Open up the Democratic debate process!

I just signed the petition, "Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Give Senator Bernie Sanders a Fair Chance by Increasing Number of Sanctioned Debates."

I think this is important. Will you sign it too?

Here's the link:

http://www.change.org/p/democratic-national-committee-debbie-wasserman-schultz-give-senator-bernie-sanders-a-fair-chance-by-increasing-number-of-sanctioned-debates

Thanks,

♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

Bernie Sanders video

​Here is the link to the Bernie Sanders streaming video for the campaign organizing kickoff meetings July 29... an estimated 100,000 attended 3500 separate organizing meetings across the country!​

​https://berniesanders.com/video/ ​

Bernie Sanders campaign

​L. A. Residents, please visit http://www.losangelesforbernie.org/ to support Bernie Sanders ​

​ To volunteer, text " work " to 82623 or go to http://bernie.to/vol

Thank you! ​

Bernie Sanders campaign

I attended a Bernie Sanders organizational meeting at the LGBT Center in Hollywood tonight. Please consider supporting Bernie's candidacy. Text "work" to 82623 or go to http://bernie.to/vol to volunteer. 

More on the eventual emergence of an Economy of Abundance

​I wrote the following in answer to a friend who expressed understandable skepticism about my ideas on the eventual emergence of an Economy of Abundance. His objection is, to paraphrase, that people are just too cussedly mean to ever learn to really cooperate. We are talking futuristics here, so if that's not your thing, better tune out.

Human meanness is an aberration, not an innate feature. You'd better hope I'm right about that, because the distinction will literally be the difference between extinction and survival / flourishing as an advanced civilization. My guess (pure speculation) is that most of the time civilizations that reach approximately our level eventually fail. (This would be one factor accounting for the fact that the universe isn't exactly teeming with them). You might conclude the odds are against us. But, as a species (including our potential descendant offspring-species, if any), this is our one and only shot, so what choice is there but to strive for the kind of cooperative adaptation that is so obviously necessary in order to develop into an advanced spacefaring/spacedwelling civilization?

If you think long term, like Asimov and the turgid and unreadable Stapledon (and maybe Tsiolkovsky and Kardashev in the Russian take-it-seriously school of futuristics) were among the first to do (I discount Doc Smith), it's obvious that there really are no other choices. Interim solutions, such as "empires" and other such nonsense, are doomed to failure. (Not that I endorse any of these people's vision; I think all of them, in their own ways, were unaware of certain important factors or failed to really think through some of the implications).

Now, as to your ethics point [that "Love Your Neighbor" is an impossible instruction or basis for society]. You are right, if by love you mean warm, admiring feeling towards others. Nice, but not essential. And here I rely on some Eastern insight as well as Western. Love isn't really an emotion, and on its most basic level, it is nothing more than the answer to your rhetorical question. ["How would you like it if this were to happen to you?"]. That's a formulation of the Golden Rule. If you answer the Golden Rule with, "So I'd better cooperate with my neighbors so we'll all have something," that is love, and whether it comes from warmth or just cold, correct analysis and the desire to survive makes no real difference. Love in this simplest sense can be intentionally created, and it just means "have the intention to benefit another." We don't need to cherish everyone, but, as a society, we must, quite literally, socialize well-being. We must want to, enough to work to, achieve benefits for all, not just ourselves. That is love, in its most basic sense, and it is an essential component of adaptation for survival long term. Of that I am completely convinced.

This is indeed a more or less Marxist view of history. But I'm convinced it's true. Global capitalism is the grand experiment in using a system that relies, in theory, though not practice, on "enlightened self-interest." It is failing, and will drag the entire species down with it if people don't wake up and change the course of history in time. Stay tuned. No one yet knows how it will turn out. I believe, but cannot prove, that "self-interest" in this acquisitiveness-oriented sense, as an ethical basis for organization of societies of sentient beings anywhere in the universe, does not and cannot work. You call it guilt, I call it cooperation. And it's the only way. Ants probably have a better social organization than we do, but I think intelligent beings are always messy. They have to be free to think and experience. So there has to be a lot of flexibility. But at the core there has to be mutual benefit cooperation. Or else, collapse. No other road.

Years ago, when I first started to think about my million year old technological civilization of Ionus, I conceived its motto (kind of like "In God We Trust," the kinda thing they'd plaster on a public monument): 

"MORE, BETTER, FASTER."

Ultimately it all comes down to self-improvement. Humans are shitty at this, but we are better than any other animal of Earth, so we might, just might, be able to do it. You notice that the difference between the Ionian motto and the one you propose (the "Turkey" motto, if you will ["Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!"]), is that theirs emphasizes production, not consumption. Consumption takes care of itself. What humanity has to, and just might, come to realize, is that there is a tipping point in the grand historical production curve where there is so much abundance that consumption, and in particular competition for the opportunity to consume, more or less drops out of the equation, and the overall success and well being of the civilization is measured only by its success at production. Terraforming worlds. Building space habitats. Harnessing the ultimate energy sources of nature. Inventing and developing more and better space transportation. Delving into the secrets of nature and the Multiverse. Creating monumental art and beauty. You name it.

​ I am cautiously optimistic, and I'll tell you why. I think that the advantages of socialization of well-being will become so obvious, assuming we survive the Fossil Fuel Interval and reindustrialize using purely renewable resources (an obvious necessity), that the theory will become so widely accepted it'll be treated as fact. Then, over time, civilization can build institutions with checks and balances that guarantee a degree of stability. Something like this has happened many times before, but here we're talking about the first real global cooperation. What makes me optimistic is that once that is working, its advantages, I believe, will be so obvious to everyone that there will be no going back. Of course there will always be rogues and rebels, but there will also be a slow and steady progress towards a permanent economy of Abundance. And that will change everything.
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Kepler 452b, the most Earthlike world yet discovered

​Here's what's currently available on Kepler 452b, at 1400 l.y. distance in the Kepler field of view, announced today. It's a super-Earth, but it's squarely in its 6 billion year old sunlike star's habitable zone, so some kind of life on its surface is certainly a possibility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler-452b

This information comes from data processing of the data that accumulated by the Kepler mission, which ended over a year ago due to a communications failure, and which only covered a tiny fraction of the sky. ​Given its phenomenal success, I certainly hope NASA develops plans to launch more and better planet finder missions in the near future. I would go so far as to say that it's just one of the basic things a technological civilization does. It surveys its surroundings to see what else there is in its environs. We can already sample wide areas of space for eclipsing planetary systems, which gives a statistical sample of what's out there (only a small fraction of planets transit the surfaces of their stars as seen from Earth, which is necessary for really long range detection).

Post Capitalism

This article, which I found on AlterNet, on "post-capitalism," has implications for the "Economy of Abundance" argument I've been making. If information is now the key to production, and "information wants to be free," (which I think it does), then social abundance is the only reasonable long term outcome.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/end-capitalism-has-begun

Very Serious People

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2015/07/a_brief_theory_of_very_serious056712.php

I like this piece by this piece by Henry Farrell, the "Ten Miles Square" column in WaMo today, entitled "A Brief Theory of Very Serious People."

I have long thought that people like Tom Friedman, who were so very insistent, and so very, very wrong, about the Iraq war, and many other things, should long ago have lost all credibility. Perhaps now is the time.

Worth a read.

Alperowitz: "Socialsm, American Style"

​Gar Alperowitz has an interesting op-ed in the NYT today.

 Here

I have long wondered why there couldn't be public legacy of wealth. The Alaska Permanent Fund is indeed a classic example. Imagine if in 1775 someone had the foresight to set up a public trust to own and lease land, rather than just allowing it to be taken. We could have a public enterprise today that made taxes unnecessary and provided a basic living income... a floor... to every citizen.

Something like this may be the basis for the future "economy of abundance" that I'm always touting. ​

trumped

Report in TPM:  Conservatives Furious Trump Distracting from Planned Parenthood Video.

Since that particular video is grossly deceptive and is being trumped up [sorry!] to make the wholly inevitable and in fact desirable making available of fetal tissue, which would otherwise be destroyed, for vital medical research, I say, thank you, Malignant Idiot le Donald, for doing something good for once, however inadvertently. To the extent this is even true.

New Whole Earth Image

This is from a new Climate monitoring satellite at the L 1 Lagrangian point, approximately 1 million miles from Earth. Apparently, this is the first non-mosaiced Whole Earth image since the Apollo Program in the 1970s. But now there will be many more.


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♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

El Niño 2015-2016?

According to reports in the L A Times, it continues to appear more and more likely that the winter of 15-16 will be an El Niño, possibly even stronger than the 1997-98 season, which was the last "very strong" El Niñ0 (although the winter spring of 04-05 brought even more rain).

One fear is that overall temperatures will be so warm that most of the precipitation, even in the mountains, will be rain, which would be bad news for California's water resource picture. The efficient functioning of water management requires that much of the water be stored as snow-pack, especially in the Sierras. Thus, even if El Niño ends, or interrupts, our years-long drought, it may not sweep away our water resource problems; indeed the flooding and other damage may make life in California more expensive and troublesome.

There is little doubt that Climate Change is having an effect, although exactly what that effect is virtually impossible to calculate.

"Sale of Fetal Body Parts" is a phony issue

Many in the "Christian Right"  are galvanized and up in arms about Planned Parenthood's "immoral" selling of "body parts and tissue" from aborted fetuses. (Based on the viral Planned Parenthood video currently a cause du jour). 
 

Look, I don't support the idea of performing abortions for the purpose of obtaining fetal tissue for research. And I don't get that Planned Parenthood does either. I don't think anyone does, outside of lunatics. But the fact remains that even though no one wants there to be abortion, there is abortion, because our society has properly determined that in general, a woman's right not to have to bear a child supersedes any societal or imagined innate interest in/of the pregnancy itself, or of the fetus to "life." (I don't care to debate that, although I suppose my position on the issue is obvious enough). 
 

And given that legal abortion happens, and that fetal tissue is of very great value for medical research, why would it not be used? Federal law already prohibits "sale" of fetal tissue, but not reimbursement of costs. —42 U.S. Code § 289g—2—prohibits the acquisition and transferring of human fetal tissue "for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce." A definition within the code notes that "'valuable consideration' does not include reasonable reimbursement of costs associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue." People differ on whether abortion should be legal or not, but the "sale of body parts" is already illegal, and is not, in fact occurring... the now infamous viral video does not establish that it is. Even those who believe abortion should be illegal should not oppose the vital use of fetal tissue for medical research (for example, from miscarriage). It isn't pleasant to think about, but the fact is that there is no substitute for fetal tissue for some crucial life-saving research.
 

Go Bernie!

​

I agree with Joshua Holland that, strictly based on precedent, it's an unlikely, and therefore exceedingly difficult political proposition, for Sanders to get the Democratic nomination. And I also concede that crowds of like-minded, enthusiastic people do not equate to votes. But come on. Huge crowds and surging enthusiasm are an indicator of a groundswell of support, and the existence of a large segment of the Democratic party that wants something quite different from what the party has been delivering since, oh, I dunno... 1976? I reiterate what I've been saying over and over: 1) you don't get anywhere in politics by conceding defeat in advance or negotiating with yourself. In the primary process, you fight for what you want, and you support the candidate that offers what you want. 2) The effect of a candidate like Sanders can only be to influence the nominee to take his voters into account and accommodate what he's saying into the eventual agenda of the nominee. If that's Clinton, so be it. She will be a better candidate because of Sanders and the efforts of Sanders supporters now and up to such time as it becomes clear she has won. That may happen, but it's not a done deal, and either way strong support for Sanders is important right now and going forward for those who broadly agree with his policy agenda.

GO BERNIE!

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Eternal Optimist

​I occasionally play at developing some ideas for a science fiction novel, in which Earth's civilization encounters a million year old technological civilization. No details here, but I was struck by something Krugman says in his column today. Bear with me, I will connect these disparate dots. Krugman notes that, to "everyone's" surprise, data show that raising minimum wages increases employment and overall wages, it doesn't decrease them.

Sages from my fictitious old, old civilization would say, "well, obviously." See, and this is my optimistic long range view of reality as well, the truth is that the universe is full of energy and full of materials. Sure, it takes some effort and smarts. But we have that. We are, whether we realize it or not, in the process of creating a future culture of unbridled abundance, not scarcity, where the most valuable commodity will be time. Energy, food, housing, transportation... these things will eventually be so abundant that they will be readily available in more than sufficient quantities to everyone.

Doubt away, but I am sure this is true. My old ones have told me so. (Actually, it comes from just thinking about what will really happen): either we will fail, and become extinct, or we will learn to harness the energy of the stars, in which case there are no practical limits. And no reason to continue acting as if everything is scarce and it's dog eat dog to get your share.

                          

And the fact that promoting wealth among the many increases overall well-being for everyone is an early indicator of the trends that are gradually manifesting themselves. We must care for one another, promote well-being everywhere, modify our economies and politics to encompass cooperation not competition. And then the arc of history will bend not merely towards justice, but towards peace, abundance, comfort, and opportunity to do entirely new things not yet dreamed of.

Eternal (literally) optimist, I.

Link​

Michael Lerner Publicly Supports of the Nuclear Deal With Iran

V​ery glad to see Rabbi Michael Lerner of Synagogue Beyt Tikkun, and editor of the important "Spiritual Progressive" journal, Tikkun, endorsing the Iran Nuclear Deal. (Also glad to see that Nancy Pelosi came out strongly behind Pres. Obama on this). ​

Tikkun  to heal, repair and transform the world

A note from Rabbi Michael Lerner Join or Donate Now!

This article appears on the front page of Salon.com this morning.  American Jews and Our non-Jewish Allies Should Rally in Support of the Nuclear Deal With Iran (Don't let past traumas contribute to our inability to see the looming possibility of a more peaceful world) by Rabbi Michael Lerner We in the liberal and progressive wing of the Jewish world must loudly and publicly congratulate the negotiators who achieved a deal that will prevent Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons in the coming years, an agreement that also promises an end to economic sanctions. We are glad that adequate inspections and safeguards are part of this deal—no one would have trusted it otherwise.    While Republicans rushed to denounce the deal, their response has been predictable and hollow, given their consistent policy of opposing anything that might give President Obama the appearance of having done something valuable. Their primary claim to credibility comes from identifying with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who immediately decried the agreement as "a historical mistake." The right wing of the Jewish world is already organizing to oppose the nuclear deal, with the aid of a handful of billionaires who will fund a steady and public barrage of opposition. That is why it is important for Jewish liberals and progressives to speak as Jews to counter the right-wing assault.   We at Tikkun hope to see the day when Iran's oppressive and human-rights–violating government and mullah regime are non-violently overthrown by democratic means and replaced with a government that no longer limits free speech, ends its oppression of women and Baha'i or other minority religions, and offers a path to peace and reconciliation with Israel. We also hope to see democracy, human rights, and economic justice triumph throughout the world, not least in the U.S. and Israel. A de-escalation of tensions with Iran could be a first step in demonstrating the viability of a non-violent approach to political differences. But for this to come to fruition, it in incumbent upon Israel to help create an economically and politically viable Palestinian state, and on the US to stop responding to terrorists with terrorism of its own and instead replace its foreign policy of domination—through economics, cultural penetration, hard diplomacy, militarism, drones, and torture—with a strategy of generosity. To aid this transition, the Network of Spiritual Progressives has proposed a Domestic and Global Marshall Plan (To read the plan, visit: tikkun.org/gmp).    But Israel is in no rush to give up its fantasy of dragging the U.S. into a war with Iran, particularly if Republicans gain the White House in 2016 and retain control of both Houses of the U.S. Congress.    We understand why Israeli Jews, still living with the trauma of the Holocaust and with an ultra-right-wing government that has consistently manipulated those fears to maintain its power and control over the Palestinian people of the West Bank and Gaza, are opposing this plan. It is hard for many Jews, still recovering from trauma, to believe that peace could actually be achieved by creating a demilitarized Palestinian state along the lines suggested in my book Embracing Israel/Palestine. But creating a homeland for the Palestinian refugees living in misery in refugee camps around the Arab world would in fact enhance the security of Israeli Jews.    If Israel approached this task with a spirit of generosity and repentance for its partial role in creating the Palestinian catastrophe (nakba), and if the U.S. were to launch a Domestic and Global Marshall Plan in order to replace its current strategy of achieving "homeland security" through domination with a strategy of generosity toward the people of the world, starting with the Middle East, a path to peaceful reconciliation with Iran would open.    Iran's anti-Semitic prime minister is long gone, and the majority of the Iranian people have historically been among the most welcoming toward Jews. The mullahs' calls to end the Zionist state, unsupported by the majority of Iranians, are less a statement of foreign policy than an expression of anger and despair over the international community's inability to push Israel to do right by the Palestinian people. These calls might disappear if Israel ceased its covert assaults on Iranian scientists and Iranian technological developments. And if the U.S. appeared less as a threat and more as a generous benefactor, peaceful forces in Iran would be dramatically empowered to overthrow the mullahs' oppressive regime.      American Jews are faced with this sad fact: there are some in Israel and some in the right wing of the American political arena who would prefer to see war with Iran, a war which would be as disastrous for the Middle East and for the U.S. as the Iraq war that those same hawks led us into in the past. Many Americans would perceive this as "a Jewish war" or "a war fought for Israel." This could lead to a global resurgence of anti-Semitism far greater than that produced by Israel's oppressive treatment of the Palestinian people. But there are those in Israel who actually welcome that anti-Semitism, believing that this would re-legitimate what right-wing Zionists believe to be the urgent necessity for all Jews to move to Israel, to be free of this long historical legacy of Jew-hatred.    Anti-Semitism is never legitimate, no matter how provocative Israel's actions. Although Israel claims to speak for all Jews around the world, and although a significant section of the American Jewish community maintains blind loyalty to the Israeli government, the Israeli right wing does not and cannot represent all Jews. That's why we at Tikkun, a voice of liberal and progressive Jews in the U.S., encourage our fellow American Jews to speak clearly and forcefully to the people of Israel, to urge them to stop their government from manipulating the American Congress and the American people or otherwise attempting to thwart this agreement with Iran.    We have great compassion for our fellow Jews who still live with the traumatizing impact of the Jewish past, but it is time to stop letting those fears push us into behaviors contrary to our long Jewish tradition of seeking peace and reconciliation rather than resolving conflicts through force, violence, and war. The way to be real allies to Israel and the Jewish people is to help our most hopeful and generous selves predominate over the fearful nightmares of the past, so that we don't unconsciously collude in recreating the very things we most fear. An Israel already armed to the teeth with the strongest army in the Middle East and over 200 nuclear weapons doesn't need cheerleading for militarism, but strong support to become known as one of  the most generous and caring-for-the-other societies in the world.    It would be a great tragedy if U.S. Jews aligned themselves with Republican hawks to prevent ratification of this international agreement with Iran, thus setting up the conditions for an Israeli attack on Iran or other provocations that might lead Iran to respond militarily. The perception of the Jewish people as leading allies with the militarists in the U.S. would be a gift to the real anti-Semites and a reason why many more young Jews would flee an identification with Judaism and the Jewish community. For those of us who are proud of the loving and peace-oriented elements in the Jewish tradition, and for our non-Jewish allies who do not want to see the Jews once again demeaned and isolated, it is time to stand up and be heard. We must loudly and clearly defend this nuclear agreement and the values that lie behind it. Doing so is good for the Jews, good for the U.S., good for Israel,  and good for strengthening the part in almost everyone on the planet that wants a world of peace, kindness, and nonviolence.  Please donate to Tikkun to support our campaign to get this message out in the American media and Jewish media at www.tikkun.org/donate or by sending a check to Tikkun, 2342 Shattuck Ave, Box 1200, Berkeley, Ca. 94704. And please post this message on your Facebook page or other social media, tweet it, and raise it to your friends, colleagues, people with whom you work or study, family, and neighbors. Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun (winner of the Best Magazine of the Year 2014 Award  from the Religion Newswriters Association) and co-chair with Vandana Shiva of the interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives. He invites peace-oriented Jews and non-Jews to affirm the values expressed in this article by joining Tikkun's Network of Spiritual Progressives at spiritualprogressives.org/join. If you can get to the SF Bay Area in September, he invites you to participate in the Beyt Tikkun Synagogue's  Jewish High Holy Day Services he will be leading at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley (click here for details).www.beyttikkun.org web: www.tikkun.org email: info@spiritualprogressives.org Copyright © 2015 Tikkun® / Network of Spiritual Progressives®. 2342 Shattuck Avenue, #1200 Berkeley, CA 94704 510-644-1200 Fax 510-644-1255

Iran Nuclear Agreement is a BIG DEAL

• Not so very long ago there was serious talk about yet another war in the Middle East... this time with Iran, which would cause hellacious turmoil and loss of life, in furtherance of no cognizable US national interest that ever made any sense to me. This agreement addresses the supposed rationale for those warmongers, by deferring for a long time any issue of Iran's gaining a nuclear weapon. Instead of positing the worst possible outcome, which would be a certainty without a deal (as, for example the odious Sen. Menendez did on José Díaz Balart's show today on MSNBC), why not spend the next ten years trying to find common ground with Iran and encouraging their regime to reenter the Community of Nations as a cooperative, rather than belligerent, member? I look at ISIS and the rise of militancy among Muslims in the 21st Century, and I see the stamp far more of Saudi Wahabism than of Iran and its mullahocracy. Iran has a developed middle class and a functioning government with at least the framework of responsiveness to popular opinion. We should be encouraging and fostering that, not playing up to an autocratic absolutist dictatorship that OFFICIALLY promotes a form of Islam that is antithetical to pluralism and cooperation with the rest of the World, which is what you find in Saudi Arabia.

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Big Earthquake in Pacific Northwest now OVERDUE

Interesting piece on New Yorker website about the fact that the threat of a REALLY big Earthquake, comparable to Fukushima (roughly 9 on Richter) is actually greater in "Cascadia," i.e. Far Northern Calif., Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, than in the part of California South of Cape Mendocino (the Pacific Plate part, dominated by the strike/slip San Andreas Fault. Why? BECAUSE it's strike/slip, even the "Big One" down here is likely to be no greater than 8.2 or 8.3. But core samples and other measures of the subduction zone fault in the Cascadia region shows that roughly every 243 years, with the last one occurring in January, 1700... 315 years ago.... the region is hit by a HUGE Earthquake, that causes land to shift by tens of feet Westward and many feet vertically, resulting in an enormous and devastating Pacific tsunami. (The one in 1700 was an "orphan" tsunami; even then the Japanese knew that tsunamis were associated with Earthquakes, but the 1700 tsunami affected the entire archipelago of Japan, but was not associated with any earthquake... because the Earthquake was in Oregon and Washington!)

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Stronomy Buffs

. . . will want to check out the news in the morning (late morning on East Coast) on Tuesday, July 14, to see the first ever flyby images of Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft. Now that unmanned robots have made close flybys of all the canonical nine planets (even though Pluto is now officially downgraded to "minor planet"), we won't likely see anything quite like this in our lifetimes. (Although, of course, there are other minor planets out in the Kuiper region; including at least two larger than Pluto).

♦ David Studhalter

 

Please visit The Gyromantic Informicon 

How Bernie Sanders has a plan to win AND change politics in America

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-bernie-sanders-plans-win-2016-change-washington/

 A long shot? Of course. We Sandersistas are not delusional. But nothing in political life is ever accomplished by presuming defeat in advance, negotiating against yourself, or assuming that the status quo is insurmountably fixed.

Krugman on Greek Debt Crisis

​If you find the Greek debt crisis confusing, I recommend Krugman's column today, which explains what's really going on quite cogently. 

I believe the world markets will undergo the expected nervous tic, and dip sharply, but, as Krugman says, the Greek economy has for all intents and purposes already collapsed, so the effect on the world economy will not be profound. But this is a test of whether, from the point of view of the less powerful members that don't have superbanks of their own, there is any real value in the European common currency zone. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/opinion/paul-krugman-ending-greeces-bleeding.html?_r=0 ​