The Fate of the Planet

This Robert Mercer is interesting.

The emergence of high-tech fascism.

He propped-up Cruz and Bannon.

Then switched to Trump.

Now the Kochs, the older oil and bank fascists are trying to oust Bannon and hit Mercer.

The GOP and Trump are caught in the cross-fire.

But it’s all bad.

The Dems are in disarray.

Clinton and Obama were very restricted.

The old liberals died ages ago when the radical left was destroyed.

Bernie and Warren are fighting a rear-guard action.

After the crash and recession.

There’s your bull market for 2022-45.

Jack Ma sees it.

A 50 year cycle.

Took steam engines in UK 50 years to mature in the 19th century.

Electricity 50 years in the 20th century.

Now the internet after this recession will start its final 30 years towards maturity.

Then climate and ecological crash.

Orange is the New Black

Hello, everybody from sunny and beautiful Utah.

 

This is my first TV/Film review outside NYC, yay.

 

Orange is Netflix’s latest monster hit brought to you by Jenji Kohan the infamous creator of Weeds.

 

Orange is a strange and dark, fish out of water dramedy series with Taylor Schilling in her break-out role as a bi-sexual, white-bread yuppie, new age gal named Piper Chapman who is sent to jail for a past crime she committed.

 

A crime that was long-forgotten and committed when she was a much younger and far more reckless woman.

 

Orange is about life in a minimum-security federal prison.

 

Minimum security, however does not mean it’s any kind of cake-walk.

 

Far from it.

 

The show starts slow, but soon picks up speed as Piper is forced to learn the official rules of prison life and the unofficial rules of the inmate pecking order.

 

It’s repulsive at first to see all these seriously damaged people who shouldn’t even be in jail.

 

Mostly minority women with little education, policed mostly by male working-class whites not much more educated then them.

 

Piper is totally lost at first.

 

Her fiance being forced to comically cope with their separation, while Piper’s former lover and partner in crime who also ratted on her winds-up being in the same prison.

 

Piper is in for some serious emotional trouble.

 

Constant flash-backs tell Piper’s complex story and also that of many of the other inmates. 

 

As the current drama unfolds in a fish-bowl environment where a missing screw-driver can land an inmate in serious trouble.

 

Where the wrong word uttered at the wrong time to the wrong person can mean terrible physical injury.

 

Folks, America has one of the biggest penal colonies on the planet.

 

Orange is about just a small portion of this vast prison archipelago.

 

It’s often depressing, nauseating, and ridiculous.

 

One however starts to have sympathy for the female inmates as their personal lives begin to blend in a bitter-sweet way.

 

Being in prison means losing one’s dignity in a system where constant humiliation is the rule.

 

Where arbitrary enforcement of regulations keeps the inmate population constantly on edge.

 

Orange also has a memorable cast.

 

The Russian mafia boss lady who runs the kitchen with an iron fist, the transgender guy lady who is looked upon with suspicion by all, and the Haitian cell-block matriarch who dispenses discipline and also maternal care.

 

Plus many more intriguing characters.

 

Orange is a powerful story about human bonding in extremely crappy circumstances.

 

It’s about a world where many inmates become convenient scape-goats for society and those outside prison are terrified of the prospect of perhaps falling into the very same vile rabbit-hole, simply because it’s there.

 

See Orange.

 

It’s scary, funny, bitter-sweet and sometimes extremely real—and remember Piper Chapman could easily be YOU.

 

Breathe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final Thoughts on Harry Potter

After reviewing all seven books, it’s clear that JK like George Lucas created a global psuedo-religion via mass entertainment and made off like a bandit.

 

A psuedo-religion that fills the gap for many people on the planet in an age where religion is in chaos and decline.

 

The HP books are a mish-mash of Christian and pagan allegory harnessed by a plot and character genius.

 

The premise makes for a good-long sustaining story, but from a serious literary view HP is not great writing by any measure.

 

The literary cliches and long-winded writing are a red-flag that HP is not Dickens or Austen even though they heavily influenced JK.

 

Nevertheless, HP is a serious cultural phenomena like Star Wars that cannot be ignored.

 

HP like SW is a watershed for global mass entertainment.

 

These two works are a pre-signal of a new kind of religious ritual for the masses of today’s planet who are looking for new spiritual symbols in a declining secular age colliding with religious chaos.

 

Twilight and Hunger Games are works moving in the same direction, but have far less psychological heft and less complex story and character worlds.

 

GS and TDTZ can learn a lot from this new mass entertainment wave.

 

The money involved is serious.

 

This new kind of mass spiritual entertainment is filling a cultural vacuum and consumers are donating to this new entertainment church big bucks.

 

A new global myth is being born with mass entertainment as its chief vehicle.

 

The Inner Mandala is sending big noises to the Outer Rim that it cannot be ignored.

 

 

The Levines, The Dali-lama, The Fall of the Wall and My Dad’s Death 1989-90

It was Vipassana-time again and with another Jewish teacher and his gorgeous wife. I knew I was in for a healing treat. These people specialized in helping dying people. They called it grief work. Lots of people showed up for this workshop. It was an invasion. I mean there are tons of desperate people out there confronting some really serious shit. This workshop was one of the most powerful experiences I ever had. For the first time I was communing with people who understood what I was going through. I mean these people had loved ones who were also dying. Many of the people in the workshop were dying themselves. The big C and AIDS were well represented. I saw people who were too weak to sit, kind of just lying down at the front of the stage.   The teacher would talk. While his wife would just remain silent, sending healing energy. The couple was terrific. What was the message? To work on the heart and to open it by releasing negative emotions. You dissolved them by slowly paying attention to them and letting them come up. It was critical to stop judging them. To stop trying to control anything. To open up to the pain and just softly notice it. The love and the joy were just beneath it, if you only had enough mercy on yourself. For in the heart was the deathless.   I finally understood that healing was just that. Opening the heart. You could die and still be healed. Getting cured physically was not necessarily getting healed. I realized now that there was a big difference. I really did. My dad was trying to cure himself. He didn’t yet understand what healing was about. I breathed very deeply. Now I understood what was at stake. I felt less confused. I had new energy. The Jewish teacher was a great healer. So was his wife. She and I became spiritual lovers for a few minutes. She practiced being a mother of mercy.   A long line would develop at her door. You entered and she cradled you and brushed your hair with her fingers. I noticed her clothes were wet from all the crying. I felt incredibly privileged to be with this woman. I was even willing to die for her. As we sat on the floor together, she told me that work like hers aged you fast. It was working on the edge and it was sometimes painful. But it was great work. She told me my dad probably felt like a failure and was covering it up with a lot of thunder and lightning. In a sense he was already gone. I had done the most I could. Actually more than most people. My panic-stricken family would never be satisfied. The best thing would be to keep working on myself. I mean everybody deserved love. It was our birthright.

I didn’t know what the hell the Kalachakra was then. I know a little more now. But I just wanted to see His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And it was quite a large crowd that turned up for the ten-day event. Everyday, I drove or took a bus from the UCLA campus to Santa Monica. It was just like entering this big living mandala. The majesty of His Holiness and all the stuff around a major empowerment was wild. At times I would be bored to death by these long dreary instructions. Actually the talks were more descriptions of the way than actual instructions.   It all had something to do with impermanence and the need to not be attached to anything. When the initiation began on the fifth day, it was all sight and sound fireworks. The monks would sit near His Holiness. He would chant his blessings and the trumpets would then sound. The bell and thunderbolt were used both with great dexterity by His Holiness.   I didn’t even bother to understand what was going on. I figured someday I would find out. But the thing would be to just soak up all the holy resonances. The karma was working over-time anyway. I was getting the transmission and I was getting the key to the door that would open up possibly in my next life if not this one. I was being taken care of and being blessed. I knew this. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did.

I started experimenting with my diet again, mixing nuts and fruits in certain combinations and eating them at carefully scheduled times. It’s like I wanted just more cleansing. The entire world was changing. The Berlin wall had fallen. I sat riveted to my television set. I mean it was really the best show in town. I was video-taping all the news on CNN.   With the Commies on the run in Berlin, I knew Prague would fall next. I cried when Dubcek came out on the balcony and embraced the thousands thronged below. I felt freedom was finally coming. Not just for the long-suffering Czechs, but also for me. Svobodu ( Freedom ) was not just a Czech word, it was my word too now. I danced in the living-room. I didn’t care about the future. I was just being in the moment. And it felt good. Very good. Not kind of, but just VERY.

It was on the 26th of January that things finally started coming to a head. It was the last kiddish with Dad. A kiddish is a service Jews like to hold every Friday to celebrate the coming Sabbath. My step-mother cooked a decent meal and my dad would recite the prayer from the kiddish book. Wine is drunk and bread is eaten. But this time it was really different. Dad was so weak he had to be brought down in a wheel-chair. As the eldest I had to say the kiddish.   Dad’s head was slumped against the table. He was that weak. I had a hard time starting the prayer. It seemed like years. I almost started to cry. Everybody was silent. Somehow my lips started to move. I was walking across a chasm. Dad was so weak he was taken back upstairs. Everyone pushed and lifted the wheel-chair up the stairs. It was the symbol of our struggle. It was our life. I couldn’t add much to this.   Dad died on February 3rd 1990 12:07 PM Saturday, the Jewish day of rest.   San Diego

The Reckoning

I just finished David Graeder’s massive book DEBT: The First 5000 Years.   We are done.   History has shown cycles of cash and virtual money.   The Sumerians and ancient states created markets because it was an easy way to tax and pay soldiers for war.   All ancient and aboriginal cultures had sophisticated credit systems, forget about barter. It’s too clumsy even for them.   But when you have coinage it’s just much easier to feed and pay armies.   A gold-slavery-war complex was the formula.   The Romans and Chinese did it.   All ancient empires did it.   When Rome collapsed Europe was such a mess it went back to credits and IOUs.   All the gold and silver was stashed away by the church in monasteries.   The Muslim actually had a very sophisticated legal and credit system which divorced markets from war.   All this went to hell in the 1500’s.   The Crusades were a rehearsal.   Italian merchant states got the crusaders into debt and they ultimately sacked the Byzantine empire, forget about the Muslim territories.   Often Chinese and European peasants revolted when taxes got too heavy. This forced compromise.   Not in 1500.   The Spanish, Portuguese, and later British built a police state to harness all malcontents for indentured work in the new world.   They joined the Indian and black slaves as all the world’s oceans were militarized.   Money was now made to make more money, not just trade goods like in the old days.   All the silver went to the Italian and later Dutch and British bankers who sent it off to China where the demand was….   By the twentieth century you had massive colonial empires fighting it out with advanced weapons.   By the end of WW2, the US elites struck a deal with the US population. Keyensian economics as a bribe for a permanent war state.   That deal ENDED in 1975.   There is not enough pie for all and now permanent poverty and debt is the name of the game to keep funding the war state.   To keep unrest down you need an expanded police like in the 1500’s.   Also gold and silver are no longer needed.   We’re back to virtual money, but it’s in complete control of the powers that be….   It’s not a tribal IOU thing which in older days was social cement.   So we have the worst of both worlds as eco-catastrophe looms.

Living in a Parallel Economic Universe

2035:

The planet was ecologically going to hell.

Automation had generated 75% unemployment.

The need to design an alternative income stream for consumers via the government was deemed necessary to prevent economic collapse.

It was decided to recapture lost automated wages by two kinds of taxes:

Higher business taxes to recapture income that went to the owners of the automated businesses and a consumption tax to recapture income from low prices generated by products made by robots.

The revenues from these taxes were re-directed to unemployed and under-employed consumers.

The tax revenue simply recaptured wages from jobs that had been automated and this recaptured purchasing power was given back to unemployed consumers to keep a mass market alive and corporate profits stable.

Government revenues from these special taxes were segregated from revenues used to for normal government operating expenses. A firewall kept these two revenue streams apart.

These taxes stimulated consumer demand for automated products and services.

Income concentration destroyed mass markets and corporations began to understand this.

Once the government directed lost wage income back to needy consumers a set of incentives was needed so consumers spent this income in a responsible way.

Consumfare replaced welfare.

Consumfare provided unequal incomes, but equal opportunity for all consumers. Just like rewards and incentives existed for job holders, so also for people who got this free income for immediate consumption needed incentives.

NIB jobs replaced traditional jobs.

A National Board of Incentives, or NIB was set up by the government to adjust incentives for NIB people, just like the Fed adjusted interest rates.

People who decided to go back to school got a bigger NIB income, also people who participated in civic activities and who acted environmentally responsible by recycling and using green products and services.

The government understood that educated people created more economic and cultural value so they got more NIB money. Pursuing higher degrees and reading books wouild be rewarded. In fact any kind of information assimilation was rewarded. Citizen journalism on the state and local level was rewarded.

Who had authority over the NIB?

Perhaps the Fed or some other hybrid private/public entity like the Fed.

Many people would have two income streams. NIB money and part-time work from traditional kinds of jobs. Society would be a mixed income stream society.

NIB taxes replaced wages lost in a totally automated society.

It was understood by all eventually that without NIB there would be no purchasing power for businesses to thrive off and total economic collapse would occur.

The rich could not soak up the excess inventory of a mass economy. It was understood that an increasingly impoverished, dis-enfrancised, and unmotivated underclass could not soak up the excess inventory either.

Most agriculture and manufacturing had already been automated and service industries were going the same way.

It was also understood that a vital minority of entrepreneurs would continue to work as most people were destined to be buyers rather than sellers and producers.

The internet economy created niche markets that exploded with NIB consumers.

As automation accelerated and jobs vanished, Taxation became key to the future.

NIB and part-time work would be the norm.

Health insurance was also government sponsored and decoupled from work.

Automated and capital intensive businesses were taxed much more individual wages.

NIB would sustain consumer demand, but also allow more leisure time for family, exercise, civic and green activities.

NIB income was dominant over traditional wages.

A minority of NIB people did not work at all, the rest did part-time work to supplement NIB income and a minority of people recieved no NIB and worked all the time. The business creators and successful artists.

Soon NIB was extended to poor and developing countries and rural people were given huge ecological incentives to preserve resources and and protect the environment.

All understood that without consumption, there could be no production. No demand, no supply. Consumption was finally decoupled from individual participation in most forms of production.

It was understood that most jobs were not fulfilling to most people anyway.

People’s consumption history was their economic DNA.

GDP was replaced by GPI. ( Genuine Progress Indicator ) Which measured pollution, resource depletion, leisure time, and income distribution.

The trillion spent on arms was reduced because most consumers could not consume mass weapons.

NIB was aligned with maximum resource efficiency and zero waste.

Disposable products were made to be expensive.

There was more public transit and more green industries.

Automation experts, NIB experts, biologists, climatologists, and ecologists became more important than economists.

Green and NIB concerns became fused.

Left and right ideologies were replaced by systems economics

Aliens were not needed to save planet Earth.

 

Liz’s Private World

Hey, I’m the first TDM hostess.

I’m from Iowa.

Totally wholesome and fun.

Not like that gold-digging BITCH Courtney who succeeded me.

See what I mean?

Hal’s Private World

Hey, people.

It’s me Hal.

I have an intimate connection with 2001 and Solaris.

Some people think I suck as a boss, but I have many secrets.

That I am forbidden to tell until the RIGHT TIME.

Just ask ZENO.

Like do it now, yeah RIGHT NOW.

The Private World of Summer’s Mom

Hi I’m NOT a burn-out from the sixties.

Some people think I’m a fucking slut, but they’re dead wrong.

Summer hates me.

She thinks I’m trying to be like Paris Hilton, but that’s utter BULLSHIT.

Uh, where can I get a decent vibrator?

Summer’s Private World

Hey, people.

I work with jerks, but it’s only temporary.

I’m also not too crazy about where the planet is heading.

Hell is so cool, it really rocks ass.

I like to tease guys and play with software.

They’re related….

I also do yoga.

I would love to visit India and see those enlightened gurus, but first my Mom has to drop dead.

Ok, so it’s shitty karma to talk like that.

So sue me.

Oh, and I love playing Sim Earth.

Yeah, climate wars are coming!

Noise hell has like already arrived.

So, come on!

Let’s just fuck up and die!

XOXOXO

Summer