“We all too often have Socialism for the rich… and rugged Free Market Capitalism for the poor.” – Martin Luther King

“A disregard for human suffering in the pursuit of profit.”

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1996

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!! LOLOLOLOLOL

Well if you are reading this blog post it means that you are still alive, for now. And it means that I am too!! Yea for both of us!! Amazing what a tiny pathogen can do to an entire world and it’s economy. I hope that none of you have lost any loved ones to this virus. “Jobs”, “businesses”, “material things”, can all be replaced, but those that we hold dear cannot. This pandemic has made me realize again how much we are all linked globally. In a bygone era this would not have been the case. But now due to air travel and supply chains we are all connected. How much better a world it would be if we cared for each other on a global scale. Time to get rid of the old models of Nationalism and Isolation. Time to accept Globalization as a real path to the future. I believe that our very survival depends on it.

Another thing this Pandemic has laid bare is the pitfalls of “Free Market Capitalism” or what might be better known as Neoliberalism. What I call our current economic system in the US. I could not believe or I guess I could due the craziness of the last four years with the Trump administration and their laissez faire attitude, that there might be a charge for a potentially life saving vaccine for Covid-19. Of course we have seen this with rising medication cost already. Especially where some medications that have been around for a very long time and were relatively cheap have now skyrocketed in price. Thank you “Free Market Capitalism” for making life hell for millions of Americans. Some might disagree that I use Free Market and Capitalism in the same quote. I don’t see anything wrong with Capitalism as Capitalism. But I do see a problem with a form of Capitalism called Free Market / Neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism has given unheard of powers to multinational corporations and banks. To the degree that they are for the most part unaccountable to the public. Some have seen that giving all this power and wealth to a small elite, is one of the greatest threats to democracy. And I have to agree. This type of economy does not work for the majority of Americans that are living from paycheck to paycheck and have no health insurance, no savings, no back up. I am talking about the low-wage and gig-economy workers, the poor, the elderly, the immigrants and the care workers. Especially when you have something that is a Pandemic. How can you stop the spread of something like this that threatens all of us, when people have no sick days, no health insurance to go to a doctor and not the emergency room. Not to mention that they have no income unless they are working. Two weeks to a month of self – quarantine might not sound like a lot to some of us. But if you have no money to buy food or pay rent… Well I think you could imagine the picture. Leaving stuff like this to our current system of “Free Market,” and the “Capricious Generosity” of others is not going to work. The idea of having a entry level minimum wage job that does not have paid sick days or health insurance is or should be over… forever.

So it will be interesting to see how our current economic system and government holds up under the pressure of Covid -19. So many policies that our elected officials have long told us were impossible and impractical are now, due to the crisis, eminently possible and practical all long. All the things like forced evictions, continued homelessness, skyrocketing interest on student loans, crushing medical debt, etc…, were issues that we were all told there was no money to fix or reform. I bet in the coming months all these issues due to the crisis will magically be fixed, at least temporarily. I find it ironic, that in a crisis, the rules don’t apply therefore it makes me wonder why they were rules in the first place. If there is any silver lining to this world debacle, it is that we now have an opportunity to change things so that millions and millions of people are not so vulnerable to begin with.

Well in last month’s blog post I wrote something to the fact that technology had become the big driver of change in society and how something like disease had become less of an issue. OH HOW I WAS WRONG. And I want to admit that fact. But I have to give myself a little credit at the same time. If I had known that the Trump administration had cut the CDC’s epidemic prevention programs back by 80 percent in 2018, I would have written a much different blog post. Not only did they do that but they eliminated at the same time, a National Security Council directorate that was charged with preparing for when, not if the next Pandemic hit. Don’t believe me. Check out the two articles below. One from Futurism and one from the Washington Post. Both from 2018. Of course fast forward to the present and the excuse they give is that it was a “streamlining effect to make it all more efficient” or some such bullshit like that. No mater what you believe, I think that we can all agree that their handling of it has been a debacle to say the least. When South Korea was taking action on February 23rd, what the hell was the Trump administration doing? And when the WHO raised the treat level from high to very high on February 28th, a warning to every government on the planet, what was the Trump administration doing? It was not until March 13th that Trump and his administration declared a State of Emergency. Twenty days after South Korea. WTF is all I can say.

The crazy part is that none of this is rocket science. It was been written about, movies made, studies done, scenarios worked up, etc… for at least the last 50 years. Even the dumbness dumb person, in the administration should have had some clue that something was afloat by the middle of January… Oh well it is all water under the bridge for now and the best we can do is to hope that we survive.

Futurism: https://futurism.com/neoscope/officially-path-global-pandemic

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/

Those two articles well help to put it into perspective. No one was driving the bus and we ran off the road into a pandemic so to speak.

Change is coming folks. For better or worse. The question we need to ask is how do we want the changes to occur. Some that came to my mind are: Who will get the lion’s share of relief money? Will it go to more Corporate Socialism? How will the health care system change? Will there be a renewed push so that all have health insurance regardless of their ability to pay? What new / old ideas on social nets for the poor and elderly will be seriously looked at again. Will there be something called family care? Better family medical leave? What will happen to the pharmaceutical corporations? Will government take a more active role so that profitability is not the main driving factor? Will Science come back into vogue with the general public? We can only hope. There is a lot of potential for change after this crisis has passed and it is up to all of us in how we want that change to occur. There is a good article from POLITICO on this very topic. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/19/coronavirus-effect-economy-life-society-analysis-covid-135579

It looks at a lot of different possible “change scenarios” that might occur when this is over. Well worth the read.

In this blog post I want to give a few book reviews. There are several that I have finished over the last couple of months and I would like to give a recommendation on them.

One of the first ones I would like to start with is called the “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells. Now I have to warn you this book is not for the faint of heart. It paints a much bleaker picture of what our future holds as the earth continues to warm. Think food shortages, refugee emergencies, famine, disease and economic collapse. Some have likened it to Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring.” David does not sugar coat anything in my opinion. It is a call to action in a changing world of climate change. I read it this past year and it was the emphasis for me to put solar cells on our house to help decrease CO2 admission. Some may find that the author is a little alarmist but that is the point of the book. It is a call to action.

The next one I would like to give a recommendation on is called “The Case For Mars”, by Robert Zubrin. It is a little bit of an older book but still makes a very strong case for getting to the Red Planet. The original publish date is 1996, but it has been updated and is as relevant today as it was back then. When you realize that we could have started the colonization of Mars two decades ago with the technology at the time, it makes you wonder why we have not done it already. Zubrin addresses not only how we get there but he also gives us the why. He does goes into some detail on specifics but not so deep that the average person can’t understand. For me this really hit home with the current Covid 19 crisis. We do need to have a second planet as a fall back. I got this book as an audio book but I think it would work in any format.

The next one to give a recommendation to is actually two books in Science Fiction that are part of a series. They are both by Travis J.I. Corcoran. The first one is called “The Powers of Earth” and the second is called “Causes of Separation.” I loved both of them. The time is in the near future, about 40 or so years from now, and earth has become more politically corrupt and over populated. Because of this, there is a kind of quasi world government and military force that is made up of all the countries on earth. Think of it as a NATO on steroids. Now add some technology, and a few disgruntled individuals that don’t like the way things are run on earth. Which causes them to decide to move to the moon and in the process become very successful. Mean while the economy on earth is in a continued downward spiral called the long depression. The conflict arises when the US government decides they want to take some of the moon’s wealth. I like both of these books because it is dealing with issues that we currently see in the world today. Just not on that big of scale yet. The other part I love is how a single piece of technology can totally change everything. Have you ever wondered what would happen if the moon was accessible to all of us, without having to ride a “roman candle” into space. It opens up a whole world of possibilities. Both books work great as audio books or other formats.

The last one I want to give a recommendation to is called “Figuring” by Maria Popova. I like this book a lot because it gave me deeper insights into multiple historical figures of the past. Like Johannes Kepler, Rachel Carson, Maria Mitchell, Harriet Hosmer, Margaret Fuller and Emily Dickinson, to just name a few. In truth I had to look up several individuals to refresh my memory of them. She goes in-depth about their personnel lives and struggles. How it all affected who they loved or were allowed to love. And how it all influenced their work and careers. She covers almost four centuries in doing this. I listened to this book as an audio book but it would have been much better to read it in a traditional format due to the amount of information. I found myself stopping several times to re-listen to a section to get a better understanding. A very good book that I feel I will read a second time.

Well that is about it for me on this Blog post. This one was a rather long one but due to the crisis in the world today, there seemed to be much more to write about. I hope that all of you are able to stay well. And if you get Covid – 19, may your illness be short and you recover completely. Remember social distancing and when change comes think about the outcomes. What might be a better fit for all of us and not just a select few. Take care my friends!! Adios!!

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous.., leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey