What is happening and what wants to happen

When I was 20, I thought global warming was not an issue. The joke was on me. If you had told me the world would be like what it is now (I am 60), I would have asked you for what you were smoking.

Climate change has happened. Unless the train of circumstances that heated up Barents Sea are reversed, the Arctic Ocean has changed and the Southwest is under a new weather pattern, at least in the summer. The first thing to go will be agriculture from the region. If it stays hot during the winter (rather than just pleasantly warm), the snow birds will stop coming and retirees will come back north.

I would like to be wrong about this, so we shall see.

In any case, in urban areas and on highways, gasoline vehicles must be banned and replaced with tethered electric cars and trucks with central computer control - including driverless cabs for those who do now with to own cars. Tethers will attach to a roof, which will have grass growing on the top side (with solar panels and irrigation/drainage). Asphalt is as much to blame for warming as gasoline. Rural areas will still use gas or hydrogen, however. We cannot roof over every country road on the planet. Gasoline is still a byproduct of refining oil to make plastic. Any excess should be burned for power at the refinery, rather than distributed. 

The United Nations is totally incompetent to deal with the situation (as well as genocide - including in Ukraine). So is the European Union. Meanwhile, as Trump has been saying, NATO in its current form is not sustainable. All for the same reason. You cannot have a rotating executive. Rotation may work for the Green Party as a deliberative body, but you cannot govern this way.

World government cannot come about while Chinese Peasants are persecuted, the Communist Party rules China and the Dalit are not given full rights and respect in India. Democracy is as much a culture as a from of government.

The best we can do right now is allied government, where the executive is a single person who is elected from among all of the membership (not just the United States) and some form of indirect election is practiced. Likewise, there needs to be an independent legislature, which must be directly elected by the various regions (which should be of approximately equal size.

The US is too big to govern. While such items as civil rights and workers rights need to be national (or by overseen by the whole Alliance), much government funding and spending need to be regional. Regions will be of roughly equal electoral vote size. They need to be big enough so that California is not a region of its own, so the minimum number is seven. Even if California is split.

The Catholic Church needs to get real about sex. There are few, if any, heterosexual priests left. They are now either gay or asexual, so to understand itself, the Church must study Gender (or Queer) Theory. Until it figures itself out, it has nothing to say about anyone else.

Also, Medieval (or imperial Roman) models of governance need to fall away for some kind of democracy - at all levels. This would be a restoration, not an evolution. In ancient times, bishops were actually pastors (so each parish would elect their pastor and have elders).

Trump will not go to prison. If he survives, his two choices are house arrest or the mental health care he so desperately needs. We cannot hate him - and to love him is to see that he gets the care he deserves. However, we should take away his phone.

Those who helped him with the Insurrection and with the Ukraine affair, however, including and especially members of Congress (past and present - I'm looking at you, Nunes) will be held to account and their political careers ended.

The next president (or two) will be South Asian and female and their last names will start with an H.

Unless the GOP shifts from racism and sexism to tax reform, it will not survive. Any such reform must be bipartisan. Right now, we are arguing about pennies and nothing is getting better for far too many people and far too good for all too few.

Making everyone file income taxes is not working. The rich can pay too little and the poor have to pay to much to get needed income supplements.

Credits for health care, childcare and family income (child tax credit), need to come through wages or other government programs (education, unemployment or Social Security). Higher wage and dividend taxes (over  $85K) should be collected by employers as part of a subtraction VAT to fund credits to workers and families and to pay start paying down the debt. State subtraction VAT will fund education and social services, as well as additional child tax and insurance credits for higher cost states).

Incomes on wages and dividends (and interest paid) over $425,000 will still pay a graduated and simplified income tax, but can avoid paying by purchasing no-return tax prepayment bonds. These funds should go only to debt retirement (implying that they will be high enough to balance the budget).

Capital gains and estate taxes need to be replaced by a single rate asset value added tax, which should fund allied, nuclear and naval defense spending and be set to an international rate to prevent tax arbitrage. These taxes would be marked to market at IPO, Option exercise and first sale after inheritance, gift or donation, but be zero rated for sales to broad based employee-ownership or cooperative programs. (I have a whole website about how to make these things work well enough to be attractive rather than to be Capitalism, Jr.).

A goods and services (value added) tax should fund both the employer contribution to Social Security and discretionary civil and domestic military expenditures (aside from strategic nuclear). About 20% should do. These funds should be credited on an equal dollar basis, with the employee tax capped at $85,000 with a $22,000 floor (assumes $11 minimum wage). A GST/Asset VAT will make sure that when rich people borrow from their stocks to buy companies or luxuries or purchase life insurance, they will not avoid tax. Also, make lottery winnings tax free.

States will collect GST/VAT and subtraction VAT and do all compliance audits. The SEC will collect federal asset VAT (state asset VAT on real estate will be collected at closing) and the Bureau of the Public Debt will collect very high rate income taxes. No IRS.

The minimum wage needs to go up and the work week cut to four days of seven hours each (including a half-hour for lunch). There is no other way to keep everyone occupied - and going to school after the age of 16 needs to be considered a job and paid minimum wage (or less if food and housing are provided).

Inflation does not track to low income wages. It chases the median dollar. The median dollar in income hits at about the 90th percentile - about $150,000. We cannot subsidize that much, but people who make more than that should not get percentage wage increases - including within government and government contracting. Cost of living wage increases (not merit) should be given on an equal dollar per hour basis and must be universal.

If we go to Mars, it will be by Space Station, not by a single landing, with the scientists and their families among those who go. Call it JPL in Orbit. For this to work, artificial gravity needs to be worked out. It is the one test that no one seems to want to do. Until it is done, forget Mars or any long-term orbital presence. 

Also, to do Mars (or even the Moon or a long-term orbital station), it NASA needs to be in the same fiscal pot as military R&D and procurement - so that these industries are mostly held harmless by any peace dividend. Until they (and their workers' families - yes, they have families) consent to reform, the War Machine will keep going and demand to be used to kill people.

Unless we develop some kind of gravitational propulsion (call it an unbalanced washing machine drive) or space elevator to pump water (or separated hydrogen and oxygen) into space, it will remain a vanity project. Such piping will likely be inflatable (filled with either Hydrogen or Helium), along the lines of what both Sierra Space and Lockheed Martin are developing as habitats.

American society and empire can either abandon hegemony and inequality or collapse. We cannot explore outer space as warring factions.

China is a dog chasing the Taiwan car. If it catches it, the Communist Party will collapse unless it forbids migration from the island to the country at large. That is doubly true for Hong Kong.

Putin will not last much longer. The question I have is, who will fall first, Trump or Putin?

Arctic heat is coming our way. And fast!

The Arctic Ocean heat map seems to show that it is the Barents Sea that has warmed the Arctic, which has melted too much in summer, which has given us the new dominant weather patterns in the northern countries. The El Nino is most likely the disturbance of the long term La Nina drought pattern, with the likely mechanism for this disturbance being the Honga Tonga volcano - which changed the Trade Winds that drive Pacific heating. 

The question is, how did the Barents Sea get so warm? Answer that question, and you have cracked global warming (rather than global flooding and drought). Two separate systems.

I don't see Barents as cooling anytime soon - meaning we have reached the tipping point Climate has changed. It is not theoretical - and unless we ban gasoline in urban areas and for highway use - as well as concrete - we are stuck here. The operative question is how many people in the 110 degree weather zone have to die or flea before we do something like this?  

The first thing that will happen is the end to agriculture wherever the 110 degree heat has become the new normal. The only solution to staying there is indoor food plant growth and cloned meat and dairy (although goats and sheep may do good indoors. Growing pigs and cows that way has been a disaster.

The roads to Trump's legal entanglements and a Q&A....

Trump's co-conspirators are going to face hard time. Especially those with ties to Russia.

Trump has no defense against the facts of the case. The argument is about privilege. Once this has been litigated, Trump can only plead no contest. In the end, Insurrection and being bribed by Putin will take precedence.

The Origins of the Rapture

Sin is about harm we do others. We cannot harm God. A god that van be harmed is a mere creature. This whole focus on avoiding Hell makes showing love to others optional, which is wrong. It is essential. Black lives really do matter.

Justification is about group dynamics. So is martyrdom. Christianity started out as a martyrs Church. The Rapture is antithetical to this. It is cheap grace on steroids.

The tribulation is simply life, not a prophesied event. We each meet Christ in the air when we die. Throughout history, prophecy is a form of social commentary about the present, not the future. Dispensationalism is about avoiding the needs if others. It is a toxic concept.

For the sake of argument, if there were a tribulation at the hands of Antichrist, Christians will be the targets. Modern day martyrs. It is a mark of faith and brotherhood to give ones life for Jesus. There is no glory in Rapture.

Are future humans really our problem?

Given breakthroughs in life extension or a very reasonable belief in reincarnation, these problems may be ours, and not just those of our children. The important question for both the present and the past is not as much the technology as the human systems. Will capitalism transform us or kill us? Will we transform it, or kill it? 

Will government, on its own, be able to ban urban and highway use of gas burning cars, replacing them with electric (preferably tethered, rather than battery)? We can tether cars the same way we tether electric trains - and computer control of both (as well as limited access in urban areas) will end automobile deaths. However, until workers are more involved in consumption (as well as production) and government decisions, the comity of capitalists will never escape the power of big oil.

Why Inequality Starts Becoming A Problem Now | Economics Explained

The issue is not just who holds the money, but the control it buys them over other people. The distribution of things is not as important. Social Democracy can fix that piece. Without social democracy, however, capitalism is as fragile as the business cycle - or rather -the fiscal policy driven cycle of speculation and bailout.  

Government spending is the yeast of any society. In social democracy, people getting benefits for education and retirement, as well as household spending by government employees and contractors spread the money out in fairly equal chunks. No business assets are ever acquired without the prospect of household or government consumption (or exports). 

Financing, however, is not the same as investment. When taxes are cut, there is a financial boom, but it may not be in any way linked to actual investment in plant and equipment. Indeed, it probably is not. Financial booms take money out of consumption and put it into speculation. Making a deal becomes more important than making a product. Until this is absolutely clear in our economic discussion, we will continue to make the same mistakes decade after decade.

What is Neoplatonism?

Watch this series!

My comments related to the divine forms emanating from the Nous:

The important thing to realize about the various divine pantheons, from the Sumeric to the Greek and Latin to the Hindu, and the associated ideal types or forms, is that they evolved from astrology, the study of how human nature relates to the cosmos, rather than being the source of astrology. In other words, human behavior and its observation came first. The myths came second. Likewise, the Eden myth came from the description of the original sin - which is blame - and is not the actual cause of that sin. Finally, the Satan, the tempter, started as Lucifer, the tester, who was one of the sons of God found in the book of Job in the Canaanite legends - which are also modeled after human personality. 

This is not to deny the reality of the divine, but to explain how religion needs to not take itself so seriously in the search.

The One of Plotinus has a parallel in the Book of Kings, where Elijah goes to the mountains and the wind rages, but God is not in the wind. The fire burns, but God was not in the fire. The earth quaked, but God as not in the quaking. Then, Elijah heard a small whisper, and he went into the cave and covered his face, lest he die from seeing God. The whisper is the nothingness. The quiet.

Neoplatonism and Christianity

The collection of YouTube videos, of which this one is apart, is essential viewing in the journey to enlightenment and spirituality, although the writings of Bill W. are also important.

Here are my comments on what I have learned so far from the series, as well as my reactions coming from my own journey: 

Aquinas seems to have cribbed Plontius in his descriptions of the Trinity. Sadly for Christian philosophy, the evolution of Judaism was not known to those who criticized Origin or to Augustine. Had they been familiar, the story of Eden would have been seen as an allegory on blame rather than a human origin story, as well as the evolution of Satan and Baal in the distillation of monotheism from the Canaanite and Sumeric pantheons, including the God and the Sons of God in the Book of Job.

What was missed by the neoplatonists and the early church fathers was the radical humility of God, or of the Nous, or even as The One. Indeed, the Psyche (or soul or Holy Spirit or, in Hebrew mysticism, Shekinah), the Nous (or Word) and the One (or He Who Is - YHWH) must be radically humble, because if not, these ideas would be dependent on the actions or good works of their creatures. The One is in need of nothing. Paradoxically, the way to nothing is to be the One to others and to see the One in others through the radical humility of service and charity. This is the radical humility of Christ, who was gentle and humble of heart - who in Matthew 25 has us find him in the least rather than in faith, theosis, theurgy or seeking.

In the modern movement whose spirituality is the near death experience, the return to the Nous, the animation of the love from the Soul and unity with the One is a common feature - that of wholeness in the next life and union with aspects of the Divine. The concept of the life review is not an accounting of personal peccadillo, but of failures and successes in Love.

Accepting the radical humility of the Soul, the Nous and the One is the only way to actually find union with their emenations.