Nov 22 Thanksgiving.

Thanksgivings seem to be more about eating and family gathering than giving thanks for what we really have and need.

Giving thanks for the people and things we have should do more than just make us feel good.   How many people think about what actually got us here, what we have, what we need, and what we need to do to keep it.  Not just for ourselves, but for our children and future generations.

While overeating is in our DNA, discussing politics during Thanksgiving is more likely to end a family gathering than a heart attack (and more likely to kill future holiday get togethers).   Maybe I’m thinking of myself, but it seems odd that in our nation with freedom of speech is in our first Amendment, it is our freedom to speak about important issues that gets imprisoned by fear at the Thanksgiving table.  

Fear of emotional rejection or assault on our long-held ideas and ideals that we appear to value more than learning the truth about the world and why it seems to be heading toward a zombie apocalypse.

We seem to hold any challenge to our opinions and mental concepts as an attack on who we are.  We then separate ourselves from people who undermine our self-image that is more closely tied to our mental concepts and political party/clan/tribe than to our blood relatives or long-time friends.

Mixed partisan political couples like Mary Matalin and James Carville appear to handle extreme mental differences well.  What is going on with those who don’t? 

A reasonable hypothesis was offered decades ago by a deep thinker who wanted to understand why humans were so unhappy in a world of unprecedented freedom, security and comforts.  He suggested that perhaps sometime after we became civilized our minds original purpose (keeping us safe, fed and fruitful) essentially lost its job.   Instead of protecting our bodies and our future, it started defending concepts and ideals, believing these were the key to survival, which often was true.   But with larger civilizations adopting or adapting concepts that reduced risks (real or imagined), those who questioned the concepts were disdained or ejected from the clan. 

This could be the origins of the first religions, communities, and/or political parties.   Eventually, kingdoms and nations were created.  And larger numbers of people were willing to kill and die for their religious/economic beliefs, their different appearances,  and/or their symbolic flags/artificial borders.

So our identity moved away from what we were original committed to protecting (ourselves and our closest family) to protecting concepts that may or may-not now be useful to the larger human family.

Matalin and Carville have learned to be the master of their minds and bodies.  It appears too many of us have minds that are masters of how we see ourselves.  Matalin and Carville use their minds for solving real world problems instead of creating relationship problems by seeing each other as a threat, or the enemy.

There’s even a bigger picture we must all acknowledge for health and survival of mind, body and spirit.  It’s the big picture.  It was offered in our Declaration of Independence as an ideal picture ruled by “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”.   The writers of that Declaration also recognized our habitual talent for suffering evils while they are sufferable, but they offered us another path.  A path that holds certain truths that are beyond debate.   Unfortunately, our minds prefer to take the bait of arguing over immediate problems and partisan principles instead of a reasoned examination of sustainable systems and structures that have been engineered using fundamental principles.

We debate about the sanity of having guns or nuclear weapons or the insanity of not protecting the very health of our home planet’s environment which risks the foundation of our own immediate health and all future wealth.  

 We believe our selection of candidates once every two or four years is more important than our daily selection of items, we consume 365 days a year.   There is some truth to the suggestion that if you want to know what you really value, don’t look at your voting record.  Read your check book ledger or your on-line purchasing log.  We seem to put more effort and expense into feeling good and looking good than doing good or being good.  At least today we get to examine what we are really thankful for.   I hope most of us will reference all those who came before us with their inventions, discoveries, sacrifices and dedicated service.  

We will never know many of their names or stories, but we can know and appreciate the amazing world they left us.   Like us, I’m guessing that they wanted their lives to matter.   But unlike them, it is we who have the unprecedented technological, political, and economic power to do great things if that is what we are committed to (instead of feeling good or looking good).

After we recover from our bountiful dinners, I’m hoping people will find the best way to use our unprecedented powers.   Including our mental powers.  Examining systemic causes instead of just reacting to structural problems is desperately needed.   Gun deaths (approximately 60% suicides and 3% mass shootings), opioid deaths (more American deaths in 2017 than 10 years of war in Vietnam and 17 years in Afghanistan and Iraq combined), 30% obesity rate (highest US rate ever), and growing unsustainable income inequality, each suggest something in our culture and political system is off.   Our government systems and structures are failing us, unable to keep up with the changes accelerated by advances in technologies.  Increasingly powerful and affordable technologies with virtually no effective systemic capacity for meaningful global regulation or prohibition.  

Our nation’s political foundation is largely responsible for many of the comforts and freedoms we value.  But, now they are largely a liability or a sickness.  The very foundation of our health and wealth comes from our sun (a perfect distance from earth), our climate and natural water and weather systems that evolved over millions of years providing fertile soil, clean water, relatively clean air, and natural environmental cleaning systems through decomposition of dead things and living body discharges.

So be thankful for the flush toilets! And the engineers that use the laws of nature to effectively dispose of our completely digested turkey and pumpkin pie.  And the soils and forests teaming with yet undiscovered life forms working tirelessly to bring us an abundance of healthy food.  Your vote might matter.  But your purchases are a vote for more of whatever you buy.   Remember that nature always gets the last vote!    If we are not wise it will eventually vote against us.

Be thankful we still have a choice in improving the quality of all life for all thanksgivings yet to come. And then do more than just feel good.   Insist that your elected U.S. Representative and both Senators find means to effectively fund the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  This is the one thing that would actually do the most good, for all the things we need and are thankful for.   And the need is increasingly urgent.

Nov 21 World Television Day

Nov 21 World Television Day

Every technology has multiple uses.  TV is no different.  Those promoting TV viewing tell us “we love to entertain, inform, and inspire you”.   It’s also possible they like making money more than making a difference in this increasingly trouble world.  

While TV and videos can be powerful teaching tools, inspiring, and provider of news (good or bad) it rarely moves us to action.  It has moved a lot of people into acting strange and others into professional acting.  

Overall I’m guessing that TV has done significant harm to our health, our culture, and our active engagement with the real world than it has helped.   It is mostly a distraction from what we should be doing and what needs to be done to maximize our freedom, security, and long term sustainability. 

TV fills our mind with images, stories and ideas that may be part of the real world but they rarely increase our physical engagement in it because we humans have evolved an innate desire to conserve energy, be comfortable, and connect to others.  TV supports the first two but only gives the illusion of connection to the real world of other people outside our door, or even sitting next to us.

TV can bring us important news of tragic events that require immediate action or long term trends that demand an urgent change in public policy.  But too often, our reaction to bad news is to just feel sorry for the victim(s) or just change the channel to avoid unconformable feelings while watching.   Changing channels is easy when we are not physically impacted by disturbing images.   Taking action could cost time, money and even endanger one’s security.  Changing channels costs nothing -- immediately.  

  

The long term costs and consequences however can be catastrophic when most Americans avoid any civic responsibly for an increasingly troubling societal, economic, environmental, or national security trends.    For some reason (I’m guessing it because of too much TV watching) most people feel powerless to do anything about the things they see that need action. 

Backing up this assertion is the fact that only about 50% of eligible voters even show up and vote on election day.  And few of those who do, have rarely communicated regularly with their elected U.S. Representative about something that has negatively affected them, especially someone they’ve never known.

Watching TV has multiple negative health impacts.  Studies have shown that sitting still for more than 20 minutes causes the body to go into a light hibernation where blood circulation’s great healing powers are greatly diminished.   We might be feeling good watching our favorite program but it’s just as likely that we are also snacking or drinking substances with few health benefits or significant health shortcomings.

Watching TV can be harmful in other ways.  It increases risk of premature death, reduce one’s level of intelligence, eliminate your ability to concentrate, physically impairs a growing child’s brain, and increase anyone’s risk of developing neurodegenerative brain disorders.  And, it is addictive!

Real life and the world of politics that profoundly impacts our freedoms and our security -- are NOT spectator sports.  TV is.  

Use World TV Day to explore the various problems in our increasingly chaotic world and then commit to taking action to improve it or push the ‘off’ button and do something away from the TV that makes  your life and/or the world a better place.

There are essentially three ways we experience the world inside and outside our bodies.  The first pathway is our five senses.  If we are not blind, about 90% of our sensory in put is visual.  Smells, hearing, touch and taste dominate the rest.  Our second pathway is emotions.  Our internal feelings of love, hate, anger, happiness, sadness. B

The third is our minds capacity to create, learn and modify concepts.   Most often it is our concepts that determine what we feel, see, hear, smell, or taste.   And TV has enormous power to influence our minds concepts.   Perhaps the most damaging is our concept that happiness is a function of buying things.  Few would challenge the assertion that human consumption patterns are sustainable.  Yet TV advertising does have an effect on our thinking, feeling and purchasing habits.   

 "The new slaves are linked together by vast electronic chains of television that imprison not their bodies but their minds.  Their desires are programmed, their tastes manipulated, their values set for them. " Gerry Spence, From Freedom to Slavery.

What I personally find troubling is that even though I factually know I’m watching a fictional show, movie, or even a cartoon that good script writing and acting performances (tragic or inspiring fictional events)  can choke me up.  And I still haven’t found a way to disconnect from a compelling TV story line even though it has nothing to do with reality.  My mind is addicted to finding out what happens next.

What’s coming soon to our viewing eyes is Deep Fakes.  Realistic looking videos that can swap a person’s face into a sex scene involving other people they have never met. And that just scratches the surface of how bad ‘fake news’ is going to get in eroding our trust in politics, people, and products we depend on for every aspect of our health and lives.   Then there is the power of TV to forward conspiracy theories with zero connection to reality.   

The greatest weakness may be our mind’s capacity to believe ANYTHING!  Literally.  Obama was born in Kenya.  Vaccines are too dangerous.  Watching TV is good for us.

What’s good for us are self-evident truths.  Like those listed in our Declaration of Independence that all people are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights.  And among those rights are our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As free adults we are certainly free to watch as much TV as we like.  But we and our children will never be free of the global consequences of our civic irresponsibly in not doing what’s needed.  

Nov 20th Universal Children’s Day

Being cruel to children is unthinkable.   Literally!   Each day approximately 15,000 children under the age of five die from easily preventable malnutrition and hunger related infectious diseases.  And, we just don’t think about them.  Nor the ten children who live on with permanent physical or mental disabilities for every child that dies.   Not thinking and doing something about this horrific injustice has cost us dearly in terms of the chaotic world and catastrophic risks we face today.  Ironically the cost of preventing all this needless suffering is enormously cheaper than paying for the ongoing and immense consequences of ignoring this thoughtless shameful atrocity.

   

Fact is, our individualist culture simply lacks the political will (wisdom?) to pay for the essential nutrients, vaccines, clean water, and safe sanitation to sustain these precious lives.  As long as it remains a hidden holocaust we will continue pay a monumental cost in blood, treasure and our cherished freedoms that are lost to wars, revolutions, genocides, terrorism, pandemics, environmental degradation, refugees, and growing global economic/political instability.    

National security simply isn’t what we think it is.   And, the most powerful military in the world will not be able to keep us safe and free. 

This is not my assertion.  It is the conclusion of a 1980 bipartisan US Presidential Commission on World Hunger.  “In the final analysis, unless Americans -- as citizens of an increasingly interdependent world -- place far higher priority on overcoming world hunger, its effects will no longer remain remote or unfamiliar.  Nor can we wait until we reach the brink of the precipice; the major actions required do not lend themselves to crisis planning, patchwork management, or emergency financing... The hour is late.  Age-old forces of poverty, disease, inequity, and hunger continue to challenge the world.  Our humanity demands that we act upon these challenges now...”

The commission specifically warned about the future consequences if we ignored the global injustice hunger - stating “The most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair and often hatred that result represent real and persistent threats to international order…  Neither the cost to national security of allowing malnutrition to spread nor the gain to be derived by a genuine effort to resolve the problem can be predicted or measured in any precise, mathematical way. Nor can monetary value be placed on avoiding the chaos that will ensue unless the United States and the rest of the world begin to develop a common institutional framework for meeting such other critical global threats as the growing scarcity of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources, environmental hazards, pollution of the seas, and international terrorism. Calculable or not, however, this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”

The commission also stated “that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. The Commission considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion. Armed might represents merely the physical aspect of national security. Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.”

Other studies and reports have followed.  They also clearly document the direct and indirect links between high infant mortality rates, world hunger, global instability, and catastrophic national security threats.   

Winning the Peace:  Hunger and Instability:

https://www.wfpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/wfp_food_security_final-web-1.pdf

https://www.wfpusa.org/winningthepeace/

Global Catastrophic Risks 2018 https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/annual-report/annual-report-2018 

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals that all nations have agreed to meet by 2030 offer the most comprehensive approach to ensuring a safe, healthy, prosperous, and sustainable future for all the world’s children -- and their children.  Yes. It will cost trillions of dollars.  But it doesn't have to cost US tax payers a dime.  

There is approximately $32 trillion stashed in off shore accounts by kelptocrats (and their cronies), crime cartels, and wealthy capitalists using shady tax lawyers. 

Perhaps its time we start teaching our policy makers about the original American principle.  The one that could really make America great again.  It's the 7th Generation principle advocated by Native Americans.  Immigrants to American over the past 7 generations  kinda ruined it for them.  But it’s not too late for our nation of immigrants to start thinking further ahead than the next election or quarterly financial reports.  Perhaps the two first Native American women elected to Congress can lead the way. 

The loss of a child in any culture, nation, or religion is the most horrific of all human experiences.  The only thing worse is losing two children.  Fearing your child will die is the greatest terror in the world.  Thus, it should be the only acceptable use of the word ‘terrorism’ by government, media, or military communicators.   

People who intentionally kill other innocent people are murderers.  Killing dozens makes them mass murderers.  If convicted they are criminals and deserve to be treated as such.   What crime are we guilty of?   Child neglect?  Child abandonment?  Child abuse? 

What we call terrorism currently, and wage war against, has created an endless war against a tactic. Tactics cannot be defeated.  In attempting to do so, our weapons have unintentionally killed thousands of innocent children.  Our government dehumanize these dead bodies by calling them collateral damage.   The parents of those bodies call them son or daughter.

   

War cannot end war, terrorism, hunger or preventable child deaths.   It can end civilization as we know it.   The evolution of weaponry (cyber, bio, robotics, drones, satellites, self-driving cars and trucks, and eventually AI) will continue yielding unprecedented killing capacity to anyone with a grudge.  We need to create a global culture where adults (and childlike politicians) love all children as much as they love our own.   Loving our children and giving them a safe, free and sustainable future is the one thing we can all agree on. 

We need to make this special day the most special day by examining the assumptions we have about what’s important.   National pride?  Stock prices?  Party affiliation?   Our children’s future?    We make choices every day.   It should be obvious to any sane person that we need to start making better choices.   If not, our own children’s future will be far worse than we can imagine.  And it will be our fault.   I wonder if they will ever be able to forgive us.   I wonder if they will even be alive. 

Nov 19 International Men's Day & World Toilet Day or MAGA

Nov 19:  International Men’s Day & World Toilet Day

“Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.”  ― George Carlin

Establishing World Toilet Day on the same day as International Men’s Day is proof of a conspiracy against men.    Invention of the flush toilet remains the top invention of the modern world.  The male of every species remains a mutation with only two purposes.  Increasing genetic diversity and I can’t remember  the other.  

Admittedly, we males do the craziest, stupidest, meanest and usually most selfish things.  Sure.  Women do some. Like the Uber self-driving car backup driver watching a show on her phone when the car hit and killed a pedestrian.  But it’s safe to say most wars, genocides, fist fights, and spousal abuse is the result of testosterone poisoning and genetic defects (missing an entire leg of one chromosome pair) in the gender that has nipples with no function.

But there’s an even greater force that molds males defective nature.  Our sick culture that has allowed males to dominate and spoil the best aspects of politics, religion, and economics – the three things vital for our species survival.  And the modern source of this problem is women who have let it happen.

Yes. It’s all women’s fault.  In spite of their superior intellect, nurturing wisdom, and greater number they have literally allowed men to get away with murder and mass murder, even after men allowed them to vote and run for office.  It’s simple.  Women legally get to decide who gets to have sex and when.  They give birth to males, nurse us, nurture us, educate us, marry us, elect us, and the re-elect us.  (WTF?) 

There’s hope now because so many are now voting...and voting their own kind into office.  But it took a pussy grabbing President to drive them into the voting booths and now into Congress.

George Will recently wrote that “Parents [one of which is female] who have raised sons understand that civilization’s primary task is to civilize adolescent males.”  Women need to try much harder.   Our addiction to watching sports and memorizing sports statistics, events, and players dwarfs our grasp of policy making and monitoring statistics important to  keeping our air and water clean or reducing income inequality.   

According to neuroscience the part of the brain that stimulates anger and aggression is larger in males.   And, the part that restrains anger is smaller.  It sounds fake, but even the male dominated Supreme Court has concluded that male adolescent brain anatomy and physiology can cause “transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences,” thereby lowering males “moral culpability…”  They do provide some hope for males suggesting that “as years go by,” our prospect for illegal deficiencies can be reformed.

Being male I’m hoping my Bachelor of Science in Biology degree gives me some shred of credibility (I also have an MD -- it’s in my mailing address – Rockville, MD).   But a story by a female Washington Post opinion piece writer should encourage other women to show males some mercy.  Her MD gave her some medicine for a problem she was having.  Not long after she started taking it she started having fantasies about her gardener, who, she says, wasn’t even that attractive.  And, when she accidentally dropped a spoon out of her tea cup it annoyed her so much she just kicked it.  

Men unconsciously know that we are basically expendable.  It wouldn’t take many males to keep our species thriving, but it would take a lot of females.   A greater burden is finding out that women don’t really love us, they ‘just settle’ for the best one that courts her.  Its’s understandable that women are picky.  And if they didn’t complain about things, not many things would improve.  But allowing us to stay in power?  That’s just crazy.

The worst part about being male is having to navigate the daily macro and micro slings and arrows of women’s rejections, political correctness, and our fear of women knowing what most men are thinking about every 7 seconds. 

Then, to top it off, we get blamed for stuffing our emotions.  It’s a female blind spot not seeing that when males vent their emotions people, places and things get broken. 

Freedom is supposed to be an inalienable human right.  But men are basically slaves.  We are not free to do as we please because women won’t always let us.   No wonder we displace or desire for freedom in the form of watching sports, mixed martial arts and all out war…and pornography.   It’s NOT our fault.

What is missing in our lives (beside enough beer and sex) is a real purpose for our masculinity.  Perhaps we need a scientific definition of what it means to be a man besides ownership of a penis.  

Just as we need women to make laws and enforce them, we need women to redefine national security and what it means for a male to be a man.  Why do females usually chose rich men or the ‘bad boy’, instead of a thoughtful, considerate, idealistic Gandhi like male?  OK. Here’s the second joke I’ve ever made up.  What is a ‘Gandhi groupie’?   Answer: “There’s no such thing.”  

And we wonder why civilization is in decline. 

There are solutions other than elections or Loretta Bobbit like non-elected surgeries.  There’s chemical castration, male genocide, advances in cloning, artificial insemination, or mechanical vibrators that would make men even more useless than we already are.   Robots can always be trained to take out the trash.

Here’s another option for keeping International Men’s Day linked to World Toilet Day.  Have a man invent an automatic toilet lid lowering device. 

But here’s the best option.  MAGA by becoming real Americans.  Native American.  American Indian culture has always respected ‘mother earth’ and feminine life sources.  American Indian women have had an ancestral right to leadership.  They held significant power in pre-colonial, egalitarian societies from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  In the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Northeast tribe mothers played a key role in safeguarding stability in tribal governance and appointing responsible leaders.  As mothers they often had the power to shape decisions about going to war.  The Dine nation of the American Southwest pegged kinship with the mother/female line where it was the women who owned property and passed it along to other women.  

The spiritual life of native Americans deeply valued the feminine life sources but mostly Mother Earth.   

So what should we honor on International Men's Day besides putting down the lids? 

MAGA (make America Great Again) by becoming real American Warriors:

http://www.native-americans-online.com/native-american-warrior.html 

HONESTY AND JUSTICE

Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To the true Exemplar, there are no shades of gray in the question of honesty and justice. There is only right and wrong.

POLITE COURTESY

A Warrior has no reason to be cruel. They do not need to prove their strength. An Exemplar is courteous even to his enemies. Without this outward show of respect, we are nothing more than animals.

HEROIC COURAGE

Rise up above the masses of people who are afraid to act. Hiding like a turtle in a shell is not living at all. A Fighter must have heroic courage. It is absolutely risky, It is dangerous. It is living life completely, fully, wonderfully. Heroic courage is not blind, it is intelligent and strong.

HONOR

A true person of honor has only one judge of honor, and this is him/herself. Decisions you make and how these decisions are carried out are a refection of whom you truly are. You cannot hide from yourself.

COMPASSION

Through intense training the Fighter becomes quick and strong. He is not as other men. He develops a power that must be used for the good of all. He has compassion. He helps his fellow man at every opportunity. If an opportunity does not arise, he goes out of his way to find one.

COMPLETE SINCERITY

When a Warrior has said he will perform an action, it is as good as done. Nothing will stop him from completing what he has said he will do. He does not have to "give his word." He does not have to "promise."

DUTY AND LOYALTY

For the Warrior, having done some "thing" or said some "thing," he knows he owns that "thing." He is responsible for it, and all the consequences that follow. A Warrior is immensely loyal to those in his care, to those he is responsible for, he remains fiercely true.

“It takes a female to have a baby,
It takes a woman to raise a child,
It takes a mother to raise them correctly,
It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world.”
― Shannon L. Alder

Nov 18 Words should mean something Day?

There should be a "Words should mean something Day!"  Our survival depends on this fundamental communication principle.  Words and phrases like terrorism,  health care,  rule of law,  justice, and national security are used repeatedly every day in every newspaper, legislative body, and serious discussion about freedom or security.  Yet, each can have a different meaning for very intelligent people committed to solving urgent and existential threats. Should people addressing these threats be allowed to use them without common definitions?  They have been.  This might explain why we have a world taking another step toward a future of mass casualties today. 

Kilogram.  Homo Sapiens.  Penicillin.  De-fibulator. Capital offense.  Probable cause.  Carbon Dioxide. Flight Data Recorder.   These are all words or phrases that have a very specific meaning to people making, repairing, or resolving important things.  Each word means something precise so anyone resolving a specific problem will understand it perfectly.

The first set of words and phrases have general meanings without common agreement.  Using words without exactness might move us emotionally but are they really helpful in solving problems?   

Imagine flying in an airplane or going under surgery where those responsible for your life don’t have precise terminology that is essential to your survival.

Doctors, engineers, lawyers, soldiers, and scientists tend to use words extremely useful in solving the problems in front of them.   They tend to be accurate and/or precise.  Accurate meaning, they most often hit the goal. Precise meaning, they do it repeatedly and rarely fail.  Vague words/phrases sound good to simple minds but they lack accuracy and precision.  Politicians, clergy, and average citizens tend to use such words.  Given the failure rate of government and religion in ending war, genocide, pandemics, and environmental destruction perhaps its time we adjust our problem solving systems and structures.   

Engineering principles have given us unprecedented comforts and power. Yet we have primarily used those principles for making money and life easier for some, and designing weapons system for killing anyone and everyone.  What could we build using these principles to achieve 'liberty and justice for all'? 

This week the final National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) inspection report was released regarding last year’s Southwestern airline passenger airliner fatality.  It has been almost 10 years since the last US commercial airline fatality and the first Southwestern Airlines fatality in its 50-year history.    Federal safety officials said it was metal fatigue of a single fan blade in one jet engine that caused it.  It was the second such failure in two years (no one was injured in the first incident).  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/federal-investigators-open-hearing-into-cause-of-fatal-southwest-airlines-engine-explosion/2018/11/14/22abc714-e784-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.2e5f03ba0aa7    It’s estimated that there are over 350,000 similar fan blades in all the jets using this popular type of US/French made jet engine.  Examiners found eight with similar fatigue issues and replaced them.

 If one considers the thousands of things that could go wrong with a single passenger airliner and crew (average of 3 million mechanical parts) combined with over 100,000 commercial flights on about 28,000 aircraft daily then one discovers that you are far safer flying than driving.

What is the possibility of Congress engineering health care, counter-terrorism, or national security laws with such reliability and success rates?  Politicians are free to define words and terms however they like and appropriate our tax dollars to address problems that are loosely defined but ‘we the people’ are not free of their lethal consequences.

Imagine if there were a National Legislative Safety Board like the NTSB that spared no expense in identifying the specific cause of government policy failures that resulted in the deaths of innocent Americans? 

Oddly, US policy makers can’t even agree on the cause of rising global temperatures after they have been reported by thousands of peer reviewed studies.   It would be like commercial airline jet engine manufacturers ignoring NTSB investigations.

And now a new report calculates that our ‘war on terror’ has cost the US nearly six trillion dollars and the deaths of over 7,000 Americans post 9-11.  Plus, nearly half a million other people were killed in US post 9-11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  Yet there are more so-called ‘terrorists’ alive today than there were before we engaged in this endless global war 17 years ago.  And, there is still no US or globally agreed upon definition of terrorism.  The New York Times reported last week that domestic white supremacists and other members of right-wing movements were responsible for 71% of extremist-related deaths in the US between 2008 and 2017. Islamic extremists were responsible for 26%.  No one has explained how to wage or even win a war against a terrorism (a tactic). 

A new counter terrorism study by conservative think tank AEI warns that America’s strategy is becoming irrelevant. “The Salafi-jihadi movement’s ability to evolve” …”adapt to US counter-terrorism policies, and learn from failures has generated key adaptations that challenge the current US approach to fighting al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other like-minded groups.”

Using the military and our war machine to defeat a global tactic is the equivalent of using hospitals and general antibiotics to defeat all infectious diseases.  Resistant bacterial diseases will only get worse, and the viral diseases aren’t even affected.  The concept of prevention of war or terrorism appears to be un-American.

The AEI perspective on the flaws in our nation’s counter-terrorism effort is accurate but its suggestion that we can actually ‘win’ any “war” against terrorism is even more flawed.  The global evolution of weapons and multiple technologies that can be used for unprecedented and increasingly affordable mass murder will continue to outpace our governments capacity to respond.  Given our nation’s increasing dependence on increasingly complex and vulnerable systems and structures, this war will not end well for us.  And, attempting to outpace Russian, Chinese, Iranian and N. Korean weapon advances without significant allied support will break us economically.  Nearly every national security expert agrees that our growing deficit is a prime national security threat as well as our increasing government dysfunction as a result of increasing animosity within it. 

Before 9-11 Osama Bin Laden’s two primary goals were to break us economically and divide us politically.  We didn’t need help with either, but our continued war on terrorism combined with our failing efforts to effectively address other global security risks (Global Catastrophic Risks 2018 https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/annual-report/annual-report-2018)  doesn’t generate much optimism by anyone studying current trends and risks.

This report requires us to redefine what we mean by ‘national security’.  The deeper one digs into the root causes of global catastrophic risks, the easier it is to find the root causes of most risks.  It’s the lack of human security.  This is not a new idea.  But anyone grasping the current variety, volume and velocity of threats are starting to see the wisdom of this perspective.

The evolution of war and weaponry alone should alter every approach to solving global problems.  But add the other threats (climate change, pandemics, and growing economic inequality/instability) and solutions become more “self-evident”.   Prioritizing human rights, justice for all, and accountable institutions at every level need to be the end goal.   Maximizing global human freedom and security is simply unachievable with each national government putting its own security (national security) first.

Global cooperation, not competition, is the key to human survival.  It has been for centuries but has never really been given a chance.  Without ending the evolution of war and weaponry we tempt the end of civilization itself.  The only means of stopping terrorism is destroying the roots of its inspiration.  Ignorance and injustice.

THE RULE OF LAW:

Nation’s must make a simple yet difficult choice.  Continue using the law of force (war/terrorism) to solve problems, or the rule of law. 

Politicians repeatedly champion the “rule of law” as a solution but rarely offer an understandable and workable definition.   Former Supreme Court Justice Kennedy did.   Speaking to the public about the differences between US and foreign government legal systems when he was asked “What makes the rule of law effective?”  He said ‘for the rule of law to be most effective it requires three essential elements.’  1) The laws must be made and enforced by a democratic process. 2) They need to be applied to everyone equally (justice).  3) They need to protect basic inalienable rights.  Rights that people have just because they are human.  Not because of their sex, nationality, religion or economic status. 

Engineering the foundation of government from these three elements is analogous to making the foundation of a building.   Concrete is mixed and cured to form a rock-hard substance that can endure enormous stresses.  It is made up of three basic components:  Water, aggregate (rock, sand, or gravel) and Portland cement.   Leave any one of these three basic elements out of the mix or use the wrong proportions of each and the foundation will crumble.

Without government foundations engineered with the proper elements, we cannot expect them to keep us safe and free.

The primary goal of engineers is to protect public health and safety.  They use the laws of nature to ensure their creations last.  We the people need to do the same.  But we need to include the Laws of Nature’s God (liberty and justice for all) as well.

Nov 17 Truth Day

"The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it."   -- Remy De Gourmont
(1858-1915) French Symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic

“Is God Dead?” was a 1966 Time magazine’s cover story.  Fifty years later, two months after Trump’s election, their cover story “Is Truth Dead” appeared.    Truth will never die, but we will if continue to ignore it.   The more we know about and understand the “self-evident” “Truths” expressed in our Declaration of Independence, the more freedom and security we and our children will inherit.    

In high school history we may have learned about the founders political trade-off made, counting black slaves as only 3/5ths of a human in exchange for a federated United States.  They sacrificed reason for “a more perfect union” over a confederation of states that had existed in increasing chaos for over 100 years.  It was a good idea at the time. But that conscious rejection of the profound self-evident truth forthcoming from the “laws of Nature and Nature’s God” didn’t end well.  In fact, it hasn’t ended at all.  It sparked a civil war that initially cost more American lives than all the wars our nation has fought in since then, combined.  

Their creation of a third set of laws within the U.S. Constitution continues to this day to avoid the other two law sets (nature and nature’s God).  Our Constitution’s persistent application of ‘untruths’ such as treating the lives of non US citizens as less valuable, will not end well.   Our laws continue to condone a perpetual global war against a tactic (terrorism) that can never be defeated. 

Given our increasing dependence on so many things in so many ways and the growing global access by damn near anyone, to unprecedented killing capacity, our war against terrorism is a war that we can only lose. 

Ignoring fundamental truths not only threaten our security.  It is killing our freedoms.  This seeming unsolvable dilemma only exists because of a profound untruth we believe in without question.  The untruth of ‘independence’.  Our nation was founded on this mental construct that exists nowhere in the known universe.  It is implanted in our minds and imprinted in our culture as a principle.  But it is a inherently flawed principle.  

It is an illusion recognized by both ancient spiritual prophets and modern scientific giants. 

Leonardo de Vinci once said “Realize how to see.  Understand that everything connects with everything else.”  

Albert Einstein observed that   "A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security."

Without acknowledging and acting on the fundamental principle that we are all interdependent, our flawed concept of independence prohibits us from resolving the freedom/security dilemma.  The answer is quite simple but enormously difficult.    Sustainably maximizing our freedoms and security requires us to be responsible with our freedom.  Maintaining a mental concept and our government can do what it pleases around the world without consequences is a dangerous delusion in a world of unprecedented capacity for WMD.  No walls or military power in the world can stop a biological or cyber attack by a committed adversary. 

Risking blasphemy, we should modify the biblical passage, ‘the truth will set us free - and keep us safe, if we are responsible with our God given freedom.’  God bless America?   Why?  Do we deserve it because of who we are, or what we have done? 

I don’t believe it is a coincidence that the foundational commitment of every major religion is the golden rule of ‘do unto others…”.   Do Americans really believe that others in the world can use drones to murder us without a fair trial?  We do it to them.

As the Cold War heated up U. S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson said "The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact."  

Can we assert that ‘wisdom’ in our Constitution might look like the self-evident truths found in our Declaration of Independence?

Why is it so difficult grasping the profound value of these self-evident Truths?   Could it be that our innate selfish pleasure-seeking desires overwhelm our innate biological capacity for reason and expectoration of justice? 

Americans believe that the purpose of government is to protect the fundamental rights of ‘we the people’.  Patriotism and nationalism (what Einstein called the “measles of humanity”) has us unconsciously turn this fundamental human right of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” into only an American right.  What consequences should we expect from such foolishness? 

If we are serious about maximizing both our freedom and our security we must recognized the value of one simple word.   Justice.   In three words “justice for all”.    And given that God gave us freedom, the freedom to choose good or bad, it makes sense that we should all pledge those five profound words before our nation’s symbolic flag, every time we stand before it.  “Liberty and justice for all”.  Profound!

Only a delusional, ignorant, arrogant, or forgetful soul would believe that some people are undeserving of inalienable rights.  TRUTH: Governments do not give us rights.   That they are a gift of nature and nature’s God. 

Truth Day is not official. But it should be.  And it should be every day.  Yet we now have a President close the nuclear launch codes who averages nearly 10 untruths per day.  And before the midterm elections he was calling the other party a threat to our nation.

His followers of patriots, nationalists and white supremacist believe they are special.  Technically they’re special ed.   At best, arguing with nature and nature’s God only makes them sound crazy.   At worse, the outcome is suicidal.  Nature and God are rarely forgiving.  You can only defy gravity or justice temporarily. 

And White supremacist are particularly ignorant.   A fundamental principle (self-evident Truth) of biology is evolution’s survival of the fittest.   They seem to believe a monoculture of whites is superior to a wide diversity of humans.  Talk about suicidal. 

Things change, but not fundamental principles.   Real staying power and fitness is in genetic diversity, not genetic purity (see biological consequences of inbreeding vs hybrids).   

If our nation is about freedom, which our elected officials remind us of frequently, then telling the truth is essential to maintaining it.   Maintaining a government based on the flawed concept of independence?  That’s simply nuts.

If we attempt to redefine the word ‘truth’ to mean anything we personally believe, and allow others to believe differently, don’t expect things to work.   How is our government working now?  The consensus of most US national security experts puts our own nation’s dysfunctional government as the second greatest threat to our security.   

 Personal relationships, legal contracts, and each level of our government depends on trust.  Trust is the glue that holds our society, economy, government and environment together.  And trust is a function of truth.

How many people trust our so-called ‘justice system’?  Can we trust it to be just?  Inscribed above the entrance to the US Dept. of Justice, Washington DC you will find “Justice is the great interest of man on earth.   Wherever her temple stands, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness and the improvement and progress of our race.”  (can we assume it meant human race?)  

But, complain to any lawyer that you expected justice in your verdict and if they can refrain from laughing, they will inform you of that “we have a legal system.  Not a justice system”. 

A nearly self-evident truth that if you go to trial in the US you are better off being rich and guilty than innocent and poor.  Paradoxically, before anyone testifies in court they must first agree to “tell the Truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help [you] God?”   The tragic truth is they will indeed need God’s help once they are within our ‘justice system’.

It’s long been known that war is the enemy of truth.  Lies and deception may win wars, but it will never end war itself.   Then we continue to ignore the fact that lies and deception are often precursors to war.   When self-evident truths like ‘justice for all’ is ignored, wars become inevitable.   At least one Founding Father understood this.  Thomas Jefferson wasn’t smiling when he said, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”  

It’s not the Russians, Chinese, Iran or N. Korea that we have to worry about.  Our greatest threat is our persistent choice to ignore fundamental truths.   Fake news, conspiracy theory, and popular ideas that sound good, dominate our social media and personal dialogue.  Human creativity in ideas and objects can be profitable, but do they really serve our unity as a people.  Our capacity and inclination to believe ANYTHING that validates our existing thoughts and beliefs, no matter how untrue they are, can be lethal.

Using our creative inventiveness, we have built systems and structures that are incompatible with the health of nature’s systems and God’s structures (us).   Violations of the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God are punishable by disability, disease, and even death.   Humans have reached a point in our evolution where our own systems (AI) and structures (dual-use technologies) may do us in before nature’s verdict. 

Fundamentally, humankind needs a new operating system.  One based on fundamental truths that all recognize as obvious for our survival.  We will not make it if a majority or even a minority is continually operating from, ignorance, indifference, lies, or conspiracy theory.

Find whatever non-violent means are possible to wake people and your policy makers up to our need for systemic change.   Truthfully, they must already know that tweaking our existing system can’t work.  Why else would they support a President so unlike any other ever elected. 

The global application of truth would be humanity fulfilling the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  We can pay to achieve them  now, or we will likely pay an incomprehensible price later if we wait.

IF it is to be it is up to we.  A movement of movements has the capacity to create the political will to fund the SDGs using the $32 trillion locked in offshore accounts by kleptocrats, crime cartels, and wealthy capitalists avoiding taxes. 

"Be aware of this truth that the people on this earth could be joyous, if only they would live rationally and if they would contribute mutually to each others' welfare."  -  Kurt Vonnegut

"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole." - Malcolm X

"Truth is not determined by majority vote": Doug Gwyn
 

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it"  Mohandas Gandhi

"Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude.  In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side."   Goethe 

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself": Thomas Jefferson

"Truth is treason in the empire of lies." - Ron Paul

"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting." -- Buddha

“the truth will set you free” Jesus Christ.

Can we best gauge a “Truth” by its ability to ensure the survival of our species?  Unfortunately, it appears we allow our feelings to determine our truth without really examining the facts.