Why We Need A Universal Basic Income 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  And the specious notion that everybody and their mother must "work for a living" is not only outdated, but is also seriously classist, ableist, and ageist, and by extension indirectly sexist and racist as well.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.

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.

An Open Letter to Women in Politics (Post-2016)

(Updated for Post-2016 America)

To any Women who are running for office, in office, or considering running for office in the near future:

You have probably noticed that the world is on fire, and has been for quite some time now.   We stand on the verge of World War III as we speak, and our overburdened planet is in grave danger.  We continue to flirt with the prospect of mass extinction (including humans, by the way) in the not-too-distant future, as we continue to cook the planet with reckless abandon.  We know what is causing all of these problems, and we already have the technology and wherewithal to solve them if we really wanted to, yet our current Big Wetiko "leaders" refuse to solve such problems because they are sycophantic lackeys to the parasitic elites, if not the very same elites themselves.  And these plutocrats are hopelesly addicted to "business as usual".

So how did we get here in the first place, exactly?  The answer lies in ancient history, about 7000 years ago or so, when men apparently got the bright idea to take over the (known) world piece by piece, by deposing you from power.  That's right, it was originally Women who were in charge for most of humanity's existence, and us fellas apparently thought we could do a better job as leaders than you ladies did.  Well, history shows us that we were wrong--dead wrong in fact.  Indeed, the best advice that us men can give to Women is "don't be like us", because we f**ked the world up royally. We paved paradise and put up a parking lot, we created a desert and called it "peace".  We have devoured and suffocated our own empire, and now we are all paying a heavy price for it.  That's right--WE did it.  And we're sorry about that--though we can clearly stuff our "sorrys" in a sack!

Oh, and to top it off, us fellas decided to hit America's self-destruct button and vote overwhelmingly for Donald Trump for President in 2016.  Yes, really.  Because apparently we couldn't screw things up enough already.

And now it is time for you to reclaim your rightful position as the new leaders of the free world once again, starting with the USA and eventually spreading from there.  In fact, it is LONG overdue for you to do so.  We cannot apologize enough for handing you such a monumental clusterf**k of a world for you to fix, of course, but we fellas have plenty of faith that you will be able to do so. We know that Women, not men, are the real natural-born leaders, and you can clearly handle power a lot better without it going to your heads than us.  We know that your preferred paradigm of society, what Riane Eisler calls the "partnership" model, is far better than the "dominator" model that we have been practicing for the past 7000 years.  As the saying goes, never send a boy to do a man's job--send a Woman instead.  Truer words were never spoken, and we need you now more than ever before.

The highest and tallest "glass ceiling" in the world--President of the United States--is still waiting to be smashed in 2020, as are plenty of other important political offices as well.  Even though Hillary already did that with the popular vote in 2016, the Rube Goldberg machine known as the Electoral College was systematically rigged against her. We wish all of you the very best of luck.  Now, go forth and make old Buckminster Fuller proud!  Vive la femme!

Sincerely,

Ajax the Great, Party Leader of the TSAP

Men Won This Battle, But Will Ultmately Lose The War

Much to our chagrin, Donald J. Trump won the 2016 election, and will become President on January 20, 2017.  I and so many others thought that Hillary Clinton would have won for sure.  And she did, in fact, win the popular vote.  But unfortunately, Trump won the Electoral College, crossing the finish line of 270 with likely over 300 electoral votes.  As he himself said, the game is "rigged" alright, just not in the way he said.

So how did he manage to pull off such an unlikely victory?  Well the key "swing" states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin were all part of the Rust Belt, and he managed to tap into the frustrations of disaffected white working-class men--nationwide, but especially in those states.  That was literally all it took.  Combining the legitimate grievances of the working class (who have been practically eaten alive by our oligarchy, plutocracy, kleptocracy, and kyriarchy for decades now) with thinly-veiled racism, misogyny, and xenophobia turned out to be a winning formula.  And as we are seeing now, he is already backpedaling on many of the lies he has told to his base.  All of this will eventually backfire on the men who voted for him.

A Trump presidency is clear and present danger to America, and will seem to set the Women's movement back quite a bit at first.  But ultimately Women will prevail, and this should be the ultimate wake-up call NOT to abandon their efforts.

MAN:  You know, honey, we did win practically every single battle for the past 7000 years.

WOMAN:  Yes, I know, dear.  And it's also irrelevant.

Defusing the Ticking Time Bomb Known As Men

As I have noted in at least two previous posts, men are currently in decline and are becoming increasingly redundant.  That trend essentially began in the 1970s when men's real wages, employment rates, and labor-force participation rates all peaked and have since been falling, gradually at first but accelerating recent years.  For a while, only a few pundits (mainly those in the Matriarchy movement and other feminists) have picked up on this erstwhile subtle trend, but now even Larry Summers has noticed it and is growing concerned.  He predicts that by 2050, roughly one-third of men between the ages of 25-54 will be out of work, and even proclaims that "a disaster is looming for American men" as a result.

We can all see the writing on the wall at this point.  Women are rising, while men are falling.  In fact, women have already crossed the Rubicon in terms of education and are well on their way to becoming the richer gender, meanwhile us fellas are falling away and falling apart.  We are being gradually replaced by both women (for higher-skilled jobs) as well as robots/machines/AI (for less-skilled jobs), our wages have been falling, our once-great labor unions have been torpedoed by the powerful men at the top who threw the bottom 80-90% of us under the bus, and we are thus are becoming increasingly redundant as a result.

So what should be done with all of the redundant drone males after Women finally take over?  Ultimately, it will be up to the Women of the future, of course, but now is the time to start discussing the best course of action to take in both the near- and long-term.  Currently, we are witnessing the death of an obsolete system, one that has been kept on life support for many years now, and sooner or later we will have to pull the plug on it.  Continuing to prop up that woefully moribund system in the hopes of propping up men is clearly not a sustainable long-term solution.  And while men are slowly going extinct due to deterioration of the Y-chromosome, that will take thousands of years to occur.  So what to do from now until then?

As for how to defuse the ticking time bomb (think crime, violence, civil disorder, and stuff like that) that rapidly-made-redundant men would bring in the near-term, one should note how there are two circumstances in which men become particularly dangerous creatures: 1) when they have too much power (whether on an absolute basis, like the oligarchs, or relative to Women, like most ordinary men), and 2) when they are desperate for money. (The 1996 movie Fargo illustrates the perils of the latter case.) As men become increasingly redundant and un(der)employed, the first circumstance will gradually decrease while the second one will rapidly increase at least at first. And while this will likely happen before Women take over completely, it is indeed a ticking time bomb.  Thus, if there are only two policies that can be implemented, they should be as follows:

1. A Universal Basic Income Guarantee for all is an idea that is LONG overdue.  This would eliminate or at least take the dangerous edge off of the kind of desperation that male redundancy can bring, and solve many other problems in addition.
2. The Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which was passed in 1978 but never fully implemented, should be revisited as a way to guarantee full employment without significantly increasing inflation.  In other words, the government should create a Job Guarantee program.

These two things alone would go a very long way towards reducing such a problem in the near-term.   Other economic ideas include the following:

• Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour in 2016 dollars, and index to inflation from then on.
• Create jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, green energy, and ecological restoration.
• Overhaul the tax code to make it simpler and more progressive, or at the very least remove perverse rewards for corporations offshoring jobs as well as hiding trillions of dollars overseas.
• Improve our education system, and make all public colleges and universities tuition-free.  Do the same for trade schools as well, as plenty of young men would probably benefit more from those.

As for dealing directly with any supposed crime wave that may result, I would recommend that we "get tough on real crime".  There is plenty of room to legalize, decriminalize, or deprioritize the numerous "victimless crimes" that currently exist on the law books, and redirect those resources toward tackling violent and predatory crime, especially violence against Women, children, and animals.  Men need to know that such behavior will not be tolerated and that they will face swift and certain justice for their misdeeds.  Crime that pays is crime that stays.

Failing that, well then I guess the redundant men of the future can go join the circus, lol.  Free the animals and replace them with men--and I am only half-joking about that one.  Clearly we will need to have plenty of "bread and circuses" in the future to keep the drones occupied while they party their way into extinction.

The Case for Radical Non-intervention

The USA and coalition forces have been bombing Daesh/ISIL (which we prefer to call them so as not to inadvertently profane the name of the Goddess) for over two years now. And Russia has been bombing them for about a whole year now.  And yet they still seem to be spreading, even though they are clearly on the losing side in the long run.   After the first few weeks of bombing in August/September 2014, the fight basically became a stalemate which lasted until Russia started their airstrikes in Syria, tipping the balance against Daesh once more.  But the ongoing Syrian civil war unfortunately shows no signs of abating after five and a half years.  And the latest cease-fire has broken down within a week.

The hawks such as Donald Chump have been, unsurprisingly, repeatedly calling for an escalation of this war.   Clearly, we are already fighting fire with gasoline, and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  In fact, it was our very own own meddling and warmongering that caused Daesh to become a problem in the first place!  First, we invaded and destabilized Iraq in an unnecessary war for oil and empire based on false pretenses, creating a power vacuum when we removed Saddam Hussein.  Then we disbanded their military, leaving thousands of men who were programmed for war with nothing to do and nowhere to go.  Then, we installed a puppet dictator, Nouri al-Maliki, that further divided the already fractured country, alienating the Sunnis and driving them even further towards radicalism.  Then, when faced with the Arab Spring, we armed and funded questionable male "rebels" (who eventually turned traitor) in the hopes of removing Assad from power--kinda like we did with Gaddafi in Libya.  And as they say, the rest was history.  Gee, what did we think would happen?

But here is a better idea--let's NOT give Daesh the "holy war" they so desperately want.  In fact, Tom Englehardt (Tom Dispatch) and Peter van Buren have the best idea of all--quick withdrawal, after getting them where it really hurts by taking out their OIL.  Such targets--wellheads and oil trucks, and makeshift refineries--are not at all hard to find, and are fairly easy to take out from the air.  And put diplomatic and economic pressure on Turkey and other so-called "allies" to stem the flow of Daesh oil as well.  Because oil is their primary source of funding, and removing that will cause them to quickly collapse of their own weight, and when they are seen as a failure then few would want to join them.  And once we take it out, then GTFO and let Daesh fall on their own sword.

I and the TSAP agree with that idea, and we would also like to add to that.  Before withdrawing, we should give every *Woman* over there an AK-47 and tell them to take over their country and mow down anyone who stands in their way. Let Allah sort it out. Problem solved. But of course, the mostly-male powers that be would not be too keen on that idea. After all, they wouldn't want women in THIS country getting any ideas, now would they?  (Of course, I believe that women must take over the world in order to save it, so that wouldn't really be a bad idea)  Honestly, it is certainly a much better idea than arming questionable male "rebels" who end up turning traitor--something that America has learned the hard way.

And lest anyone raise the specter of the Rwanda genocide in 1994 when the issue of radical non-intervention is proposed, allow me to remind the reader that while that was a horrible atrocity to say the least, we should remember what happened afterwards.  After so many men killed each other, the country became 70% female.  And combined with the shock of what had happened, and resolving "never again", the Women there basically took over.  Today, they are the only country with a female majority in parliament, and they are well on their way to becoming a Matriarchy.  As for the ongoing civil war in Congo, which was instigated at least partly as revenge for the Rwanda genocide, the Women there might just wanna take a page from the history of Liberia in terms of how they ended their 14-year civil war over there, Lysistrata-style.  Vive la femme!  Vive le difference!

Would A Sex Strike Actually Work?

What do Liberia, South Sudan, Kenya, Colombia, the Philippines, and Ancient Greece have in common?  All of these societies contain at least one example in their history of Women going on sex strike (i.e. withholding sex from men until their collective demands are met) and typically achieving success as a result, often in a matter of weeks or less.   These actions were generally done to bring an end to otherwise intractable and prolonged wars and violence, most notably the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece as noted in the famous play Lysistrata.  In Liberia, a modern-day example, it brought an end to their country's 14-year long civil war and ushered in their first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

But what about the longest war in history, i.e. the War on Women?  Also known as "patriarchy" to make it sound nicer, this system is currently self-destructing as we speak, but can its demise be accelerated with a sex strike perhaps?  Would Women be able to take over the world more quickly and readily that way?   Pat Ravasio of Buckyworld seems to think so.  While I have long been rather skeptical of the idea myself, after suspending my disbelief I began to realize that this probably would have a chance at working wonders.  As the aformentioned historical examples have shown, men's demand for sex appears to be relatively "inelastic", that is, even a large increase in the "cost" of sex (which by definition would rise significantly during a massive shortage such as a sex strike) would not affect demand very much, at least in the short run.  While men don't have a higher sex drive than Women (if anything, Women have a higher sex drive), for men there is a much greater sense of urgency thanks to all of that testosterone, and thus men will typically "cave" first.  Thus, men would do whatever it takes to end the shortage/strike and regain easier access, including cleaning up their act and meeting the demands of the Women on strike.  (Women often forget just how much power they really have!)  And while the grand scale of the task of ending patriarchy may be more daunting than the historical examples of using sex strikes to end local conflicts, at this point in history it certainly appears to be worth the old college try.  Even with less than 100% participation, if enough Women go on strike (especially the wives of powerful men in high places), the effects would nonetheless be huge.

So the answer to the question is most likely yes.  That said, it usually takes an enormous amount of provocation to get a critical mass of Women on board for something like that, since Women clearly have needs as well.  But given how so many men are lashing out these days as the patriarchy is now in its death throes, it probably won't take all that much more provocation to end up crossing that critical threshold.  Thus, I would not be shocked if The Big One happens within a few years.

Who's Afraid of an Aging Population?

I was recently wondering why so many men, especially the elites, are terrified that our overall population is (gasp!) aging. It is not just because they fear that their economic Ponzi scheme of necrotic growth for the sake of growth will unravel, though that is clearly part of it as well. No, I think that their real fear is that the Crones (i.e. Women over age 50 or so) will have an *unprecedented* level of power due to relative strength in numbers, and thus so will Women in general. That is because Women are living longer than ever before, as well as having fewer kids. And the men are getting scared.  Hence the recent push to whittle away Women's reproductive rights, eventually including most birth control as well.

Ah, you say, but what about the supposedly legitimate economic fears of an aging (and eventually shrinking) population?  Well, a recent study came out that found that such fears are largely overblown.  In fact, moderately low fertility (i.e. between 1.5-2.0 children per woman) and a shrinking population would actually maximize living standards for the general population.  Not to say that an aging population will not pose some challenges, but on balance the benefits would outweigh such drawbacks.  Oh, and by the way, there is that elephant in the room--make that the elephant in the Volkswagen--OVERPOPULATION.  Left unchecked, it will destroy the very planet that gives us life.  While technology can largely solve the foreseeable economic challenges of aging and declining populations, the same cannot really be said of the intractable ecological problems of overpopulation.  And the only ethical way to do this is to voluntarily have fewer children, i.e. well below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 or so.  According to the best evidence, the best way to accomplish this is female empowerment and poverty reduction, since after all, the number one cause of overpopulation is MEN who force, coerce, deceive, and/or brainwash Women into having kids that they otherwise would not have (or much sooner and closer-spaced than otherwise).  Sorry fellas, but the truth hurts.

So what about countries like Japan, Italy, Greece, Spain, etc. with so-called "lowest-low" total fertility rates below 1.5?  Yes, it is likely that they will hit a sort of short-to-medium-term "pothole" on the road to sustainability if they stay below 1.5 for too long.  Their populations' aging and decline will be significantly more rapid than for countries with TFRs between 1.5-2.0, and may be more difficult to adjust to from an economic perspective.  Well, the answer to that, again, is increased female empowerment.  We see that European countries with greater female empowerment and more generous social safety nets for mothers and children tend to have higher fertility than those with less female empowerment and stingier safety nets such as Spain, Italy, and Greece.  Even though all of those countries have TFRs below replacement, Northern and Western Europe are generally around 1.6-2.0 while Southern and Eastern Europe are generally significantly below 1.5 children per woman.  The proof is clearly in the pudding.

Make no mistake, if Women were to take over the world tomorrow, the global TFR would plummet to 1.5 or lower almost overnight.  But it would not stay below 1.5 for very long, as it would gradually rise back up to around 1.5-1.9 where it will remain for at least a generation or two, and eventually rise to around the replacement rate of 2.1 after the population shrinks significantly over time.  And honestly, it can't happen soon enough.  We must leave room for Nature, lest Nature not leave room for us.  We have been warned, decades ago in fact. 

In other words, VIVE LA FEMME!  Let the planetary healing begin!