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Video: DPVA Chair Charniele Herring on the Politics Hour Says VA Dems “poised for success”

By
lowkell
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0

About an hour ago, DPVA Chair Charniele Herring was on The Politics Hour on WAMU. Here are my tweets from this segment:

*Dems “poised for success in Virginia,” “ready for a change in governorship”

*Bills to restrict women’s reproductive rights “woke up voters,” Virginia “testing ground” for national level.

*Virginia needs to stop passing bills that alienate people, make them second guess whether they should live here.

*Under divisive Republicans like Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia is slipping in terms of a place to do business.

*Confident Virginia transportation bill passes constitutional muster, was fully vetted by legal counsel

*We can gain seats in Virginia House of Delegates this year, including in the 16 Obama districts held by GOP’ers

*Strong ground game is crucial for 2013 elections in Virginia, need to turn out Obama/Kaine voters.

*Virginia Democrats need to build a bench of potential candidates, will be a long-term effort.

*Charnielle Herring hopes Gov. Bob McDonnell strikes hybrid fee and replaces the revenues with something else.

Virginia News Headlines: Friday Morning

By
lowkell
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1

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, March 22. Also, check out the video of Senators Kaine and Warner arguing for replacing the sequester with the Senate Democrats’ balanced approach budget.

*The Republican Party’s shortcomings (“Major Republican donors seem perfectly willing to support the presidential races of quixotic candidates. They foot the bill for television attack ads. They seem less interested in funding the revival of ideas and policy that is a prerequisite to reestablishing a GOP majority. It is a strategic failure of the first order.”)

*It’s not the left that’s changed, it’s the economy

*Warner Puts Deficit Deal Odds Above 50-50 With New Ideas

*Three Marines die in shootings at Quantico

*Bolling: Cuccinelli and McAuliffe qualified, but face challenges

*Bolling: GOP needs new outreach, not slavery rhetoric

*Tax lawsuit raises questions about possible Cuccinelli conflict; spokesman dismisses criticism

*The spell is broken (“Car owners still wonder, where’s the tax relief?”)

*Endorsements in LG, AG race and for local delegate hopeful

*LG race: Robocall tags Lingamfelter on taxes

*Va. delegate forms conservative PAC

*McDonnell outlaws synthetic cannabinoids (“Legislation adds new marijuana-like substances, bath salts to prohibited drug list”)

*McDonnell signs bill barring disclosure of concealed-handgun permits

*Cuccinelli, McAuliffe to make campaign stops on the Peninsula Friday and Saturday

*SW Va’s Congressional delegation speak on budget issues

*Policing the police’s drones (“A moratorium would allow Virginia to adopt rules on how agencies could use drones without violating privacy rights.”)

*Fight poaching with more muscle

*Va. to get wind energy research lease offer from federal agency

*VCU crushes Akron 88-42 in NCAA opener

*Harvard upsets No. 3 seed New Mexico (I guess if my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, can’t be in the tournament, I’ll root for Ivy League rival Harvard. Plus, it’s always fun to root for underdogs…)

*Robert Griffin III’s knee injury has taught the Washington Redskins … nothing (Mike Shanahan should be fired for gross, outrageous incompetence, and now continued lying/disingenuous/failure to take responsibility over Robert Griffin III.)

*Record blocking patterns fueling extreme weather: detailed look at why it’s so cold

Democrats Start 2013 Behind in Southwest Virginia

By
TheRealCrystalBall
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6

Cross posted to Virginia’s newest political blog, The Real Crystal Ball!

It’s just days away from the candidate filing deadline for the Virginia House of Delegates. Many Southwest localities have a tradition of conventions, not primaries, so the impending doom facing Virginia Democrats may actually be delayed beyond March 28th. But from this vantage point Virginia Democrats are starting out from way behind in Southwest Virginia. Longtime popular Democrat Joe Johnson has called it quits, getting out while he’s still ahead.

Here’s how bad this news is for the Democrats.

Here’s how bad this news is for the Democrats.

Johnson has not been challenged since 1989. George Bush was President then. No, the OTHER George Bush.

Here’s just a brief glimpse of how the 4th District has changed in recent times, not even going back to the last time Michael Dukakis was on the ballot.

In 2004, that other Massachusetts liberal running against a Bush received 34.4% of the vote in the 4th District. Only 13 other districts were more Republican than the 4th that year.

The following year, 2005, Tim Kaine received only 36% of the vote against Southwest Virginia’s own Terry Kilgore. Local Virginia Democrats tend to do better than liberal national Democrats, but Kaine was facing off against a well known Southwest Virginian Republican. Kaine managed to run ahead of Kerry, although not by much. But it was still better than his performance in three other Delegate districts, all in Southwest Virginia, where Kaine ran behind Kerry.

In 2008, Barack Obama may history by winning Virginia, the first time a Democrat had won the Commonwealth since 1964. Despite running ahead of Kerry across the nation and the Commonwealth, he managed to finish only at 34.7% in Johnson’s 4th District. Only six districts were more Republican.

Redistricting actually made the 4th more Democratic, as Republicans sliced up Southwest Virginia in order to eliminate at least one Democrat. Creigh Deeds, the country lawyer who honed his rhetoric for rural jurors, won 26.9% under the old lines but jumped to an impressive 32.3% under the new lines. Deeds Country!

In 2012, the 4th was one of three Southwest districts to swing sharply to the right. Obama received only 30% of the vote, down almost 9 points from his 2008 performance. Which was already disappointing when compared to Kerry’s performance. Which set an extremely low floor that Kaine only barely outperformed in 2005. Which only looks good for a Virginia Democrat when compared to Creigh Deeds.

Unless Mark Warner himself runs for office, this seat is going to be gone, gone, gone for Virginia Democrats. Johnson would have been in for a tough fight if Republicans had ever ran against him. Much like Phil Puckett he might have been able to hang on, or he could have joined Rick Boucher in the formerly elected Southwest Virginian Democrats club. But this is a very big uphill climb for any local Democrat when you consider that they will be swimming upstream against an overwhelming landslide for Republicans at the top of the ticket.

To put this in perspective, in 2008, when Barack Obama was losing this district with 39% of the vote, Mark Warner was running 22 point ahead of Obama and winning with 61% of the vote. That was Mark “I love Southwest Virginia so much my blood is a blend of NASCAR fuel and coal” Warner running against the world’s most incompetent Republican candidate. And that was before Obama’s “War on Coal,” the defeat of Rick Boucher, and an even sharper swing to the right in Southwest Virginia.

Today, the Democratic brand is much, much weaker in Southwest Virginia and you need to find a candidate with the sort of independence that a Mark Warner has. Tim Kaine ran 4 points ahead of Obama in this district in 2012, but still lost the district. The local congressional candidate, who never had a chance and never had any major support, ran 10 points ahead of Obama … and still lost the district.

In 2009, multiple incumbent delegates ran significantly ahead of Creigh Deeds. Ward Armstrong ran 22 points ahead of Creigh Deeds, Lynwood Lewis ran 23 points ahead, Albert Pollard was 18 points ahead, Paula Miller in Tidewater was 18 points ahead, Shannon Valentine in Lynchburg ran 11 points ahead of the top of the ticket, Bill Barlow ran 11 points ahead, and Dan Bowling ran 10 points ahead in the 3rd District. This list includes some incredibly strong and popular incumbents. You would need someone on the Armstrong, Lewis, Pollard and Miller range of popularity in spite of an unpopular top of the ticket in order to win the 4th District. And you’d need to find that level of popularity without a history of incumbency. In 2009 no Democrat in an open seat ran that far ahead of the top of the ticket. Luke Torian, 4 points ahead of Deeds, was the only one to run well in a competitive district. And 4 points ahead of Terry McAuliffe means you’re still blown out of the water in the 4th District. I would be shocked if McAuliffe breaks 35% in this district.

Even back in 2005, when Democrats were doing well in Virginia, not a single Democrat in an open seat managed to run ahead of Kaine by double digits. Lowell Fulk, an incredibly strong and popular Democratic candidate in Rockingham/Harrisonburg, ran 6 points ahead of Tim Kaine, the best for any Democratic challenger in an open seat in 2005. He still lost, and this district is MUCH worse for Democrats than the 26th. Having ran before, Fulk started off with significantly higher name ID than his opponent. And he still lost. He managed to run 6 points ahead of the top of the ticket. To keep the 4th, Virginia Democrats need to find someone who could run closer to 20 points ahead of the ticket.

Let’s summarize.

Even if he wins, McAuliffe is going to be lucky to break 35% in this district. Something closer to 30% is more likely.

It would take an incredibly strong Democratic challenger to run far enough ahead of the ticket to make this competitive. Finding someone who’s not an incumbent and who hasn’t run before yet is somehow that popular seems nigh impossible.

Even if you find the right candidate, it would be a tough fight, in which Virginia Democrats would be sinking resources into an area that does little to help the top of the ticket, and will elect a “Democrat” who will always vote against gun control, always vote for the interests of the coal industry, and will frustrate the socially liberal, tree hugging activists who make up a large part of the Democratic base.

Is it worth it?

There’s a Part Two to this post coming soon, talking about the 6th District. Stay tuned.

President Obama, Terry McAulliffe, “Bracketology” and Reality

By
KathyinBlacksburg
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5

Just as Terry McAulliffe and even the President dutifully and publicly filled out their NCAA March Madness brackets, there was NPR telling listeners yesterday that it is all for naught. After all, any individual’s chances of getting the brackets right is 9 quintillion to one for the 64 teams, which is way, way worse odds than the chance of getting struck by lightening. Getting it right is just too random to waste your time on “bracketology.” It is a useless enterprise. But (almost) everyone does it. The widespread perception that one can actually get the entire March Madness brackets right is based on a misunderstanding of statistics, probabilities, and (yes) reason. But then we all misperceive probabilities, even those who know better. Regardless, all manner of sportscasters, celebrities and just plain folks occupy their time dutifully filling out their brackets.  

So, I have to ask, is this useless enterprise more important than, say, defending seniors, kids and  more against Paul Ryan (don’t look now but an even worse version of his budget just passed the House today)? And do not citizens everywhere make better use of their time writing to the President and telling him to not throw us all (seniors, kids, workers, the sick, the poor, and more) under the bus or on “the table”? Wouldn’t it be a better use of time to call Nancy Pelosi and tell her to stop caving before the negotiations even take place?  The odds would be vastly better than 9 quintillion to one if every single citizen who cares got on the phone and on the email system of Congress. You can even do it while you watch!!!!!! Why, if every Democrat told their representatives her or she will  withhold support if they don’t stop the caving to the 1%, imagine how things might change!

Finally, please, Terry McAulliffe, so many Virginians are depending on you to articulate a strong message against every one of Cuccinelli’s onerous ideas, but more important, to articulate a comprehensive and comprehensible set of proposals for a constructive alternative. We need you to win! So, no brackets please. Defend the people against Paul Ryan and John Boehner. Virginia and the nation are depending upon it. As for everyone else, pick up the phone. Write your emails.  Don’t let the GOP get away with hiding ruthless plans behind the distraction of useless “bracketology.”

The Keystone XL Pipeline: Game Over?

By
ivymain
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1

( – promoted by lowkell)

NASA scientist James Hansen famously warned that if the Keystone XL pipeline gets built, it’s “game over” for the climate. That dire warning lit a fire under the feet of activists, who rightly argue that Canada shouldn’t be producing the dirty, carbon-intensive tar sands oil, and the U.S. shouldn’t enable the climate destruction by building a pipeline to get the oil out of North America. But stopping Keystone won’t stop global warming, and building it won’t make environmentalists throw in the towel. If this is a game, we are pawns as well as players, so we can never walk away.

Frankly, it’s hard to understand right-wing enthusiasm in the U.S. for a pipeline benefiting a Canadian company extracting Canadian oil intended for the world market. In spite of all the talk about jobs, it will employ only a few thousand workers temporarily, and not in the areas of the country where unemployed construction workers live. Moreover, building it requires the government to seize private property from unwilling landowners to benefit a private interest-usually the sort of thing that makes Republicans go ballistic.

I might add that the environmental damage being done to thousands of square miles of Canadian arboreal forests and lakes is staggering-but Republicans have long since made it clear that they do not consider despoiling nature a drawback when there is energy to be had and profit to be made. (If you are a Republican and you bristle at this, see if you can name a recent oil, gas, or coal mining project your party has opposed for environmental reasons. I can only name one, and that doesn’t get beyond “sort of.” See the Tennessee Conservative Union’s ad opposing mountaintop removal coal mining, now that a Chinese company wants to do it. )

Some would argue that the climate case against Keystone is overstated. Tar sands oil is “only” 14-24% more carbon intensive than conventional oil, if you ignore a nasty byproduct called petroleum coke that adds to the total carbon footprint. Yet surely if the reverse were true, and the carbon footprint of tar sands oil were less than that of conventional oil, it would be hailed as some kind of a planet-saving fuel. Incremental changes are what got us into this mess in the first place.

If Keystone represents evil, though, it has plenty of company, and there is blame enough to go around. Canadians are developing tar sands oil because the worldwide demand for petroleum is high and growing, there is money to be made meeting the demand, and there is no one who will make them stop. The harm done exceeds the profit to be made, but most of the harm is borne by people in other countries.

That makes the case against the pipeline mostly a moral one, and moral arguments don’t get much respect these days. Yet when the State Department or the Washington Post urges that if we don’t build the pipeline, the Canadians will just find other ways to get the oil to market, the proper response should be outrage. Their position is the moral equivalent of justifying buying stolen goods on the theory that if you don’t do it, the thieves will just find a fence somewhere else.  

Admittedly, lots of people would buy stolen goods if there weren’t a law against it; for such people, morality is most successful when immorality gets you arrested. And there isn’t a law against tar sands oil; Canada is the only country with jurisdiction, and it prefers to look away.  

Americans also have a little problem that we do, indeed, buy a lot of stolen goods. As the world’s biggest oil consumers, we have a credibility problem. On the other hand, if we don’t set the standards, who will? And if we don’t start here, then where?

Keystone or no Keystone, the fight against climate change will go on, because our lives and our children’s lives depend on it. It’s not a game we can stop playing-but we sure shouldn’t make it even harder for ourselves to win.  

Video: Bill McKibben on Faith & Fossil Fuel Divestment

By
lowkell
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0



Great stuff from one of the Americans I most admire:

The things that scientists worried about then are happening faster and on a bigger scale, on a biblical scale. Last summer, the Arctic melted. You know, it’s not a good sign when you’re taking the planet’s major physical features and breaking them…the hour is late; that’s why people are also trying to put real pressure on the companies that are pouring the carbon into the atmosphere and that are subverting our democracy to make sure nobody ever stops them…It is wrong to wreck the climate and it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage. It is not ok to pay the pastor’s retirement account or to fund the building project for the church by investing in companies that are running Genesis backward…

Bottom line: we need to divest from fossil fuel companies now. And when you pull your money out of ExxonMobil, etc., consider that there are plenty of great companies focused on energy efficiency, wind, solar, and other forms of clean energy you can invest in. Plus, you get the added bonus of being able to tell the Koch brothers and their ilk where to shove their planet-killing fossil fuels.  

Sen. Herring: Obenshain and Bell Should Condemn Comments Comparing Abortion to Slavery

By
lowkell
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0

From the Mark Herring for AG campaign.

 

HERRING CALLS ON OBENSHAIN AND BELL TO CONDEMN COMMENTS COMPARING ABORTION TO SLAVERY

Leesburg – Today State Senator Mark Herring (Loudoun & Fairfax) called on his opponents, State Senator Mark Obenshain and Delegate Rob Bell, to condemn the comments made by the president of Susan B. Anthony List Marjorie Dannenfelser and Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli comparing abortion to slavery.

“Both Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the Susan B. Anthony List have made their positions clear on women’s health care, and both are well out of the mainstream. Their outrageous comments comparing abortion to slavery are hurtful, insensitive and wrong,” Herring said.

“While Ken Cuccinelli has refused to apologize or back down from these comments, the two candidates vying to replace him have remained silent. I call on them to join me in condemning these outlandish and offensive comparisons and telling Virginians that these statements are wrong and will not be tolerated.” 

Del. David Ramadan: Extreme, Egregious, Yet Somehow Holding Down an Obama District

By
lowkell
-
4

In a contest for the worst, most extreme, wackiest, tea baggiest of the teabaggers in Richmond, it would be a tough competition. Obviously, “Sideshow Bob” and Dick Black would be high on the list for their rabid homophobia, misogyny, and total insanity. But not far behind those wackos would have to be Del. David Ramadan, who as you can see if you click on that link, has been eviscerated by the Too Conservative crew for being a “shameless self promoter” and “egomaniac extraordinaire,” for employing “disgusting, disturbing tactics,” and for being “unfit for public office.” And those are his better qualities, as far as I can determine!

Seriously, on the issues, his record is atrocious, with votes for voter suppression (via imposing a completely unnecessary, discriminatory photo ID requirement), to require women to receive an ultrasound prior to having an abortion, to repeal Virginia’s one-handgun-per-month limit, to define life as beginning at conception, to oppose Tracy Thorne-Begland for a judgeship (because Thorne-Begland is gay), etc, etc. In sum, the guy is a rabid, right-wing extremist, pretty much without exception.

If all that weren’t bad enough, check out where Ramadan gets his money. In particular, note that his #1 donor, other than the Republican Party of Virginia, is a guy named Howard Gary Heavin, who gave Ramadan $75,000. Who is Heavin? First of all, he’s from Gatesville, Texas, not from Virginia, let alone from Ramadan’s district. Second, he’s the co-founder (along with his wife) of Curves, a “chain of women-only fitness center franchises,” which claims “a passion for and commitment to women’s health.” Despite this supposed commitment to women’s health, as ThinkProgress points out, the Heavins have exerted great efforts over a long period of time “in support of policies that undermine women’s equality in the workplace and restrict women’s access to health care services.”

Gary Heavin pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars for controversial “pregnancy crisis centers” that try to talk women out of abortions and have been accused to providing false information. They also made large donations to abstinence-only education programs — programs which often misinform and make teens more likely to engage in risky behavior and become pregnant. Curves also pulled its funding for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation over its objection to the charity’s funding for Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening services. In a 2004 editorial, Mr. Heavin attacked Planned Parenthood’s sex education literature, writing “I have a 10-year-old daughter. I would absolutely not allow her to be exposed to this material. I don’t want her being taught masturbation and told that homosexuality is normal.”

That anti-choice and anti-LGBT stance was further demonstrated when Curves partnered with the American Family Association — a group that has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group.” They joined for a 2009 healthy recipe contest and sold a Curves fitness CD on the AFA’s website.  Gary Heavin has also been an outspoken enthusiast for televangelist Pat Robertson, who has blamed natural disasters on same-sex marriage equality and blamed 9/11 on abortion, the separation of church and state, and civil liberties groups.

Horrible, huh? Frighteningly, there’s a lot more where that came from, but we’ll leave that for future articles on Del. Ramadan.

What makes it particularly infuriating is that Ramadan represents a district that went for Barack Obama and Tim Kaine by 57%-43% margins, and that (according to NLS) “will be on the top of everyone’s watch list in 2013.” Also note that Ramadan squeaked by in 2011 by just 54 votes over Mike Kondratick, despite outspending Kondratick by something like a 3:1 maring. Clearly, Ramadan not only needs to be booted out of office, but he’s in a district that by all rights should boot him out of office, as long as Obama/Kaine voters turn out this November. Fortunately, we’ve got a strong candidate (John Bell) running against Ramadan, so there’s no excuse this time. This race is going to be at the top of the priority list this fall, and we all need to do whatever we can to help propel John Bell to victory. Thanks, and in advance: good riddance to David Ramadan!

Virginia Republicans Vote Overwhelmingly to Devastate America’s Economic Future

By
lowkell
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0

See below for Rep. Jim Moran’s statement on House passage – on totally partisan lines – of Paul Ryan’s “ideological” budget that benefits the wealthy and screws the rest of us big time. Guess which Virginia Congresscritters voted for this monstrosity? That’s right: Can’tor, Goodlatte, Griffith, Hurt, Rigell, Wittman, Wolf. The usual suspects, in other words. Get these guys outta here!

Congressman Jim Moran, Northern Virginia Democrat, released the following statement on H.Con.Res. 25, the Republican Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Resolution introduced by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI). The budget passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 221-207.

The budget proposed by the Republican majority today is an ideological document that lays out a path to prosperity for only the wealthiest Americans, while undermining our recovery and long term economic strength through deep cuts to investments in our infrastructure, education, and research.

The American public resoundingly rejected Paul Ryan’s ideological budget when he introduced roughly the same document last year. It would cost two million jobs next year alone, and includes more than $5 trillion in tax cuts and giveaways to the wealthiest Americans.  

The Ryan Budget devastates the federal government’s ability to invest in our nation’s future by drastically cutting social safety net programs. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 66 percent of its $5 trillion in non-defense budget cuts over ten years come from programs that serve low and moderate income Americans.

By contrast, the Democratic proposal, introduced by Rep. Van Hollen, puts 1.2 million more people to work this year than the GOP budget, invests in education, energy, research, and infrastructure.

The Ryan budget resolution reflects a Republican Party’s vision for an America where only the wealthy are given the resources and opportunities to thrive. It is a vision that has already been rejected by the American people.

Swinging for the Fences: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny- Skewed Menu, Suboptimal Diet

By
AndySchmooklerforCongress
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0



**********************************************************************

In the previous piece here on “How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny,” I spoke about the problem of externalities. (See below for a full compendium of the installments of the “Swinging for the Fences” series already presented here on Blue Virginia.)

I concluded by saying that in a market system whose blind spots are not corrected by collective/governmental decisions, “those values that get attended to in transactions between buyers and sellers get magnified in importance, and those values that fall outside the concerns of the immediate parties to the transaction will be neglected.”  And that “This leads to a society whose mix of wealth and poverty is warped and unbalanced, and suboptimal for human fulfillment.”

Here I’ll expand on that idea.

One might imagine that since we benefit from market blind spots of this sort when we are buyers and sellers, and then are injured by these blind spots when we are by-standers, perhaps the benefits and costs for each of us will cancel out. We get an extra dollar when we’re transactors, and then we lose ten cents each on the transactions in which our ten neighbors are involved.

“Unfortunately,” I write in The Illusion of Choice,

“it isn’t like that. The benefits we get from the market’s blindness do not cancel out the costs we pay. The reason is: the costs and the benefits are different in nature….

“The market system creates prices that are consistently skewed in a particular direction. It favors those values that concern us as separate actors, and it hampers us in fulfilling those needs we have as an interconnected community of people. We make dozens of decisions daily that are warped by this effective market subsidization of our social atomism: should I drive or walk to the drug store a mile away? (Don’t worry about the pollution, the market says, or our contribution to traffic congestion.) Should I use washable dishes in my fast-food restaurant or disposable paper and styrofoam. (Don’t worry about the solid waste problem or the disappearing ozone layer over the earth.)

“As social atoms, we can open the Yellow Pages and within minutes find beads from India, light fixtures of hand made stained glass, truffles from France, llama rugs from Peru. But community? [Where do we go to find that?]

“What is on the menu determines how we order our lives. The system tilts the social landscape, putting the private realm on the downhill side, while our public/community goods are uphill. One side is easy to get to-just let go. The

other side takes hard work. Over time, it is not surprising to find our choices steadily accumulating on the downhill side. Thus we find that combination, often noted in discussion: about America, of private wealth and public poverty. The market creates a society rich in its fragmented parts but poor in its organic wholeness.”

So what we gain is of one kind, and what we lose is of another-not because we choose for that tradeoff, but because the system’s inherent dynamic chooses it for us.

And there’s good reason to believe that the mix is suboptimal because getting more and more of one kind of “good” does not make up for getting less and less of another kind of “good.”

“The market does indeed help us to get rich in income… But there is another economic concept that should enter into our calculus: that of “diminishing marginal returns.” From abject poverty to reasonable comfort is an important step. But when a dollar increment of the same size takes us from real wealth, by any historical standard, to still more wealth, is the benefit so significant?

“Meanwhile, the same system that is giving us more and more of the same benefits is also imposing more and more of the same costs. And since these costs are in a different realm of our values than the benefits, but not necessarily any less important, their progressive depletion in our lives will result in the opposite of diminishing marginal returns. The more depleted is that realm, the more vital is each additional loss. For Midas, the marginal utility of gold decreased quickly while, with every hour, his inability to eat or drink, since the food and beverage turned to gold in his mouth, became increasingly important.”

The systematic bias in the system leads to a world that does not match well the full spectrum of human needs.

*******************

COMPENDIUM OF PREVIOUS ENTRIES IN THIS SERIES

The Series Is Introduced with These Entries:

Swinging for the Fences: Please Join Me in this Bold New Effort  

Swinging for the Fences: The Fable of the Magnet

The Spirit Behind “Swinging for the Fences” is the Same Spirit that’s Expressed in My Campaign Speech that Went Viral Through this Video

The First Round on the “Magnets Consisted of These:

An Unwelcome Driver of Social Evolution: The Parable of the Tribes  

Swinging for the Fences: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny  

Swinging for the Fences: Polarization as a Form of Cultural Breakdown  

Swinging for the Fences: The Transmission of Culture Through Time

Then There Were a Few Improvizational Offerings;

A Sick and Broken Spirit

Swinging for the Fences: Hunting for Very Big Game

Problems in the Religion Are Symptoms of Something Deeper

Second Round on the Four “Magnets”:

Swinging for the Fences: The Parable of the Tribes–Step One A Breakthrough Unprecedented in the History of Life

Swinging for the Fences: The Parable of the Tribes– Step Two: The Circumstances from the Human Breakthrough Make the Struggle for Power Inevitable

Swinging for the Fences: The Parable of the Tribes–Step Three: Selection for the Ways of Power

Swinging for the Fences: How the Market Economy Shapes Our Destiny– Social Atoms vs. Interconnected Society

*******************

Andy Schmookler, an award-winning author, political commentator, radio talk-show host, and teacher, was the Democratic nominee for Congress from Virginia’s 6th District.  He is the author of various books including The Parable of the Tribes:  The Problem of Power in Social Evolution.  

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