The school I went to for high school (years 7-12 of my education) taught us critical thinking from year 7 onwards and one of the first assignments was a piece written by Skinner not that I can remember what it was about now.

Yes, 12 year olds tearing the logic of Skinner to pieces. But that was our schooling, we tore politicians, philosophers, scientists, doctors to pieces...

I remember my teacher telling us how most people don't think because it is hard, and I cannot think of anything more fun to do, by myself.

The first point of propaganda is to blame someone else as this piece of propaganda reminds us. Corporations have been telling us taxes are to blame for the sheer expense of living. Of all the money I spend through the year, tax is a miniscule portion, its what I spend on corporations, ie their profit is the lion's share of what I spend. There is also this myth that everything I buy from corporations is always optional. WRONG! Medicine, clothes, food, cars, fuel, furniture, toilet paper, soap, shampoo... all come from corporations. All of it necessary.

If I want to make money, I do so from corporations, i.e. the internet, computers... all come from corporations.
Corporations impinge on every aspect of my life.

Yet corporate propaganda has us so deceived they have us all running around blaming government, where corporations themselves have so corrupted our government. Meanwhile government is still meant to fund all its agencies like the FBI...., the executive branch, the military, the judiciary... while we complain about paying taxes! I know, lets blame the poor for the few lousy pennies we throw at them. 

Meanwhile every country on earth is eating McDonalds burgers, drinking coke or pepsi, most are wearing jeans, Nikes, flying in our planes, using iPads/Phones/Apple laptops, any laptop, google, Intel chips, MicroSoft windows, watching american movies and TV shows... The fact that our corporations are making vast amounts of money from all over the world is conveniently forgotten but our country is obscenely rich and the 1% instead tell us about the free-loading poor and how bad the government is.

Our corporations are brilliantly successful at propaganda, they whitewash themselves with propaganda or as they like to say advertising and this is where Skinner comes in and one of his major influences was Pavlov, the Russian with the dogs who were trained to salivate at the sound of a ringing bell. Corporations have been using behavioural psychology on us to make us give them our money gladly.

Meanwhile our government does not employ the slick gilded suave psychological treatment that corporations deliver to us in the form of MSM advertising, instead its rather ham fisted in comparison, sending our military in when behavioural psychology could be much better employed to manage things especially with terrorism.

If corporations can get people to buy tap water in bottles, or diluted battery acid (coke) to drink why do we have to send military in to end terrorism? Corporations have people with mad psychological skillz making people buy all kinds of shit, why isn't the military using these skillz on terrorists to end terrorism?

Why because corporations are also using their behavioural psychology on government to make it act like a bull in a china shop to keep itself distinguished from corporations. Corporations are looting government and us and making government go to war in the first place so corporations can benefit.

The founding fathers hated corporations and started a revolution because of them. They made very strict rules under which corporations could act after the revolution, but corporations corrupted the government and broke lose of the yoke the founding fathers put them under.

Recently I have been thinking about redefining my political views after a number of disturbing political events.

The first was Obama signing HR 933.

The second was receiving something like 5 emails begging me for $3 and $5 from the Democrats, namely Nancy Pelosi, who comes in at 13th richest person in congress with $26m. She's asking me for money?!?!?

I wish they would stop making politics all about money. The Democrats are finally in a position to make the elections to NOT be about money yet they persist. Currently state elections might as well be auctions and the federal elections are soon to follow. But its unlikely the Democrats will substantially change anything. Isn't it about time we made the next election about helping our fellow Americans? Because what the Democrats are doing now is continuing the merry-go-round. Here's my 2c worth of a solution.

As you all know I supported Obama in the last election because he was supporting women's rights. All you guys out there are rolling your eyes with criticisms like: but babies are dying in Afghanistan and women are being killed in Yeman because of drone strikes, Bradley Manning, what about NDAA and Patriot act etc etc...

I believe in feeding my fellow humans. I believe everyone should have equal access to healthcare, education, food and shelter. If you lose your job you shouldn't have to lose your home and you shouldn't have to lose your home if some spoiled brat in Wall St gambles badly. You shouldn't lose your retirement either.

I believe we should not start wars on behalf of corporate interests. The drug war should end. Prisons should be run by the govt, not a private corporation. Utilities should be owned by the state. The state is the people. Corporations should provide things the govt doesn't provide, stuff that can be traded cheaply on a controlled market. I don't believe there will ever be a free market because of survival of the fittest. Corporations must be kept in check by the government or the people. Corporations should be only tolerated as a source of employment for the people including the owners of the corporation which should ideally be the workers who operate the corporation, a source of income in the form of taxation for the operation of the government and hence the people. They should not dictate how the government works, in fact it should be the other way around.

The US shouldn't meddle in other countries business especially not at the behest of corporations.

But US corporations are so rich that there is no reason every US citizen shouldn't living in luxury. There is plenty of money its just the 1% don't want you to have any of it.

We shouldn't forget that the American revolution happened because of corporations. The founding fathers strongly controlled corporations but somehow they broke their yoke. Furthermore, the American constitution doesn't guarantee 'capitalism' and now we see the constitution is eroding the rights of American citizens except for the 2nd amendment, where gun manufacturers benefit.

As animals, which we are, our primary function is to survive and reproduce.

We build cities to keep the wild animals out that would feast upon our puny bodies. We are hopeless at self-defense if you are looking at our claws, teeth, fangs, ability to sprint... yet we have our brains which makes us utterly formidable.

As humans we have devised money as a form of universal exchange mechanism for goods and services which is quite ingenious but there are things that it notably does not quantify and perhaps it should, those things that men get from women that money can't pay for and when they do, the women are ridiculed for accepting money for those services.

We as members of a species take a long time to develop. We take about 9months in the womb and then an additional 20 or so years to become adults. We go from utter helplessness to crawling about oblivious to all the ways we could kill ourselves. Our mother takes care of us, kept us clean, feeding us, entertaining us, teaching us language, teaching us how to use the bathroom, how to dress ourselves, playing with us, personalized care in a 24/7 job for free.

The role of motherhood is so important to our species that about half of the species DONATES the BEST years of their lives to the endeavour. That is an extremely expensive occupation for the species and I am trying to think of another species that will dedicate so many resources to raising its young apart from ant colonies and bee hives where the entire colony/hive is dedicated to the task. Emperor penguins are also dedicated to the task of raising their young but only for a year.

However, since women do not charge nor seek any compensation for the time they spend raising their kids, the task of mothering is considered worthless. This was seen most graphically under Ceaușescu where women were forced to bear children they didn't want and the children were found neglected, unable to talk, use the bathroom, feed, cloth themselves or even show love, priceless lessons taught to us by our mothers. A lesson completely forgotten by America's anti-abortion people, that if a mother is going to teach her child to love, one would assume the mother must do so willingly and not have it forced upon them.

I sometimes wonder whether women also believe motherhood is worthless. One person told me now her kids were raised she could go and do something important now. Um, raising kids is the most valuable thing you did for your children. Someone else told me her kids went to school knowing how to read and write, as if that was the most important thing she'd taught her kids. Women underestimate how valuable their work is in raising their kids and this is tragic. Women are doing the most valuable job for our species, they are raising the next generation and all else pales in comparison.

Money is what men chase for the opportunity to breed. The more money a man has the better his chances are to breed and if one woman rejects him, another will accept him because nothing makes raising children so easy as having lots of money around. This may be one of the reasons why society endeavours to keep money out of women's hands.

A man can use money to tempt a women to breed with him. A woman with money doesn't need a man beyond genetic material. She can employ people to help her raise her children, if necessary. But this would leave a pool of disconnected men. While women depend on men for money, men depend on women for love, a home and connection - men love their kids too. But a man's ability to provide income does not necessarily make him a good companion or father.

However the reality is men don't always stick around, they die, they get sick and women still need income to support themselves and their kids while raising their kids. Society has benefited too long from the generosity of women raising the next generation for free.

One of my questions has been why are women mean to each other? I wrote in June 2012 about sexist women.

Recently a friend pointed me to this spiel by Malcolm X where he discusses the difference between the field verses house negro. It is my opinion that there are many women who are the same with male authority.

There are clear cases where women are being good house Negroes. One excellent example is this woman who is in a "domestic discipline" marriage where her husband uses corporal punishment if she 'misbehaves'.

"These are the women that call their husbands names and hide things from him and just want their husbands to obey them while they respond with calling them weak and stupid. They have no idea how to act a wife should act and make their husbands feel feminized and displaced and frustrated. Then they wonder why they cheat with the first woman that boosts their confidence and validates them as MEN rather than puppets.In short they (other women) are not woman enough to HONOR their husbands with the vow of obedience and submission that they promised when they stood in front of an ordained official...."

Don't get me wrong, what goes on between consenting and willing adults in the bedroom is no-one's business but their own, but why does she assume women who don't get disciplined by their husband call their husbands names, get them to obey her or know how to act like a wife? I don't expect my husband to be a puppet. It seems to me that she is telling other women that they should be disciplined by their husbands too.

She goes on to say "I have never met a woman that knows my husband and said they didn't want a man like him."

Perhaps if these other women knew more about this woman's husband they would run a mile, yet the bottom-line seems to be that if you want to have a happy marriage, you need to be hit by your husband. There seems to be a large group of people who seem to think domestic discipline is key to a happy marriage.

The point they make is it seems to be that men feel manly when they hit their wife. And this is an awful price to pay to endure all this pain to make your husband feel like a man. Are men's egos truly so fragile?

'Christians' seem eager to practice domestic discipline too. "On a biblical sense God says a wife SHOULD submit to and obey her husband and that HE is the head of the family and God his the head of the man." Although the only reference I can find to women being submitting to their husbands was not in the gospels.

Nevertheless there does seem to be a homogenization of women. Women telling women they must be submissive to their husbands for a marriage to work. And this is the only role women can play. This is supreme sexism.

But Jesus did say the following:

I have heard a lot of Christians argue that Jesus was actually being symbolic. And perhaps he was, but then again, perhaps he wasn't.

"If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." Matt 5:29

In my opinion, Jesus is telling men, in Matt 19:12 to give up their power over others, because it is through their gender that they derive their authority over others.

Christians aren't the only ones eager to justify the beating of women.  Islam is keen as well.

The woman, in the top picture on the right, is directing her message to white non-Muslim women rather than men. It is not white women who are going to shoot her in the head if she goes to school, perform honor killings on her or her sister or kill her if she is raped by a married man, it will be Muslim men who will. Nor will non-Muslim women sew their vagina's up before she gets married to a Muslim man, it'll be her Muslim mother, presumably another good house Negro. Similarly Camaroon mothers iron the breasts of their daughters rather than training their sons not to rape (could it just be that the key to building a better society is having men learn self-control?).

I am sure that not all women are treated badly in Islam, especially those who've immigrated to tolerant western countries.

I have often complained that I don't care what women wear, so long as its her choice. If women have chosen to wear the hijab to indicate her indifference to the expectations of women's appearance, I fully support that, however, it's doubtful she'd have a choice in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

I recently found a facebook group, Muslim women against FEMEN. The problem seems to me to be that women don't tolerate other women's opinion. Again, I have no problems with any woman wearing whatever she chooses to wear so long as it is her choice. Although I must admit to liking FEMEN because of their gutsy taking off their tops. Not all of them would be accorded super model status and I admire them posing topless because of that.

It seems to me though, this is all about the men though. Women attacking each other, keeping each other in their place. Seriously, Muslim women, wearing a hajib does NOT make you equal to men. Until men wear hajibs, you are still a Muslim woman wearing a hajib.

I have had men get furious when I generalized about them. But it seems to me that women teach other women to be generic. One women is taught to be pretty much interchangeable with another woman when we are given books like Sleeping Beauty to read as young girls, we have to wait until a man wakes us up.

Not until women allow each other to express their ow individuality as men demand and expect, will women be equal to men.

ON April 25th, 2013, @BillClinton posted this photo in a tweet where he congratulated George and Laura Bush on the opening of the @TheBushCenter. He was proud Hillary and I could be there.

What a bunch of pals or cronies, I guess is what you'd call them, Barry, George, Bill, Jimmy and George senior? because there are no other living presidents that I know of.

But here I get the full meaning of what the libertarians say when they say we are being gamed. These guys belong to an elite club that you and I do not belong too.

We know, we were kinda expecting that, they are after all presidents of the US. But there I get a sense that their first loyalty is to each other and not us. And despite all that the Right say about Obama, he's a muslim, a communist, a fascist, a socialist, a whatever... he's actually one of them, just not quite a100% white.

When the 2008 primaries were happening, Obama ran a campaign with "Change" as a motto. My husband said, we only want a 'little bit' of change, not the change that may have come with Hillary Clinton. These days I am even less certain there'd be any change if Hillary Clinton had won the primaries.

In the end, little has changed. These guys belong to the same team, these guys have other peoples interests at heart, and those people belong to the 1%, not the 99%.

The NRA love telling you how dangerous a country becomes after the population has had the guns removed from the population. This is of course not true. Australia took its guns off its population and the country became much safer.

This is clearly not going to work in a country so enamoured of its guns as the US is. Gun manufacturers need their income after all. Naively, Americans think of it as their second amendment remedy. They think if the US government goes insane they'll be able to save themselves from their government, the government that controls the biggest military forces in the world.

I doubt the rag-tag people of America will be able to go against their own military. While it is possible they will all die against their military, it is doubtful the US will be able to hold onto the country in the long run. Despite Afghanistan and Iraq folding quickly to US forces, they weren't very successful at subduing the population but I have often wondered whether they are honing their skills against civilian militia by prolonging the wars in these countries in preparation, but for what?

The general US population is unprepared for large scale action against them so it makes them an easy target especially since they have little access to healthcare and the foods that the US govt permit its people is making them sick and fat thus they become even easier targets.

The reality is there is not enough mental healthcare available to weed out the people responsible for taking guns into school, cinemas, work, where ever to suicide by rampage.

The other major cause of gun fatalities is the drug war, and possibly ending the drug war would prevent many of them.

I don't usually engage in these debates and if I do I usually say all women should have guns.

Women having guns may help women against rapists, but honestly if I was being raped, I would prefer to taser the guy. I don't want the added complication of whether I murdered someone who was trying to assault me. I just don't want to be raped. And personally I don't like the stand your ground laws.

But the above cartoon has some chilling statistics on guns in the home. In my post about domestic violence,  more women have died at the hands of their partners than all the people who have died in the war on terror.

However, the US military gives soldiers intense training before they are given guns. I don't understand why the same isn't required of people wanting to buy guns, kind of like the requirement to learn how to drive a car before getting a driving license. Also before buying a gun, you should be required to submit to a mental examination to find out whether you are abusing your wife or likely to go on a killing rampage before being allowed to even do the required training course. Gun licenses should be renewed every year and each person should be re-evaluated each year to see whether they are still mentally fit to own and use the gun.

Each gun you own should require a separate license.

On the 26th of March, 2013 Obama signed into law HR 933 making it illegal to sue Monsanto.

For Monsanto to seek this kind of protection is a clear indication that they know their products are bad.

What is worse now is that Monsanto won't test their products at all before racing them to market.

Finally, now that Monsanto has this advantage, every other corporation will be seeking the same advantage and suing corporations was pretty much the last check we had on corporations available to the average person.

Obama has obviously quite in bed with Monsanto given that he put a former Monsanto executive in-charge of the FDA. Also the Democrats sided against the labelling of GMOs in food products in California's proposition 37 in the 2012 election. No doubt if the label had been applied consumers would have voted with their dollars like they did with rBST hormones in dairy. When I arrived in California milk from cows treated with rBST was common enough, now its nearly impossible to buy or find. Monsanto, once bitten twice shy, pumped millions of dollars into spruiking against proposition 37. Interestingly Obama promised to have GMO food labelled while on the election trail.

Monsanto produce awful products and they know it because they don't even serve GMO food in their own cafeteria.

What I find despicable is that Obama used the cover of DOMA outrage to sign HR 933. Obama signed the famous NDAA on New Years Eve. Obama could have said something about Monsanto getting this rider on HR 933, but he didn't. 

In a past life I taught data comms to college kids. And one of the things I taught was LAN (local area network) protocols. One of the famous protocols is CSMA/CD known by many names.

Why its outta control is that each actor is totally autonomous. Each entity on the LAN needs to figure out for itself whether it should be sending a message. It listens to the medium (carrier sense) to see if anyone else is talking. If there is silence it starts transmitting (only if it has data to send) at the speed of an electron wave propagating down wire (there are wireless versions amongst others).

This was the solution developed by universities under government funded grants for the original DARPA net that the internet we now have evolved from. Nevertheless, CSMA/CD is alive and well and still working on a LAN near you.

So CSMA/CD is what the government funded, a LAN, likely if you have a wireless network at home, like pretty much everyone in our neighborhood has, you are using CSMA/CD.

However the LAN developed by IBM, token ring, suffered a more tragic fate.

IBM developed their own LAN protocol, (also funded by the government with tax breaks and possibly grants). It was clunky, expensive, inefficient as hell and dictatorial. Basically you need to employ someone trained to manage your token ring, dedicate a computer to the task and it is controlling - basically, each computer is told when, by the master computer, it can talk and it prioritizes who can talk and when.

Unless you are a diehard IBM geek, which pretty much carries no cache, you wouldn't use it and if you did use it today you'd probably be laughed out of town by anyone who knows anything about data comms including those in red states voters. Basically token ring won the Darwin awards for LAN protocols.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

After over a year of knowing libertarians I have pushed to figure out their vision of society - and if you corner some of them they say there should be a small, good accountable government. It is not clear, however, how that government would be different from existing governments.

The principal difference with the society is that it is meant to be kept in check by people with pitchforks. I suspect that's what the founding fathers envisioned for the US, but television distracted the population and people are now more concerned about reality television, than reality.

We know that libertarians distinguish themselves from anarcho-types who hate the state, although they feel they are kindred spirits.

From what I understand, I think the government they envision is essentially a local, small area government. It is unclear what this government's function would be or how it would be funded, because we know they hate tax.

As far as I can gather, the government wouldn't provide any social security, food stamps, welfare... because some libertarians believe this is what community should provide. In other words, its up to our neighbours and loved ones to take care of that, and there doesn't seem like there is any safe-guards in case they can't. It is not clear what happens to people if they leave the community. It is also unclear whether there are any police, jails and a legal system. Although I suspect a legal system would be based on negotiation for dispute resolution.

Education would be privately funded and if you have bright but poor children they would miss out I think, unless you can teach them yourself.

Common property is managed according to Ostrom according to some. I am not sure if this is limited to air, water, forests, natural resources, land or whether it might extend to the economy, a justice system, healthcare or food as well.

We know there are some libertarians who like Amish societies and communes, although it is unclear what happens if one wishes, say, to move from the commune that is New York to San Francisco's commune, especially if you have no connections to remote communes (I always wondered how communes worked on large scale). How exchange rates would be managed between communes or even if there would be money in libertarian world, but I suspect there probably would be.

There would be corporations but there would be no limited liability but I am not sure if there would be a military.

As you can see, these changes to society are not merely cosmetic but require much thought instead of large brush strokes for them to be taken seriously. And although I have strived for over a year to understand the nuances of the libertarian world view it is not easy to wade through blogs that read like legal documents.

This is my good faith attempt to draw a picture of what I understand libertarian world to look like.

Let me state first and foremost I am left. I will never vote right, probably for as long as I live.

In 2008, there was no choice, the Republicans had to go and whoever the Democrats put up was going to win.

In 2012, it was pretty much the same although it seemed that the GOP had no idea they were going to lose. Women's rights had been too much of an issue with me for me to support anyone but the Democrats. But on that note, I live in California so it doesn't matter which election it is, the Democrats will be holding the state.

I believe in the people, and never more so than in 2012 when they resoundingly voted against the insanity that is the GOP. I believe in affordable healthcare for all, good education for all, a safety net for when people lose their jobs, retirement funds, people not losing their homes because of bank greed and because Wall St like gambling.

Obama defended women's rights and I appreciate that. Obama did something towards fixing healthcare - how good the solution is, is possibly debatable. But I say its a start because the healthcare system was dire in the US. I think he did something about college debt and he did a few things to stimulate the economy for average Americans but I haven't heard how successful his plans for people with underwater mortgages worked with banks.

Unfortunately Obama had his hands tied behind his back most of the time by the GOP. The GOP believed Clinton when he said 'Its the economy, stupid'. The GOP believed the people have the attention span of gnats and thought we couldn't see them hamstringing Obama while demanding endless cuts while refusing to raise taxes.

Beyond the reality issues that the GOP are dealing with, they have some serious internal issues. Libertarians are seriously feeling under whelmed about being represented by the GOP. Apparently, Romney's choice of Paul Ryan, his nod towards libertarians, was as insulting as MacCains choice of Palin was for most women in 2008. (In my opinion, I wasn't insulted by Palin despite being totally unwilling to vote for her - true equality will be when all women can express whatever opinion they choose - and respected as any man can express whatever opinion he chooses.)

To cut a long story short, GOP are writing themselves off for the 2016 election too, with serious splits within their own party, and a belligerent disrespect for reality. They gutted the US economy while W was in office with dropping tax rates, oil subsidies and pork barrelling all their cronies, they started 2 wars, one totally illegally, then there was the patriot act and TSA, torture...

So isn't it time we start asking Obama for some of those things he promised us?

I would ask for the wars to stop. He didn't start the wars, I know that. A plan to get out of Afghanistan would be excellent.
An end of drones.
And an end to the war on terror including TSA, NDAA and patriot act.
Throw some of these Wall St dudes in jail. I am so sorry Obama didn't throw Bush and Cheney in prison, as it would have restored the credibility of the US if Obama had done that.
End the war on drugs.
Stop messing with other countries.
Raise taxes.
Protect social security.

Isn't it time we started fixing America?