the end of this century. In fact, the number of Americans who do not believe in a deity doubled in the last decade of the previous century according to both the census of 2004 and the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of 2008, with religious non-belief in the U.S. rising from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.2 percent in 2001. In 2013, that number is now above 16 percent.

If current trends continue, the crossing point, whereby atheists, agnostics, and “nones” equals the number of Christians in this country, will be in the year 2062. All of which is terrific, except that I will likely not be around to see it.

How did this turnaround from specious religious faith happen? Perhaps many reasons, including the emergence of the "New" atheists prepared to take on religionist bullies where and when they see fit - as opposed to cowering. And also the overreach of the religious politicos - as in the 2012 election with assorted nitwits talking about "legitimate rape" and other nonsense.

But it likely began even earlier. Political scientists Robert Putman and David Campbell, the authors of American Grace, argue that the Christian Right’s politicization of faith in the 1990s turned younger, socially liberal Christians away from churches, even as conservatives became more zealous. “While the Republican base has become ever more committed to mixing religion and politics, the rest of the country has been moving in the opposite direction.”

Nowhere is this being played out more than in the arena of abortion and contraception, and one can see again how the religious will likely overplay they their hand with this new round at the Supreme Court. Whichever way the Court rules, the non-affiliated demographic is likely to grow and that is a good and healthy thing for this nation!

Obama: "Russia is a Regional Power" - And Other Moronic Remarks

No, I am emphatically not an "Obamabot" as would be obvious if thinking people read my posts critical of him.  I voted for him twice given the horrific alternatives, but was never on his "band wagon" in the sense of turning a blind eye to his flaws and misguided policies, i.e. drone killings, "debt commission", Chained CPI, supporting NSA mass spying, anti-whistleblower stance etc. Now, in hindsight, I still congratulate him when I believe he's made a policy choice, speech or decision that's wise and justified, and I criticize him when I believe he's veering off course, doing something ill-advised or stupid (perhaps because of bad advice).

In the latter category, Obama delivered a talk at a Nuclear Security summit in the Netherlands yesterday that was remarkable for its abysmal failure to grasp basic geopolitics, his dismissal of Russia as any kind of power on the global stage, and his failure (or unwillingness) to grasp the Ukraine crisis at any more than a Neoliberal media level.

Of course, the superficial content of his spiel could well also reflect  Obama’s “chameleon-like nature” in taking on the hues of the venue he addresses, first pointed out by Salon.com writer David Bromwich in his recent piece, ‘Obama’s Disappearing Act – What Happened to the President He Wanted To Be?’   As Bromwich observed:

 

"More than most people, Obama has been a creature of his successive environments. He talked like Hyde Park when in Hyde Park. He talks like Citigroup when at the table with Citigroup. And in either milieu, he likes the company well enough and enjoys blending in. "

 

So, it may well be that Obama’s ridiculous rhetoric could be attributed to this trait, we don’t know. I merely highlight here some of the examples of all the wrong things he said yesterday. Things which others might seriously misinterpret or read more into than warranted.

Among the absurd rhetoric we heard was that “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness.”

 

In fact, given how Putin has immensely assisted Obama in both Iran and Syria,  this is a putdown that boggles the mind. Putin and Russia’s influence, in finding alternative approaches to both the Iranian nuclear program, and the events in Syria – in July- enabled Obama to ease out of what would surely have been two disastrous new conflicts he (and the country) didn’t need.  If Russia is  merely a “regional power” this would never have been feasible nor would Obama have been so dependent on Putin for this assistance - which he has yet to acknowledge in any public speech (one reason why Robert Parry has shown he's been at the mercy of the neocons - see e.g.
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54745/how-looking-forward-tripped-up-Obama

The U.S. political elites,  as ensconced in the Neoliberal political class and media,  DO like to believe this stupid meme,because it resonates with their long time (20 year) narrative of a “defeated” superpower which now can barely take care of itself. The Neolibs and their neocon allies  and media fifth columnists may like to believe this horse shit, but no critically thinking citizen should.

They ought to understand instead that any Russian "weakness" was incurred by its willingness to partake of the Neolib New World Order itself – which at the time  (1991) was proffered to Mikhail Gorbachev in return for the U.S. not expanding NATO.  That  acceptance caused much pain, as described in Naomi Klein’s book, ‘The Shock Doctrine:  The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' (2007), since it reduced or obliterated  Russian citizens’ long time support systems while allowing entry of a parasitical form of capitalism.

 

Despite that, Russia has found a way, predicated on its vast resources and emerging energy sector to become the 2^nd largest producer of gas and oil next to Saudi Arabia. Indeed, much of Europe depends upon it – so the EU nations dare not become too enamored of their sanctions, lest the energy plug be pulled.  In addition, lest Obama forget, Russia still retains more than 3,000 nuclear warheads on as many ICBMs which surely merits equal superpower status – given it’s the only nation with the ability to reduce the U.S. to ashes, as one of its ministers recently put it.  This capability alone demands no one in a leadership role in the U.S. dismiss Russia, or cast it as only a "regional power". Any nation that has the nuclear capacity to incinerate the globe is no "regional power".


This is not something to take lightly or write off to appease an audience which stock and trade is terrorism. Nor is it an excuse to make a glib comment such as Obama also rendered yesterday: i.e.  that “Russia is not the number one US national security threat”  and he is "more concerned about the possibility of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan" (by terrorists).  If he really believes that is his number one concern, right now, he ought to consider resigning from the Presidency.  Because in his position, I’d damned well be more worried about the Ukraine situation overheating to the point nukes are used in a limited conflict and then escalates to all out nuclear war.

 

In respect of this overheating Obama didn’t help matters with two other stupid remarks he made:

 

“We (the US) have considerable influence on our neighbors. We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them,"

 

Hmmmmm….. “we generally don’t need to invade them” but we WILL if we find a national security smokescreen to invoke! (As opposed to Russia's legitimate right to occupy the Crimea according to an existing treaty- see below-  and, in its own sphere of influence,).  In other words, Obama is saying the U.S. can invade if and when it chooses to, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has in more than 20 nations since the end of World War II – based on the ‘Monroe doctrine” or whatever specious basis it can find (NSC-68), but no other nation has a right to protect or exercise its self –interest.

Obama then compounded this foolishness by adding that: the United States "would use its military to come to the defense of any NATO country that is threatened " adding "We will act in their defense against any threats. That’s what NATO is all about.”
 

Actually, no – it isn’t what NATO is "all about". NATO is a Cold War relic, now  exploited by the U.S. to expand its sphere of influence, in this case  against Russia’s – since the end of the Soviet Union. (I believe part of it is also to act like a bully and rub Russia's 'nose' in the dirt. "Nya, nya - see what we can do and you can't stop us!") Indeed one can argue that NATO is a war mongering entity as noted herein:

NATO's Warmongers:  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-cloughley/54851/the-belligerent-alliance-natos-warmongers
 

I hate to be the one to have to remind Obama that this is a promise he’s not likely to keep, say if Russia feels threatened by a belligerent NATO puppet, e.g. Lithuania or Poland,  and strikes against it. The reason is that the Russians have retained a “limited use" nuclear doctrine by which they reserve the right to employ nukes if they feel overwhelmed by conventional outside forces, say NATO’s, see e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-wellen/54873/russia-still-addresses-conventional-weapons-gap-with-u-s-via-nukes

As noted therein:

"On March 13, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ran a piece by Nikolai Sokov with the paradoxical title Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike “de-escalation.” He writes, “In 1999, at a time when renewed war in Chechnya seemed imminent, Moscow watched with great concern as NATO waged a high-precision military campaign in Yugoslavia.” It became concerned both that “the United States would interfere within its borders” and that the “conventional capabilities that the United States and its allies demonstrated seemed far beyond Russia’s own capacities.”

In response, Russia

… issued a new military doctrine whose main innovation was the concept of “de-escalation”—the idea that, if Russia were faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its capacity for defense, it might respond with a limited nuclear strike.

In the unnerving 1983 film ‘Threads’ such a scenario played out in a future Iran, after the U.S. and NATO allies bombed a nuclear plant at Isfahan. The Russians used tactical nukes to even the score and halt advancing NATO forces, the U.S. did likewise, and within days the exchange could no longer be controlled and had escalated into a full scale nuclear war. Is this what Obama really wants? Then he better be careful what promises he makes and how he wields his rhetoric.

The most utterly arrogant comment made, however, was that:  “Russia of course has the legal right to have troops in its own country” – as if this is a big deal or carries some profound, hitherto unknown concept.

Of course they can have troops in their own country!  So can the U.S.!  SO what? The issue isn’t having troops in one’s own country, but the willingness to deploy them where and when a nation feels its sphere of influence threatened. This is why Russia has deployed troops (more than 20,000 in Crimea, which are LEGAL btw, according to a treaty – see:

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-us-

 

And the U.S. has no business challenging that or referring to it as "invasion" or "aggression" etc.. True, CIA director Brennan (the same guy who spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee - that had Dianne Feinstein in an uproar),  "didn't believe this justified Russia's moves", but I revert back to what Col. Wilkerson (Ret.) noted 3 weeks ago on MSNBC - that given the U.S. neocons conducted a putsch, a coup - Russia  WAS justified and Wilkerson would have done it too if in Putin's place as he himself noted. 

The U.S. meanwhile, has deployed tens of thousands of troops wherever it damned well pleases and in flagrant disregard of any international norms or laws. It instead creates its own "laws" or "doctrines" (i.e. "Bush doctrine") to justify incursion and interference  wherever it sees some vague “threat” that has no direct bearing whatever on national security – such as the illegal Iraq invasion

Don’t bother to tell the Russians where and how their troop deployments are “legal” or allowed if you don’t adhere to the same standards or to international courts of law or previously established international legal norms and principles such as Nuremberg Principle VI. (Condemning "crimes against Peace", i.e. "Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression" as in the case of the Iraq War.)

I do believe, assuming Obama wasn’t putting on his “chameleon act” for the nuclear security audience in The Hague, that he needs to study my post on a game theory perspective to the Ukraine crisis. He will get more out of it than listening to Victoria Nuland or Robert Kagan!

-----

On that note, let me applaud Obama for his forceful words yesterday on the need to pull back NSA bulk phone data collection. But I would like to see scaling back the NSA's dragnet of the internet via its PRISM and MUSCULAR programs too. And until something is actually done, and there is pull back, it remains only  interesting rhetoric.

See also:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/55005/media-whoop-up-stampede-to-cold-war-hot-war-whatever

Social Security & Medicare : "An unjustified transfer of wealth from the young to the elderly"? NO!

Once more an undereducated know-nothing is provided a privileged stage on which to spout his insufferable, uninformed bollocks. Woe is me! Woe is us! And it’s all the fault of them damned greedy geezers with all their blinkin’ excessive benefits! 

In this case, indignant Sunday New York Times letter writer, Daniel Bronheim, reaches full throated pitch and bile as he writes:

 “The rising cost of Social Security and Medicare has for a generation crowded out adequate government investment in infrastructure, education and research. It has meant a huge and unjustified transfer of wealth from the young to the elderly, especially when it’s being funded by borrowing from the future”.

 

After reading just this portion one is left to wonder how much more false grievance can be expressed in one letter of 150 words – but there’s a lot. I merely note his next sentence is that “insult is added to injury to realize the poor die so much younger and this transfer benefits is to those who need it the least.”

 

Where did this dolt get this misinformation? One must ponder seriously that question, given 44% of seniors have only Social security to live on and certainly aren’t among those “who need it the least”.  As for the “poor dying much younger” – yes, so how about the poor seniors I noted in McDowell, WVA in my post skewering the idiot Abby Huntsman?

How many times and in how many venues must we educate these twerps to grasp what is going on here?  Bronheim gets his perceptual panties in a twist over the elderly, but in fact, if he had more brains or common sense he’d recognize it’s the expanded military industrial complex which now consumes 58 percent of current expenditures. THAT is what’s responsible for leaving his young generation with debt, poor job outlook, and transferred wealth.

 

Does he not know, for example, that the Bushies pilfered Social Security monies from 2001 on to pay for their illegal, neocon-inspired wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? It is estimated that over a trillion bucks went for that purpose, with the Bushie architects trying to conceal the size of the actual deficits by raiding S.S.   But let’s add the total gov’t yearly grabs up from 2001-08, as extracted from GAO and Trust Fund data – as I reported in my blog post responding to Huntsman:

2001    -  $163 billion

2002   - $159 billion

2003   -$155.6 billion

2004   - $151.1 billion

2005   -$173.5 billion

2006   -$185.5 billion

2007   - $186 billion

2008   $180.2 billion

-----------------------------

TOTAL:  $1.353 trillion

 

Oh, and does the illustrious Master Bronheim have sufficient education to also know how the Bushies ramped up unnecessary spending from Medicare? Does he know, or is he even faintly aware, that the Medicare Modernization Act passed in 2003 was really designed as a corporate welfare bonanza for Big PHrmA and other Bushie campaign donors?  This bill interjected the “Part D” or  Prescription Drug Plan – when there was already one in place (as part of Medicare Part B). It also introduced Medicare Advantage which introduced private plans much more expensive than standard Medicare and which have been creating deficits of around $12b each year, leading the program toward insolvency – even as it caused premium for regular Medicare beneficiaries to rise.

 

From assorted Denver Post 2003 editorials (e.g.  ‘Medicare Drug Plan Confusing Sign Up’, p. 6E, Nov. 13) and articles we learned the following:

 

- Drug companies would see $139 billion in benefits (read ‘corporate welfare’) via this bill over a decade

 

-        There would be no bargaining or leverage allowed by the government to control prices, as in the case with the VA. (Saving an estimated $200b over ten years)

 

-        All "re-importation” of drugs from Canada would be outlawed- hence eliminating a REAL source of drug savings. (an estimated  $11b a year)

 

-        Private HMOs would be able to compete directly with Medicare and those in the latter program will eventually have to make up the difference out of their pockets as private costs soar. (And taxpayers, YES – would have to shell out more to help out – paying attention there, Daniel?)

 

In the end, as articles in the Post and other assorted press sources (NY Times, Baltimore Sun etc) observed, the misbegotten Bushie  Medicare law was a “crazy quilt”  - engineered and written by the likes of HMO lobbyist Billy Tauzin, by  “trying to please too many potential voters”.  But as I noted in a letter to the Post editor, it also tried to bamboozle as many potential voters as possible with smoke and mirrors ploys. Dangling a benefits’ “carrot” but delivering mostly hot air and glazed eyes.

 

Indeed, as the  years rolled by, the Post and other papers lost track of how many seniors had fallen into the infamous “donut hole” – where they ended up having to shell out full price for all their meds, many actually forced to choose between food and meds.

Bronheim advises  “making all Social security income taxable and the market value of Medicare taxable to its recipients”? What kind of half wit moron is this guy?  (Does he even know the average income for Social Security beneficiaries is $12,000 a year?) More accurately I am trying to understand how this Jasper even managed to put two coherent sentences together – if he understood so little of what he was yapping about.  Taxation? You fucking idiot! People receiving these benefits paid in 30 years or more via FICA taxes! (And let's bear in mind the richest 1 percent don't have to shoulder the burden on most of their income.)

And even now those benefits are taxed in subtle ways. Social Security taxes rise to over 30%  (i.e. 1/3 of S.S. is taken back) for many elderly recipients still trying to keep roofs over heads by working.  Medicare taxes are more indirectly applied, generally through steady increases in premiums.   And on account of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) $500 billion stands to be cut from Medicare over the next ten years, much of it in terms of hidden costs (such as allowing hospitals to accept patients under 'observation' instead of full admission) as well as cuts to Medicare providers. Already, as assorted letters in The Denver Post have noted, many seniors have been dumped by their doctors who want no more of the paperwork if their remuneration is to be cut even 2%.  That means those seniors go without care or have to go to charity clinics.

 

Medicare premiums -expenses have increased 133% over the past 6 years compared to only a 31% increase in paid benefits (COLAs suspended for over 3 years) hence amounting to a pure benefits cut- or de facto TAX.

 Sadly, it appears little can be done – short of brain transplants-  to get the likes of these simpletons to understand the current economic dynamic which is also based on past history. The latter includes how the previous administration misused Social Security monies for their “wars” (to hide deficits)  and implemented an expensive new Medicare law that wasn’t needed.

 

If those like Daniel Bronheim really want greater investment “in infrastructure, education and research” they first need to know WHO is benefiting from the status quo.  (“Oh wait, yuh mean there is a status quo?”)

 

Hint, hint: It isn’t seniors, and letters like Bronheim’s only serve to foment more inter-generational conflict – which is exactly what the asshole neocons and Neolibs want!  Way to go playing into their feral hands, Danny Boy!