Category Archives: Politics

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Peter Beinart has written an intriguing article for Atlantic magazine titled “Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt.” From the beginning mariner has been confused by the blind eye of Trump followers who insist that he is not corrupt. Peter provides an insight:

“Trump supporters appear largely unfazed by the mounting evidence that Trump is the least ethical president in modern American history. When asked last month whether they considered Trump corrupt, only 14 percent of Republicans said yes….”

“Once you grasp that for Trump and many of his supporters, corruption means less the violation of law than the violation of established hierarchies, their behavior makes more sense.”

To Donald’s followers, the idea that a woman would become President is untenable. Oddly, they called Hillary corrupt from the beginning. The core realization for us is that Donald’s followers long for the traditional image when men were men (especially white men) and social rank was important. The social changes since Barack became President (talk about a violation of hierarchy) are both socially and economically threatening. Donald’s followers are against cultural change; Donald’s choice of words stirs feelings in his followers that things are being put back where they belong; Donald calls a spade a spade, and so forth.[1]

A forthcoming book titled “How Fascism Works,” by Jason Stanley addresses this phenomenon in detail.

– – – –

Mariner often uses the term ‘class.’ It turns out, upon further reading, that the term class is not well received among those who study such things. Class has so many variables, definitions and criteria that identifying a person within a unique class is virtually impossible. One example that confuses is that a librarian, expected to be more educated and likely have a college degree, is paid only a fraction of what a laborer makes in a factory. Still, there is a line drawn between working with one’s hands and those who do not.

Mariner, like most folks, uses ‘class’ to define economic status; broadly speaking, a lower class, a middle class, an upper class and the absurdly wealthy. The argument is made that Americans are preoccupied with capitalistic comparisons but economic ratings are not reflective of reality. Dollars do not classify a human being by race, sex, morality, intelligence, lifestyle, suppression, criminality, profession, or geography – just to mention a few. In other words, an amount of dollars does not classify the empirical reality of a living human being. Perhaps it may be more accurate to describe individuals by their lifestyle and behavior rather than the number of dollars they have. A frequent observation is made of ‘working class’ individuals who win the lottery for millions of dollars; they don’t change their behavior very much despite the opportunities massive assets may offer. Further, a person may be very wealthy and be President of the United States but behave no differently than a New York City mob boss.

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Another note from Chicken Little about privacy and data mining by corporations: The Associated Press (AP) asked Princeton University to investigate whether Google continuously tracks your location even if you turn off that option. Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you’ve been. Google’s support page on the subject states: “You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

That isn’t true. Even with Location History paused, Google apps automatically store time-stamped location data without asking.[2]

One cannot own one’s life without privacy. Has this item brought us back to the first one that deals with fascism?

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/what-trumps-supporters-think-of-corruption/568147/

[2] https://apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=politics-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20180813&silverid=NDkwMjIzMjA1Mjg2S0

Is there any Room for Capitalism?

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If cancer could grow as large as it desired without harm or imposition to other living organisms, one hardly would notice its highly consumptive nature. Alas, one’s body needs all its space and functions for other purposes. Cancer can’t have free run of the body.

Regarding consumptiveness, capitalism is a lot like cancer. From its inception the American experiment has let capitalism grow at will; for many generations capitalism wasn’t bothering anyone or any systemic functions of economy. In fact, capitalism is what brought the United States to the top of the international arena. But no one noticed how consumptive capitalism was.

It was unbelievably good fortune that Europeans landed on the shores of a virgin continent. There was enough room to spread out to the point that many early colonies had their own flavor of Christianity and variety of government. Entrepreneurs could consume endless virgin forests, endless water, abundant minerals were harbored in the continent’s soil and rock. Blessed by a favorable temperate climate, agriculture had no bounds. Wildlife from shellfish to grizzly bears were more than plentiful. Even before the eastern continent was full, the US acquired the Louisiana Purchase, Texas, the Gadsden Purchase, territory from the Mexican and Spanish cessions, and cut a deal with Britain for the Northwest. The entire Forty-Eight were in place – with no industry, a few native indians, no Europeans, nothing but space, nature’s riches and an ethos based on freedom of everything, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 200 years after the first settlers, land still was in such abundance the government had programs to give away land to those who would claim it.

It would take an unleashed capitalist economy to leverage the virgin riches of the continent. With good timing the Industrial Revolution came along with steam and oil and trains, planes, automobiles, and highways. Consumption of America was feverish and overwhelming compared to normal circumstances in the rest of the world. Even continuous war every few years with other nations would not make a dent in growing GDP. No one noticed the greed and hoarding – necessary side effects of capitalism.

But then, suddenly, the continent was full. 350 million people; no extra land; overcut forests; polluted streams and rivers; overfished lakes and oceans. Still, capitalism raged on with its consumptive behavior funneling more and more resources to the wealthiest capitalists to sustain profits.

Today, the greedy aspects of capitalism are noticed. Corporations merge with corporations just to sustain record profits. But a strange thing happened in the 1980’s: profit was no longer driven by production and labor. Instead, wealth invested in other wealth by using the stock market and a plethora of profit-taking maneuvers engineered by the banking industry and US Federal and state governments. Consumption is so important to capitalism that the United States can no longer afford high concepts like freedom, life, liberty and happiness – they are too expensive because unlimited resources no longer exist. As fewer and fewer resources are available, capitalism is a victim of its own strength: expansion. Profit and assets must continue even without resources. All that is left is the assets of the public. Fringe benefits and salaries suffer; human dignity is unaffordable. Oligarchy and kleptocracy emerge as the pressure mounts to sustain capitalism.

Pure economies of government, capitalism, communism, socialism, and all the derivatives, are not healthy. Left to perform unopposed, any single form of economy will run amok. Any effort at modifying American capitalism will take years of pain in the public sector but they must prevail if a new American ethos is to emerge that will focus on freedom, life, liberty and happiness.

For the next decade or two, capitalism will find profits in computerization. More important to the public sector is that they will be part of the solution. Else, as in the previous post, change will be devastating.

Ancient Mariner

 

What REAL Change is

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The world map might look differently had the Greek volcano Thera not erupted 3,500 years ago (1645 BC) in what geologists believe was the single-most powerful explosive event ever witnessed. Thera dwarfed the atomic bomb. Thera didn’t just blow a massive hole into the island of Santorini – it set the entire ancient Mediterranean onto a different course in history. The legend of Atlantis and the story of the Biblical plagues and subsequent exodus from Egypt also have been connected to the epic catastrophe.

Minoan culture, the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean at the time, crumbled as a result of the eruption, changing the political landscape of the ancient world indefinitely. Environmental effects were felt across the globe, as far away as China and perhaps even North America and Antarctica.

There are no first-person accounts of what happened that day, but scientists can compare it to the detailed records available from the famous eruption of Krakatoa, Indonesia, in 1883. Krakatoa killed upwards of 40,000 people in just a few hours, produced colossal tsunamis 40 feet tall, spewed volcanic ash across Asia, and caused a drop in global temperatures and created strangely colored sunsets for three years. The blast was heard 3,000 miles away.

Thera’s eruption was four or five times more powerful than Krakatoa, exploding with the energy of several hundred atomic bombs in a fraction of a second.

An absence of human remains and valuables like metal suggest that the Minoan residents of Santorini predicted the eruption and the island had been evacuated, but the culture as a whole did not fare as well. The powerful Minoan civilization declined suddenly soon after Thera blew its top. Tsunamis spawned by the eruption would have swamped its naval fleet and coastal villages. A drop in temperatures caused by the massive amounts of Sulphur dioxide spouted into the atmosphere led to several years of cold, wet summers in the region, ruining harvests. The lethal combination overran every mighty Minoan stronghold in less than 50 years.

– – – –

The Black Death, also known as the Great Plague, the Black Plague, or the Plague, was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 200 million people in Eurasia and peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The bacterium Yersinia pestis, which results in several forms of plague, is believed to have been the cause. The plague created a series of religious, social and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history.

– – – –

The Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives. A change in orbit is expected relatively soon.

The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions released into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year — from January through September, with the exception of June — were the warmest on record for those respective months.

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice each year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 119 billion tons during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade.

Is our twenty-first century civilization facing another REAL change?

Mariner will not speculate on the changes to civilization overall, which will be dramatic, but some effects already have been determined by scientists:

By 2100 worldwide shortages in potable water will be severe.

By 2100 every major coastal city in the world will be flooded.

By 2100 every major agricultural belt will be severely diminished. For example, the average temperature across the US wheat belt will average 104° with no let up during winter.

Take note that these changes are worldwide. How will civilization change? How will concepts like nations and economy and civil liberty change?

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Cultural salve

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An opening allegory: A fine house is built in 1952. Not ostentatious but finely built with a pleasing layout. A family buys the house newly built. They live there until the parents retire and sell it. It is bought by a middle aged couple who turn the second floor into a separate apartment to lease. They retire eventually and sell the house to a real estate person who converts the house to a four-plex. Finally in 2018 the house is condemned.

What happened to this house is common. Two conditions contributed to the demise of this house: the neighborhood slowly changed and the house was used as a source of maximized profit. Neither of these conditions felt it necessary to invest in the wellbeing of the house. No one championed the architectural ethos, the vibrancy of sustaining a solid, appreciated structure. If at the point of condemnation one were to purchase the house for one dollar with an agreement to full restoration, the expense would be exorbitant. The neighborhood as well would need to be changing to a better situation otherwise bulldozing the house would be the only rational decision.

This allegory represents the house of the United States of America since 1952.

Let us assume the electorate will reclaim the US for one dollar and start restoration. There is the same risk in asking the electorate to fix things as a restoration investor has that a profit may be possible – a long shot in either case. Democracy, with all its voting and representation machinations, is not a good approach for this situation. In 2016 some of the electorate were hasty in their judgment and purchased the wrong tool. Without using the power of the vote, what can an individual citizen do?

Similar to a serious burn on the skin, we apply a healing salve. There is no way to remove the skin and do without; we need the skin to heal while we continue to depend on the skin. Unfortunately, salves are not remarkable. The skin must be left in place to heal on its own terms – with the help of the salve.

The salve for our situation as citizens of a burned government is to apply compassion. Compassion, especially for the eager citizen, is not rewarding. But that is the whole point: gratifying ourselves to maximize personal ‘profit’ is what brought us here. In other words, ignoring our house since 1952 has occurred because we did not use compassion to sustain the ethos of our nation.

Continuing with the salve theme, our skin grows dry and flaky and even splits painfully at times. We can’t, for example, lease our feet or move out of our feet – we must seek curative methods. If the electorate does not apply compassion, our nation will continue to flake and split. Without compassion in our daily lives, derision has become commonplace; prejudice is unparalleled between common citizens; class discrimination has become deliberately destructive; most significantly, those who continue to seek maximized profit will lead the nation to be condemned – leaving room for a new international solution to take its place in the world neighborhood.

Most folks don’t like to use compassion habitually. It is easier to scratch the itch of prejudice than to deliberately allow another human to have the primary need, to seek comfort for them in their life rather than seek comfort for one’s self.

Using compassion allows citizens to begin at the foundation, to replace brick by brick the substructure of a growing society, a maturing culture. The nation – a very complex entity – will wobble and waffle its way through our current dysfunction. Without compassion, however, the electorate risks condemnation.

Ancient Mariner

 

Soul Mates

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Mariner has discovered a soul mate. He is an ex-computer person that has switched to social psychology and philosophy and now writes books about the abuses that we put upon ourselves in the name of modern communication technology. His name is Jaron Lanier. He has written a book: Ten arguments for Deleting Social Media Accounts Right Now. He has an interview on CSPAN that is enlightening[1]. Mariner must warn you that his sartorial splendor leaves much to be desired but his mind is clearly focused. No one that mariner has read has delved into the disruptive consequences of social media as Jaron has.

Jaron starts his presentation by reminding everyone of the science of behaviorism; he cites B.F. Skinner, the major personality of behaviorism. Stated as briefly as mariner can, behaviorism is a person’s response to feedback, that is, if it is rewarding, people tend to return and do it again; if it is negative, people tend not to do it again. Skinner proved in his experiments with animals that manipulating reward or negativity will modify behavior in a predictable way.

Jaron suggests that the Internet and the data manipulators using the Internet have created a negative loop in the communication cycle. This is because negative behavior is more reactive and, importantly, expands in the loop much faster than positive behavior. We can reference this phenomenon ourselves with the racist and Russian impact on the Internet. The negativity flows rapidly and expands until no one can tell the difference between truth and falsehood. Another example is Donald’s constant reference to fake news; the negativity spreads quickly, outrunning positive behavior that requires confirmation. The end result is no information can be trusted.

Jaron warns us that while only five or ten percent of the user group will adopt negative information that is enough to disrupt politics, society norms, and stable platforms for unity and ethical values. To wit: the 2016 Presidential campaign where Donald held forth with negative values thereby overwhelming informative dialogue offered by other candidates.

Listed briefly below are the ten arguments for deleting your social media account[2]. Exploring each one is a whole post. Mariner suggests the reader buy the book or watch the C-SPAN video.

1.You are losing your free will.

2.Quitting social media is the most finely targeted way to resist the insanity of our times.

3.Social media is making you into an a**hole.

4.Social media is undermining truth.

5.Social media is making what you say meaningless.

6.Social media is destroying your capacity for empathy.

7.Social media is making you unhappy.

8.Social media doesn’t want you to have economic dignity.

9.Social media is making politics impossible.

10.Social media hates your soul.

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] See: https://www.c-span.org/video/?447079-2/ten-arguments-deleting-social-media-accounts-now

[2] Courtesy of Christine Pennylegion at https://inthisordinarytime.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/jaron-laniers-ten-reasons/

Stop the Presses

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Chicken Little visited mariner this morning; he was concerned about the following clip from Nate Silver’s newsletter (fivethirtyeight.com):

“A public opinion poll conducted by Ipsos found that a plurality — 43 percent — of Republicans agreed that “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior.” Twenty-three percent of Republicans agreed that “President Trump should close down mainstream news outlets, like CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times.” [Daily Beast]”

The gap between conservatives and liberals is no longer a gap. It is a dangerous, sprawling chasm. One expects some defensive reflex from conservatives as a conservative cycle comes to an end but what bothers mariner is the lack of thought in our American discourse. Our opinions are founded entirely on stressed emotions.

Chicken Little sees a striking similarity to Egypt, Greece, Argentina, and even Israel/Palestine. These nations are in the midst of economic and cultural change; violence, death, massive property damage and the collapse of the relationship between the people and their government causes great travesty. Even more scary is the US makes sure as many people as possible are armed with weapons. Dare we think that any day now the electorate will use those firearms on each other?

Aside from physical harm, the ethos of the American Dream is disappearing among those who espouse it most. What happened to free press, free speech and the right of every citizen to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Chicken Little dug out his single shot air rifle and loaded it just in case.

Ancient Mariner

Climate Change – Too Slow to Worry About

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Actually, the title is inaccurate in that it suggests there is nothing to worry about. On the other hand, just because it is too slow to cause concern as if it were a tornado approaching, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.

The current Atlantic website and magazine has an article presenting the latest findings of scientists who have new tools and insights into climate change[1]. It turns out that in Earth’s history, about 60 million years ago when mammals began to emerge, the atmosphere held 400 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 – the same amount we have in the atmosphere today. The last time CO2 was at 400 ppm (as it is today) was 3 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, when sea levels were perhaps 80 feet higher than today. Scientists predict the sea level will catch up to the effects of CO2 around the end of the century – which may or may not reach 80 feet[2]. Mariner suggests a homework assignment: using Google Earth, determine how many major cities around the world have an altitude less than 80 feet above our current sea level (The entire shoreline of Florida including the Keys qualifies).

There is more science and environmental change in store, like palm trees in Scandinavia, and an increase in methane from very large swamps covering thousands of square miles. Methane is the chemical that slowly accelerates sea level rise. Mean temperatures in places like the Mediterranean and St. Louis will hover around the 104° mark and have no winter.

This climate future largely is out of our hands. The damage has been done and the results will play out. Interestingly, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wants to hold CO2 to 1,000 ppm – only 600 ppm more than what we have today. What’s an 80 foot sea rise when it may be possible to wipe out mammalian existence in a few hundred years?

Mariner often hears a common retort: “Well, we won’t be around then.” This response, besides pretending to be an ostrich with its head in the sand, is part of the fact that climate change is so very slow. Yet, the end of the century is just 82 years away. One’s grandchild still may be around to endure the slow, slow inevitable impact on world economy, health and survivability near ocean waters.

Given the current US political position on climate change (fake science – no, undesired science), younger voters will have more than racism and greed to worry about at election time.

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/

[2] There are so many variables, from the planet’s point of view, that it is difficult to predict actual sea level rise. What worries scientists is current annual sea level rise is increasing geometrically; small amounts now but increasing dramatically over time.

Narcissism versus the North American Union

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This past Sunday Fareed Zakaria opened the subject of the tiff between Mexico and ‘the wall’. Fareed also could have had a discussion with Canada on the same subject of US contraction and isolationism battled via trade negotiations. The situation with Donald’s recipe of self-aggrandizement, racism and kleptocracy is one that interferes with a marketing/cultural dream that has been around for a long, long time. The integration of Mexico, the US and Canada is one of two current international concepts that can compete with emerging China internationalism. The other concept is TPP which seems to be passing by unrequited. To keep the post short, mariner quotes Wikipedia:

“The North American Union (NAU) is a theoretical economic and political continental union of Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America. The concept is loosely based on the European Union, occasionally including a common currency called the Amero or the North American Dollar. A union of the North American continent, sometimes extending to Central and South America, has been the subject of academic concepts for over a century, as well as becoming a common trope in science fiction. One reason for the difficulty in realizing the concept is that individual developments in each region have failed to prioritize a larger union.”

That last sentence is blatantly true under Donald’s administration. NAFTA, given its minimal impact in the labor market (unions would disagree – a good example of failing to see the value of an international union), was a first step toward the NAU. The electorate has failed to grasp the enormity of uniting the economic power of the first, tenth and twelfth largest economies in the world. Today such a consortium represents a gross domestic product of $22,192,248 million million ($MM) compared to China’s $12,014,610 ($MM).

Today’s circumstances, where the US is slipping and China is getting its act together, provide a new urgency for pursuing NAU. With unusual certainty, thoughts about internationalism will not exist under the present narcissist kleptocracy.

Obviously there is comparison with the European Union (EU). However, the EU was formed to avoid failure of economies in member nations. Further, the EU made the mistake of not making the Euro its only currency. In the case of NAU, economic integration likely would be more universal. As China grows economically, their relation with other nations follows the EU model, allowing local currency and independent oversight of local economic policy. The NAU represents the idea of a combined economic policy that oversees all members’ policies and a single currency – a stronger economic model.

Tangentially, NAU would be large enough and politically influential enough to compete with what today is runaway corporatism. Corporations gain their advantage by playing in the cracks between the economies of different nations and cultures that are not easily unified financially.

Frankly, mariner’s opinion is that the US is so screwed and dysfunctional that attempts at managing its future remain a fantasy.

Ancient Mariner

Demographics in Real Terms

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Much has been covered in the news about Donald’s base, Bernie’s socialists, mid-country white middle class separation from the US coasts, the Wisconsin flip, California’s succession, women’s vote, Dixie voting bloc, gun vote, pro-choice vote, millennial vote, and suburban vote. There are more issue groups.

Perhaps oddly, mariner does not measure the electorate by news media’s political groupings. Mariner long has been skeptical of the electorate’s ability to be so sophisticated as to know about issues in any meaningful way. Looking at the electorate from a social psychology point of view there are five types of voters:

֎The Advocate. One finds this class of voter in political action groups. They have strong conviction about their opinion and quickly become adversarial. Motivation is idealism; missing link is realism.

֎The Hoarder. Hoarders are voters who look solely to personal wellbeing, that is, investment value, financial security, status values, elitist interpretations of neighborhood, religion, and social behavior – a sort of ‘me first’ view of reality. Motivation is selfishness; missing link is compassion.

֎The Populist. Those who respond to the common cause, whatever that is. Their response is more a decision based on issue popularity and projection of ego rather than a considered opinion of the real ramifications of their cause. Motivation is tribal values; missing link is perspective.

֎The Ignorant. Those who live life as it comes with no overwhelming need beyond daily routines. One can identify the ignorant by what they believe is true. For example, it is common that they believe a party stands for an issue that actually is an issue of the opposing party. What guides their thinking, if they vote, is a neighbor, spouse, overheard conversations and other incidental sources available in daily routines. Motivation is lack of disruption; missing link is abstract thinking.

֎The Cynic. Those who do not participate in any issue whether government, religion, neighborhood safety, trash pickup or any other issue that requires comparative thought and responsibility; this includes voting. Motivation is protecting self-perception; missing link is interpersonal affiliation.

In truth, any democratic vote is not a vote of the entire demographic. The US ranks 31st in voter turnout among functioning democracies; the last vote, the one for Donald, was 54% of available voters. Further, as mariner suggests in his interpretation of voter motivation, a voter seldom votes based on rational reasons. The demographic across these five groups turns out to be behavioral rather than interpretive. The electorate, in summation, will vote for the person who appears to be a copy of themselves.

Ancient Mariner

Changing Signs

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Back in the early 60’s, there was a British comedy show called Beyond the Fringe. Eventually it toured in Baltimore where mariner and his wife saw the show. It remains one of the best comedy experiences of our lives. The entire show is online at https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=beyond+the+fringe+1964&view=detail&mid=2391A28FEE931C54B1142391A28FEE931C54B114&FORM=VIRE

Mariner often recalls many of the short bits in the show. One of his favorites is changing road signs around to confuse German troops should they invade Great Britain (it is at 53 minutes on the video). Two men are standing beneath a sign with arrows showing the directions to three towns. The dialogue: “Let’s put Lyme Regis where Great Yarmouth was, Great Yarmouth where Ipswitch was and Ipswitch where Lyme Regis was. . . Here, how do we get home?”

Mariner does not expect the humor to carry after such an elaborate explanation but it speaks perfectly to today’s situation in US politics and culture. Some pieces of news that show we are changing signs:

NPR interviewed an individual in West Virginia of all places who said quite seriously and without malice that we should eliminate the Senate. (Mariner mentioned a few posts ago that the electorate may face conflict leading to a Constitutional convention)

The Republican Party ended Reaganomics by putting the US into the deepest debt in modern US history.

Donald is seeing to it that recent Democratic Party accomplishments (should mariner say recent Obama accomplishments?) are trashed whenever possible. Donald also has put the US at risk by denying climate change and disrupting international relations politically, militarily and economically. Further, the momentum that carries the US as a global leader is diminished by Donald’s immaturity and simplemindedness.

As the Democratic Party ramps up for the coming elections, a platform plank advocates eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) added 43,000 new members in 2018. It seems millennials aren’t afraid of the ‘S’ word.

Culturally, we are changing signs as well. Women in particular have pushed their agenda into public awareness for everything from abusive sexism to equal pay for every job. What lies ahead, especially with a different Supreme Court, are heated battles over Roe v Wade, voting suppression, gun laws, gerrymandering, privacy and security, single payer health care, and significant reworking of all Federal discretionary programs especially in education, Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. Last but definitely not least is the role of religion(s) in a state-run culture.

Here, how do we get home?

Ancient Mariner