(new posts below this sticky post)

The current situation. (jan 14)

Apocalypse we have to say,  is not coming – we are already in it. Climate, finance, impact of robots, health, population.failure of he democratic model and weakness of government, and more.Trump is a kid wild card. He wants to play and can’t grasp the game he is joining. Dangerous and forces us all to be on guard. Not a good use of time.

Post election we have the majority, angry at

• Losing out
•  Fear of losing what they have
• and being looked down on by an illegitimate professional elite does not help.

These three are quite different, but support Trump (as a voice of anger, not as a voice of policies). The Sanders supporters are part of that.

But we are in a phase where the anti-establishment progressives and the pro Clinton “progressives”  appear to both share a common anti-trump agenda but are to be torn apart by the difference between anti-establishment (anti-Clinton)and pro-establishment (pro-Clinton) perspectives within the democratic storm-tossed “tent’. Can the Democratic party survive? Should it? A new party of Sanders, Tea Party, honest and neglected middle class ought to emerge, but the powers that would try to prevent that are powerful. Divid the objecting right from the objecting left will continue to be the strategy that keeps a new part from emerging.

In the fight over cabinet, inauguration and the spring, we will see  much incivility. The progressives will do what they had feared the right would do post a Clinton election:take to the streets with violence and name calling. In short trying to making governance impossible and providing an excuse for repression (very dangerous), but maybe necessary. The counter inaugural will be – what? Informative?

The problem is, we cannot have a civil discussion because the real problem is wealth concentration and the stuff that goes with it: class and race disdain, and this in the context of global warming. An open discussion about capitalism, representative democracy, the media – all in the context of weak government, population increase, and near unavoidable climate change – seems to be beyond us, but we must try.

The impact of climate, migrations, food problems, water problems, collapsing economic structures, war clouds, all at the same time overwhelm governance which is already cracking under internet pressure and income inequality. A look at Crooked Timber or Alien Ecologies shows how much we have to learn. And there are many  more..

Late empire power has shifted to the global business community and their control through money of the politicians. In this context government leadership, let’s call it political to leave out the bureaucracy, is  weak and serious people know it is dangerous to reputation and you can’t do anything with it anyway except to get paid off. The result is we have a series of clowns, all well meaning but more clowns than serious, or tragic as in the case perhaps of Clinton, all drawn to play a role in a power that Is vastly depleted.  Honest bureaucrats are below the radar and unrewarded.

Let’s deploy automation rapidly and safely in the direction of green and much less energy use, and face the unemployment with distributed incomes.I still think the common good needs a vision, and GardenWorld is that vision.

current breaking points (just some of the many) 

• Credit
• U.S. credit-card balances are on track to hit $1 trillion this year, as banks aggressively push their plastic and consumers grow more comfortable carrying debt.
• Look especially at homes, student loans, maybe cars.
• earthquake, Washington, California
• assassination
• retirement funds
• south china sea
• Middle East
• Electric grid fragility
• Internet fragility
• plague years
• Prisons and justice
• race and fear vs. inclusion and appreciation.