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Measure A: Mish Mash That Doesn’t Focus Enough on Climate Change

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The Measure Doesn’t Do Enough to Get Cars Off the Road

In a nutshell, Measure A is a something-for-everybody approach that doesn’t do enough to concentrate on climate change. A full on effort to get cars off the road and people onto public transit would do much more. That means more trolley and light rail lines paralleling major freeways.

When congestion is bad enough and transit gets better, at some point, commuters will switch to transit as long as it becomes more convenient. That should be SANDAG’s goal. And let’s address the issue of getting truck traffic off the road. Rail service should be encouraged.   [Read more…]

American Consumption Shouldn’t Keep Economy Afloat

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This is Part 2 of Buddhist Economics: Economics As If People Mattered.

The Buddhist approach is that consumption is merely a means to human well-being. The aim should be to attain a maximum of well-being with a minimum of consumption. It would also be considered salutary to produce much of what is needed for human well-being by one’s own hands rather than being a total participant in the cash economy. This is anathema to capitalist economists and bankers who thrive on interest from bank loans in order that consumers can purchase more stuff on borrowed money and go into more debt.

Without debt based economics, Wall Street would be out of business and GDP would be lowered because GDP only measures cash transactions not self-subsistent production. Consumption represents 70% of US GDP. Western economics considers consumption to be the end all of economic activity. Buddhist economics considers economic activity to be that which is necessary for liberation of the spirit and for the provision of the right amount of goods and services without gorging on them.   [Read more…]

Buddhist Economics: Economics as if People Mattered

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Economics Should Be About People, Not Wall Street

In Buddhist economics there is the concept of “right livelihood.” Work is considered an essential component of human life just as play and leisure. Work of a craftsmanlike nature, work which is satisfying–not work that is stultifying, of an assembly-line nature. Work that nourishes the soul; this kind of work results in right livelihood.

By the same token, there is “right consumption.” This is as contrasted with the unlimited consumption advanced Western societies and pushed on their citizens through advertising and other means in order to have economic “growth” and to increase GDP.   [Read more…]

Is Dr. Jill Stein and the Green Party a Good Alternative?

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Noam Chomsky advocates voting for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party in states that are securely Democratic, and voting for Hillary in swing states where every vote counts. This makes a lot of sense because it’s one way, maybe the only way, to build a third party in this country.

Due to our antiquated voting system, a third party can never be successful. However, it could conceivably replace one of the two present day mainstream parties at some point.

Jill Stein stands for a lot of the things that Bernie and other Progressives stand for. But even if, by some stretch of the imagination, she were to be elected in November, she would still face a Republican Congress. Hillary is right when she seeks to tone down Bernie’s rhetoric and make more modest claims.   [Read more…]

Drugs: the Human Dilemma, Part 2

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Is there a balanced way to live so that chemicals released by the brain, which produce feelings of well being and happiness, can happen without addiction to drugs or exercise?

For some these endorphins seem to naturally produce ‘enough good feeling’ without their having to do anything more. For some the ‘happiness gene’ seems to be turned on at all times regardless of what happens in the events of their lives.

For others there is a deficiency that leads to a tendency for them to become alcoholics or drug addicts. A person’s natural energy level seems to have something to do with it. High energy people need to release that energy in non-sedentary pursuits or mitigate the effects of it like so-called ADHD with drugs.   [Read more…]

Drugs – the Human Epidemic – Part 1

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Americans are using drugs of various kinds at an increasing rate. Of course drugs have been around for a long time, since the beginning of time in fact. In 5000 BC the Sumerians used opium. The earliest record of alcohol production was in Egypt in 3500 BC. Tea in China was used in 3000 BC. Humans have used various substances to manipulate and alter their mood levels for millennia.

Food, sex, and exercise addiction are not considered to be included in drug addiction although they work in a similar way to release chemicals in the brain that then flood the body and produce pleasurable sensations. Food addiction can have the most undesirable consequences including obesity. Addiction to work, workaholism, on the other hand, can have very desirable consequences including increased financial well being although it may wreak a toll on human relationships.   [Read more…]

Why Does Homelessness Persist in America’s Finest City?

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Housing is Not a Human Right in the US

By John Lawrence

Why does homelessness persist in the world’s richest nation? The simple answer is that having a roof over one’s head is not a human right in this society. Fortunate people, those with a home and a car and other assets will not vote to give others what they possess even on the most basic level. Article 25 of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states:

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

  [Read more…]

Democrats Need To Be Elected Up and Down the Ticket

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If You Don’t Want American Fascism, You Must Vote Democratic

In a great speech at the Democratic convention, President Obama made his case about why we need to elect Hillary Clinton the next President and that we should also elect Democrats “up and down the ticket.” That is very important because Obama himself only had a chance to get his agenda implemented when there was a Democratic filibuster-proof Congress.

Do you remember the high drama surrounding the supermajority that the Democrats supposedly had in 2008 after Obama was elected? Senator Ted Kennedy was ill with brain cancer. His vote was the much needed 60th vote for filibuster-proofness. But he was too sick to vote.

Eventually, Republican Scott Brown was elected to Kennedy’s seat, and Democratic control of Congress ceased because from then on, the Republicans filibustered literally everything. Obama was left to spin his wheels trying to get them to play nice and compromise. It didn’t work, and Obama wasted his time.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Change: Devastating Heat

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Last year was the hottest year ever globally — or it was until 2016 got off to a sweltering start. NASA announced that the first six months of this year have been the hottest since 1880, which is when people started keeping reliable records. In June 2016 the average earth temperature was 1.62 degrees hotter than the average June temperature for the 20th century.

The Arctic has seen sky high temperatures this year with the result of record low sea ice levels. The Alaskan town of Deadhorse just 50 miles from the Arctic coast set a record temperature of 85º F.

The drought and blistering heat, some 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, have made it impossible for farmers to tend their crops. Towns on India’s eastern side have been hit with record-setting temperatures — 119.3 degrees in the town of Titlagarh, Orissa, which is the highest temperature ever recorded in that state during April.   [Read more…]

The Kerfuffle Over Rehiring Marcuse at UCSD

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The UCSD campus is again tense. In the wake of the anxiety and anger created by the Regents’ decisions last November, the battle concerning the rehiring of Dr. Herbert Marcuse is adding new fuel to the already strained administration-student and university-community relationships.

Contrary to what most people think, at this point it is not the student dissidents that are seeking campus confrontations, but the extreme Right, particularly in San Diego. Thus, Governor Reagan has been consistently quoted in the press as saying that “the time for a confrontation on the campuses is here.” He, his government and his right wing allies have consistently acted to bring that confrontation about in order to be able to implement repressive measures with the goal of stifling the student movement.   [Read more…]

On Love and Meritocracy – Part 2

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There is No PhD in Love. Instead, there’s a ‘filtering out’ system.

When I was a graduate student at UCSD, my adviser, Irwin Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm and local billionaire, advised me that at the end of my second year there enrolled in a PhD program, there would be a “filtering out procedure.” Jacobs, the ultimate meritocrat, thought nothing about the disruption of lives that would be caused by having them filtered out.

Some of these people had sacrificed to come there leaving good jobs; some of them had families to support. I felt somewhat responsible because I had persuaded some of them to enroll in that program. But Jacobs had no qualms about filtering them out if they didn’t meet his high standards and didn’t deserve to be in the ranks of the ‘best and the brightest.’

My point was why did they admit them into the program in the first place if they didn’t think they were good enough to be designated PhDs?

  [Read more…]

Christian Anti-Communist Crusade: Schwarz on Marcuse

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The Hanalei Hotel in San Diego was the scene for a dinner meeting of the Long Beach based Christian Anti-Communist Crusade on Friday April 18. Fred Schwarz, President of tie Crusade, delivered a speech on “one of the world’s leading destructive revolutionaries,” Herbert Marcuse.

In his invitational letter, Schwarz had promised to cover such topics as the “biological details of the life of Marcuse.” Indeed, it was an enormous let-down when he rehashed the biographical details instead.

Schwarz admitted that he had undertaken the “onerous task”of reading all the books Marcuse has written.   [Read more…]

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