The Robot Apocalypse Is Already Here

In case you missed it, the much-feared Robot Apocalypse is not something far off in the future--it is actually already here, hiding in plain sight.  And as much damage it has wrought already in terms of technological unemployment and inequality, it is really only getting started.   Future net job losses are already baked into the cake.

And men, who are becoming increasingly redundant, will be the biggest losers of all.  The next recession will surely finish us us fellas off in terms of the power we once had.  While that is good for Women in that it will make it that much easier to take over sooner--something that will make us all better off in the long run, in fact--it can also have some very bad short and medium-term consequences for everyone if the transition is not properly managed.  We rise together and ultimately fall together as well.  Look no further than the Rust Belt and Coal Country to see a taste of the not-too-distant future for the rest of the country that case.

In the shorter term, we could implement WPA-style jobs programs to take the edge off a bit.  But eventually the Robot Apocalypse will upend those jobs as well, so a Job Guarantee (JG) program would really not be much of a guarantee in the long term, and even now would already have logistical problems and much of it would amount to make-work boondoggles as opposed to truly useful work.

Fortunately, there is a simple policy measure that can alleviate the worst aspects of both automation as well as the transition to Matriarchy.  It's called Universal Basic Income (UBI).  Every man, woman, and child would get free money from the federal government, with no strings attached.  No means test, no discrimination, and no perverse incentives.  One way to fund this would be to "tax the robots", of course, among other kinds of taxes, but given that our federal government is Monetarily Sovereign, they could literally just print the money and disburse it, just like the FERAL Reserve does to the big banks, without costing the taxpayers one penny.  (State and local governments, however, are not Monetarily Sovereign, and thus would have to raise taxes quite high to implement their own versions, so it it is best left to the federal government to do.)

Combine this with the rest of Rodger Malcolm Mitchell's Ten Steps to Prosperity, most notably including single-payer Medicare For All and free college, and abolishing unnecessary federal taxes on the bottom 99% of Americans, and that would be even better still.

Furthermore, men can become very, very dangerous creatures when they are desperate for money--almost as dangerous as when men have too much power relative to Women, and in some cases even worse.  Just look at the 1996 film Fargo to see it in action.  Or look at some pilot projects in some poorer countries where only Women are given microloans or other payments while the men get nothing.  Giving money to Women is of course a much better bang for the buck than giving it to men, but denying it to men at the same time breeds jealousy, resentment, and sometimes even violence against Women.  So even if you absolutely loathe men with a passion, pragmatism dictates than men and women should get equal amounts of UBI to defuse this ticking time bomb, especially since money is literally no object for the federal government.

Without a hard social floor of some sort, what we have is an abyss, a bottomless pit from which no one is safe.  It is long past time to put such a floor over this abyss, which will only widen and deepen in the future.

It's what the late, great Buckminster Fuller most likely have wanted.   Ditto for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so many other great minds of the past and present.  It's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.  So what are we waiting for?

2018 Is the Year of the Woman

Well, it's official.  Women, mostly progressives, won a record number of political offices nationwide at all levels of government in this year's midterm elections.  Thus 2018 is the Year of the Woman, more than ever before.

Thus, this is the beginning of the end of not only the nefarious Trump regime, but also the patriarchy in general.  It is only a matter of time.  It seems that my initial prediction that Women will finally take over in 2030 in the USA and UK, and 2050 worldwide, may not be so farfetched after all.  Perhaps America's dark night of the soul (in which one can now finally see the very first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel) really did have a purpose all along--to effectively accelerate the transition to Matriarchy, Goddess willing.

VIVE LA FEMME!  VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!

Does Paid Family Leave Really Hurt Women?

Last year, an op-ed at CNN by Vanessa Brown Calder of the pro-corporate LOLbertarian Cato Institute claimed that paid family leave policies actually backfire on Women by making companies less likely to hire them as well as entrenching traditional gender roles.   She seems to see it as s zero-sum game.  And to this day, the article is still being linked to on other articles discussing this important topic.

First of all, except for a very few states, the USA is the only modern or even semi-modern country that does not offer any paid leave for Mothers, let alone fathers or anyone else for that matter.  And even then, the few states that do are rather stingy  compared to most other industrialized nations.  The USA makes Scrooge look like Santa Claus by comparison in that regard. (So much for "Mothers and apple pie".)

Secondly, is there really any truth to the op-ed author's specious claim?  According to the weight of research evidence over the past decade or two, not really.  Except perhaps for poorly-designed programs that 1) force employers to pay for it, rather than via taxes (or money creation), 2) are limited only to mothers or are otherwise not gender neutral, and/or 3) have an unusually long duration--though that last one remains debatable, given the stunning success in the Nordic countries (whose durations of paid leave often exceed a year).  In fact, the only robust downside--if one can even call it that--to long leave durations (i.e. longer than a year) is that they tend to discourage Mothers from returning to paid work compared with durations between nine months and a year.  (A very subjective "downside" at that.)

Otherwise, the well-documented benefits to Women, children, society, and even men as well outweigh any supposed costs.  Ultimately, everyone is better off as a result. It is a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.

Of course, once Women finally reclaim their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world, this will no longer even be a debate anymore.

True, paid family leave is not an end goal, but merely a good starting point for a more equitable society overall.  Other things need to happen as well, such as Universal Basic Income, single-payer Medicare For All, shorter and more flexible workweeks for all workers, equal pay, affordable high-quality childcare, as well as longer-term cultural changes as well.  And of course, the biggest elephant in the room--MEN--need to start pulling their weight for once.  But in the meantime, if we make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither.  So what are we waiting for?

THIS Is What A Real Anti-Rape Campaign Looks Like

Rape culture, or the attitudes and behaviors that promote rape and sexual assault, and/or blame, silence, or shift the onus onto victims, has been part and parcel of patriarchy for its entire 7000+ year history.  So it is not surprising that, even in the #MeToo era, the tendency to victim-blame (to one degree or another) still persists even in some anti-rape campaigns.  That is, the campaigns give Women the usual advice to not get themselves raped, as opposed to the "novel" idea of simply telling MEN not to rape in the first place.

Or, to put it as bluntly as possible, "make sure the other girl gets raped instead".  Because, let's face it, that is the cold, hard reality.  Predators will target the proverbial weakest antelope of the herd regardless of who it happens to be.

A notable exception to this persistent tendency, however, is Vancouver's "Don't Be That Guy" campaign that began in 2010 and was so successful that they brought it back just a few years later.  The rate of sexual assault dropped by 10% in 2011, which is impressive considered that it had been rising in the several years leading up to it.  And another big Canadian city, Edmonton, Alberta, has also decided to emulate such a successful program as well.

What makes "Don't Be That Guy" so different?  Because it puts the onus on MEN where it really belongs, NOT on Women.  And while many rapists, particularly serial rapists, may not be very receptive to such a message, the fence-sitters who can be swayed by cultural and social norms might.  And the good men who are not rapists who see such messages over and over may be more likely to revoke the rapists' "social license to operate" by not tolerating such behaviors and intervening when they notice red flags in that regard.  True, Vancouver also stepped up law enforcement and improved training for police officers during that time, so that likely had some effect as well, but it is almost certain that at least some of the 10% drop in the first year was due to the rape-culture-jamming messages of the campaign itself.

So remember, fellas:  Don't Be That Guy.  Seriously.  And even if YOU are not "That Guy", you probably know him quite well.

What To Do About Porn? (Part Deux)

In an earlier post, I had discussed (male-created) porn and its dark side, and what to do about it. One of the best things I had recommended was for Women to take over the industry, or at least jam the culture with feminist porn, as opposed to reflexively banning or censoring the often problematic stuff that is currently out there today.

Well, it seems that the city of Berlin, Germany is taking up this idea.  They plan to publicly fund and distribute feminist porn and make it freely available via public broadcasters.  Yes, really.  And their goal is to counteract all of the sexist (and often racist) mainstream porn that is currently readily available online to anyone with a pulse these days.  Young people will look at porn regardless, but at least with feminist porn, they will be learning useful things like consent, communication, and mutual pleasure, while hopefully unlearning all the toxic messages found in mainstream porn.

And I couldn't agree more.  Bring it on!

UPDATE:  Examples of existing feminist porn/erotica can be found here (NSFW).

The False Choice Between Liberty and Community

Imagine, if you will, the following thought experiment:  You have a choice between two villages in which to live.  In Village A, everything would be decided by consensus and you would have to ask permission for literally everything you do, and you would live to be 80.  In Village B, you can be your own boss, do your own thing, and not have to answer to anybody, but you would die at 50.  Which village would you choose?

If you are like most people, or at least most men, you chose the second one, right?  I know I sure would.  But these deliberately absurd examples are simply caricatures of Matriarchy and (the false promise of) patriarchy, respectively.  And this false choice between liberty and community is most likely how the idea of patriarchy was initially sold to men in the first place.  In reality, the decidedly Faustian promise of "every man a king" only applied to the top 1% of men, while the remaining 99% of both men and Women were serfs (if not outright slaves) to one degree or another.

The truth is, of course, far more nuanced than this overly-simplistic (and intellectually dishonest) thought experiment would imply.  There really is no dilemma at all.  Liberty and community need not be at odds with one another--except, of course, under patriarchy in which everything is a zero-sum game at best.  As Carol Brouillet notes in her essay "The Feminist Perspective", the literal meaning of "community" comes from Latin, meaning "free sharing of gifts".  And that is what life would likely be like with Women in charge overall.  And while macro-level decisions would indeed be made by consensus for the most part, there would really be no need for micromanagement, thus essential individual liberty would not be in any real danger.  We would all be sovereign over our own bodies and minds by default, as there would not be any reason why we wouldn't be.  Food for thought.

In other words, the false choice between liberty and community is just another patriarchal Big Lie that all too many people believe.  In fact, it would have to be in the top five of the list of Big Lies, right up there along with "everybody and their mother must work for a living", "everybody must procreate", "humanity is separate from and above Nature", and especially "men are the superior gender and should thus rule the world".  All of these assumptions are absolutely FALSE, and we must dispense with these at once.  Yesterday.

The Faustian Bargain That Wasn't

One perennial theme that seems to run through some circles of the Goddess Movement and Matriarchy Movement is the idea that Women made a sort of Faustian bargain during the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1960s and 1970s.  That deal, as the narrative goes, consisted of essentially assimilating into patriarchy by becoming more like men (i.e. less feminine and more masculine) or at least aspiring to the privileges once reserved for men.  And that is supposedly a very, very Bad Thing, as it supposedly represents the ultimate triumph of men over Women, and thus the ultimate triumph of the patriarchy.   The term "Female Erasure" is sometimes used to describe it as well, though the connotation varies.

Gender essentialism aside, this narrative indeed has all of the makings of a good story, except that it isn't really true.  What is sometimes called the "Eclipse" of the 1960s (or 1970s or 1980s, depending on one's perspective) does superficially seem to fit this narrative.  Instead of the patriarchy chewing Women up and spitting them out as in the pre-1960s world, this time Women appear to have been swallowed whole.  But what better way to destroy the patriarchy than from within?  In the belly of the beast, Women have been gaining almost unprecedented power, and soon they will be able to burst through and finally lay waste to that evil system once and for all, and replace it with their own, Goddess willing.

After all, sometimes darkness can show you the Light.  And besides, the apparently increasing aggression of Women actually began with suffragette and First Wave Feminist icon Emmeline Pankhurst, half a century before the 1960s even began.  Even Nikola Tesla remarked upon it in a 1924 interview, also predicting (quite accurately, it now seems) that Women would eventually take over the world.

So it appears that this so-called Faustian bargain was really not one at all.  And those purists and "retreatists", as I like to call them, who claim it is and want to somehow reverse it can easily find themselves to be inadvertent strange bedfellows with the reactionary Phyllis Schlaflys of the world.  Unless, of course, that was really their intention all along.

And rest assured, try as treacherous men may, the true Divine Feminine can never, ever be truly erased or extinguished, as to do so would literally impossible.  And once Women reclaim their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world, then we will really know that for certain, Goddess willing.

Why (Sexual) Capitalism Must Die, and How to Humanely Euthanize it

I have discussed before how that favorite evil brainchild of patriarchy, capitalism, is literally killing our Mother Earth as we speak, and is thus both ecocidal and ultimately suicidal since humanity is in fact part of Nature (despite frequent and stubborn protestations to the contrary).  And that the only way to humanely euthanize that vile system is to give it the one thing it cannot survive--ABUNDANCE--while harsh austerity measures of any kind (ecological or otherwise) will ultimately backfire in the end, leaving us permanently stuck in a very bad place while still ending up destroying ourselves along with our planet.  But did you know that capitalism also has a sexual dimension as well?

Wait, what?  That's right--and it is one that would make Freud himself blush beet red.  So much so that capitalism should really be called "greed patriarchy", while patriarchy should really be called "lust capitalism" or "sexual capitalism".  Please allow me to explain:

• While financial rentier capitalism uses artificial scarcity of money, goods and services, etc. to control the masses, sexual capitalism uses artificial scarcity of sex (and sex substitutes) to do the same.
• Sexual capitalism, which is part and parcel of patriarchy, uses the "commodity model" of sexuality to make sex just artificially scarce enough for the conditions of the times to effect maximum control of the masses.
• In the commodity model of sexuality, sex (however defined) is seen a something of value that men "take" from Women, but not the other way around, and is seen as a zero-sum game.  A Woman's worth is thus considered inversely proportional to her level of sexual experience, while the reverse is usually (though not always) true for men (i.e. the classic double standard, slut-shaming, etc.).
• Therefore, men have a vested interest to keep the "cost" of sex as low as possible, while Women have a vested interest in keeping the "cost" of sex as high as possible.  One can see how this does not exactly make for harmonious gender relations or mutuality, since the interests of Women and men are inherently opposed in this model.
• At the same time, the (mostly) male elites have a vested interest to keep the "cost" of sex as high as possible, or at least just high enough to control the masses.  This is typically done by punishing Women in one way or another for having too much and/or the wrong kind of sex (i.e. "giving it away" for free or cheap), imposing a very high cost on Women who then pass some of that cost onto men.  Or demanding for specious and spurious reasons that sex be only for procreation and claiming that sexual pleasure especially for its own sake is somehow "sinful".  Thus, they control Women in order to indirectly control men, while (in the days before modern birth control and DNA testing) also ensuring paternity certainty as well.
• That explains the patriarchy's arcane and archaic rules against not only "fornication" and adultery (note how usually only Women have historically been punished for these in practice), but also masturbation, homosexuality, non-monogamy, non-coital sexual activities, abortion, "artificial" birth control, divorce (albeit with some nuance), pornography (albeit with some nuance), and most ironically of all, prostitution (despite the fact that patriarchal marriage is often little more than long-term prostitution in practice).  It also explains why so many self-proclaimed "pro-lifers" have the GALL to oppose birth control despite the fact that it actually has the net effect of reducing the number of abortions due to fewer unwanted pregnancies.
• A high cost of sex (and its substitutes), ceteris paribus, leads to higher birthrates (Women are the brood mares in this system) and more work done by men (men are the work horses) in order to gain access to sex, which ultimately makes the rich richer going.  A low cost of sex (or its substitutes), especially sex for pleasure, leads to lower birthrates and theoretically less incentive for the serfs to work harder to make the rich richer.
• Thus, a relatively high cost of sex is seen as necessary for the oligarchs to keep the whole Ponzi scheme of growth for the sake of growth (i.e. the ideology of the cancer cell, which eventually kills its host) going to make them even richer.
• And the experience of physical pleasure, affection, and intimacy in general (not just sex, but overall) are restricted to one degree or another, so much so that people end up craving it even more through a narrow little keyhole called sex, particularly coitus.
• Not that such sexual strictures really make The System any more virtuous in any sense, of course.  A certain amount of male-defined prostitution, sex trafficking/slavery, rape, and even pedophilia and incest is virtually always tolerated or even tacitly encouraged (clandestinely or otherwise) to one degree or another in patriarchy provided it does not threaten The System or inadvertently give Women too much power.  And these ills tend to explode when sex in general is highly restricted and costly (see what happened in the Victorian era, for example).  It's all just "collateral damage" in the eyes of the patriarchy and the oligarchy, basically.
• And of course, Women primarily get blamed for "getting themselves raped", rather than the men who rape them, since under the commodity model, the onus falls on Women to be "gatekeepers" of the  "commodity" in question and keep it it from becoming "too cheap" in the "marketplace".  And the resulting fear of rape (and blame/shame for it) is used as a cudgel to keep Women "in their place".
• And much like in Maragaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, patriarchy relies on Women to police each other (enter slut-shaming, body-shaming, the "mommy wars", etc.), further enhancing the divide-and-conquer aspect of The System.
• And just like financial capitalism, sexual capitalism functionally sets itself up as a contest to see who cares the least, in more ways than one.  A contest that MEN, not coincidentally, nearly always win.

And really it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how this model perpetuates the 7000 year battle of the sexes, promotes rape culture (much like how financial capitalism promotes crimes motivated by money and possessions), and even contributes to the destruction of Mother Earth in the process via overpopulation and ecological overshoot.  Fortunately, the whole "commodity model" of sexuality is indeed currently dying as we speak, and that is a GOOD thing. Such an outmoded, outdated, toxic, and sexist paradigm is downright dehumanizing to both primary genders, and we would all better off without it. Sex is a mutual act, and it is time we started treating it as such. And marriage for economic reasons rather than love is becoming increasingly obsolete, as it should in an increasingly egalitarian society. And while marriage can be re-purposed for a post-patriarchal society, the idea that everybody must get married as the sine qua non of "real adulthood" is outmoded and no longer holds any real water in the 21st century.  Ditto for the whole "everybody must procreate" mentality as well, which is now downright maladaptive in a world of overpopulation and ecological overshoot. 

(Note that I while I condemn the commodity model, I do not intend to disparage any actual sex workers of any kind.  They are, after all, some of the most honest people on Earth when it comes to their intentions, and in any case are not the real problem here.  It is the "little man behind the curtain"--the system of patriarchy and capitalism--that is the real problem.)

This inherently capitalistic and patriarchal model should be regarded as obsolete and outmoded, and replaced yesterday with the "performance model" or "mutual pleasure model" of sexuality.  And thus sexual capitalism will also be humanely euthanized by giving it the one thing it cannot survive--ABUNDANCE.  So what are we waiting for?

Let the planetary healing begin! 

"Progress Debunked", Debunked

Philosopher (or, as he prefers to call himself, a recovered philosopher since his mystical experience years ago) Samuel Thomsen currently has a new book titled, Progress Debunked:  The Creation-Destruction Balance and Ancient Wisdom's Primacy.  And it is not merely the usual cynicism about progress that we hear ad nauseam in so many circles these days, since his thesis is actually quite intelligently formulated and articulated.  However even up-and-coming intellectual giants like Thomsen can still be fundamentally incorrect overall even if partially correct in some ways.

His thesis can best be summed up as follows:  1) The idea of progress, especially global progress, is logically incoherent and inconsistent, 2) what he terms "ancient wisdom" (i.e. our oldest traditions) has far more to offer than modern science and philosophy does, and 3) that "animate life thrives on a fertile balance of creation and destruction, joy and suffering, good and evil", as one reviewer succinctly and eloquently puts it.  He believes that our civilization will inevitably collapse for a variety of reasons, just like every other civilization before us.  And granted, he does indeed make some good points here and there.  But the one point that he misses turns out to be the most crucial one of all--the influence of patriarchy and the "dominator" paradigm that goes along with it.  The entire knowledge base (both ancient and modern) that is the foundation for his thesis orignated during a time when MEN have been in charge, and is thus tainted as result.

Garbage in, garbage out.  And a lot of linear thinking.

As Riane Eisler has noted in her book The Chalice and the Blade, patriarchy and the "dominator" model was NOT always the way.  In fact, it can be seen as a sort of aberration for the past few thousand years that is not at all timeless.  It has a beginning, a few thousand years ago, and it has an end, which will be coming very soon.  William Bond has further studied and refined the ideas of this development, as has Guru Rasa von Werder, along with others as well.  As all of the futurists are saying now, the future belongs to Women.  And Women will soon reclaim their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world.  Either that, or we all go extinct, basically.

And the late, great Buckminster Fuller, the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century must really be spinning in his grave due to Thomsen's tome as well.  Not only did he believe that Women should (and ultimately will) rule the world, but also that a world of abundance for all is certainly possible under what he calls the "feminine paradigm of leadership".  And the resources and technology to eradicate poverty worldwide, and with no further harm to the environment, certainly do exist, but the mostly male oligarchs in power now simply choose not to do so.  In their capricious zeal to use artificial scarcity to "lord it over" the rest of us, these oligarchs are willing to literally let the world burn before they share the wealth. As I like to say, mechanization is no match for the Machiavellian machinations of the moneyed elites.

And lest anyone worry about the possibility that eradicating poverty worldwide will lead to a lack of natural selection and thus accumulation of deleterious genetic mutations, to that I say, just look around you.  There is clearly no shortage of candidates for Darwin Awards, and most of them seem to be above (sometimes well above) the poverty line.  Natural selection may be different, but it will most certainly still exist--as long as individual rights exist, at least.  (Self-determination can sometimes lead to self-termination.)  In fact, it reeks of first-world privilege to even consider worrying about such a thing at all.  And to quote Charles Darwin himself, in fact:

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.

And those institutions, we have learned, are the very brainchildren of patriarchy:  capitalism, tyranny, oligarchy, and the scarcity mentality.  The latter of which especially, which rather ironically coexists with capitalism and patriarchy's addiction to growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of the cancer cell which eventually kills its host.  That includes both population growth (from treating Women like brood mares) as well as economic growth (from treating men--and often Women too--like work horses).  It is literally the logic of a Ponzi scheme, and those historically don't end very well.

The problem is quite literally man-made.  And now is NOT the time to give up on progress, since we can no longer afford to continue with the same obsolete ways of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.  Progress may not be linear, but it is literally our best (if not only) hope for the future.

So what are we waiting for?  Let the planetary healing begin!

Indefinite Hiatus

I have decided that this blog, The Chalice and the Flame, will be taking an indefinite hiatus for the time being, for the following reasons:

1. I have been busier than usual lately with many different things in my life and have updated this site very erratically if at all, to the point of recycling old posts just to have something to post every month.
2. I need to devote more time to my other blogs as well, which I had neglected for a while and just started ramping up in recent months.
3. I have already posted at least 95% of everything useful I have to say about the topic of the transition from patriarchal dystopia to Matriarchal utopia.  Anything that remains can be found on my other blogs as well.
4. While the Women's Movement in general has been largely headed in the right direction overall, nevertheless, several factions within that movement in general, and within the Matriarchy movement specifically, appear to be headed in a rather questionable direction.  This calls into question much of the movement's conventional wisdom and illustrates a need to step back a bit to regain any lost wisdom that may have inadvertently fallen by the wayside as of late.
5. Overall, as current events so clearly illustrate, most of my work in this movement is either done, almost done, and/or redundant at this point.

Thus, it may be a while before I update this blog again.  Until then, feel free to leave comments on this blog and also to check out my other blogs, True Spirit of America Party and Twenty-One Debunked as well.

In solidarity, 

Ajax the Great

VIVE LA FEMME!  VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!

Happy Mother's Day!

First, I would like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful Mothers out there.  You are, after all, literally the reason why the human race even exists at all, despite the fact that the work you do is grossly undervalued in so many way by our twisted capitalistic and patriarchal society.  In other words, your beautiful feminine energy is essentially what keeps the rest of us alive.  Thank you.

I would also like to note and lament how, for all the shallow platitudes America likes to throw around about "Mothers and apple pie", we are still a nation that perpetually continues to screw over Mothers and pregnant Women in so many ways.  Recently, Guru Rasa von Werder shared a poignant and in-depth article from Vox with us that illustrates the various ways in which that is true.  This article should be food for thought indeed.  Our patriarchal and capitalistic society clearly has a "cult of motherhood", in which the "ideal" of motherhood is so highly vaunted, worshipped even, but in practice actual Mothers themselves get about as much genuine respect as Rodney Dangerfield.  Both during and after pregnancy, so many Mothers are routinely discriminated against, overworked, underpaid, and even outright criminalized in many cases.  And meanwhile, there is to this day a powerful faction of mostly male politicians that is doing everything in their power to deny Women their right to choose whether or not to get (or stay) pregnant in the first place.  Indeed, the rank hypocrisy of our misogynistic and pharisaical system is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Meanwhile, old Buckminster Fuller (who, not coincidentally, believed that Women should rule the world) must be spinning in his grave right now.  With today's technology and innovation, there is literally no legitimate reason why we as a society need "everybody and their mother" (literally!) to "work for a living" unless they really wanted to.  There are more than enough resources in the world for everyone on this planet to live like a millionaire, but the greedy oligarchs who control such resources apparently don't want to share.  Combined with the outdated scarcity mentality that men tend to favor (as opposed to the abundance mentality that Women tend to favor), those same oligarchs have also done everything in their power to sabotage any alternatives (i.e. free and renewable energy) to their own evil system that they force upon the rest of us.  So why make them even richer?

Additionally, just as we should "dispense with the absolutely specious notion that everybody needs to earn a living" (in Bucky's words), so too should we jettison the equally specious and outdated idea that everybody must procreate as though it were a civic duty.  Not only does today's technology make much useful human labor redundant, but the world is grossly overpopulated and will only get more so in the coming decades, and despite the abundance of the world's resources we are chewing through them like there is no tomorrow while destroying the planet.   And the main cause of that overpopulation is--wait for it--MEN.  Because they are the ones who, both historically and today, force, coerce, deceive, and/or brainwash Women to have kids that they otherwise would not want or are not yet ready for.  Men like to "get 'em while they're young" and then use them as serial breeding slaves, essentially, and all the euphemisms in the world do not change that fact.   It is really no coincidence that the two most effective (and ethical) ways to reduce overpopulation and excessively high birthrates are 1) female empowerment and 2) poverty reduction, while everything else is a mere sideshow.  Because when Women actually have a free and genuine choice on when or whether or not to reproduce, they usually make the right choices overall.  After all, they are the ones who have the most "skin in the game".  So let the planetary healing begin!

MAMASTE

Why We Still Need A Universal Basic Income Guarantee for All Yesterday

I have repeatedly noted before why any serious proposal for a pragmatic utopia would require some sort of unconditional Universal Basic Income (UBI) Guarantee for all.  At least as long as we still have a monetary system, of course, and it will be quite some time before money can be phased out completely.  To wit:

1. First and foremost, "It's payback time for Women".  Recently, a Woman named Judith Shulevitz wrote an op-ed titled thusly, arguing in favor of a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all.  Her feminist argument for a UBI, which I agree 100% with, was that such a thing would provide long-overdue compensation for Women's unpaid work (i.e. housework and caregiving) that society currently takes for granted and considers a "free resource" for the taking.   As the saying goes, there are two kinds of work that Women do:  underpaid, and unpaid.  While that is true for some men as well, it is overwhelmingly true for Women.  Thus, her argument makes a great deal of sense overall, and I agree.  It is indeed LONG overdue.
2. Men are becoming increasingly redundant in the long run due to technology, globalization, and the overall ascendancy of Women.  When men are no longer artificially propped up, they will fall--and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  And this will only increase in the near future.  This is a potential ticking time-bomb that must be defused sooner rather than later.  Men become extremely dangerous creatures under either of two conditions:  1) when they have too much power relative to Women, and/or 2) when they are desperate for money.  Ever see the 1996 film Fargo? Indeed, a Universal Basic Income is one of the best ways to tackle the second one.
3. A UBI is far more efficient in theory and practice than much of what currently passes for a social safety net these days, and would have far less bureaucracy.  No means tests, no discrimination, no playing God.  It's simply a basic human right, period.  And it would be far less costly in the long run.
4. As Buckminster Fuller famously noted, there are more than enough resources for everyone to live like a millionaire with today's technology.  And he said this back in the 1970s, mind you.  And the specious notion that everybody and their mother must "work for a living" is not only outdated, but is also seriously classist, ableist, and ageist, and by extension indirectly sexist and racist as well.
5. Poverty is a razor-sharp, double-edged sword, spiritually speaking. Being attached to riches is clearly counter to spirituality, but then again, so is being attached to poverty. Either way, it's the *attachment* that is the problem.  And poverty today is largely if not entirely man-made via artificial scarcity.
6. We would all be better off on balance, spiritually and otherwise, if material poverty were eradicated--and a UBI is the most efficient way to do so. As William Bond (and others) noted, with today's technology that is certainly doable, but for the greed of the oligarchs at the top who control the system. And that in turn is a result of patriarchy, given how men tend to see war and scarcity as inevitable, so they create a self-fulfilling prophecy as a result.
7. With an unconditional UBI instead of means testing or other conditions, gone will be the perverse incentives that exist under the current system that trap too many people in poverty today.
8. Negative liberty and positive liberty are NOT opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin.  Indeed, one cannot be truly free if one is systematically denied the basic necessities of life.  And truly no one is free when others are oppressed in any way.
9. Inequality, at least when it is as extreme as it is today, is profoundly toxic to society and makes the looming problems/crises of climate change and ecological overshoot that much more difficult to solve.  This is over and above the effects of poverty alone.  And a UBI can dramatically reduce both socio-economic inequality as well as absolute material poverty.  (And when funded by an Alaska-style tax on fossil fuels, it can also double as a Steve Stoft or James Hansen-style carbon tax-and-dividend as well.)
10. We consume and waste a ludicrous amount of (mostly fossil-fuel) energy in the so-called "developed" world, and much of that wasteful consumption can be curtailed simply by making it so no one has to "work for a living" unless one really wants to.  Just think of all the energy spent (and commuting to and from) unnecessary work at a job you hate, to buy stuff you don't need, to impress people you don't even like.  A UBI could thus greatly reduce our carbon and overall ecological footprint in the long run.
11. And finally, one should keep in mind that, as Carol Brouillet has noted, the literal and original meaning of the word "community" is "free sharing of gifts".  What we currently have now under patriarchy/kyriarchy is more of a pseudo-community in that regard.   And that needs to change. Yesterday.  The exchange economy of capitialist patriarchy has failed us, and we need to rediscover and re-create the gift economy in its place.  A UBI will make the transition much smoother and peaceful.

In other words, it would be a win-win-win situation for literally everyone but the 0.01% oligarchs at the top.  So why aren't we doing this yesterday?  Because that would make far too much sense.  To quote Buckminster Fuller:

We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

In fact, one could argue that two of the most toxic, outdated, and specious ideas ever conceived by the patriarchy (aside from the central doctrine of male supremacy itself and the entire "dominator" model, of course) are that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" and that "everybody must procreate."  And both are now literally KILLING this very planet that gives us life.  Thus, on balance, a Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is a good idea regardless.  Again, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone but the oligarchs.  And the only real arguments against it are paternalistic and/or sadistic ones, which really means there are no good arguments against it in a free and civilized society.  So what are we waiting for?

Perhaps Bucky's other prediction, that Women would take over the world, is a prerequisite for his vision to be fulfilled?   Honestly, it can't happen soon enough!

The Second Women's March Was Also A YUUUUGE Success

On January 20-21, 2018, exactly one year after Trump was inaugurated, Women took to the streets again for another Women's March in numerous cities around the country and around the world.  This occurred during the ridiculous government shutdown, and lasted all weekend long.

This time around, the marches had the notable addition of the #MeToo movement combined with the previous anti-Trump and anti-Republican sentiment as well as feminism in general.  This is clearly a new wave that shows no sign of burning out--if anything, it seems even more invigorated today than a year ago.

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!

America's Dark Night of the Soul May Have a Purpose

On November 9, 2016, America's "Dark Night of the Soul" had begun, which then began in earnest on January 20, 2017.  A year later, things look even darker still.  We have a dangerous and unstable dictator in the White House and he is surrounded by cowardly sycophantic lackeys and enablers.  An openly racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and otherwise highly toxic dictator, in fact.  And he is doing all he can to destroy this country while further enriching himself, even bringing us to the brink of nuclear war in the hopes of "wagging the dog" to distract from the ever-growing Russiagate scandal that is closing in on him as we speak.  But what if there was a good reason why all this is happening now at this point in history?  After all, as the saying goes, it's always darkest before the dawn.

Enter the newly-invigorated Women's Movement.   The Trump presidency seems to have been a catalyst for an emerging new wave of feminism, or at least a re-activating of the most recent one.  Decades of pent-up anger are now finally being unleashed.  Between the Trump presidency and the aftermath of the Weinstein scandal, something seems to have shifted in this country, and the tipping point is likely in the rearview mirror now, with no sign of turning back.

Thus, it seems that the inevitable transition to Matriarchy has just been dramatically accelerated.   And my prediction of Women taking over by 2030 looks even more likely.  Indeed, it is always darkest before the dawn.  And sometimes darkness can show you the light.

Could this be why Mother God allowed the utter travesty of the rigged 2016 election to happen?  Because that is really the only explanation why this is the case.  So how does this story ultimately end?  Well, the rest is still unwritten, and ultimately up to Women.  What better time than now?

VIVE LA FEMME!  VIVE LE DIFFERENCE!