"President" Trump: More Damage in One Week than Most Presidents Do in Eight Years

Well, it's official.  The Donald has managed to do more damage in his first week in the White House, than most presidents have done in eight years.  And that is truly "unpresidented" indeed!

Let's see.  In his first week on the job, he 1) threw a hissy fit over the size of his innauseation...er...inauguration crowd, 2) implicitly threatened martial law in Chicago, 3) passed a record number of 17 executive orders in one week, 4) put a gag order on EPA and USDA scientists, 5) manufactured chaos in rolling back Obamacare by executive fiat, 6) ordered the commencement of his signature plan to build a border wall on Mexico, 7) angered Mexico by demanding they pay for the wall or else get zinged with a 20% tariff on Mexican imports, 8) angered China (for the gazillionth time), 9) angered North Korea (albeit before the inauguration), 10) cozied up to Putin (yet again), 11) ordered stepped-up deportations and the blocking of federal grants to sanctuary cities, 12) instituted a federal hiring freeze, which also includes a large number of Veterans, 13) re-instituted the "global gag rule" on abortion, 14) froze all new federal regulations, 15) sped up approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and 16) arbitrarily blocked all refugees, immigrants, and visitors from seven countries, most notably Iraq and Syria, while curiously leaving out the counties he does business in, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.  (This latter executive order as written, is basically a de-facto Muslim ban from the specified countries, though a federal court did put a temporary injunction on this ban for those who were already in transit or detained at the time thanks to massive protests at JFK International Airport and elsewhere).  Note that there were other executive orders, proclamations, and outbursts as well, this is just a list of the most damaging ones thus far.

Also, Trump's relentless verbal attacks on the media and journalists who disagree with him may not be just bluster after all, especially considering how two journalists covering the inauguration protests were arrested and even face felony riot charges, carrying up to 10 years in prison.  Yes, you read that right.  Remember, the very first people that authoritarian and totalitarian regimes always go after is the journalists. And couple that with his recent purge (sorry, "resignation") of the State Department and his blithely ignoring the recent court ruling, we have the makings for exactly that kind of regime right now.

Oh, and he still flat out refuses to divest from his numerous conflicts of interest, including his foreign ones that run afoul of the Emolunents Clause, and now says he won't even release his tax returns as he once promised he would.  This is #NotNormal!

Looks like Der Trumpenfuehrer is really batting 1000 by unhinged fascist standards.  And his approval rating is quickly approaching Nickelback territory at warp speed.  Or should we say, 3 Doors Down territory?  Those who still support him and his agenda, how does it feel to be on the wrong side of history?  Because honestly, we wouldn't know anything about that.

The Women's March Was A YUUGE Success!

The Women's March on Washington, along with it's sister marches all over the globe, was more successful than anyone could have imagined.  It broke all records as the largest protest march in all of history, with at least half a million in DC alone and nearly 3 million nationwide.  Some estimates are even higher than that.  And it took place on all seven continents around the world, including Antarctica of all places.  Yes, really. And it was a highly diverse crowd of mostly Women (and male allies).

The peaceful protest march, which took place the day after the innauseation--er, inauguration--of Donald Trump, also boasts another great statistic:  ZERO ARRESTS.  Of course, the vast majority of participants were Women.  Contrast that to the over 200 arrests the previous day, nearly all of whom were men.   Even though the protests during the inauguration were mostly peaceful, that really says something.  And I am not surprised, as Women are far less likely to commit acts of violence, vandalism, or rioting than men, especially political violence.

Of course, going forward, much more needs to be done as well.  A day or two of protesting, while good, is clearly far from enough. Women, along with their male allies, need to continue to resist Der Trumpenfuehrer and his racist, misogynistic, xenophopbic, homophobic, plutocratic, right-wing authoritarian agenda.  Sustained protests and direct action by Women did work to remove the corrupt Silvio Berlusconi from power in Italy, after all.  This particular march may have ended, but now is NOT the time to abandon our efforts!  Failure is simply not an option anymore considering what is at stake these days.

VIVE LA FEMME!  VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!

How To Humanely Euthanize Capitalism For Good (Updated Post-2016 Edition)

With all of the latest articles about how climate change is likely worse than we thought, and how our fragile biosphere that we all depend on is in increasingly grave danger, it is becoming increasingly clear how unsustainable our current system really is.  We are bumping up against the limits to growth, and only a fool or an economist (same difference) could believe that infinite growth on a finite world is possible.  And make no mistake, capitalism cannot exist without growth, so capitalism must die--or the whole planet dies including us.  So which choice will we make?  The TSAP has already outlined several means of solving the world's vast and interconnected problems in our party platform as well as in our annual State of the Planet Address.  Most notably, we need to phase out the use of fossil fuels as quickly as possible before we irreversibly burn up planet, and we need to end our addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell which eventually kills its host.  But the prospects are looking increasingly bleak that our recommendations will actually be put into practice given the current leadership in Washington who continue to blithely fiddle while the Earth burns.  In fact, with climate-denier Donald Trump becoming POTUS, and thus the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil effectively ruling the world, it is even worse than we thought. So what can be done instead?

Enter this seemingly crazy idea.  While it may seem like a sop to the fossil fool industry at first glance, it will actually be giving them the rope for them to hang themselves with.  And not only will it kill Big Oil and Dirty Coal, but it will also humanely euthanize capitalism in general via the one thing that capitalism simply cannot survive--ABUNDANCE.  That's right, capitalism needs scarcity to function, and it has done a marvelous job of creating artificial scarcity for the past 500 years or so.  But uncontrolled abundance, whether of resources, energy, or capital, is basically a fatal overdose for the system of capitalism.  And thanks to the current exponential growth of renewable energy and related technologies, such abundance is very possible in the near future.  And it will be decentralized, so the system can't readily control or stop it once it gets going.  All of this dovetails rather nicely with Buckminster Fuller's vision of a pragmatic utopian future.

If we go that route, it actually would be possible to simultaneously implement the carbon tax-and-dividend idea in Steve Stoft's Carbonomics, provided that 100% of the revenue is refunded to We the People, and that the tax rate starts out low so as not to front-load it too quickly.  The timing is very important.  But any other type of carbon tax scheme would be out of the question, as would most other future restrictions on fossil fuels (especially oil) until the cost solar and wind energy drops below that of such fossil fuels.  Not like the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil would allow that anyway.

Another idea that the TSAP had once laughed at can also be given a chance as well:  the Capital Homestead Act.  While it may seem like a pro-capitalist sop to Big Business on the surface, it will actually kill capitalism in the long run as well due to an overabundance of capital and the fact that the workers and owners would essentially become one and the same.  Combine it with the Universal Exchange Tax and a Universal Basic Income Guarantee, and the overall impact will be maximized and accelerated. 

Of course, capitalism is not the only problem.  The 7000 year old War on Women, often known by its euphemistic name "patriarchy", is every bit as much a cause of our world's problems, and the two are basically joined at the hip.  While patriarchy can exist without capitalism, capitalism cannot exist without patriarchy.  And both evil systems are killing this planet and need to end, yesterday.  Let's face it, it ain't gonna be us fellas who will save the world, that's for sure. Fortunately, women have been making huge strides (while men are becoming increasingly redundant), and if current trends continue it seems likely that women will become the new leaders of the free world in the not-too-distant future, as Buckminster Fuller himself once predicted. In fact, that is one of the few things that the futurists are virtually unanimous about.

At least we hope that will be the case.  But timing is everything, and we have a very narrow window of opportunity.  So what are we waiting for?

A Nation In Distress

Barring a miracle of miracles, on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will become the new POTUS.  And that is truly horrifying indeed, as he is a clear and present danger to the United States and the world.  Thus, we are turning the flag on our blog upside-down and will leave it in that orientation until Der Trumpenfuehrer is no longer in power.  Doing so is a symbol of a nation in distress, which the USA certainly is under the Trump-Putin-Exxon Axis of Evil.