Summary < Common Planet → A New Game of Life

Common Planet

Cover picture and text layout by Remzi Bajrami. This pdf version of this book is free and is offered under a ‘creative commons’ license; specifically an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (cc by-nc-sa 4.0) license. This means that you are free to share and use anything herein, to modify and propagate it, provided that you also ‘share alike’ with the same license. It does not permit commercial use though because I still live in Game A and still need some money from it, so if you plan to print this book and make money from it, please don’t. It is available in print on Amazon.

CommonPlanet.com

ISBN:

COMMON PLANET

A New Game of Life

By: Remzi Bajrami

ADDRESSED TO THE

INHABITANTS

EARTH

On the following interesting

SUBJECTS

Of Universal Human Rights

Of the Security of Life

Thoughts on Universal & Contributory Value

Of the present ability of Humanity,

with Collective Production & Commons Resources

“Man knows no Master save creating Heaven,

Or those whom choice and common good ordain.”

- Thomson

“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power, the (Corporations) support and corrupt all the (Nations) in what (both) call Theirs, and as the good people of this world are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either.

The cause of (Earth) is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a (Planet) desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling.”^[1]

To my family, friends

and to all species

past and present.

In memory of David Graeber.

CONTENTS

	Acknowledgements	xi
	Introduction by Adelina Bajrami	xiii
1	What Kind of World Do You Want To Live In?	1
2	A Brief History of Game A	41
3	Common Planet	116
4	Sovereignty	142
5	Opportunity	175
6	Liberty	215
7	Transition	237

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As the author, I wish to thank every person with whom I’ve ever connected with in this world. This contribution was made possible entirely because of your influence and from the vast wealth of information and knowledge produced by our ancestors and the billions alive today. To this human experiment, I wish to reciprocate and share what I’ve learned, in hopes that we may prosper on our journey together in this universe.

First, I’d like to thank my incredible parents: Mesude and Bajram Bajrami for their self-sacrificing support and patience for this work. Their struggle formed the foundation on which my life was built. We’re all perched atop the proverbial ‘shoulders of giants’. And in my case, my father is my giant.
Next, a debt of incredible gratitude to my love Ardijana, my life partner and best friend. With all of my love in dedication also to: my adult kids, brother, cousins, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and friends. Thank you all.

A special thank you to Lisa Bloniarz for the hundreds of hours of conversations exploring the territory with me. I learned a lot from you. You must know how much I benefited from the confidence you built in me.

Lastly, I’d like to thank people from the past and present that have had some influence in this work (listed in no particular order): Isni Bajrami

Terrance McKenna, Yuval Harari, Ezra Bowen, John K. Galbraith

Joan Robinson, Buckminster Fuller, Jacque Fresco, Martin Luther King Jr.

Thorstein Veblen, James Baldwin, David Graeber, Rutger Bregman

Jason Hickel, Richard Wolff, David Harvey, Dan Ariely, John Perkins

Naomi Klein, Colin Turner, Nick Chugg, David Campbell, Alastair Lord

Tony Seba, Paul Ehrlich, Kate Raworth, Steve Keen, Mariana Mazzucato

Stephanie Kelton, Guy Standing, Yanis Varoufakis, William McDonough

Troy Wiley, Jim O’Reilly, Gar Alperavitz, Elinor Ostrom, Chris Hedges

Daniel Christian Wahl, Ralph Nader, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell

Thomas Paine, Daniel Quinn, Cornel West, Bret Weinstein, Eric Weinstein

Peter Schurman, David Korten, Bill McKibben, George Monbiot

Shimshon Bichler, Jonathan Nitzan, Thomas Greco Jr., Robert Schram

Blair Fix, Arash Kolahi, Oshan Jarow, Norm Kurland, Russell Roberts

Anand Giridharadas, Malcolm Gladwell, Marianne Williamson, Peter Joseph

Caitlin Johnstone, Arthur Brock, Ferananda Ibarra, Giorgos Kallis

Tyler Patterson, Vinay Gupta, Kylie Stedman, Jubilee Briscoe, Anton Wilson

Raymond Powell, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Jordan Hall, John Vervaeke

Hanzi Freinacht, Douglas Rushkoff, Gregory Rawlins, Michael Linton

Asatar Bair, Brent Cooper, Jim Rutt, Wayne Lewis, JoNell Homer

David Fuller, Nora Bateson, Bonnitta Roy, Michel Bauwens, Ken Wilber Charles Eisenstein, Vandana Shiva, David Bollier, George Pór, Stef Kuypers

Nathan Waters, John Ash, Orkun Baysal, Guillermo Martin, Nils Semmler

Bentley Davis, David Roviks, Mark Nadal, Spencer Winans, Perry Gruber

“John” (JEWL), Brett Scott, Rob Konrad, Scott Santens, Todd McKissick

George Mekhail, Gary Chartier, Charles Johnson, Nathan Robinson

Jeffrey Anthony, Nick Estes, Michael Kubler, Joe Brewer, Michael Hudson

Oshan Jarow, Warren Mosler, John Boik, Steve Grumbine,

INTRODUCTION

by Adelina Bajrami

Early 2016 email from Remzi: “Write a two page introduction to our plan.”

My reply: So I still don’t really know what you’re asking me to write about. What do you mean by “plan”?

I have some questions: (sidenote: When I say “we,” I refer to a general we, we as in the people)

So, what’s going to happen to government? Who’s going to govern the people? Will we have any formal leadership? How is that all going to work? What does “real” democracy look like?
The basis of EarthVote is to actually get the entire Earth to vote, but how?
This might be too far into the future, but if we are able to accomplish our goal- you know, giving the power back to the people, revolutionizing the system, etc.- what are we to do with existing landfills, polluted waters/soil, destroyed habitats, and other difficulties relating to the environment? We could revitalize forests and the like by planting trees, but trees take a long time to grow. The necessity for vegetation is great, so there is always nothing wrong with planting stuff, but that’s definitely not a quick solution. There are also existing ways to purify water, so we shouldn’t be having a water predicament either. Everyone should have access to clean, safe water; it is unjust to deprive people of the most vital component of survival, and it is just as criminal to purposely contaminate good water. But landfills, though? What do you propose we do about that? How can we eliminate the billions of accumulated waste without further damaging the planet? How about restoring habitats?
What would a transition look like? How long would it take? How could we get everyone to contribute to a switch?
Side thought: Imagine how cool the world would be with new technology. Like 3D printers- those things are my favorite. At this point, we can create almost anything with a 3D printer; this is one of many inventions that are changing the way we do stuff in society.
Okay, so this isn’t a question either, but a thought to consider: Right now we have a food crisis, but I feel as if I shouldn’t be too worried about supplying food to people in the future with all these advancements in science and- don’t bash-the genetic modification of food to thrive in different conditions. Genetically altering a food item isn’t BAD, like many people claim it is. The only thing bad about adding science experimentation to our food (in our current situation) is that a lot of it is under corporate control, so we are completely unsure of what the frick is being put in our food.

Late 2016: My Introduction

There are problems in this world: greed, war, ecological destruction, crime, oppression, abuse, addiction, mental illness, suicide; that list is too long.

We all know what is needed: an alternative system. But they say there is no alternative. That is a lie. Here’s a plan to solve all problems.

Utopia. I actually hesitate to say this. Utopia is certainly not the right word, is it? Maybe not, but what we’ve got on our hands is a good start— a great start— that will surely inspire people out there to rise up and get their voice heard. Our glorious plan will light a spark that will rapidly spread and grow to a flame, and then transform into a bigger and bigger fire, sweeping the planet until it has reached the span of the entire population, igniting within every human being a flare of emotions, whether it be hope, fear, or rage. People are going to feel something, and that is what we want. We need people to at least be aware of what is going on before we can really begin impacting change. So, what is our so-called glorious plan?

Well, first something we need to recognize and understand is our current situation. Let’s just focus on housing for a moment. Right now, we have an abundance of housing, but we continue to build more and more living spaces. We tear down trees and habitats to make space for houses that will remain vacant until a person or people come along with the sufficient means to purchase or rent the house. Not to mention, there are plenty of existing apartments that are permanently empty and will doubtably be used by anyone anytime soon. What I am getting at is we have enough living space for pretty much every human on this planet, really. There isn’t any reason why we should have a homeless population when we could easily provide these people with a safer place to live. The issue at hand is money, of course; that is the only thing holding us back.

Housing is just one aspect of our messed up system, but I want to highlight the last thing I just mentioned: money. Money is essentially the root of our problems; and not-so coincidentally the root of our plan. Before I begin on laying out this plan, there are a couple things to keep in mind. For one, our plan neutralises money’s power. Secondly, our plan is a great deal to take in, so it will sound crazy upon the initial reading. But I assure you, it is anything but.

So, money. The current system is powered by money. It is well known that money leads to greed and greed leads to other evil things and in turn creates a whole spiral of crap in which we fall into and can’t get out of. We spend a lot of time avoiding stepping into dog waste, but why is it we’ve never used the same precaution with the crap money constantly pumps out? Do we really want to live in a world where we are perpetually stuck in the center of a pile of crap? Ew, no way, that’s gross, unsanitary. Yuck. No, we want to get away from this system. How? Simple: get rid of money. That’s blasphemy, you say? Well, I say that’s genius!

So now we just got rid of money. In our plan, we present the idea of Credit. Okay, so the name isn’t perfect, but it’s an idea- just focus on the concept and then we can deal with the name if the need arises. Credit is currency everyone gets automatically every month and something everyone earns more of simply by contributing in their community. To ease any confusion, I must mention something I failed to do earlier on: the plan consists of a completely remodeled society, so everything you understand of how the world works now you must forget, throw out the window or into a fire. For in our plan, people don’t work countless hours in useless jobs, they work whenever they want in circumstances they will enjoy. For in our plan, we can share and learn information with each other freely and collectively. And for everything we contribute, we will earn an amount of Credit we can use to obtain something of necessity or pleasure.

Let’s go back to housing again for a moment. Previously I stated that we have an abundance of houses and apartments and other living spaces for anyone who wants or needs to use them. Since we’ve gotten rid of money, everyone now has the opportunity to live wherever they please for however long they please. In this new society, we do not have debts either, so you will be the caretaker of your living space free and clear. That’s how it should be, correct? Everyone deserves the right to a comfortable, safe shelter, yes? This is what we want to see in our plan.

To summarize thus far, we’ve destroyed money, replaced it with Credit, and offered guaranteed housing. Some other free things include school, information, food and water. Some things you might still be confused about: travel, government, global warming, and technology, and maybe Credit. Well, I only have two pages, so it is impossible to outline every single detail of our plan; I am only speaking in general terms for now. To appease a few lingering questions, climate change will be much easier to address with the abandonment of money because corporations will no longer be drilling into earth or releasing poison into our water or our air for their own private gain. We can finally begin the transition into a society less dependent on fossil fuel because it will no longer require bucket loads of money. We will finally be able to live in a peaceful world because war will no longer be “necessary.” What will there be to fight over? We will finally be able to recognize everyone’s basic human rights and honor everyone’s status as a human being. Although not blood related, you are my brother (or sister) and so is everyone else around you. We were all born on this planet and deserve the same amount of basic respect. Since the planet is our home, it is our responsibility to protect and take care of it. It is also our duty to live in harmony with other species and wildlife for they are a part of the wonder that is Earth. We live in a world where we are always competing for everything, and it’s only hurting us more than anything. It is time to change.

The plan isn’t perfect, and there is always room for improvement; but it is a start- and a good one I might add. Too often in revolutions do we see failure as the people did not have a clear picture of what they truly desired. Now it is time to begin and finish a revolution across the globe and ultimately succeed. No more capitalism, no more communism, no more dictatorships, no more socialism, no more fascism- we need something new and we need it now or else we really are screwed. I’m sick of always being stuck in this crap pile: I want out. And so do you, most likely. I just want to live a life where I can read and write and travel in peace without having to worry about working for nothing for some old white dudes. Enough is enough. I’m done.

So there you have it: your gosh darn two pages. I honestly wrote and rewrote the beginning so many times so that’s whatever. Anyway, I still feel as if I did not say everything I wanted to say but like I said in those two pages I was just speaking generally. And my audience is anyone unfamiliar with what we were doing.

Chapter 1

What Kind of World Do You Want To Live In?

“Create a place for people to live like human beings, instead of slaves to some bullshit concept of progress that is driving us all mad.” - Hunter S. Thompson

This is a book of hope. It is about a vision of a new game of life conceived in 2015 during the most depressing and challenging period of my life. Driven out of desperation to find an alternative to the incessant inequality and instability of our economic system led to questions which led to answers which lead to solutions.

The purpose of this book and the primary objective of Common Planet is to introduce to the world an alternative global economic protocol designed to meet the basic needs and maximum desires of all people within a sustainable biosphere. It’s basically a foundational economic blueprint for how we can work together to solve all of our problems without killing each other: to begin real Civilization.

We do this by changing the game of money and property, resulting in Sovereignty, Opportunity and Liberty for each person on the planet.

So this is a new socio-economic innovation of the monetary system which enables economic fairness leading to social cohesion, democratic participation and environmental sustainability. We call it a Flow currency system, in contrast to the traditional Circulatory currency system now in play. It’s an evolution of economics which ends poverty, homelessness and war by eliminating the need for banks, debt and taxes forever!

Indeed, these are some bold and seemingly ridiculous claims, notwithstanding, you’ll soon read about how.

How money is created and directed is the crux of our problems. Money is the most powerful tool in the history of the world and yet is also the least understood. How money works is concealed behind a veil of complexity, muddled by disinformation and covered in secrecy. In the comprehensive classic 1973 book Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, John Kenneth Galbraith exposes how “The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.” Money was purposely shaped to become the ultimate tool of power that it is today and now it's time for us to reshape it into a tool for peace and prosperity.

The economic system we’ve inherited evolved from an expanding industrial system and it is no longer fit for purpose. It never really was. It is based on a primitive notion of ownership, that of private enclosure, and uses the simple equation of profit through trade. It’s justified based on the childish premise of ‘finders keepers, losers weepers’, which itself evolved into the equally childish premise of the ‘divine right of Kings’. Today, money is our master. The divine right of capital is the law of the land everywhere.

What we think of as economics is based on the concept of trade, which is based on the concept of ownership of things that can be traded. In the game of life today, it is only through trade that value can be realized. Over time, financial tools, like currency, emerged to measure value and to command all the resources of the planet, including human activity, toward the perpetual production of material goods from the physical world because the drive for profit fuels the race to produce more stuff for trade. That is the equation of today’s economics.
What is traded? Property.^[2] What is Property? At its most basic, Property is any thing of value^[3]. It can be physical or abstract. Land, buildings, houses, equipment, cars, plants, animals, people (labor), money, stocks, bonds, jewelry, art, patents, copyrights, intellectual property, crypto currencies and non-fungible tokens (NFT) are all examples of Property: any thing of value.

Throughout this book, I will make reference to ‘Game A’^[4]: to own Property for value extraction or value appreciation. Essentially, the game is to acquire as much Property as possible for its value.

There are three different kinds of players: People, Corporations and Nations and they are all perpetually in pursuit of more Property. The value of any player is something called net worth, which is exactly the sum total value of all Property they own. All the players compete with one another over Property and are ranked by net worth.

Leo Tolstoy’s remarks on Property sums up the Game A world perfectly:

States and governments intrigue and go to war for property. Bankers, traders, manufacturers, and landowners work, scheme, and torment themselves and others for property; officials and artisans struggle, cheat, oppress and suffer for the sake of property; our Law Courts and police defend property; our penal settlements and prisons and all the horrors of our so-called repression of crime, exist on account of property. Property is the root of all evil, and the division and safeguarding of property occupies the whole world.^[5]

Adam Smith, the so-called ‘father of economics’, described the right to trade Property as the defining feature of capitalism. Innovations in science and technology made trade a more valuable part of the economy and thus capitalism advanced first by navigation at sea then by the harnessing of steam and electric power in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which fueled a massive expansion in trade. Today, trade is still the giant global game and “the division and safeguarding of property occupies the whole world.”

Humans have throughout recent history mostly been playing variations of this same game: to trade Property for maximum value (profit). Much of it has to do with natural laws and biology, however, the role of humans is continually obscured to hide the truth. But it should be no mystery that people have designed and continue to shape many of its rules. One of my favorite authors, the late David Graeber, reminds us that “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it’s something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

Change is inevitable. The world is constantly transforming, but while change is constant, the rate at which things change is not. Our population and technological advances are expanding exponentially, and the adjustments we absolutely need to make won’t come for a while, or maybe even not at all, if we continue to live the way we do. In fact, if we keep going on this way, we will continue to see more harmful happenings occur rather than positive ones.^[6] So this is our task: to fashion an entirely new game of life in which all humans on Earth can live in an environment of opportunity and autonomy rather than oppression and domination.

All life depends on Property and economics is the study of the management of Property. Property is life. How Property continues to be managed today can be said to be evil. What else do you call increasing inequality and perpetual poverty amidst escalating ecological destruction? Property is a necessity for life, for continuation of game play, but what is private vs common is misunderstood, misidentified and misallocated all because we’ve confused prices for value. The value of a person should never have been measured by the prices of trading Property. In the beginning Property was scarce, but that is no longer a major concern. Today, our problems are inefficiency, corruption and intentional bad policy.

Common Planet is a new global economic game where every person gets access to housing for life, monthly UBI of Credit currency and more Credit every time they learn, play or work. All commercial land, properties and resources become the commons, accounted for and listed in networked, Holochain databases. Corporations and government agencies transform operations into co-ops with free lease to their equipment and properties. Workers are paid directly with Credit as mentioned. Bonus Credit is awarded to workers in Enterprises based on new ‘profit’ measures oriented toward producing the best possible products in the best possible ways that benefit the real stakeholders: workers, consumers and society. Credit flows to all and all use it to acquire goods produced from the commons which then turn into private personal possessions. Credit is a Flow currency, not circulatory like money, so it is created when earned and deleted when used.

That’s just a broad overview to give you a sense of what this is all about. It may sound fantastic and unbelievable right now but after chapter six you’ll have a clear understanding of how all this relates to real life.

“We live in capitalism,” said the great Ursula K. Le Guin, “Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”^[7] It will take a lot of words and a lot of voices. This new global canvas will require artists of all kinds to spread the message, to build the new world. So that soon we may all dance in a world of our choosing. I'm looking forward to others’ contributions.

Game A: Trade. All value comes from trading.

To extract value by trading Property. It is a rivalrous, win/lose game using money that is created by banks who get it as free credit but issue it as interest-bearing debt (Property) to Nations, Corporations and people, who then use it to value and exchange all the Property on Earth. Only Property is valuable.

Common Planet: Contribute. All value comes from contributions.

To create value by managing Property as stewards, not owners. Credit flows directly to all people, who then use it to satisfy their needs and desires in the open market of goods produced from the Commons. People are valuable.

According to all economic theory, ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA) to economic growth. Unfortunately, economic growth means continued ecological destruction. Author Naomi Klein writes a lot about the practices of business and how “our economy is at war with the many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.”

“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do,” cautions Wendell Berry.

Over 15,000 scientists from 184 countries issued a second dire warning to humanity in 2017. They show how the overconsumption of the world’s resources is leading us to “widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss.” Time is running out, they warned: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”^[8]

More recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released its sixth report in August 2021 using words like “unequivocal”, “unprecedented” and “irreversible.”^[9] Things are not going well. On August 14, 2021, at Summit Station, the highest point in elevation (3,216m or 10,551 ft), on the Greenland Ice Sheet which is basically the coldest location in the Northern Hemisphere, it rained for the first time ever!^[10]

Not all economic growth is inherently destructive. However, the current metric we use, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), makes no distinctions on which production processes are sustainable and which are harmful. It’s all considered ‘economic growth’. We cannot continue to be willfully ignorant and allow ecological destruction to continue because of old economic thinking and entrenched power. “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist,” remarked Kenneth Boulding, co-founder of General Systems Theory.

In March 1968, Robert (Bobby) Kennedy, while running for President, gave this speech highly critical of measuring value based on prices of goods:

If we judge the United States of America by that— that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.^[11]

The solution, of course, is to build an economy that is geared toward well-being— toward economic development— rather than economic growth. Some say we’ve already passed the tipping point. Let's hope not. The architect, inventor and futurist Buckminster Fuller offered us this hope and warning in 1981:

To know now what we could never have known before 1969—that we now have an option for all humanity to "make it" successfully on this planet in this lifetime—is not to be optimistic. It is only a validation of hope... Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment. The race is between a better-informed, hopefully inspired young world versus a running-scared, misinformedly brain-conditioned, older world. Humanity is in "final exam" as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe.^[12] Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction.^[13]

If, for well over half a century— longer than me and most people alive today— we’ve had the necessary technology and scientific knowledge to provide every person with the material conditions for a prosperous and sustainable society, why all this inefficiency, suffering and waste?

The civil rights movement of the 1960s advanced the cause of racial equality in America, and while it wasn’t tolerated it was ultimately accepted because they knew as long as they controlled Property with the laws, the police and the courts, power would be maintained. Just like John Daniel Ehrlichman, counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon told us: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

Make something illegal then use force to justify the non-crime crime. This is common knowledge. Ayn Rand wrote about this in her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged: “There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” In this way, policing became a bigger tool for social control, and it’s only gotten worse since.

In the 1960s, the United States incarcerated its population at a rate that was comparable to other developed countries. Today, America ranks among the most punitive states in world history. Black men born between 1965 and 1969 have been more likely to go to prison than to graduate from college. American punishment is thus of unprecedented severity — more prisoners per capita than ever before, and more so than any comparable country in world history. It is also characterized by extreme inequality — some Americans are much more likely to languish in prisons than others. These are its twin features.^[14]

It is only power over Property the rich have ever cared about, and so as soon as talk began about poverty, inequality and the unfairness of economics, so too did the killing. They had already killed Bobby’s brother JFK in 1963, then just a few weeks after Bobby’s 1968 speech, Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) was shot and killed, and two months later Bobby was shot and killed too.

In a 1967 speech titled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” MLK linked poverty to the failure of capitalism: “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” They murdered MLK for daring to challenge power, and every year since have continued to suppress, repress and murder thousands of people all over the world without pause.^[15] All of this evil is 100% driven by our amoral economic game.

If not for a lack of tools or brains, then our failures to protect human health and the environment must stem from our dysfunctional socio-economic system. As highly social animals, above all, we value fairness and seek cooperation. Why then have we locked ourselves into this perpetual war over the resources of the planet? Make no mistake, it’s a game of power and it’s deep rooted in Property.

Players lie, steal and kill to compete for economic advantage. Everybody knows we have no choice but to compete for Property, that the game we are playing is unfair, rigged and built on lies and secrets to hide the theft and plunder of the past. Much of who owns what, how and how much is secret. For her role in exposing some of the truth in the 2016 release of the Panama Papers^[16] they killed Daphne C. Galizia, the journalist from Malta, in a car bomb triggered via text by some paid goons who were on a boat out at sea.

Now there is another leak, called the Pandora Papers, which, unlike the Panama Papers with data drawn from just one law firm, “this new material includes records from 14 separate financial-services entities operating in countries and territories including Switzerland, Singapore, Cyprus, Belize and the British Virgin Islands. The files detail more than 29,000 offshore accounts, more than double the number identified in the Panama Papers. Among the account owners are more than 130 people listed as billionaires by Forbes magazine and more than 330 public officials in over 90 countries and territories, twice the number found in the Panama documents.”^[17]

Who was responsible for this latest leak? Journalist Benjamin Norton, in a Twitter thread claims it’s just the CIA playing Game A information warfare:

...the so-called “leak” was likely a hack by US spy agencies. The “journalists” in Nicaragua that billionaire-funded @ICIJorg worked with on the Pandora Papers are all US govt-funded anti-Sandinista activists. The goal of these right-wing opposition activists was to show how Venezuela found ways to get around illegal US sanctions, and portray that as “corruption.” That's not journalism; it's US govt-sponsored information warfare to justify a murderous blockade. The message? Evading illegal US sanctions = “corruption.” There are ZERO US politicians in the Pandora Papers, but there are 1200 Venezuelans. No major US assets were hurt by the Pandora Papers.^[18]

I’m all for transparency but selective transparency is gamesmanship. Author Max Borders says “We’re living in an information Hall of Mirrors. That means everything we consume — whether articles, memes, videos, or the nightly news — should invite our suspicion. It’s hard to tell what’s true anymore. Journalism has devolved from being a truth-tracking enterprise into a mechanism of behavioral control by powerful elites.”^[19]

Information is power so this isn’t a surprise. After all, disinformation is one of the most powerful tactics in this rivalrous game.