Critical Thinking...

Damien G Jackaman, Facebook

 © August 13, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

“No shoes, no shirt, no service,”

“Click it or ticket” after its implementation in 1973 dropped highway fatalities from a high down to 17%,

When working in high-risk areas, it’s advisable to wear personal protective equipment,

Before getting on a plane;

It would help if you took off your shoes, belt, laptop,

Walkthrough an x-ray machine and metal detectors,

Wear your seatbelt, and place your tray tables in an upright, locked position before landing,

 

Where are my civil libertarians?

 

Oh, yeah!

Please wear a mask,

While in the store shopping

To stem the spread of a deadly pandemic,

 

How DARE you take away my [personal] liberties and rights?

 

Please [go] fly a kite,

In a lightning storm,

With conducting wire,

Since you “don’t believe in science,”

 

Death Santis:

What the hell is a “biomedical security state?”

You had to back-the-fuck-up on the “no masks” mandates,

As will your Texas Wheelchair Nazi idiot clone,

Neither of you is going to be president,

Or governors for long,

We have this thing in 2022 called elections,

Charlie Crist in Florida,

Beto O’Rourke in Texas,

Are your replacements,

 

The Census your president slowed,

Ended early,

Reported karmically:

So-called white people are shrinking,

Probably because rural moonshiners,

Don’t trust the GUB-MINT revenuers,

There’s a simple explanation for this gap,

It might be less about sex and more about math,

Russian disinformation is capitalizing on it,

Rather than telling the truth,

To their rural constituents,

The “gang of Putin” is lying to them,

Since they’ve lost seven out of eight popular votes in presidential elections,

They’re taking their marbles home and not participating,

More willing to blow up democracy,

[Than] moderating their message,

 

Deplorable ingrates,

Yelling at medical professionals,

Trying to keep children,

Who can’t get a vaccine,

From getting sick,

Intubated,

Or dying,

Because you think William Wallace cried “free dumb.”

(That’s two words, he only said one),

They forget Will was drawn and quartered,

His kinsmen fought for freedom in his name like Scotsmen,

 

But you’re

Upset,

At a piece of cloth,

Over your nose and mouth,

Trust me: no one likes this shit,

But you’re the ones extending this pandemic,

Needlessly by not wearing it,

Or getting a FREE vaccine,

You act like you’re constantly insulted,

This fact is why we call you a death cult.

Don’t interrupt!

 

You were the same “stable geniuses.”

That wanted to open up the classrooms

Unmasked during the alpha variant,

With NO vaccine [in] sight,

When you were saying that it was all a hoax,

That it would magically “disappear.”

After November 3,

Well, Einstein,

“Reinstatement” is [apparently] a moving target,

The Delta variant is here,

What’s your “plan B?”

 

You “don’t trust what’s in the vaccines,”

But you’re in the drive-thru on Fridays at Wendy’s,

You shovel Big Macs

Like there’s no tomorrow:

“Two all-beef patties,

Special sauce,

Lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions,

On a sesame seed bun.”

Question:

What’s in the “special sauce?”

What are you swigging that’s in moonshine?

 

You “did your research.”

Ahem: I can quote chapter and verse:

 

Did you read papers,

Summarize them in a literature review,

Cross-check references,

Ask questions,

Form hypothesis,

Alternative hypothesis,

Design experiments,

Analyze results,

No? You just saw a video?

 

By definition:

 

“Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, [and/or] evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.”

 

The Foundation For Critical Thinking: Defining Critical Thinking

 

If you did none of this,

You have NO idea what critical thinking is!

The Power of Their Poverty....

© August 13, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

“You will never defeat our poverty,”

 

A Bedouin tribal chieftain said,

To Alexander the Great,

The first western power

Attempting to control the area near

The Hindu-Kush mountains,

 

He led the [greatest] fighting force in existence,

Wept when he thought,

There were no more worlds to conquer,

He could not resist the challenge,

Put down by a Bedouin,

Alexander had battering rams and catapults;

The chieftain knew the mountainous terrain,

His warriors had courage and heart,

Spears, arrows, and slingshots,

 

Guess who won?

Rumi, the experimental poet, and Sufi master, actually,

Conquered Afghanistan with words of harmony,

Overcame ignorance without firing a shot,

 

Part of a succession,

Of western powers,

That saw defeat,

Their kryptonite being

Abject stupidity and arrogance,

The British Empire tried three times before us,

 

The USA,

Is addicted to “winning,”

Starting with the Revolutionary War,

Robert E. Lee surrendered,

To Ulysses S. Grant,

At Appomattox,

We got through the War of 1812,

The other time

Adversaries stormed the Capitol,

The War to End All Wars,

Resulting in the League of Nations,

Preceded the United Nations,

And World War II,

After Fat Man and Big Boy,

Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

A sailor and a damsel’s kiss,

In Times Square,

Immortalized on Life Magazine,

We were invincible!

 

Then came South Korea,

Technically, in armistice since the 1950s,

So, you can’t say we “lost” a war,

That technically,

[Hasn’t] really ended,

 

On the heels of this,

Indochina,

Known popularly as Vietnam,

Images of helicopters,

Evacuating,

Ho Chi Min City,

Replication,

Thirty-six years later,

Near the grave of a smiling Bedouin,

 

Osama bin Laden took ideological guidance from Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, and Sayyid Qutb.

 

He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.

 

We have American y’all Qaeda zealot analogies,

 

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski,

Post our obvious defeat in Vietnam,

Suggested to President Carter,

To let the Soviet Union have a taste,

They slogged it out nine years,

Until their economy collapsed,

 

No western power has ever defeated their poverty,

The Taliban existed,

Before we entered to get Osama Bin Laden,

After 9/11,

Whom THEY offered,

Along with terms of THEIR surrender,

Meaning: we didn’t have to go get him,

We lost talent, lives, and treasure,

How many flag-draped coffins could we have avoided?

Fighting an unnecessary war,

Trillions of dollars spent,

Potholes and bridges still needing repair,

Free college, and universal healthcare,

Instead, this dysfunctional dystopia of despair,

Guantanamo would not exist,

Except for sadism and arrogance,

 

The Pentagon budget,

Which never gets cut,

Is greater than,

The combined equivalent,

Of twelve other western nations,

 

Rome fell,

When the empire,

Overextended,

Itself,

It’s why we study about it in museums,

Shakespeare penned “Julius Caesar,”

It is arrogant to believe,

We don’t have a time limit,

 

Homo sapiens is supposed to mean “wise men,”

“American exceptionalism” is a façade for bullshit,

We behave more like Homo Stultus, “stupid men,”

 

We “will never defeat their poverty,”

It sounds like a law of physics,

As inexorable as,

The Second Law of Thermodynamics,

 

Order without maintenance,

Eventually goes into chaos,

Overextended empires eventually collapse,

 

Sadly, we don’t recall George Santayana’s wisdom,

Or heed it:

“Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

Liberty and License...

 

"Rolling Coal," David Weigel, Slate

© August 8, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

There is confusion between “liberty and license.”

 

Yes, The Constitution says:

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

 

You are not being tormented when asked to put on a mask,

 

Any more than “no shirt, no shoes, no service,”

Was any worse

For your self-worth,

Your civil liberties,

Or against your “freedoms,”

 

Are you confusing freedom with privilege?

Are you so enamored with the occurrences,

Of every hero narrative looking like,

A fifties version of Charlton Heston,

In “Ben Hurr,” or “The Ten Commandments,”

You question whether it’s “fair.”

That a movie like “Black Panther” by Marvel should air?

 

Speaking of air:

We were talking about smokestacks in the 1970s,

Before you tricked out your gas-guzzling trucks,

To “own the libs,”

We pointed out,

How toxic landfills

Were located by Native Americans and people of color,

Before coining the words “environmental racism,”

The fossil fuels industry knew in the 1970s,

About climate change,

So instead of building battery-powered cars,

And the infrastructure to support it,

We got more of a disinformation campaign,

Using the same law firms that obfuscated,

The dangers of cigarette smoking,

Now, people ignore the warning labels,

Ticking off minutes they have on the planet,

With each drag and toke,

Ask the CEO of RJ Reynolds if he smokes?

Rule of thumb,

From every drug dealer:

“Never get high on your [own] supply,

That’s for the patsies you got hooked!

 

Each day,

We tick off minutes,

To life on the planet,

With climate change,

Negotiating with the same industry,

That placed us in this position in the first place,

 

Here’s a physics test:

Why is Venus so much hotter than Mercury,

Yet physically further from the sun?

Carbon dioxide and methane dragons,

Trapped heat,

Superheated the surface,

Boiling off the water,

Average temperature: nine-hundred degrees Fahrenheit,

“Once upon a time,”

Before this,

The planet named for the Goddess of Love,

[Kind of] looked like us,

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

 

You are not being tormented when asked to put on a mask,

You are not being tortured when asked,

To take a shot of a free vaccine,

That will NOT make you magnetic,

Or place chips inside your bodies to track you,

You’re confusing that with Lays and Doritos!

They’re already using your cell phones for that!

 

The shot might save your life,

Against the Delta variant,

And the other mutations left in the Greek alphabet,

 

You are not a communist, a Marxist, or a socialist to give a tinkering damn about the planet!

We’re not in “Lord of the Rings,”

Gandalf the Grey with a “planet B,”

The day saved by Bilbo Baggins,

I’m not pointing out these things to cause strife,

 

Civil Liberations should note that before the second (liberty), and the latter, happiness,

There is the prerequisite of LIFE.

Reckoning, or Ragnarok...

 

© August 4, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Asa Hutchinson regrets,

The anti-masking law he championed,

During the early days in Arkansas of the Alpha variant,

Now, he’s contending with constituents,

Who confuse liberty and license,

Delta variant raging,

Delta plus in South Korea up to bat,

 

Shouting their resistance at him behind his podium,

Asa nonplussed,

The citizens he gaslighted,

Resistant to vaccines or new knowledge,

His no-mask mandate encouraged,

As well as by governors like him,

Who used the tragedy to “own the libs.”

Instead of cheering razorbacks,

Arkansas is acting more like Arkham Asylum,

 

Death Santis has seen his polls drop,

As the Delta variant increased cases on the Florida peninsula,

Despite his falling percentages,

He’s gone for the goto migrants-at-the-border racist rant,

He’s doubled-down because

He frankly doesn’t care one wit,

And thinks his constituents are dumb as shit,

 

In Moscow Mitch’s state,

The electorate hated Obamacare,

But loved KY Connect,

Not bothering to understand,

They’re the same,

Through the Affordable Care Act,

 

You cannot have reparations without a reckoning,

Without an admittance of wrongdoing,

But that would go back to this nation’s founding,

 

European settlers identified with their home countries,

For centuries, English, Irish, Scottish, French, Belgium, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish warred with each other,

Bacon's rebellion,

Of European indentured and African slave servants,

Gave one percent landowners some concern,

They pursued a "divide, and conquer" strategy,

They had to unify the fledgling democratic republic under a new ideology:

 

White.

 

The designation happened officially in 1681,

Dr. Joseph Graves, Evolutionary Biologist wrote “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in 2003,

Jacqueline Battalora, MD, JD wrote “Birth of a White Nation” in 2013,

The opposite of white is black, brown, yellow, or red,

Like the people from Africa kidnapped,

Or the new land seized from its original inhabitants,

Or building railroads,

 

Accidental explosions birthed the words

“Not a Chinaman’s chance.”

As many who laid steel fell to their deaths,

To connect a continent,

Steeped in the racist mythology,

Of “Manifest Destiny,”

Using Race to deflect the blame for

Recklessly allowing the progression of a deadly coronavirus,

Acknowledged he knew to Bob Woodward on tape!

 

There is no scientific classification called white, red, yellow, brown, or black,

It is not supported by biological theory or fact,

[Race] is a legal construction,

To justify a four-hundred years heist of resources,

Ross Perot called it a “vast sucking sound” up to the pockets of the one percent,

We’re all humans on the same planet!

 

Do you want a Star Trek future?

Don’t stop with a NASA warp drive field test,

Don’t just “build back better”:

Build a society with a real sense of justice,

Respect for all life and people, regardless of sexual orientation, or Melanin,

 

Apply science and reason,

To perplexing problems requiring

O’thia: Vulcan reality-truth,

Not gaslighting and sloganeering,

Let’s “make lying wrong again,”

An African proverb says:

“A lie has many variations, the truth none.”

Elevate empathy,

Not sociopathy,

Cooperation,

Not competition,

Will ensure species and life continuance,

You can’t let Bezos, Branson, Musk,

And phallic symbol spacecraft,

Be the foundation of

The United Federation of Planets,

Instead of a future utopia,

That starts looking more like “The Expanse.”

Labor disputes on Mars, or the Asteroid Belt,

Resolved by cutting off air and water,

That’s WAY more efficient than Amazon propaganda posters,

Lying to intimidate workers,

We can’t take on Klingons with bat’leths,

Until we bury OUR hatchets,

We can’t sail in starships,

Until we save our planet,

 

George Jetson,

Is forty,

In the year 2062,

Meaning somewhere on the planet,

A couple is busy conceiving him,

I’d rather have,

Flying cars,

Houses on stilts,

Be architecture and technology congruent,

With living creatures underneath, we share the planet with,

Not in anticipation of

once-in-a-century flooding

Every week by climate change,

Astro walking on a treadmill,

Because there are no longer any streets or parks for dogs to play in,

 

The Earth was here

Before humanity,

The sun rose and set,

Over volcanoes and magma seas of a lifeless planet,

Before comets pummeling the planet cooled it and gave us our seas,

Before simple plants started through photosynthesis manufacturing,

The planet’s first taste of oxygen,

Evidenced by the appearance of rust,

In the fossil record,

The record also shows,

Five previous mass extinctions,

As we barrel headlong into a six,

Like a zombie death cult

Cheering apocalypse,

 

The future is an illusion,

It isn’t guaranteed,

It’s the subject of speculative fiction,

And futurism,

Its foundation is in

The decisions WE make,

Today,

“Toxic positivity” can’t “name it, and claim it,”

Or wish problems away,

 

Reckoning: the action or process of calculating or estimating something; the moment of truth,

 

Ragnarok: the final destruction of the world in the conflict between the Aesir and the powers of Hel led by Loki, the god of lies and chaos — also called Twilight of the Gods,

 

NO ONE is rich without civilization or a planet!

 

The choice is obvious:

 

Life, or death,

Order, or chaos,

Vaccines, or variants, whack-a-mole, serial pandemics,

Alternative energy, or a hotter, more lifeless planet,

That does not require humans on it to exist,

 

The choice will be acknowledging,

 

Reckoning, or Ragnarok!

Complicit...

 

Image Source: ABC NEWS 7

© August 3, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Metropolitan Police Officer Gunther Hashida joined the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in May 2003, took his life, leaving his wife and kids,

 

He responded to the insurrection on January 6,

 

Kyle DeFreytag, another MPD officer, was found dead by suicide on July 10,

 

MPD Officer Jeffrey Smith and US Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood also ended their stares into a dark abyss soon after January 6,

 

Four Capitol Police Officers have done this:

 

Tourists don’t cause suicides!

 

They are re-traumatized by the Big Lie,

Just like mass shooting survivors,

Given the feckless “thoughts and prayers,”

Serial massacres,

A Sandy Hook dad committed suicide,

Derided by lunatics

Thinking his dead daughter was one of many “crisis actors,”

Who’s hiring for that?

Can you please show a shred of evidence they exist?

Of course not!

Downplayed on Fox Propaganda,

Second amendment aficionados,

Too fat to run a mile in nine minutes,

Couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn standing in it,

Lawmakers never meeting the moment with legislation,

Just cashing the under the table checks,

From the NRA, dark money PACS, or Russian oligarchs,

Going on vacation in their gated Cul De Sacs,

 

Right-wing echo chambers,

Swing into action with a playbook,

That’s been perfected since Columbine,

And Sandy Hook,

“What about Chicago?”

Has a racist tinge,

To keep the xenophobic unhinged,

 

This is systemic sadism,

 

The trauma the American public contends with,

As bodies drop in city streets,

Fox Propaganda attacking Capitol Police,

As “crisis actors,”

Blatant liars,

Parroted by copycat minimart fascists,

Misinfo Wars, News Min, QAN and Dumb Bart,

The blood of these four men,

On ALL of their hands,

The injuries of 140 Capitol police,

They should be asked to remit,

 

The biggest advertisers on Fox News by TV ad impressions, from January 1 through July 29, 2021, per iSpot:

1. Fox News (8.5 million)

2. Balance of Nature (4.6 million)

3. Liberty Mutual (3.9 million)

4. Fox Nation (3.8 million)

5. NewDay USA (3.7 million)

6. MyPillow (2.3 million)

7. Relief Factor (2.2 million)

8. USAA (2.0 million)

9. Indeed (1.8 million)

10. Nutrisystem (1.6 million)

11. Fox (1.3 million)

12. Progressive (1.3 million)

13. Safelite Auto Glass (1.3 million)

14. Applebee’s (1.0 million)

15. ADT (1.0 million)

 

Pick a business and boycott it,

 

If you’re a customer, write them,

Ask what justifies giving money,

To outfits that push the Big Lie,

 

Do they have any evidence,

Fascism is more profitable,

Than capitalism?

How'd that work for the original Nazis?

 

Threaten if they don’t change their murderous ways,

You walk!

 

Montgomery, Alabama recanted,

Jim Crow telling African Americans,

To give up their seats to white passengers,

Or go dutifully to the back of the bus,

Not because a single racist changed their minds:

The bus company almost went bankrupt,

 

What does a DOW at 35,000

Mean

If the middle and lower class

Falls through society's seams?

Pyramids aren't held up by their apogee,

But by a solid base at the bottom,

With pathways to the middle, or top,

 

Despite Bezos, Branson, and Musk,

Joyriding space trysts,

Elysium in orbit doesn’t exist,

You would need thousands of ground crew to support it,

They would need homes and [a] stable society to work for it:

Supply chains, education, healthcare, living wages,

Once the foundation of society collapses,

The pyramid of your billions falls to ashes,

And Elysium would fall out of orbit,

 

No one cares how big your house is,

Or, that your half-billion-dollar yacht has a spare for it,

Or, you can fly in space for ten lousy minutes,

If you eventually run out of food for it,

It won’t matter what your net worth was,

If civilization is in smoldering ruin,

Your greed, and avarice,

Advertising with fascists,

Whether suicide or apocalypse,

Make you all complicit!

 

Therefore,

Before you take humanity on your "toxic positivity" trip,

Going out of business might save the human species,

And might just get your attention!