Business is what we call our formal arrangements of exchange. It is how we create civilizations. Cheating is optional, and in a civilized society, discouraged. Teddy Roosevelt talked about the Square Deal, which I take to be one that is win-win on both ends of the exchange. I grow apples and you make baskets, so we try to work out a deal…
Business is what we call our formal arrangements of exchange. It is how we create civilizations. Cheating is optional, and in a civilized society, discouraged. Teddy Roosevelt talked about the Square Deal, which I take to be one that is win-win on both ends of the exchange. I grow apples and you make baskets, so we try to work out a deal that is satisfactory to both. Contrary to "Reaganomics" a genuine free market or free society is kept free of bullies; those who create monopolies of ownership or political power. Monopoly sucked in the Gilded Age and it sucks now, but in between we sought more sanity. "We the People" are losing purchase on our own society. It does not have to be that way.
I glad she at least raises the issue. The legitimacy of Trump-selected judges bending law to support Trump is an epic scandal in and of itself. If democracy survives all this, future students will wonder what the hell were we thinking?
Would like to share what someone just shared with me. You can complain about the Heritage Foundation to the IRS. This is from Mastadon. There is also a suggested narrative to fill out for a reason. Please download, fill it out, mail it in, and share with friends.
Seen on Mastodon. At this link you can download a PDF form to file a complaint to the IRS, requesting that they revoke the Heritage Foundation‘s non-profit status. Fill out the form and mail it to: eoclass@irs.gov
This is what is suggested on the sample form to fill in:
Based on the statements of Kevin Roberst, the Heritage Foundation’s president, on June 11 and July 2, the foundation’s mission is no longer solely “research and education,” but now includes preparing for a possibly bloody revolution.
Specifically, in an interview on “The War Room” on July 2, Roberts stated that the Heritage Foundation has developed a prominent series of policy plans (Project 2025) to overhaul the federal government under a Republican president, and that the country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”
Sure sounds like Roberts and the other authors of Project 2025 are planning to start a bloody war as part of the Heritage Foundation’s mission.
“…The Lost Pirate Kingdom is a 2021 docuseries created for Netflix. This historical drama portrays the rise and fall of the eponymous early-18th century pirate republic based in Nassau, Bahamas. The series begins in 1715, shortly after the close of the War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted England against Spain. England had waged the war on the cheap, resorting to the use of privateers rather than incurring the expense of fully funding the Royal Navy. It was released on March 15, 2021…”
Long story short, my view has been that the Spanish stole the gold from the indigenous people (making them seem the greater enemy of them). The English were originally more accepted by the indigenous people as a protective ally against the Spanish. Then the English unleashed the Privateers to steal what the Spanish stole, at least until there was no more need for them as allies, which left them unsanctioned (without franchise), so many modified their “tradecraft” into piracy, stealing as much treasure for themselves as they could. Hmmm, a society with no stable rules, just some rather vague ideas of how to not cannibalize fellow pirate gangs that would provide a bit more protection from the more “civilized” and orderly powers.
Makes me wonder who really hates us for our Freedoms as some told us during the GWOT, or the Heritage Foundation, “Con”-Federalist types who’s affinity and seeming support for Project 2025. Are they the modern Pirates actually stealing our treasured Freedoms?
Freedoms and treasure. The shift in total national wealth upward is documentation. Brush away the muddled sales pitch and "Reaganomics" was a prescription for neo-feudalism.
I'm not disagreeing with J L Graham, I'm just going to be a little more specific.
Practicing wisdom is what we call the way we resolve the inevitable dilemmas that emerge in a large and complex social system. Business is one of those practices until it isn't. More specifically, business is one of those practices when it adheres to what Adam Smith referred to as The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), aka treat others as you would want them to treat you. If a business is wise, then it is not cheating because it is only hurting itself in the long term by damaging trust, which is the glue, and the only glue, holding civilization together.
As it is for business, so it is for journalism. If there are actual journalists in the Whitehouse press corps, and I'm sure there are, they must be a very small minority within that group.
From a strictly sociopathic perspective, cheat all you like, because you are all that matters; but such thinking in inimical to a just and satisfying society. From a social perspective. we cannot successfully live together without accepting certain responsibilities, and there both an individual and a social aspect to human personalities. Mutualistic integration of both needs seems to me to be the wisest choice, in pursuit of "enlightened self-interest" happiness.
The way I put it is to say that it's "me first" until I discover that my behavior is harmful to someone, probably because they told me, and then its "us first" until we discover that our behavior is harmful to others, and so on. If we all do that, we're all winners in a healthy social system. Those that don't are taking advantage of those that do in the same way that a cancer cell takes advantage of its neighbors, but it's a short lived advantage (pun intended).
Ideologically this started with the '1971 Powell Memorandum'... It was furthered with the ruminations of Milton Friedman which places Corporate Profits over any Social Responsibility... The foundation of the Heritage Foundation, and other Right-Wing Organizations, date from the 'Greed Is Good' Reagan Reign... The Far-Right never really goes away, it just retreats temporarily... As I said before, there is Deep-Anger in the Land, and the Oligarchy uses Social Issues, and Wealth Disparity to further their Maximalist Agenda...
Thanks for that. I'd never heard of the Powell Memo. Don't forget William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale (1951). It's theme is the idea that a few people are important and everyone else is an opportunity to be exploited, or a threat to be neutralized, and otherwise irrelevant, aka neoconservatism.
"They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds." —Mexican Proverb
The urge to prey on other humans, or to eliminate them, runs even deeper, and has been salient in extreme right, left, racial supremacist, and theocratic hellscapes.
It has been Speculated that Humans have derived from Chimpanzees, and Bonobos... Chimpanzees are very Tribal, Territorial, and make War on each other... Bonobos are Pacifistic, and Communal... Didn't Jane Goodall at Davos say that DJT reminded her of an Alpha Chimp?
A troupe of chimpanzees is a fission-fusion society. A chimp social system is a mother and her juvenile offspring. A human social system is an internally interdependent and externally independent group of humans, which for many thousands of generations, and until about four hundred generations ago, was exclusively a hunter-gatherer band. Today, the human social system is civilization.
"What if the beloved community is already real, and all we need to do is live as if it is?" —John Lewis
Trusting Trump is like Putin "trusting" Prigozhin. The shelf life of such trust is very short when push comes to shove, and his usefulness declines too far.
Business is what we call our formal arrangements of exchange. It is how we create civilizations. Cheating is optional, and in a civilized society, discouraged. Teddy Roosevelt talked about the Square Deal, which I take to be one that is win-win on both ends of the exchange. I grow apples and you make baskets, so we try to work out a deal that is satisfactory to both. Contrary to "Reaganomics" a genuine free market or free society is kept free of bullies; those who create monopolies of ownership or political power. Monopoly sucked in the Gilded Age and it sucks now, but in between we sought more sanity. "We the People" are losing purchase on our own society. It does not have to be that way.
Back AOC in taking on Supreme Court for Impeachment.
I glad she at least raises the issue. The legitimacy of Trump-selected judges bending law to support Trump is an epic scandal in and of itself. If democracy survives all this, future students will wonder what the hell were we thinking?
Would like to share what someone just shared with me. You can complain about the Heritage Foundation to the IRS. This is from Mastadon. There is also a suggested narrative to fill out for a reason. Please download, fill it out, mail it in, and share with friends.
IRS complaint
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/irs-complaint-process-tax-exempt-organizations
Seen on Mastodon. At this link you can download a PDF form to file a complaint to the IRS, requesting that they revoke the Heritage Foundation‘s non-profit status. Fill out the form and mail it to: eoclass@irs.gov
This is what is suggested on the sample form to fill in:
Based on the statements of Kevin Roberst, the Heritage Foundation’s president, on June 11 and July 2, the foundation’s mission is no longer solely “research and education,” but now includes preparing for a possibly bloody revolution.
Specifically, in an interview on “The War Room” on July 2, Roberts stated that the Heritage Foundation has developed a prominent series of policy plans (Project 2025) to overhaul the federal government under a Republican president, and that the country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”
Sure sounds like Roberts and the other authors of Project 2025 are planning to start a bloody war as part of the Heritage Foundation’s mission.
See NYTimes reporting of this incident on July 3rd: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-policy-america.html
105%!
Perhaps a bit oddly, the mention of TPM reminded me of their take on Netflick's "Lost Pirate Kingdom" at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/what-netflixs-lost-pirate-kingdom-got-right-and-wrong-about-the-golden-age-pirate-gang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
“…The Lost Pirate Kingdom is a 2021 docuseries created for Netflix. This historical drama portrays the rise and fall of the eponymous early-18th century pirate republic based in Nassau, Bahamas. The series begins in 1715, shortly after the close of the War of the Spanish Succession, which pitted England against Spain. England had waged the war on the cheap, resorting to the use of privateers rather than incurring the expense of fully funding the Royal Navy. It was released on March 15, 2021…”
Long story short, my view has been that the Spanish stole the gold from the indigenous people (making them seem the greater enemy of them). The English were originally more accepted by the indigenous people as a protective ally against the Spanish. Then the English unleashed the Privateers to steal what the Spanish stole, at least until there was no more need for them as allies, which left them unsanctioned (without franchise), so many modified their “tradecraft” into piracy, stealing as much treasure for themselves as they could. Hmmm, a society with no stable rules, just some rather vague ideas of how to not cannibalize fellow pirate gangs that would provide a bit more protection from the more “civilized” and orderly powers.
Makes me wonder who really hates us for our Freedoms as some told us during the GWOT, or the Heritage Foundation, “Con”-Federalist types who’s affinity and seeming support for Project 2025. Are they the modern Pirates actually stealing our treasured Freedoms?
Freedoms and treasure. The shift in total national wealth upward is documentation. Brush away the muddled sales pitch and "Reaganomics" was a prescription for neo-feudalism.
I'm not disagreeing with J L Graham, I'm just going to be a little more specific.
Practicing wisdom is what we call the way we resolve the inevitable dilemmas that emerge in a large and complex social system. Business is one of those practices until it isn't. More specifically, business is one of those practices when it adheres to what Adam Smith referred to as The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), aka treat others as you would want them to treat you. If a business is wise, then it is not cheating because it is only hurting itself in the long term by damaging trust, which is the glue, and the only glue, holding civilization together.
As it is for business, so it is for journalism. If there are actual journalists in the Whitehouse press corps, and I'm sure there are, they must be a very small minority within that group.
From a strictly sociopathic perspective, cheat all you like, because you are all that matters; but such thinking in inimical to a just and satisfying society. From a social perspective. we cannot successfully live together without accepting certain responsibilities, and there both an individual and a social aspect to human personalities. Mutualistic integration of both needs seems to me to be the wisest choice, in pursuit of "enlightened self-interest" happiness.
I agree.
The way I put it is to say that it's "me first" until I discover that my behavior is harmful to someone, probably because they told me, and then its "us first" until we discover that our behavior is harmful to others, and so on. If we all do that, we're all winners in a healthy social system. Those that don't are taking advantage of those that do in the same way that a cancer cell takes advantage of its neighbors, but it's a short lived advantage (pun intended).
Ideologically this started with the '1971 Powell Memorandum'... It was furthered with the ruminations of Milton Friedman which places Corporate Profits over any Social Responsibility... The foundation of the Heritage Foundation, and other Right-Wing Organizations, date from the 'Greed Is Good' Reagan Reign... The Far-Right never really goes away, it just retreats temporarily... As I said before, there is Deep-Anger in the Land, and the Oligarchy uses Social Issues, and Wealth Disparity to further their Maximalist Agenda...
Thanks for that. I'd never heard of the Powell Memo. Don't forget William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale (1951). It's theme is the idea that a few people are important and everyone else is an opportunity to be exploited, or a threat to be neutralized, and otherwise irrelevant, aka neoconservatism.
"They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds." —Mexican Proverb
The urge to prey on other humans, or to eliminate them, runs even deeper, and has been salient in extreme right, left, racial supremacist, and theocratic hellscapes.
It has been Speculated that Humans have derived from Chimpanzees, and Bonobos... Chimpanzees are very Tribal, Territorial, and make War on each other... Bonobos are Pacifistic, and Communal... Didn't Jane Goodall at Davos say that DJT reminded her of an Alpha Chimp?
A troupe of chimpanzees is a fission-fusion society. A chimp social system is a mother and her juvenile offspring. A human social system is an internally interdependent and externally independent group of humans, which for many thousands of generations, and until about four hundred generations ago, was exclusively a hunter-gatherer band. Today, the human social system is civilization.
"What if the beloved community is already real, and all we need to do is live as if it is?" —John Lewis
Trusting Trump is like Putin "trusting" Prigozhin. The shelf life of such trust is very short when push comes to shove, and his usefulness declines too far.
Trust Trump to be viciously self-serving.