An e mail to a Trumpist friend

 I wrote this to an old friend who's become a Trumpist (wealthy, smart guy). Anyway, I'm trying to explain myself by going back to basics. This may sound sanctimonious, but, seriously, I mean it when I say I fail at this every day, every minute. But I still believe these things are important. 

I get it that you don't really care for polemics and tomes, but since we seem to have reopened a dialog, I want to make something clear. If you don't care to read all this, perhaps you'll circle back around to it and read it another time. I'll try to be clear and as brief as I can.  

My progressive politics are, at root, based on spiritual beliefs. Not religion, but spiritual beliefs that I honed and clarified through an approximately ten year long study of Buddha Dharma. The Buddha taught (Kadama Sutra): " Do not believe in anything simply because you heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept and live up to it."

 

​So, on that basis, I reject all authority when it comes to traditional teachings. But what I did absorb, accept on the basis of my own thought and experience, and continue to believe and profess, in its most basic form, includes the following: ​

FIVE PRECEPTS

1. Avoid the taking of life. This is at its most basic level a proscription against murder, but in deeper terms it means a reverence for all life, and the avoiding of unnecessary destruction of life of any kind, and a prescription to love the Earth and living things, and to protect them.

1. Avoid the taking of that which is not given. This has deeper levels too… unnecessary ownership of resources others need is seen as causing harm.
2. Avoid falsity of word and deed, and use of words to cause harm. Again, this contains deeper levels. Not only not to lie, but not to use language to manipulate, or to gossip about people to their detriment; or to conduct oneself so as to cause deception or to take advantage. This is a prescription for basic honesty, and minding of one's own business.
3. Avoid sexual conduct which causes harm. Room for interpretation here, but the main thing is to recognize that sex and sexual behavior are dangerous if great care is not given to ensure that others are not hurt by your actions.
4. Avoid intoxicants, which cloud the mind and cause heedlessness. On its face, this is simple; but it can also apply to avoiding toxic thought and foods, as they work in the same way as drugs and alcohol to poison the mind and heart.

THE LIMITLESS QUALITIES, or sublime conditions. These are the essence of Buddhist thought: they pervade everything, and are the essential condition, or quality, of bodhicitta, the heart of enlightenment, which I think of as no more or less than the essential goodness that resides at the core of all people. These qualities are innate but they can also be corrupted, but they can just as well be cultivated: 
Metta (Pali; Sanskrit, Maitri): caring, lovingkindness. Toward all you meet or reflect upon, your heart feels caring and lovingkindness. 
Karuna: compassion. This is the sympathetic pain upon encountering the suffering of others (or of oneself; karuna begins with oneself).  This quality enables us to develop empathy and to take action to benefit others. 
Mudita: sympathetic joy, the happiness of seeing happiness in others. This also enables us to develop the inner wherewithal to make sure our actions benefit others.
Uppekha (Upeksa): equanimity; the ability to accept others, as they are; and reality, as it is. Tricky sometimes, for it involves the phenomenon of karma, which is nothing more than "actions have consequences" (including failures to act). You are not responsible, and cannot possibly be responsible, for the existence of suffering of others or the condition of the world. You do what you can (right effort, right mindfulness, the other sublime conditions), but you don't allow them to overwhelm and destroy you. Another way to think of this is "letting go."  Equanimity is also the transformation of the deluded mind that sees others as either attractive, unattractive, or indifferent, and learns to cherish all living beings without exception or distinction.  

SO, given that these are the essential spiritual beliefs that I have come to revere and try to live by, I truly believe that we are here on this Earth primarily to benefit others, to see all living beings as worthy of love, and to craft everything we do and say to improve the lives of all living beings, and in particular all people. We all, constantly, fail at this, miserably, myself very much included. But if we do not at least TRY to live our lives in accordance with something very like this, we are truly missing the point of existence and our life is a tragedy. 

And for me, that includes politics. We need to try to make our actions moral. And politics is nothing more or less than collective action. And it must be as moral as we can make it. It must include the intention to benefit others. To include others. If I could have strongly influenced domestic and international affairs at various points in my life, I would have opted for doing everything possible to bring peace and prosperity to every country. To encourage stewardship, but to encourage development and sharing. I believe that unfettered market capitalism is immoral, because it does not have these things as a goal, even as a long term goal. Market systems are not immoral, but only if they are controlled and directed to an appropriate extent, in good faith, and with rightful intention, to ensure fairness and inter-operation with policy goals that seek to make life better for every single human being on the Earth, and to ensure the long term sustainability of life and diversity of life on this planet. These are tall, tall orders, but we fail to be moral beings if we do not strive to achieve them.

​So all my thinking, political and philosophical, is governed by these ideas. 

​I don't know if that helps at all to see things from my perspective, but there it is and for now I'll leave it at that. ​

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Rational Argument will not Defeat Trumpism

I am gradually coming to accept that rational arguments, of the kind that underly the founding principles of the American republic, are not very effective in countering the kind of literally-reactionary politics that make up Trumpism. Robert Sapolsky, a neuroendocrinologist and author of "Behave, the Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst,"* has discussed research that shows that human beings will create rationalizations to justify what are essentially emotional responses, often triggered by things like the disgust reflex controlled by the primitive brain region known as the insula. And George Lakoff has shown that framing of issues, and use of emotional-triggers rather than rational arguments, are much more effective in the successful propaganda used primarily by the Right than the more rational issues-based approach favored by Democrats and Progressives in general. It's kind of pathetic, but the truth is we Progressives are not going to CONVINCE our way out of this mess. We just have to out organize and out-do them at their own game.

It's not that our arguments are not sound, or that we are not right. We are. It's that no amount of rational discussion will convince people whose primary impetus for the "tribal" allegiance is emotional. And to some extent, this is true of all of us; but the same studies show that people on the progressive end of the spectrum are more tolerant in general, including have a weaker "threshold of disgust" at things like spoiled food. It's amazing really. We think we are rational beings, but to a great extent we are not; we are animals whose behavior and even thought patterns are largely the result of biological triggers.

---*

Interview on Background Briefing with Ian Masters:

https://soundcloud.com/user-830442635

Kavanaugh on the separation of Church & State

In case you needed any more proof that Trump SC pick Kavanaugh is WAY outside the historical mainstream throughout at least the entirety of the 20th century.... 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/07/12/scotus-pick-brett-kavanaugh-church-state-separation-is-based-on-bad-history/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=BRSS&utm_campaign=Nonreligious&utm_content=361 

 

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Lanny Davis on "impeachable offense" ?

Have to say this is a non-story. The substance Lanny Davis is referring to is more than a year old-news, and an offense is impeachable, almost by definition, if and only if a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate think it is. And, my friends, until BOTH houses are flipped to Democratic, and maybe not even then, THAT IS NOT HAPPENING. Resistance must take other tacks. One of those tacks, of course, being doing EVERYTHING legal we can to make sure that Democratic control of both houses of Congress is restored as soon as possible. THIS is the fight of our lives.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cohen-lawyer-says-trump-may-have-committed-impeachable-offense

Andrew Napolitano is right (for once)

I don't usually agree with Fox News legal affairs commentator Andrew Napolitano (yeah, the one who was going to become one of Trump's lawyers until it turned out he had a conflict). But his testimony against the Corker/Kaine AUMF* proposal was absolutely spot on. (Bernie Sanders and our Sen. Merkley agree). He points out that open ended AUMFs are UNCONSTITUTIONAL, since the Constitution cannot be clearer that the power to wage war reposes in the Congress, not the president. In fact, his point that the most important principle in the Constitution isn't free speech or "liberty," but Separation of Powers, is also right. As he said, many illiberal governments have paper constitutions that guarantee all kinds of rights, but it's the structure of government that prevents the concentration of too much power in the hands of one man or faction that protects us from tyranny, across the generations, not nice words in a piece of paper. And he's also right, and makes a great point, that ceding the war powers to the president is not only a terrible precedent, it amounts to "amending the Constitution by [illicit] consent."

** Authorization for the Use of Military Force. And yes, the same Kaine who would have been vice president had HRC won, so this isn't a partisan issue. This bill, which would make it necessary to override a veto to stop an executive-originated war, is beyond terrible.

 

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Looming generational threat from Trump's Supreme Court pick

Those of us who do not want to see an interventionist Supreme Court with a locked in majority of Far Right Federalist Society justices who are completely at odds with the public policy views of most Americans are in a very tough situation with the impending appointment of Brett Kavanaugh, who fits this mold in spades. I fear that the only viable solution, assuming eventual return of progressive political forces to power, is to eventually increase the number of justices, but that, unfortunately, is also a steep political climb, opposed by even most Democrats. But we can't just accept defeat. Appointments of relatively young people to the Supreme Court can change the face of American public policy for DECADES, and this latest pick clearly and unambiguously, on every issue, runs counter to the collective will of the American people, as demonstrated from repeated and consistent polling.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Call 202-224-3121. Ask for Susan Collins' office, or Lisa Murkowski's, or your own senators', or any senator's. Every public statement is better than silence.

• Tell them Brett Kavanaugh has STATED and DOCUMENTED views which are not legal but political, judicial interventionist doctrines, and which run contrary to the wishes of a significant majority of Americans. Among them: Wants to rescind Americans' reproductive rights, specifically to overturn Roe v. Wade.
• Wants to disable the right to health care which passed Congress and which even this Congress could not repeal, through judicial fiat
• Wants to disable protections for our environment
• Wants to cripple workers' organizing rights and workplace safety, again through judicial fiat
• Wants to use judicial intervention to cripple sensible financial regulation, which could prevent another financial crisis (has called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unconstitutional, thus rendering him ineligible to rule on cases involving it, but there's every indication he would anyway)
• Is on record saying that criminal prosecution, and even INVESTIGATION, of a sitting president, should be prevented, a clear conflict of interest, having been appointed by a president who is facing encroaching legal threat
• Will almost certainly vote to uphold gerrymandering and voter suppression
• Is hostile to LGBTQ equality
• Is hostile to due process for Asylum seekers (a treaty obligation of the United States, but no matter to them)

WE MUST DO EVERYTHING WE CAN TO GET TO 51 votes AGAINST BRETT KAVANAUGH for the Supreme Court.

Brett Kavanaugh is the exactly SECOND Supreme Court nominee in US history, of a president not elected by the majority of the popular vote, proposed for approval by a Senate not elected by a majority of the national voting electorate. (The first was Trump's FIRST pick, Gorsuch, who took a seat stolen by the Republicans in the Senate in a brazen act of destruction of the unwritten rules that have preserved some degree of balance over much of the 20th and 21st centuries). We have no sense at all in America of the virtue of coalitions. When a president barely wins, ESPECIALLY when he takes office without a popular vote mandate, he has a MORAL duty to cooperate with the opposition, but in recent years, it's been SCORCHED EARTH on their side, and Obama, who tried to be accommodating, was just burned. To my mind, this affords at least a good deal of justification for extraordinary activism to try to defeat their judicial picks. A great deal is at stake, and we have every right, indeed every obligation, to FIGHT BACK.
Thank you.

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Just amazing

It is nothing short of amazing that clown show barker Rudy G. is tacitly admitting that there is an impeachment case to be made against the Mob Boss Prez he works for, and that they're doing everything they can -- not to defend him on the merits, but to put procedural roadblocks in the way of the investigation, and to sway public opinion -- so that, for purely political reasons, even a Democratic Congress will be reluctant to impeach. And this when essentially no Democratic leadership voices are even suggesting that impeachment is on the agenda. 

Just amazing. 

Meanwhile, the most important issue before us... the fact that we have been, and continue to be the victim of a successful cyber warfare attack by Russia, in a coordinated effort to undermine western liberal democracy (which they don't even deny, except on their own clown car media)... is going mostly unaddressed by politicians of either party. One can hope that the counterintelligence forces continue to do their jobs to defend our country against these attacks even with an unwitting Kremlin agent in charge of the executive branch. If the Democratic leadership had any sense, they would make "STOP Russian Cyber attacks on the United States" and "Prevent Interference in our Elections" major election issues in both '18 and '20.

{link}

 

Progressive Change in the Democratic Party

As someone who's very happy to see Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win the primary in Queens/Bronx against an "establishment" Democrat, I want to be very, very clear. I regard her win as a bellwether, not some kind of political earthquake or revolution. It is not the Progressive hope or intention to divide the Democratic Party. Just the opposite. We hope to infuse the party with new enthusiasm, new purpose, and new direction. We hope to spur the leadership of the party to think big, go bold, and realize that what will win in '18 and '20 is not business as usual but embracing the VERY POPULAR progressive agenda of the younger, more connected people coming from the organizing and grassroots of the party. And yes, to a great extent, that means the people who got behind and were energized by Bernie Sanders in 2016. It's a new day. Our party needs to stand for positive change, not just "NOT TRUMP," and we need to galvanize the energy of younger voters and give Independents, tired of business as usual in Washington from both parties, a real reason to vote Democratic in '18, '20, and beyond.

 

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Got an e mail from Barack Obama

I just got a fundraising email from Barack Obama, requesting money for OFA's 2018 election effort. Well and good. I'm glad to see Obama stepping forward to stand for Democrats, and I support all efforts to ensure that Democratic candidates win at all levels. But the email was pretty much devoid of specifics. Democrats want assurance from their leadership that the party will actually stand for specific actions and policies to counter Trump's disastrous right wing agenda. Just being not Trump is NOT ENOUGH. I listen to people like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who just won a primary in New York by a huge margin against an establishment Congressman who failed to take strong progressive stands. Ocasio Cortez espouses a fully fledged progressive agenda and is unafraid to talk about it in detail, just like her mentor Bernie Sanders did in 2016. THIS is the way to win the midterms, and I hope the more mainstream party leadership realizes that and soon.

Polls consistently show that Independents are and were turned off by politicians who hew to a centrist, "nondivisive", mealy-mouthed line. Many disaffected Democrats who voted for Trump actually told investigators that their choice was between Bernie Sanders and Trump... not because they necessarily agreed with the policies of either in detail, but because they were tired of being lied to, triangulated, manipulated. I really believe that a well designed campaign to convince many voters who are just beginning to realize they've been had by Trump, combined with the solid majority across the country who were never taken in by him, will spell a massive blue Tsunami. But the most likely way that WON'T happen is if a big segment of the "disaffecteds" perceive that the Democrats are just playing business as usual, and are afraid to go bold and think big.

Democrats need to forget about appealing to "centrists," and go back to their roots. Economic fairness. Bold policy initiatives: rein in Wall Street, build infrastructure massively, invest in new industries for a renewable energy future, conquer Climate Change with massive public investment, pay for college and vocational education, institute truly universal health care and retirement security. These policies, properly presented, are MASSIVELY POPULAR. And Democrats, better than Republicans, who care no more for debt and deficits than they do but are more willing to lie about it, should understand that the reason we aren't doing these things is NOT because we can't afford them. We have the World's reserve currency. Everyone needs OUR money. We aren't doing these things for one reason only: we don't have the political WILL to do them.

Sure would like to see Barack Obama make some version of this case to the American people. And now.

Ryan Grim's e mail blog

.... is worth reading.

  (LINK)

 

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How Kennedy's retirement could spell doom for the rule of law and small l- liberal democracy in America.

Conflict of interest... a most unappetizing dish.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/please-read-this-through-hes-right

 

 

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Fight Back, Fight Dirty

With the announced retirement of Kennedy, the OTHER horrible SCOTUS news today (not unexpected) is the Janus decision, sealing the 40 year long Right Wing legal campaign to eviscerate the power of organized labor by making required dues illegal for public employee unions. Time to fight back and fight dirty. As soon as Democrats have control of both houses, pack the damn court. To 13. It's NOT in the Constitution. First, make them eliminate the filibuster forever in order to get any Trump nominee on the court. (ANY nominee... THEY set this precedent, let them live with it). THEN, by simple majority vote, change the Supreme Court's make up to 13 justices. Look it up. This can be done by STATUTE. It does NOT require a Constitutional amendment or supermajority vote of either house.   

No Democrats must ever vote for a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court. EVER.

  Democrats in Congress have no real choice; the battle lines are drawn and THEY MADE THE RULES. Absolutely no Democratic vote for any Trump nominee to replace Kennedy. EVER. If Schumer had any guts at all, he'd say that RIGHT NOW.

Malcolm Nance: The Plot to Destroy Democracy

 • Just heard a long interview by John Aravosis and Cliff Schechter (Unpresidented Podcast, $), with MALCOLM NANCE, author of new book The Plot to Destroy Democracy. Nance is a counter intel expert and his book is scary shit. Our nation, and small-l small-d liberal democracy are in deep trouble. We must find common ground with all who will oppose the "Axis of Autocracy," as he calls it, because an all out, real-thing existential struggle with the forces of NeoFascism is already upon us. And what's really scary is the case he makes that Putin is "running" Trump like a "direct action asset". Remember, this guy isn't ex-KGB. He is the KGB, and he's running Russia pretty much the way Stalin ran the Soviet Union, except he understands information warfare and is waging it very, very successfully against US.

Wake up, fellow Americans. We got a fight on our hands, and close to 40% of our country has been brainwashed to be on the wrong side.

Bellwether Primary in the Democratic Congressional races

I hope "Establishment" Democrats, who are unwilling to embrace the spirit of progressive change that is sweeping the party and shaking it to its foundations, will take a lesson from the defeat of "machine" politician Joe Crowley, in Queens, NY today, by a young, female, nonwhite Sanders-supporting progressive candidate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley was supposedly in line to be the next Speaker, when the Democrats take the House, and assuming Pelosi steps down at some point. But now, I hope, there will be some recognition that there needs to be some serious re-thinking of what the Democratic Party stands for, and who should lead it. 

Musica lætitiæ comes medicina dolorum.  

What Trump is after

Posted on FB today by someone who I usually, but don't always, agree with. 

" I suspect that Trump was bailed out in 2006-2007 by Russians when he was going bankrupt. He owes them a lot. But in the process of all of that, he came to realize that Putin is the richest man in the world. He wants that for himself. He realizes that the way to do it is an authoritarian route. The Clintons only amassed about $150 million. Trump wants more. Indeed, if you look at his emoluments violations to date, he and his family members are up to at least $1 billion in benefit just in the first year.

 

That is what this is all about, IMO."

 

​I would like to say this is hyperbole. But I don't think it is. ​And I have seriously come to the conclusion that this administration has put our republic in the most threatened and precarious political position it has been in since 1861. And Vladimir Putin can hardly contain his glee. 

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Nothing accomplished

Sure looks like Trump, the great deal maker, was played by Kim Jong Un. A meaningless "we'll keep talking" in exchange for a lot of prestige, and, now, it seems, a commitment to walk back military exercises. 

Look, I'm a believer in unilateral tension reduction. I've been saying for years (only half in jest) that we should just FedEx a signed peace treaty to Pyongyang, declaring the Korean War over and announcing that we have no intention of attacking or undermining the North Korean state, deplorable as it may be. It's clear that their main interest is survival of their regime, which is not really our issue to resolve. If the Korean people want to be rid of the Kim dynasty, they will have to do the long, hard, nonviolent resistance work that it will take, because there is no external military solution. Every thinking person knows that. 

But just handing Kim a big diplomatic victory in exchange for nothing is not helping, either. I give Trump pretty much no credit... he infused the crisis at least as much in the first year of his administration as he has now defused it, and where are we? Acceptance of a nuclear DPRK. We probably didn't really have much choice, but I do not see this as any kind of achievement. 

 

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Doing "What he's seen done"

So, Trump tells us Kim Jong Un's brutality is OK, because he's "doing what he's seen done." So if Admiral Dönitz had managed to hold on to power for a few months after Hitler's suicide and kept the concentration camps going, we'd have to just say, "Ooop! Mulligan! You were just doing what you'd seen done!"

This usurper-president (calling him what I really believe he is) is the most craven, disgusting piece of work ever to hold that office, and more and more I fear that what he is presiding over is the final dissolution of the American Republic.

 

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Hayden: Attack on Intelligence

Reading Michael Hayden's Attack on Intelligence I am repeatedly reminded of just why I held this man in ... well, contempt is too strong a word, as someone who, despite (or because of ) a thoroughgoing military and historical education and piercing intelligence, managed to convince himself that waterboarding was justified and the wholesale violation of the Fourth Amendment without even notice to the American people was likewise justified by circumstances that followed 9/11. However, his case that the current attack on our body politic, partly internal and partly emanating from Russia, is an even more serious threat, is totally convincing and well supported by the evidence he cites.  

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Commentary on a current affair

Norms, a even actual rules, dropping like flies. If forcing the DOJ to produce the Dep AG and FBI director to talk to Congresscreatures about an ongoing investigation weren't bad enough, they are exclusing any representatives of the opposing party. Even in the worst days of pre-Civil War and Reconstruction corrupt politics, there was at least a SHOW of bipartisanship and fair dealing. Now, it's raw-power Putinesque Fake Democracy all the way down. I think we're seeing what Jefferson was trembling about when he contemplated that "God is just, and his justice can't be deferred forever...." except it's karma, not God.

"What the Hell are They Thinking?" Dept.

Let's take it as a given that Bolton is simply a lunatic, whose rationality is worse than dubious. But Pompeo, albeit a Tea Party ideologue, at least seems, or seemed, to have at least some pragmatic political savvy. It is very hard to understand what he can possibly think will inure to his advantage if he manages to help Bolton drag us into a war with Iran. ANY rational person with even a modicum of knowledge of recent Middle East history and the status of the US in the geopolitical arena at present would be able to see that while that might be a good bluff, it can't possibly be a practical foreign policy. Indeed, all foreseeable outcomes would be strongly negative for US interests. As for Trump, I think nearly everyone now recognizes that he has no strong beliefs at all, only kneejerk responses and ingrained reactions. But he has shown time and again that he will jettison almost any course of action if he perceives that it's a threat to him, either politically or financially. And at some point even he's going to see that a massive, tremendously expensive, economically catastrophic war will be tremendously unpopular with most of the American population, and will be very, very bad for him and his political future. (Notwithstanding the distraction from the probes into his corruption and influence peddling, and even though it will have to overcome the usual "war fever" effect). I think it's more than obvious that one of the very last things most Americans want right now is a massive and very costly war.

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Democrats need to start REALLY fighting back

​​I completely agree with David Faris, author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. More people every election vote for Democrats for House, Senate and the presidency, but the way our system is organized a president can be elected with as little as 25% of the vote, and the House can be majority Republican with only about 35-40% of the voters voting Republican. Moreover, with the Merrick Garland theft of the Supreme Court seat, the Republicans have made clear that they will respect no norms of American politics not absolutely guaranteed by law and the Constitution (and not even some of those). Therefore, we Democrats must use every legal means to ensure that our majority actually rules once we have the means to wield power to ensure that. This should include: DC and Puerto Rico statehood, not approving any justice a Republican president nominates (following their playbook), changing the terms of judges and justices and increasing the numbers of judges and justices at all levels including the Supreme Court to ensure that Democratic presidents can appoint their fair share in this generation; passing the National Popular Vote Compact in enough states to ensure that the winner of the popular vote always becomes president; outlawing all forms of gerrymandering; passing a comprehensive new 21st Century Voting Rights Act which will make voter suppression illegal and make sure every citizen has the right to vote... and more. The judicial changes are vital for one simple reason (among others) Citizens United.

Think about this. Even without splitting one or two of the biggest blue states to create more senate seats (he says California should be five or six states!), JUST by adding DC and Puerto Rico, George W. Bush and Donald Trump would never have become president. The National Popular Vote Compact would have ensured the same thing, all by itself. We do not have a real functioning democracy in this country. They, the perennially minority party, fight dirty. We don't even need to: just by taking purely legal actions to make sure we truly have majority rule insofar as the Constitution allows, we can ensure that we no longer have special interest oligarchy in this country for generations to come. I ask: WHAT THE HELL ARE WE WAITING FOR? How many minority, special interest dominated administrations and congresses must we put up with before we get mad enough to make our own party leaders take these perfectly possible actions!?

More thoughts on "GMO"

   

The science of genetic modification is proceeding apace. It's public perception that's lagging. I understand people's justifiable anger at Monsanto for its monopolistic tactics and its blindness to the dangers of things like GMO to make plants "roundup ready..." with all of the unintended and adverse consequences that entails (for example). But the fact remains that directed adaptation through gene science is already a functioning scientific endeavor. There's no stopping it. What needs to be done is to figure out how to make sure it's done right. Just ignorant rejection of all genetic modification of food plants isn't going to do it; in fact it will play into the hands of those who would manipulate the science in the interests of nothing but greed. 

Turns out the main differences between GMO and ordinary, undirected evolution by natural selection are: (1) the obvious, that there actually IS intelligent design involved, for better or worse; (2) the ability to introduce genes that nature would have had no realistic opportunity to bring together; and (3) speed. Artificial variation is several orders of magnitude faster than natural variation. With these fantastic abilities comes great responsibility. As with other areas of human endeavor, we are being put to the test. If we fail, it will be spectacular, and horrible. But if we succeed, the sky is no limit. 

C4 photosynthesis and GM

 

Science types may be familiar with C4 photosynthesis (look it up in Wikipedia). It evolved about 30 million years ago and has in the last 5-7 million years become important in, especially, grasslands, where drought tolerance and efficient carbon fixation are important adaptations. Essentially, it's a major upgrade in one of the most important "Good Tricks" in the evolution of life, namely photosynthesis, the ability to turn sunlight into food.

Several important food crops, including corn (maize) and sorghum, use C4, but rice, wheat, rye, barley, and oats do not. There is now important and very promising research going on to introduce the genetic modifications to these grain species that would enable them to make use of C4 photosynthesis to (1) fix carbon from CO-2, thus helping to ameliorate climate change; (2) survive with much less water; and (3) greatly increase their efficiency at producing human usable food (their seeds). Kneejerk opposition to genetic modification aside, this is very promising for making sure the Earth is capable of feeding the 9+ billion people who are expected to inhabit it before the population peaks sometime in this century or early next.

Fighting Dirty

I respect David Faris a lot. I haven't read his book, It's Time to Fight Dirty; How Democrats can build a Lasting Majority in American Politics, but I've heard him interviewed by Sam Seder and Ian Masters, and I think he's right on. The Right, McConnell as much as Trump, have thrown out all norms (think filibuster misuse, which was their doing, think the Merrick Garland heist). And we've just taken it. Faris advocates getting back control by aggressive politics (and Trump is a gift in this respect), then hitting them with some stuff that we haven't been able to do before. DC and Puerto Rico statehood. End the filibuster entirely. A new National Voting Rights Act that makes gerrymandering illegal. Split up California and some other Blue states to get more senators. Hell, pack the court. The Constitution says almost nothing about the Supreme Court. Legislation alone could impose 18 year term limits (his idea), with a guarantee that every president gets to name two justices every term. And they could insert rules that if the nomination isn't approved or rejected within say five weeks, it's automatically approved; if two justices in a row are rejected, the third and all subsequent ones can only be rejected by 2/3 vote. Stuff like that. These reforms can be made by majority vote. The Republicans would be unable to undo all of them, because I think they would end up being very popular. The Demographics are on our side. Democrats have won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and consistently get more votes in House races than Republicans, but still lose because of gerrymandering. It really is high time we take back our democracy. 

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Kaine, AUMF 18, and Clinton's loss... a rant

 Farflung correspondents, 

If you kinda wondered about Tim Kaine (a horrible Veep choice in '16 who helped Clinton lose, just a little, but maybe just enough). He just co-sponsored a bill, the AUMF of 2018, that essentially reverses permanently the Constitutional provision for war powers, giving the war power fundamentally to THIS PRESIDENT (!!) and all future presidents, with only very unlikely Congressional veto as a check. What a horrible, terrible, really bad idea, Mr. Woulda-been Vice President! Sheesh. With Democrats like this no wonder we've been losing everything. But the winds of change are upon us. No one like Kaine will be running in 2020, I'll guarantee that.

Y'know, contrafactuals are dumb, OK, sure. But I SWEAR. Clinton made a LOT of mistakes. And it's she, not Comey, who is primarily responsible for losing the election to Trump. But I honestly think if she'd chosen Bernie, or Sherrod Brown, say, as a running mate, that alone would've been enough, and this national nightmare would've been averted. Yes. I DO blame her. We would not be in this mess if she hadn't been so ineffective a campaigner; hadn't been so unwilling to embrace the Progressive energy of the party base. Kaine sent exactly the wrong signal. Having good policies on a website is not enough; you have to live and breathe progressive ideas and be truly invested in the well being of your constituency. And people just did not believe that about Clinton. 

But that's all water under the bridge. Now we must pull together, vote for people even like Conor Lamb, and form strong coalitions that will defeat this existential threat to our republic. So I'll shut up about blaming Democrats. But I just had to get that off my chest.

Ryan will not run

News: Ayn Randite from Janesville, WI, Paul Ryan, will NOT RUN for reelection. Being reported on NBC. 

........................................................ 

Those who are governed by reason desire nothing for themselves that they do not also desire for the rest of humankind.  

--Spinoza

 

The key adaptation

For some time now, I've been fond of pointing out to people the view that the evolution of human intelligence, with its capacity to transfer technology culturally rather than only as biological adaptation, is very probably the most important development in the history of life on Earth at least since the evolution of photosynthesis, about 2 billion years ago. Another contender, actually even more fundamental from the point of view of the evolution of complex organisms, especially animals, would be the evolution of Eukaryotic cells, which resulted from the chance merger into what's called endosymbiosis of two bacterialike precursors (actually a bacteria and an archeon). This chance event required not only that two cells merge and one not have eaten the other but both continue to live in one envelope, but that they reproduce together and continue as one organism with diverse ancestry... a very unlikely event, which almost certainly only happened once. Virtually all macroscopic life is descended from that first eukaryote. 

From Daniel Dennett's From Bacteria to Bach and Back, here's an illustration of the point, which he credits to the polymath Paul MacCready (of Gossamer Albatross fame). MacCready calculated that at the dawn of what's sometimes nowadays referred to as the Axial Age, i.e., the invention of agriculture, about 10,000 years ago, humans and their dependent pets and livestock consisted of roughly 0.1% of the land vertebrate biomass of the Earth. Today, after 10,000 years of cultural evolution, the figure is 98% (mostly cattle). No doubt Homo sapiens is part of "nature," but there can be no doubt that our species has changed the biosphere of this planet more than any other single species ever, and we're just getting started. When the time comes when terrestrial life is found on thousands of planets across this section of the Galaxy, which will happen unless we commit species suicide, it will be safe to say that this thing we think of as intelligence is the key adaptation for the long term survival and expansion of life in the universe. 

 

Reply to DCCC

 My reply to one of the many emails I receive almost daily from the DCCC asking for money: 

«I would consider contributing to the DCCC if it were actually doing what it says it's doing, "fighting to elect Democrats and advance a progressive vision in the states." The recent shameful conduct of spending Democrats' contributions to DEFEAT a Democrat in Texas (Moser) is exactly the kind of thing that will divide the party and make it LESS likely that we can retake the House. THEREFORE, UNTIL THE DCCC ANNOUNCES THAT THIS WAS A MISTAKE THAT WILL NOT BE REPEATED, I WILL CONTRIBUTE ONLY TO LESS DIVISIVE DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATIONS. This message will be cross-posted so Social Media. I hope you do not ignore important (and serious) feedback like this. Thank you. »

Free Trade, Trans Pacific Partnership

​ During the 2016 election season, I opposed the TPP as it was then formulated (as did Sanders AND Clinton) on the grounds that it favored corporations excessively, especially in the arbitration system for dispute resolution. But that is PROCESS, not PRINCIPLE. I do very much believe in free trade, and would like to see the TPP tweaked so as to improve protections for consumers and citizens as opposed to corporate interests, and then JOINED by the US in the post Trump era. The Democratic party needs to make clear that it represents the interests of ordinary working people, and that sensible, carefully crafted Free Trade pacts are actually IN the interests of all Americans. ​

Read this and weep

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-there-a-problem 

The mainstream Dem campaign committees are BLOWING the chance to engage with the activist base. It's clear they've hardened their tribalist stance against the "Bernie Sanders types," failing to realize that it is the "Bernie Sanders types" who are the future of this party. 

If this kind of myopic approach continues, the truth of the old saw will come out: Democrats never miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity. If the DCCC and DSCC succeed in alienating progressive younger voters, as it sure looks like they're on track to do, they will be handing the Republicans victories in races we should win, and I can think of no greater political sin at the present moment. 

Already, I can tell you, I contribute directly to campaigns, or to alternative organizations like Progressive Change or Move-on. I am NOT giving money to organizations that are supposed to work for all Democratic candidates but who in fact work against Democrats not of their mold, and/or fail to support Democrats who can win. 

And I will say it: the House and Senate leaders should step aside in 2018-19. Both of them. It is time for new blood in the Democratic party. The old guard, including Hillary Clinton, failed miserably in 2016. Sure, there were a lot of reasons for it, and some, maybe most, of those reasons were beyond the control of the candidates. But it doesn't change the fact that what Democrats did to gain seats in Congress and win the presidency in 2016 did not work. Ultimately, in politics, you either win or you step aside. So new people should be given a chance to move forward. 

  

optimism

Farflung correspondents, 

​

I think this quote encapsulates a pragmatic sort of very ​long term optimism better than any other I've seen.
​​

"Everything that is not forbidden by the laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge."    --David Deutsch

I might add "and technology," but technically, that's probably ​redundant, since technology, what Americans used to call "know-how," is a form of knowledge. This is one of two frontispiece quotes in Steven Pinker's new book Enlightenment Now, the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.  This isn't meant to be a review of that book, which maybe I'll post another time. I think what Deutsch is saying in this quote, however, is really important. I've given it a lot of thought, and if come to the conclusion that modern humans, for the past century or so, I've been wallowing in self-deprecation, when the reality is that our capacity to more or less accurately model the way the universe works is the single most significant biological adaptation on Earth since photosynthesis, which took place about 2.4 billion years ago. I would argue that the evolution of this capacity makes it quite likely that we, or our descendants which share, and improve upon, this adaptation, will flourish and prevail over the long long future of life originating on Earth. If you really think about it, what has limited the development, and expansion, of life on our planet over almost all of its 3+ billion year history has been its lack of coherent awareness and intelligence. Now that we have evolved these qualities, the sky is literally the limit. Life in the universe is just beginning to get going. And we, as a species capable of reason and technology, are an absolutely essential part of its future, at least around here, in this little part of the universe where we happen to find ourselves. The existence of beings with this capacity is almost literally in its infancy on Earth, and the effects it will have on the future of life have only just begun to manifest themselves. We can't predict what life will develop into, but human or human-derived awareness and intelligence will be key to its future development, and expansion into environments beyond Earth. If you don't see it that way, I would suggest you might care to give it some more thought.

The idea of progress has become unfashionable, but Pinker pretty clearly demonstrates that it actually is occurring. Not in a linear fashion, always up, up, up, of course, but over time, the sum total of knowledge, and its use to improve the survival and flourishing of human beings and other forms of life, have increased. Any reasonably long period of time (say, a few centuries) of our history will show, globally, a net gain. And if anything, this process has been accelerating, right through the environmental crisis, peak oil, supposed food crises, etc. of the recent past. If you doubt it, consult the sources in Pinker's book. It is undeniable.