Several weeks ago, in the wake of the Charlottesville tragedy, I offered my opinion on the debate at the heart of it: the presence or removal from public spaces of monuments to the Confederacy and the "Lost Cause" it attempted to protect and vindicate. At the time, I offered the opinion that any so-called "free speech" issue inherently raised by this debate was a matter largely resolvable by the application of the maximum that context is all, especially when the "all" in question consists of cultural artifacts. You can see my post on this subject here, in full.
I'll use a few lines here to expound on my views as expressed in the earlier post.
The purpose of placing a monument in a public space is typically to honor the people, organization or event that forms the subject matter of the monument. A monument may, or may not, be a great work of art, or even a work of art, period. But it is, in fact, meant to serve as an honor. And, like it or not, societies do not build monuments to those who stood in opposition to it, especially through war. The reality of the Civil War is the following: the North won, the Confederate states were re-admitted to the Union as part of the United States of America, and slavery was abolished. Since the end of the Civil War, we have gone forward as one nation. That fact is the true "heritage" to come out of the Civil War, not the attempt of a morally bankrupt kleptocracy to form its own nation.
Having said that, I must also acknowledge the fact that there is a cultural consideration as well. Many of the Confederate monuments in question are statutes and, as such, constitute works of art, however primitive their creation. A large number of the monuments in question were mass-produced from molds and using cheap materials, which might call into some degree of question their merits as works of art. But, for my purposes, I'm happy to waive that point. That is at least in part because there are simple ways of resolving this debate: either move the monuments to private locations at museums or historical societies, where many appropriate ways to provide context exist, or to leave them in place and provide context on the spot, perhaps with signs, additional monuments, or other methods.
Equally important, if not more so, all of us should be wary of any effort to resolve a political controversy by the destruction of art, however primitive or offensive they may be. There is no bottom to that approach once it is taken, and the pursuit of it can lead to the loss of any ability within a society to peaceably communicate about anything at all. Moreover, if progressives go down that route in dealing with Confederate monuments, they would have as little moral standing as did many of the historical despots they rightly protest.
Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to the subject of the 1939 classic M-G-M film, "Gone With the Wind," and this article about it from Slate.com, focusing as it does on the question of whether it deserves to be treated in much the same manner as the statutes that make up many Confederate monuments.
Even accounting for the grosses of modern-day blockbuster films, "Gone With the Wind" is still, when adjustments are made for inflation, still the most successful film of all time at the U.S. box office. That's a fairly impressive accomplishment for a film primarily celebrated as one of the screen's all-time great romances. Personally, I tend to take issue with whether the "romance" itself is truly classic, as it involves two world-class narcissists whose narcissism allows each of them to survive individually, but overpowers any sense of the level of sacrifice needed to make a romance last a lifetime. This is why I believe, unlike most people (I suspect), that when Rhett Butler walks out the door without giving a damn, it is really and truly final, and Scarlett O'Hara finds a way to go on without him.
I'll let that pass, however, and get to the point. "Gone With the Wind" is popular and, as noted in the article, still popular. Yet, like the statues at the heart of the Charlottesville controversy, it is a celebration of a society that existed entirely on the legal ability to import, use, and ultimately destroy human beings as though they were property, simply on the basis of the color of their skin. The film effectively asks us, especially though its ubiquitous title cards, that the destruction of this society was some sort of great tragedy, one to be mourned throughout the ages. Descendents of plantation owners may have one view of that subject; descendents of slaves just might have another one.
And yet, "Gone With the Wind," purely from the production-values standpoint, is without question an impressive film, particularly in the Atlanta siege sequence, where the horrors of war, from an amputation without anesthesia to the burning of a railway depot, were re-created to such a realistic degree that the film as a whole set a new standard for subsequent historic epics, and one that even today is still difficult to beat. William Cameron Menzies, the production designer for "Gone With the Wind," brought the same level of talent and technical ability on display in his 1936 film, "Things to Come," a "future history" of the world by H.G. Wells which is itself tarnished by traces of Wells' anti-Semitism.
Even without those values, the appropriate way to treat the film would be, and is, in the same way that the Confederate monuments are treated--not by a ban or by destruction, but by proper curation with the provision of the appropriate context. If the article is to be believed, and I see no reason why it shouldn't be, that is happening, and hopefully will serve as a guide for resolving similar controversies in the future.*
*Full disclosure: Russ Collins, who is quoted in the article, is a personal friend though our mutual membership in the League of Historic American Theaters (lhat.org).
Friday, October 27, 2017
Tax Cuts And The Velocity Of Money
To borrow one of Ronald Reagan's most legendary phrases, there they go again.
A Republican Congress, and a Republican President, hell-bent on enacting major tax cuts without regard to their short-term (and long-term) effect on the national debt, to address a crisis in economic growth that, in point of fact, doesn't even exist.
How do I know it doesn't exist? Donald Trump says so himself. If you have the stomach to look at his Twitter feed--and it's OK if you don't, since doing so successfully requires a strong stomach--he'll tell you over and over again about the greatness of the country's current economic numbers. He'll also make the mistake of taking credit for them, even though, for the first nine months of his Presidency, we've basically been living in the economic world Barack Obama helped to create.
But then, there's the problem of the legislative achievements of this new era of all-Republican government. To wit: there haven't been any. That's one of the main reasons that Trump and his congressional cronies are now doing everything they can to ram a tax-cutting bill through the legislative and executive branches and into the lives--and the pockets--of the American people. More about the "pockets" part later.
The other main reason, however, is even more nakedly political. The Republican Party, to paraphrase Voltaire on the subject of the Holy Roman Empire, is neither Republican, nor a party. It is a collection of angry vested interests representing different forms of conservatism (fiscal, social and military), all of whom agree (just barely) on one thing: tax cuts.
But let's give them the benefit of the doubt anyway, at least for a little bit. Wage growth has been, as it always is in an economic recovery, the most lagging number to pick up any steam. The heart of the GOP argument for current tax cuts is that they will magically change all of that.
There's a big hole in that argument, and it has to do with what is called, in Wall Street parlance, the "velocity of money"--that is, the speed at which dollars are turned over in multiple transactions throughout the economy. Despite the government flooding of money into the nation's banking system after the 2008 economic crisis, which was supposed to put the velocity of money into warp speed, the velocity of U.S. dollars has remained incredibly slow. "Lazy," in the word of one author. But tax rates are not the reason; debt is. Not just government debt, but corporate and consumer debt, which has accrued over decades as a result of conservative economic policies based on--wait for it--tax cutting.
Frankly, it would be better for both the national and international economy to work out some sort of debt-forgiveness program, one that would free everyone from the burden of past debt transactions that no longer make any sense, and give everyone--individuals, companies, and nations--the proverbial "fresh start." Even somewhat conservative, in the strictly Biblical sense. But that's not what we're going to be getting, folks. We're going to be getting tax cuts.
This, despite the fact that conservative voices outside of government disagree on the value of these cuts. (See here, and here, joining liberal voices in the process.)
This, despite the fact that many of the tax-cut advocates are having to eat their words about Obama-era deficits, or discuss paying for the current round of tax cuts with tax hikes on constituencies they hate, or budget cuts that hurt society's most vulnerable members. These methods of payment, incidentally, will not help the velocity of money at all; they will simply pull more consumer spending out of the economy, thereby lowering tax revenues even further.
This, despite the fact that past tax cuts have been largely a boon primarily to offshore tax shelters (again, reducing the velocity of money) and foreign investors (and are very likely to benefit the latter group again).
And this, despite the fact that even the Trump Administration admits that one key portion of the tax-cut bill--elimination of the estate tax--will only benefit the wealthy. Historically, that has been the point of having the estate tax in the first place: to prevent the development of a permanent economic aristocracy. Once again, a blow against the velocity of money, especially since the estate tax serves as a powerful incentive for charitable contributions.
It appears, then, that the only way to reverse this latest round of tax-cutting insanity is to let it come to pass, and then suffer through the inevitable recession--or worse--that will come about as a result. Go ahead and laugh (especially if, pun intended, you're Arthur Laffer, the supply-side "guru"). It's only happened twice before after a big round of Republican tax cuts: in 2008 and 1982. No one should be fooled into thinking that the third time will somehow be the charm. But many will be, despite the fact that it was actually tax hikes--under Reagan (yes, Reagan), Bush I, Clinton and Obama--that set the stage for economic recoveries in each case.
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, it is tax hikes, and not cuts, that promote the velocity of money, by forcing those who have it to put it to work in the economy. Wait under after the next recession/depression, and after Trump is thrown out of office (one way or the other), and you'll get another chance to see how it works.
A Republican Congress, and a Republican President, hell-bent on enacting major tax cuts without regard to their short-term (and long-term) effect on the national debt, to address a crisis in economic growth that, in point of fact, doesn't even exist.
How do I know it doesn't exist? Donald Trump says so himself. If you have the stomach to look at his Twitter feed--and it's OK if you don't, since doing so successfully requires a strong stomach--he'll tell you over and over again about the greatness of the country's current economic numbers. He'll also make the mistake of taking credit for them, even though, for the first nine months of his Presidency, we've basically been living in the economic world Barack Obama helped to create.
But then, there's the problem of the legislative achievements of this new era of all-Republican government. To wit: there haven't been any. That's one of the main reasons that Trump and his congressional cronies are now doing everything they can to ram a tax-cutting bill through the legislative and executive branches and into the lives--and the pockets--of the American people. More about the "pockets" part later.
The other main reason, however, is even more nakedly political. The Republican Party, to paraphrase Voltaire on the subject of the Holy Roman Empire, is neither Republican, nor a party. It is a collection of angry vested interests representing different forms of conservatism (fiscal, social and military), all of whom agree (just barely) on one thing: tax cuts.
But let's give them the benefit of the doubt anyway, at least for a little bit. Wage growth has been, as it always is in an economic recovery, the most lagging number to pick up any steam. The heart of the GOP argument for current tax cuts is that they will magically change all of that.
There's a big hole in that argument, and it has to do with what is called, in Wall Street parlance, the "velocity of money"--that is, the speed at which dollars are turned over in multiple transactions throughout the economy. Despite the government flooding of money into the nation's banking system after the 2008 economic crisis, which was supposed to put the velocity of money into warp speed, the velocity of U.S. dollars has remained incredibly slow. "Lazy," in the word of one author. But tax rates are not the reason; debt is. Not just government debt, but corporate and consumer debt, which has accrued over decades as a result of conservative economic policies based on--wait for it--tax cutting.
Frankly, it would be better for both the national and international economy to work out some sort of debt-forgiveness program, one that would free everyone from the burden of past debt transactions that no longer make any sense, and give everyone--individuals, companies, and nations--the proverbial "fresh start." Even somewhat conservative, in the strictly Biblical sense. But that's not what we're going to be getting, folks. We're going to be getting tax cuts.
This, despite the fact that conservative voices outside of government disagree on the value of these cuts. (See here, and here, joining liberal voices in the process.)
This, despite the fact that many of the tax-cut advocates are having to eat their words about Obama-era deficits, or discuss paying for the current round of tax cuts with tax hikes on constituencies they hate, or budget cuts that hurt society's most vulnerable members. These methods of payment, incidentally, will not help the velocity of money at all; they will simply pull more consumer spending out of the economy, thereby lowering tax revenues even further.
This, despite the fact that past tax cuts have been largely a boon primarily to offshore tax shelters (again, reducing the velocity of money) and foreign investors (and are very likely to benefit the latter group again).
And this, despite the fact that even the Trump Administration admits that one key portion of the tax-cut bill--elimination of the estate tax--will only benefit the wealthy. Historically, that has been the point of having the estate tax in the first place: to prevent the development of a permanent economic aristocracy. Once again, a blow against the velocity of money, especially since the estate tax serves as a powerful incentive for charitable contributions.
It appears, then, that the only way to reverse this latest round of tax-cutting insanity is to let it come to pass, and then suffer through the inevitable recession--or worse--that will come about as a result. Go ahead and laugh (especially if, pun intended, you're Arthur Laffer, the supply-side "guru"). It's only happened twice before after a big round of Republican tax cuts: in 2008 and 1982. No one should be fooled into thinking that the third time will somehow be the charm. But many will be, despite the fact that it was actually tax hikes--under Reagan (yes, Reagan), Bush I, Clinton and Obama--that set the stage for economic recoveries in each case.
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, it is tax hikes, and not cuts, that promote the velocity of money, by forcing those who have it to put it to work in the economy. Wait under after the next recession/depression, and after Trump is thrown out of office (one way or the other), and you'll get another chance to see how it works.
Do We Need A Constitutional Convention?
As Americans have become more fractionated in their political and cultural thinking, to the point that not even the existing political parties can hold them together in governing coalitions for a sustained period of time, and as the resulting inability to solve our nation's problems becomes more pervasive, it has become easier for a lot of people to consider the idea of calling a convention, under Article V of our current Constitution, for the purpose of proposing amendments that might allow our national government to function better--or, for that matter, to function at all.
Since most of the calls for such a convention have come from the more conservative voices in our country, I frankly have not been a very big fan of this approach. The cliche about "opening Pandora's box" comes to mind, when one thinks about the potential proposed amendments that might come out of the mouths of Trump supporters. A total ban on immigration (except for white males)! A loyalty oath to Fearless Orange Leader, punishable by death if violated! The licensing of all media to present "fair and balanced" news (but only if it's pro-conservative)! And on and on. Better, I think to myself, to muddle along as we are, and hope that, once in a long while, the planets align in such a way that we get lucky enough to get a few good things done, as we did during Barack Obama's first two years in office.
Lately, however, I've not been so sure. Two recent New York Times Op-Ed pieces have played a major role in re-shaping my thinking on the subject.
The first one discusses the philosophy that drove the writing of our existing Constitution. In older societies, the existence of sustained economic inequality drove the development of institutions that attempted to balance competing economic interests in the shaping of public policy. The author specifically mentions the examples of the Roman Republic, where a Senate that represented moneyed interests were forced to deal with the Tribunes representing the interests of working people, as well as the British Empire, with a Parliament that attempted to strike the same balance between its Houses of Commons and Lords. America, on the other hand, was a frontier society, in which new opportunities seemed to simply be a matter of "going West," and therefore not likely to accept a class-based system of government, even though (as noted by the author) James Madison anticipated a day where such a system might be needed, even inevitable.
The second one discusses the current "tyranny of the majority," in which a majority of Americans voted against the current President and House members, and yet the Republican Party controls the both the Presidency and the House. This is, as the author points out, largely due to the fact that a majority of Americans are now clusters in a minority of the states, which has led that minority to generate most of the nation's prosperity, while nearly half of the populace lives in states gripped by economic and social despair. This problem, of course, has become greater because of the GOP's ability to manipulate it for the benefit of conservative control, through gerrymandering as well as dark money and voter suppression.
But, even without that ability to take advantage of a bad situation, frustration would still be the order of the day when it comes to addressing America's greatest needs. Even without gerrymandering, and a resulting Democratic White House and House of Representatives, a majority of red states means an almost permanent majority of Republicans in the Senate. Senate elections are statewide, and cannot be touched by gerrymandering--and each state gets exactly two Senators. The result is a recipe for permanent government gridlock.
Why do red states suffer economically, while blue states prosper and effectively provide the tax dollars to bail the red states out of their misery to some degree? I don't know how to say this, other than the way in which I have said it before: liberal policies benefit everyone, while conservative policies only benefit the people who don't need the benefit. I can't help that; it's reality. And there's no law against pointing reality out. Yet. But here's the tricky part: people are reluctant to admit they are wrong and, as a consequence, are more prone to make the same mistakes over and over again. That's why some states have turned almost completely red: the blue voters have fled them for places that work. And they're not going back. Why should they?
Frankly, there's a greater argument for secession by the blue states than there is for a constitutional convention. A convention would, as I said previously, put many cherished aspects of American life, including freedom of expression and the right to vote, at serious risk. But there's a no-less-equally powerful argument against succession: we are stronger together than we are divided (Hillary was right about that, at least). And a convention would at least force us to talk about our differences, rather than silently ranting to the true believers on each side of our current divide.
It's clear, in any case, that we need to make fundamental changes in our system of government, one that acknowledges the reality of economic class differences in contemporary life, and one than ensures governing coalitions that actually and accurately reflect the will of a majority of the American people, not a vocal, potentially tyrannical majority. If a constitutional convention is the only way to get there, then bring it on. To stay stuck where we are today is no guarantee of anything except corruption and chaos. The American people, and the world, deserve better than that.
Since most of the calls for such a convention have come from the more conservative voices in our country, I frankly have not been a very big fan of this approach. The cliche about "opening Pandora's box" comes to mind, when one thinks about the potential proposed amendments that might come out of the mouths of Trump supporters. A total ban on immigration (except for white males)! A loyalty oath to Fearless Orange Leader, punishable by death if violated! The licensing of all media to present "fair and balanced" news (but only if it's pro-conservative)! And on and on. Better, I think to myself, to muddle along as we are, and hope that, once in a long while, the planets align in such a way that we get lucky enough to get a few good things done, as we did during Barack Obama's first two years in office.
Lately, however, I've not been so sure. Two recent New York Times Op-Ed pieces have played a major role in re-shaping my thinking on the subject.
The first one discusses the philosophy that drove the writing of our existing Constitution. In older societies, the existence of sustained economic inequality drove the development of institutions that attempted to balance competing economic interests in the shaping of public policy. The author specifically mentions the examples of the Roman Republic, where a Senate that represented moneyed interests were forced to deal with the Tribunes representing the interests of working people, as well as the British Empire, with a Parliament that attempted to strike the same balance between its Houses of Commons and Lords. America, on the other hand, was a frontier society, in which new opportunities seemed to simply be a matter of "going West," and therefore not likely to accept a class-based system of government, even though (as noted by the author) James Madison anticipated a day where such a system might be needed, even inevitable.
The second one discusses the current "tyranny of the majority," in which a majority of Americans voted against the current President and House members, and yet the Republican Party controls the both the Presidency and the House. This is, as the author points out, largely due to the fact that a majority of Americans are now clusters in a minority of the states, which has led that minority to generate most of the nation's prosperity, while nearly half of the populace lives in states gripped by economic and social despair. This problem, of course, has become greater because of the GOP's ability to manipulate it for the benefit of conservative control, through gerrymandering as well as dark money and voter suppression.
But, even without that ability to take advantage of a bad situation, frustration would still be the order of the day when it comes to addressing America's greatest needs. Even without gerrymandering, and a resulting Democratic White House and House of Representatives, a majority of red states means an almost permanent majority of Republicans in the Senate. Senate elections are statewide, and cannot be touched by gerrymandering--and each state gets exactly two Senators. The result is a recipe for permanent government gridlock.
Why do red states suffer economically, while blue states prosper and effectively provide the tax dollars to bail the red states out of their misery to some degree? I don't know how to say this, other than the way in which I have said it before: liberal policies benefit everyone, while conservative policies only benefit the people who don't need the benefit. I can't help that; it's reality. And there's no law against pointing reality out. Yet. But here's the tricky part: people are reluctant to admit they are wrong and, as a consequence, are more prone to make the same mistakes over and over again. That's why some states have turned almost completely red: the blue voters have fled them for places that work. And they're not going back. Why should they?
Frankly, there's a greater argument for secession by the blue states than there is for a constitutional convention. A convention would, as I said previously, put many cherished aspects of American life, including freedom of expression and the right to vote, at serious risk. But there's a no-less-equally powerful argument against succession: we are stronger together than we are divided (Hillary was right about that, at least). And a convention would at least force us to talk about our differences, rather than silently ranting to the true believers on each side of our current divide.
It's clear, in any case, that we need to make fundamental changes in our system of government, one that acknowledges the reality of economic class differences in contemporary life, and one than ensures governing coalitions that actually and accurately reflect the will of a majority of the American people, not a vocal, potentially tyrannical majority. If a constitutional convention is the only way to get there, then bring it on. To stay stuck where we are today is no guarantee of anything except corruption and chaos. The American people, and the world, deserve better than that.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
And Now, For Something A Little More Upbeat, From Appalachia
That headline might feel more than a little oxymoronic. Appalachia is a name that has been associated with poverty for decades. True, mining has provided a source of jobs and personal income for many of its residents. But those jobs have been disappearing for a long time, due to concerns about pollution, and advances in renewable energy has accelerated the disappearance of those jobs. Donald Trump can talk about bringing the coal industry back all he wants, but it's without a doubt the least substantial of his promises. Coal simply isn't the future of energy; it can't be, because it's a non-renewable resource.
So there's no future for the families that have built their lives and personal sense of identity around extraction industries, right. Wrong. As it turns out, the land may have uses beyond the stuff that's underneath it.
You and I may not have seen the future of American farming as including abandoned above-ground coal mines, but that doesn't mean that other people haven't. Here is an article about a unique project designed to reclaim land formerly dedicated to mining coal, and transform it into land that can produce food on a steady, renewable basis. In other words, this project has the potential to transform Appalachia from a region of quietly increasing desperation into one that can be a strong, sustainable economic center for its impoverished residents, now and in the future.
The project at the moment is privately financed, and proceeding on a very small scale. But one wonders what would happen if the Federal Government made a major commitment of resources--principally, money--to efforts like this one. The possibilities here include much more than farming; they could also include solar and wind power farms, as well as factories that make products using renewable resources as raw materials.
I know that some of Hillary Clinton's thinking about economic development included projects like the one described in the article. I will never be able to understand why she didn't go into states in Appalachia and the Rust Belt and talk about those projects. How they would work. How they would be funded And, most of all, how they would directly benefit the people in these states, because they were and are far more real that Trump's promises about bringing back jobs that are never going to return. Why didn't she do it? What was she afraid of?
Well, next year is an election year, so it would behoove Democrats to pick up ideas like Refresh Appalachia, run with them, and show the nation how to build a new, sustainable, and even lucrative economy out of the ashes of the old one. If they can't do that, they and the rest of us deserve a con artist like Trump. And, at least for the moment, I refuse to believe that's true.
So there's no future for the families that have built their lives and personal sense of identity around extraction industries, right. Wrong. As it turns out, the land may have uses beyond the stuff that's underneath it.
You and I may not have seen the future of American farming as including abandoned above-ground coal mines, but that doesn't mean that other people haven't. Here is an article about a unique project designed to reclaim land formerly dedicated to mining coal, and transform it into land that can produce food on a steady, renewable basis. In other words, this project has the potential to transform Appalachia from a region of quietly increasing desperation into one that can be a strong, sustainable economic center for its impoverished residents, now and in the future.
The project at the moment is privately financed, and proceeding on a very small scale. But one wonders what would happen if the Federal Government made a major commitment of resources--principally, money--to efforts like this one. The possibilities here include much more than farming; they could also include solar and wind power farms, as well as factories that make products using renewable resources as raw materials.
I know that some of Hillary Clinton's thinking about economic development included projects like the one described in the article. I will never be able to understand why she didn't go into states in Appalachia and the Rust Belt and talk about those projects. How they would work. How they would be funded And, most of all, how they would directly benefit the people in these states, because they were and are far more real that Trump's promises about bringing back jobs that are never going to return. Why didn't she do it? What was she afraid of?
Well, next year is an election year, so it would behoove Democrats to pick up ideas like Refresh Appalachia, run with them, and show the nation how to build a new, sustainable, and even lucrative economy out of the ashes of the old one. If they can't do that, they and the rest of us deserve a con artist like Trump. And, at least for the moment, I refuse to believe that's true.
And, Speaking Once Again Of The Supreme Court ...
... and, above all, its stolen seat, we turn to the latest developments in the ongoing saga of How Nepotism Plays Out In Washington, Especially With Mitch McCONnell Greasing The Skids.
It turns out that all is not well among The Nine of Maryland Avenue (or, more precisely, The Eight and the Thief in the Middle of the Night). As it turns out, the Thief in question, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch (son of the least qualified and please EPA Administrator, up until this Administration) is not getting along well with any of his colleagues. You read that correctly: not any of them. Not the Democratic appointees, which was to be expected. And not the Republican appointees, either, which was not to be expected at all.
In Washington, as is the case pretty much elsewhere, newcomers are expected to be seen, and very rarely heard from. Justice Gorsuch, as it turns out, did not get that memo. And, judging from some of his behavior thus far as a Justice, it is doubtful that he would have heeded the memo's advice even had he read it. Both publicly and privately, he has managed to irritate his colleagues by asking more questions than would be expected from a rookie on the Court, all of them betraying not only contempt for the other Justices and attorneys, but also a depressingly shallow understanding of the law relevant to the cases being heard.
What is perhaps most surprising is that the complaints from Gorsuch's colleagues about his behavior, which would normally stay within the ambit of the Court and its staff, seem to be selectively leaked to the press. Here is one example. Anyone familiar with the way in which the Court operates knows that this is a serious, even historic breach of its own internal protocols, to say nothing of its sense of independence.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to avoid viewing all of this as a perfectly logical outcome of the badly compromised process by which Gorsuch ended up on the Court. Traditionally, even in the cases of the most controversial nominations, the White House and the Senate have done their best to work together to find consensus choices, and the confirmation vote totals reflect that fact. Nothing like that happened when Antonin Scalia died and Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him; at that point, Mitch McCONnell and Senate Republicans turned consensus into civil war. It is clear that Gorsuch, already viewed as being little more than his mother's political legacy, understood from the moment he was nominated that he was meant by his supporters not to help reinforce the judicial legacy of the Court, but to tear it down, one decision at a time. As a consequence, he has not attempted to blend in, but to strike out on his own..
And, as a consequence, all of us are losers. Even Gorsuch's supporters. They just haven't figured it out yet.
It turns out that all is not well among The Nine of Maryland Avenue (or, more precisely, The Eight and the Thief in the Middle of the Night). As it turns out, the Thief in question, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch (son of the least qualified and please EPA Administrator, up until this Administration) is not getting along well with any of his colleagues. You read that correctly: not any of them. Not the Democratic appointees, which was to be expected. And not the Republican appointees, either, which was not to be expected at all.
In Washington, as is the case pretty much elsewhere, newcomers are expected to be seen, and very rarely heard from. Justice Gorsuch, as it turns out, did not get that memo. And, judging from some of his behavior thus far as a Justice, it is doubtful that he would have heeded the memo's advice even had he read it. Both publicly and privately, he has managed to irritate his colleagues by asking more questions than would be expected from a rookie on the Court, all of them betraying not only contempt for the other Justices and attorneys, but also a depressingly shallow understanding of the law relevant to the cases being heard.
What is perhaps most surprising is that the complaints from Gorsuch's colleagues about his behavior, which would normally stay within the ambit of the Court and its staff, seem to be selectively leaked to the press. Here is one example. Anyone familiar with the way in which the Court operates knows that this is a serious, even historic breach of its own internal protocols, to say nothing of its sense of independence.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to avoid viewing all of this as a perfectly logical outcome of the badly compromised process by which Gorsuch ended up on the Court. Traditionally, even in the cases of the most controversial nominations, the White House and the Senate have done their best to work together to find consensus choices, and the confirmation vote totals reflect that fact. Nothing like that happened when Antonin Scalia died and Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him; at that point, Mitch McCONnell and Senate Republicans turned consensus into civil war. It is clear that Gorsuch, already viewed as being little more than his mother's political legacy, understood from the moment he was nominated that he was meant by his supporters not to help reinforce the judicial legacy of the Court, but to tear it down, one decision at a time. As a consequence, he has not attempted to blend in, but to strike out on his own..
And, as a consequence, all of us are losers. Even Gorsuch's supporters. They just haven't figured it out yet.
The Path To Gun Safety? Follow The Money
It is easy to be numbed by repeated tragedy, and the equally repeated rituals after the tragedy that all but ensure that we will have to endure repeated instances of the tragedy and the rituals. Again, and again, and again. With no end in sight. And, seemingly, with no collective memory of the ever-increasing number of victims, and the seeming unending futility of finding a solution to the problem.
This is why, I suspect, less than three weeks after the latest horrific episode in American history involving large-scale gun violence and an unbelievable death toll, people have seemingly moved on. The conversation, in social and mainstream media, has already moved on to other topics. Including the latest round of bankrupting tax cuts Americans don't need and aren't asking for.
There is certainly no greater indictment of our national political system, in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, than the certainty that Congress and our lame excuse for a President will do absolutely nothing to even try preventing any future recurrences. Even across the proverbial pond, this level of political apathy and antipathy for any government measures against gun violence is obvious. If a Conservative British Prime Minister can see the shooting epidemic as a problem that demands a solution, and yet doubt that we will attempt to enact a solution, that should tell you all you need to know about the current state of apathy in this country when it comes to protecting innocent people from random shootings.
In fact, as the linked article mentions, in the wake of Las Vegas, gun sales went up, and Congress continued to consider legislation making it easier to buy silencers. Easier to buy silencers! One of the reasons that there weren't more victims three weeks ago is the fact that the gun shots were loud enough to be heard, and potential victims evacuated the site of the concert that was under attack more quickly that they otherwise might have done. If Congress would just drop the silencer bill--which everyone knows is being considered for the benefit of gun owners and users, that might be a contribution all by itself.
But no, now that "thoughts and prayers" have been offered up, and the national media agenda has switched its rubbernecking focus to newer train wrecks, it's back to "business as usual." What else would you expect from from a Congress with people like Senator John Thune, who quite literally blames the Las Vegas victims for their own deaths? Or Congressman Steve Scalise, himself a near-fatal victim of a random shooting, who declared his faith in the Second Amendment affirmed by those deaths?
As long as you have a Congress filled with people who operate at the level of evil that Thune and Scalise operate, you are never going to have a solution to the problem of gun violence. There are small signs, here and there, that people are beginning to recognize that fact. George W. Bush's ethics advisor has called on voters to research the gun positions of their Representatives and Senators, and vote out of office anyone opposed to sensible firearms restrictions. And at least one cultural figure from red-state country has reversed his pro-gun stance as a response to the Las Vegas carnage.
Even so, this may now be a problem that doesn't lend itself to a majoritarian solution. Not when half of all guns in America are owned by just three percent of the population. Not when a talk-show host has to hire protection simply because of his public willingness to advocate for action. Not when this has come about due to the willingness of the National Rifle Association to do anything and stop at nothing, including the promotion of civil war itself, simply for the sake of maximizing the profits of gun manufacturers (the organizations the NRA now really represents, not gun owners as was originally the case. This has led Keith Olberman to advocate declaring the NRA to be a terrorist organization, and treating them as such under relevant law.
I have no objection to doing so, frankly. I think the fact that most of the guns are owned by a tiny fraction of the population supports Olberman's view that the problem is mainly guns in the hands of individuals and groups that are property viewed as enemies of lawfully-constituted society, and not shopkeepers and hunters seeking protection and food.
For that matter, there are steps that are larger and smaller in scale that could and arguably should be taken. For example, we could enact the kind of simple, sensible gun restrictions that seem to have worked in countries like Australia, and elsewhere. Or we could take the approach of identifying people who profile as potential shooters, and attempt to intervene with mental-health programs and other forms of support (question: what if the "intervention" isn't accepted by the less-than-grateful would-be "recipient"?). Or we could wait for either a change in the make-up of the Supreme Court that would reverse the damage done to our gun-rights jurisprudence by District of Columbia v. Heller, a subject on which I have already written previously (and about which you can read more here, here, and here). Or we could wait for a repeal of the Second Amendment itself--something that even conservative columnists, in at least one case, might be willing to advocate.
But structural changes in our society involving the Supreme Court and the Constitution take the kind of time that future victims and present survivors do not have. Even changing our approach to the NRA, or even common-sense restrictions like outlawing so-called "bump stocks" (one of which gave the Las Vegas shooter extra firepower), might not do much, given the sheer number of guns that have polluted America.
My 25 cents? Go after the NRA and the gun manufacturers where it hurts: in their wallets. They're the only ones who have benefited from the carnage in any way. The rest of us have either lost lives or loved ones, or found themselves paying for the social burdens imposed on society by a frontier mentality toward firearms. The hell with that, and the hell with them. Impose a surtax on their profits, to go into a fund for victims and over-stretched police departments. Make insurance policies on guns, particularly military-type arms, mandatory, and make them required for both gun owners and gun makers. Funnel the proceeds from such polices into the aforesaid fund. If you put the financial cost of gun violence on the parties who are principally responsible for it, you may find that they have a greater appetite for--ahem--"alternative solutions."
And, on the Constitutional side of things, there's this. The Second Amendment discusses the right to keep and bear arms. It says nothing about the right to sell them. At least one appellate court has figured that out. Maybe, just maybe, even a Supreme Court with a stolen seat can do the same thing.
This much I do know: public safety has always been, and will always be, the strongest rationale for the existence of government, and the first duty that it owes its citizens. "Gun rights" fanatics cannot be allowed to trump--no pun intended, but it is appropriate--that obligation. There must be no more Las Vegases. Or, at least, damn few.
This is why, I suspect, less than three weeks after the latest horrific episode in American history involving large-scale gun violence and an unbelievable death toll, people have seemingly moved on. The conversation, in social and mainstream media, has already moved on to other topics. Including the latest round of bankrupting tax cuts Americans don't need and aren't asking for.
There is certainly no greater indictment of our national political system, in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, than the certainty that Congress and our lame excuse for a President will do absolutely nothing to even try preventing any future recurrences. Even across the proverbial pond, this level of political apathy and antipathy for any government measures against gun violence is obvious. If a Conservative British Prime Minister can see the shooting epidemic as a problem that demands a solution, and yet doubt that we will attempt to enact a solution, that should tell you all you need to know about the current state of apathy in this country when it comes to protecting innocent people from random shootings.
In fact, as the linked article mentions, in the wake of Las Vegas, gun sales went up, and Congress continued to consider legislation making it easier to buy silencers. Easier to buy silencers! One of the reasons that there weren't more victims three weeks ago is the fact that the gun shots were loud enough to be heard, and potential victims evacuated the site of the concert that was under attack more quickly that they otherwise might have done. If Congress would just drop the silencer bill--which everyone knows is being considered for the benefit of gun owners and users, that might be a contribution all by itself.
But no, now that "thoughts and prayers" have been offered up, and the national media agenda has switched its rubbernecking focus to newer train wrecks, it's back to "business as usual." What else would you expect from from a Congress with people like Senator John Thune, who quite literally blames the Las Vegas victims for their own deaths? Or Congressman Steve Scalise, himself a near-fatal victim of a random shooting, who declared his faith in the Second Amendment affirmed by those deaths?
As long as you have a Congress filled with people who operate at the level of evil that Thune and Scalise operate, you are never going to have a solution to the problem of gun violence. There are small signs, here and there, that people are beginning to recognize that fact. George W. Bush's ethics advisor has called on voters to research the gun positions of their Representatives and Senators, and vote out of office anyone opposed to sensible firearms restrictions. And at least one cultural figure from red-state country has reversed his pro-gun stance as a response to the Las Vegas carnage.
Even so, this may now be a problem that doesn't lend itself to a majoritarian solution. Not when half of all guns in America are owned by just three percent of the population. Not when a talk-show host has to hire protection simply because of his public willingness to advocate for action. Not when this has come about due to the willingness of the National Rifle Association to do anything and stop at nothing, including the promotion of civil war itself, simply for the sake of maximizing the profits of gun manufacturers (the organizations the NRA now really represents, not gun owners as was originally the case. This has led Keith Olberman to advocate declaring the NRA to be a terrorist organization, and treating them as such under relevant law.
I have no objection to doing so, frankly. I think the fact that most of the guns are owned by a tiny fraction of the population supports Olberman's view that the problem is mainly guns in the hands of individuals and groups that are property viewed as enemies of lawfully-constituted society, and not shopkeepers and hunters seeking protection and food.
For that matter, there are steps that are larger and smaller in scale that could and arguably should be taken. For example, we could enact the kind of simple, sensible gun restrictions that seem to have worked in countries like Australia, and elsewhere. Or we could take the approach of identifying people who profile as potential shooters, and attempt to intervene with mental-health programs and other forms of support (question: what if the "intervention" isn't accepted by the less-than-grateful would-be "recipient"?). Or we could wait for either a change in the make-up of the Supreme Court that would reverse the damage done to our gun-rights jurisprudence by District of Columbia v. Heller, a subject on which I have already written previously (and about which you can read more here, here, and here). Or we could wait for a repeal of the Second Amendment itself--something that even conservative columnists, in at least one case, might be willing to advocate.
But structural changes in our society involving the Supreme Court and the Constitution take the kind of time that future victims and present survivors do not have. Even changing our approach to the NRA, or even common-sense restrictions like outlawing so-called "bump stocks" (one of which gave the Las Vegas shooter extra firepower), might not do much, given the sheer number of guns that have polluted America.
My 25 cents? Go after the NRA and the gun manufacturers where it hurts: in their wallets. They're the only ones who have benefited from the carnage in any way. The rest of us have either lost lives or loved ones, or found themselves paying for the social burdens imposed on society by a frontier mentality toward firearms. The hell with that, and the hell with them. Impose a surtax on their profits, to go into a fund for victims and over-stretched police departments. Make insurance policies on guns, particularly military-type arms, mandatory, and make them required for both gun owners and gun makers. Funnel the proceeds from such polices into the aforesaid fund. If you put the financial cost of gun violence on the parties who are principally responsible for it, you may find that they have a greater appetite for--ahem--"alternative solutions."
And, on the Constitutional side of things, there's this. The Second Amendment discusses the right to keep and bear arms. It says nothing about the right to sell them. At least one appellate court has figured that out. Maybe, just maybe, even a Supreme Court with a stolen seat can do the same thing.
This much I do know: public safety has always been, and will always be, the strongest rationale for the existence of government, and the first duty that it owes its citizens. "Gun rights" fanatics cannot be allowed to trump--no pun intended, but it is appropriate--that obligation. There must be no more Las Vegases. Or, at least, damn few.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
The Shame And Disgrace Of American Education
I might as well start out by saying that I bring two "biases," if you will, to writing this post. I am, on a K-through-12 basis, a product of the public education system. In addition, my late father, who was a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, was also on a commission whose work resulted in a significant expansion of publicly-financed higher education in the state of Maryland. It goes without saying that he was deeply committed both to higher education and public education. But it's worth saying anyway, because I'm more than happy to share that commitment. Both he and I saw people's lives transformed by greater access to education.
And the transformation of individual lives, as worthy a goal as that is, is not even the greatest reward of education. Education builds informed citizens, without which democracy is possible only in name. In any case, none of this would be possible without education's single greatest asset; teachers. Buildings and media can be priced out to a specific extent. But good teachers, ones who know how to impart information, bring a subject to life for students and, above all, help their students learn to think for themselves, are as priceless as they are rare.
So, exactly what is the state of education in America today?
Perhaps it is best summed up in this unbelievably depressing article from the Guardian. The days when teachers were as much a part of the institutional stability of higher education seem to largely be gone forever. In its place is a world in which college and university instructors live a hand-to-mouth existence, needing to supplement their income in ways that show no respect or value for the years they have put into learning one or more subjects. Often, even doing this does not afford even so much as a decent living, much less a comfortable one.
And their counterparts in public schools are not doing much better. Often, they are forced to pay for supplies out of their own, less-than-munificent salaries, simply so that they can adequately give their students the education that the students' parents seemingly are no longer willing to pay full-freight for.
Instead, in both higher and public education, money is spend on shiny new construction, something that is easier to show off to taxpayers and alumni than the seemingly invisible but real process of actual learning itself. We would, in fact, be far better off in spending capital budgets on renovations rather than new construction, and spending more money to pay teachers at all levels the incomes they've worked for and deserved. And, of course, such an approach would be more environmentally-friendly, too.
Hopefully, one day in the near future, we can fin a way to make this happen so that, at the very least, all teachers can sleep in beds rather than cars. I would sleep a lot better if this happened. And so would my dad.
And the transformation of individual lives, as worthy a goal as that is, is not even the greatest reward of education. Education builds informed citizens, without which democracy is possible only in name. In any case, none of this would be possible without education's single greatest asset; teachers. Buildings and media can be priced out to a specific extent. But good teachers, ones who know how to impart information, bring a subject to life for students and, above all, help their students learn to think for themselves, are as priceless as they are rare.
So, exactly what is the state of education in America today?
Perhaps it is best summed up in this unbelievably depressing article from the Guardian. The days when teachers were as much a part of the institutional stability of higher education seem to largely be gone forever. In its place is a world in which college and university instructors live a hand-to-mouth existence, needing to supplement their income in ways that show no respect or value for the years they have put into learning one or more subjects. Often, even doing this does not afford even so much as a decent living, much less a comfortable one.
And their counterparts in public schools are not doing much better. Often, they are forced to pay for supplies out of their own, less-than-munificent salaries, simply so that they can adequately give their students the education that the students' parents seemingly are no longer willing to pay full-freight for.
Instead, in both higher and public education, money is spend on shiny new construction, something that is easier to show off to taxpayers and alumni than the seemingly invisible but real process of actual learning itself. We would, in fact, be far better off in spending capital budgets on renovations rather than new construction, and spending more money to pay teachers at all levels the incomes they've worked for and deserved. And, of course, such an approach would be more environmentally-friendly, too.
Hopefully, one day in the near future, we can fin a way to make this happen so that, at the very least, all teachers can sleep in beds rather than cars. I would sleep a lot better if this happened. And so would my dad.
American Retail, Lost In The '80s
The 1980s were, in one sense, the peak era of American retail. Not in variety of goods, or reasonableness in pricing, or in customer service that truly put the customer first. It was the peak time to buy and consolidate existing retail businesses, while building more and more retail space, primarily in malls, for the dwindling number of businesses that resulted from the consolidations.
What was fueling all of this activity? Was it consumer spending? Hardly. Despite glowing assessments of the '80s as a boom time for the American economy, the fact is that the decade was the very beginning of the wage bust that has, in the Age of Trump, reached its mature (or, if you will, most degenerate) phase. True, people spent--but only so that they could look as prosperous as they thought everyone else was. And, of course, they did it the old-fashioned way--by going deeply into debt. Which is why the real economic boom of the '80s was the one enjoyed by bankruptcy lawyers concentrating their practises in consumer credit.
On the other hand, bankruptcy lawyers who focused on failing businesses made out well, too. Because all of that consolidation and building was also fueled by debt. Businesses were grossly over-valued, mergers were consummated based on the belief that the resulting behemoths would generate enough cash to service the debt, and costs were simultaneously expected to be driven down by virtue of the sheer size of the debt as a kind of fiscal sword of Damocles.
This approach may arguably have worked, after a fashion, for a period of time. But it slowly began to fall apart by the end of the decade, as tapped-out consumers slowed down their spending and, in short order, the revenue was no longer enough to pay for the debt service. Despite this, and despite the continuing decline in consumer income, businesses continued to follow this path to ruin, for themselves and customers.
And then came the World Wide Web, and the rise of Web retailers--Amazon, above all. Suddenly, there were all of those brick-and-mortar consolidations, with too much debt and not enough differentiation among the handful of merger survivors to successfully compete with their upstart digital counterparts. Internet retailers could (and do) provide greater variety and convenience, as well as superior service.
That is precisely why neither this article, nor this one, should be particularly surprising. The truth is that we need less storefront space and more spaces for distribution centers. And we need more retailers that are properly capitalized, with an acceptable and more traditional debt-to-equity ratio, so that they have the funds needed to adapt to rapid changes in a rapidly-changing marketplace.
Get out of the '80s and onto the Web, retailers. That's where the action--and the money--is.
What was fueling all of this activity? Was it consumer spending? Hardly. Despite glowing assessments of the '80s as a boom time for the American economy, the fact is that the decade was the very beginning of the wage bust that has, in the Age of Trump, reached its mature (or, if you will, most degenerate) phase. True, people spent--but only so that they could look as prosperous as they thought everyone else was. And, of course, they did it the old-fashioned way--by going deeply into debt. Which is why the real economic boom of the '80s was the one enjoyed by bankruptcy lawyers concentrating their practises in consumer credit.
On the other hand, bankruptcy lawyers who focused on failing businesses made out well, too. Because all of that consolidation and building was also fueled by debt. Businesses were grossly over-valued, mergers were consummated based on the belief that the resulting behemoths would generate enough cash to service the debt, and costs were simultaneously expected to be driven down by virtue of the sheer size of the debt as a kind of fiscal sword of Damocles.
This approach may arguably have worked, after a fashion, for a period of time. But it slowly began to fall apart by the end of the decade, as tapped-out consumers slowed down their spending and, in short order, the revenue was no longer enough to pay for the debt service. Despite this, and despite the continuing decline in consumer income, businesses continued to follow this path to ruin, for themselves and customers.
And then came the World Wide Web, and the rise of Web retailers--Amazon, above all. Suddenly, there were all of those brick-and-mortar consolidations, with too much debt and not enough differentiation among the handful of merger survivors to successfully compete with their upstart digital counterparts. Internet retailers could (and do) provide greater variety and convenience, as well as superior service.
That is precisely why neither this article, nor this one, should be particularly surprising. The truth is that we need less storefront space and more spaces for distribution centers. And we need more retailers that are properly capitalized, with an acceptable and more traditional debt-to-equity ratio, so that they have the funds needed to adapt to rapid changes in a rapidly-changing marketplace.
Get out of the '80s and onto the Web, retailers. That's where the action--and the money--is.
A Government Dangerous To Its Own Citizens, As Well As The Rest Of The World
My previous post outlined several of the ways by which Donald Trump's kleptocracy of an Administration was steeling from the American people. Even more recent events, however, make it clear that Trump and his cronies in and outside of Washington are far more dangerous than a mere kleptocracy. They are an existential menace not only to the existence of democracy, but the existence of the American people. And, perhaps, the people of the world.
Let's start the discussion of the ways in which this menace has manifested itself with a recap of the disaster Hurricane Maria visited on the island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory whose residence are U.S. citizens. As such, they are entitled to every bit as much protection and assistance in a time of crisis as were the residents of Texas and Florida during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. They are entitled to it, but they haven't been receiving it.
For starters, during the initial phase of the post-Maria recovery efforts, and at a time when it was painfully obvious that Puerto Rico had suffered losses in property and life that even dwarfed the losses from Harvey and Irma, Trump was otherwise occupied. He was at war with the players and team owners of the NFL, over their support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel during the playing of the National Anthem as a protest of violence against young black men. It was, in fact, only after Trump was shamed on social media for his gross negligence of his obligations to Puerto Ricans that he began to make serious efforts to start providing the assistance he should have focused on providing far earlier.
And, even then, he could have significantly increased the amount of aid available to them simply by signing a waiver of the Jones Act, the law that prevents foreign shipping from making deliveries at American ports. The Act permits such waivers, and granting one immediately could have benefited Puerto Rico while at the same time making the U.S. effort easier and more productive. Trump, however, announced that he was reluctant to grant such a waiver, because it would not make the shipping industry very happy. I am not making us up; I almost wish to G-d that I were. Enough lives have already been lost as a consequence of Trump's gross deriliction of duty. Who knows how many of those lives could have been spared if he had stopped thinking about the NFL for one minute and signed a Jones Act waiver?
And what does Trump do when confronted with evidence of his perfidy? Blame the victims, of course. Specifically, when called to account by the mayor of San Juan, Trump blames her and other Puerto Rican officials for not doing enough with the aid they've been given. Trump, who plays golf while the mayor in question wades through sewage to provide assistance to her people. I have no words to express how I feel about this level of hypocrisy.
Pray for the people of Puerto Rico, and give aid, however you can; here's one way. And, while you're at it, pray for the nine million or more children who will lose badly-needed health insurance because the current Congress allowed the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to expire as of the fiscal year that ended yesterday. Why they would do this is an utter mystery; CHIP was conceived and enacted as a bipartisan effort to provide health care for children who might not otherwise receive it. Of course, Hillary Clinton, back in her Senate days, was one of the legislative brains behind CHIP; perhaps its expiration is a poor substitute for locking her up.
Then again, make it easier on yourself and everyone else, and pray for the whole world; Trump may have found a way to ignite it, in the hope that the last thing that will happen before the end of the world is an increase in his poll numbers. Today, Trump responded to statements made by his Secretary of State about the availability of diplomatic channels for addressing nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, by telling him (in lay terms) to shut up and let him handle it. Or, as Trump put it (on Twitter, of course): "... we'll do what has to be done!"
Does Trump really not understand that this is tantamount to a declaration of war--and nuclear war, at that? He seems to be literally hell-bent on making the kind of mistakes John F. Kennedy feared would be made during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For that matter, he seems to want to create his very own Cuban Missile Crisis, at the expense of the safety of his country and, quite possible, the safety of the entire world. How is it possible for him to screw up this badly? And is there no one around him, not even his family, who can pour a drop of sense into his walnut-sized brain?
We can no longer afford the luxury of waiting for Donald Trump to grow into the office of the Presidency. Donald Trump stopped "growing" somewhere around the age of 16. He is not going to become "presidential"; even conceiving of what that would be like is beyond him.
If ever there was a moment for the Republicans in charge of Congress to put aside their obsession with tax cuts for the rich, it is now. If ever there was a moment for Democrats in Congress to show a little spine and force the Republicans to face the growing menance all of us now face, regardless of party or ideology, it is now. If ever there was a time for Trump to be removed from the position of power he sadly occupies--by impeachment, or the 25th Amendment process, it is now.
Tomorrow may be literally too late. For all of us.
Let's start the discussion of the ways in which this menace has manifested itself with a recap of the disaster Hurricane Maria visited on the island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory whose residence are U.S. citizens. As such, they are entitled to every bit as much protection and assistance in a time of crisis as were the residents of Texas and Florida during Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. They are entitled to it, but they haven't been receiving it.
For starters, during the initial phase of the post-Maria recovery efforts, and at a time when it was painfully obvious that Puerto Rico had suffered losses in property and life that even dwarfed the losses from Harvey and Irma, Trump was otherwise occupied. He was at war with the players and team owners of the NFL, over their support of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel during the playing of the National Anthem as a protest of violence against young black men. It was, in fact, only after Trump was shamed on social media for his gross negligence of his obligations to Puerto Ricans that he began to make serious efforts to start providing the assistance he should have focused on providing far earlier.
And, even then, he could have significantly increased the amount of aid available to them simply by signing a waiver of the Jones Act, the law that prevents foreign shipping from making deliveries at American ports. The Act permits such waivers, and granting one immediately could have benefited Puerto Rico while at the same time making the U.S. effort easier and more productive. Trump, however, announced that he was reluctant to grant such a waiver, because it would not make the shipping industry very happy. I am not making us up; I almost wish to G-d that I were. Enough lives have already been lost as a consequence of Trump's gross deriliction of duty. Who knows how many of those lives could have been spared if he had stopped thinking about the NFL for one minute and signed a Jones Act waiver?
And what does Trump do when confronted with evidence of his perfidy? Blame the victims, of course. Specifically, when called to account by the mayor of San Juan, Trump blames her and other Puerto Rican officials for not doing enough with the aid they've been given. Trump, who plays golf while the mayor in question wades through sewage to provide assistance to her people. I have no words to express how I feel about this level of hypocrisy.
Pray for the people of Puerto Rico, and give aid, however you can; here's one way. And, while you're at it, pray for the nine million or more children who will lose badly-needed health insurance because the current Congress allowed the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to expire as of the fiscal year that ended yesterday. Why they would do this is an utter mystery; CHIP was conceived and enacted as a bipartisan effort to provide health care for children who might not otherwise receive it. Of course, Hillary Clinton, back in her Senate days, was one of the legislative brains behind CHIP; perhaps its expiration is a poor substitute for locking her up.
Then again, make it easier on yourself and everyone else, and pray for the whole world; Trump may have found a way to ignite it, in the hope that the last thing that will happen before the end of the world is an increase in his poll numbers. Today, Trump responded to statements made by his Secretary of State about the availability of diplomatic channels for addressing nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, by telling him (in lay terms) to shut up and let him handle it. Or, as Trump put it (on Twitter, of course): "... we'll do what has to be done!"
Does Trump really not understand that this is tantamount to a declaration of war--and nuclear war, at that? He seems to be literally hell-bent on making the kind of mistakes John F. Kennedy feared would be made during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For that matter, he seems to want to create his very own Cuban Missile Crisis, at the expense of the safety of his country and, quite possible, the safety of the entire world. How is it possible for him to screw up this badly? And is there no one around him, not even his family, who can pour a drop of sense into his walnut-sized brain?
We can no longer afford the luxury of waiting for Donald Trump to grow into the office of the Presidency. Donald Trump stopped "growing" somewhere around the age of 16. He is not going to become "presidential"; even conceiving of what that would be like is beyond him.
If ever there was a moment for the Republicans in charge of Congress to put aside their obsession with tax cuts for the rich, it is now. If ever there was a moment for Democrats in Congress to show a little spine and force the Republicans to face the growing menance all of us now face, regardless of party or ideology, it is now. If ever there was a time for Trump to be removed from the position of power he sadly occupies--by impeachment, or the 25th Amendment process, it is now.
Tomorrow may be literally too late. For all of us.
Four Signs Of Living In A Kleptocracy
Kleptocracy. Up until the past year or so, that might be a word that most people hadn't heard all that often. But, to those familiar with the term "kleptomaniac," it should be easy to figure out want it means. A kleptocracy is government by thievery. Not just of wealth, but of fairness. Of accountability. Even of the truth itself. And all four forms of thievery have been on display during the past few weeks, during this "golden age" of Republican rule.
Of course, stealing wealth, the oldest form of kleptocratic behavior, was probably to be expected from this crowd, given its largely Wall Street pedigree. In the case of the Trumpies, it seems to have manifested itself into an obsession with free airfare. The exposure of this obsession began with the news that the Treasury Secretary wanted the U.S. taxpayers to pay for his honeymoon flights to and from Europe--allegedly because he needed "secure communications" for the trip. Only after the request became public did it become known (largely through social media, of course) that the Treasury Secretary is not one of the government officials required to have a government plane for secure communications. The request was then withdrawn. But in the wake of this story came other reports of other misuse of taxpayer funds for flights by Cabinet members, ultimately leading to the resignation of the Health and Human Services Secretary (already in hot water due to the repeal-and-replace Obamacare fiasco).
Next, an example of how to steal accountability, from outside of Washington and in the Sunshine State of Florida, much of which was devastated by Hurricane Irma. Turns out there isn't as much "sunshine" in the government as their should be, with this report of the deletion of unanswered emergency calls to the GOP governor regarding senior citizens trapped in a nursing home (a home, by the way, where 11 people died).
Back to the nation's capital now, and e-mails. Ah, yes, e-mails. Remember "Crooked Hillary's" private e-mail server? The one that was supposed to get her locked up? Well, the Trump White House has multiplied this crookedness, with Crooked Ivana, Crooked Jared, Crooked Steve, Crooked Reince, Crooked Stephen, and Crooked Gary. All at the expense of fairness not only to Hillary, but to all of us. What is it, exactly, about a level playing field that these people hate so much?
Finally, there's the truth. We require public officials to perform their duties under oath so that, among other things, truth (and faith) in government can be upheld. In the case of the President, he (or, one day, she) takes an oath to ensure that the laws are being faithfully executed. Donald Trump took that oath. And lied doing it. You can find the evidence for that in any number of places. Or, you can just take his former DEA leader's word for it.
Donald Trump is not making America great again. He's making Americans suckers again. And, perhaps, doing even worse than that. I'll refer you to my next post for more information on that.
Of course, stealing wealth, the oldest form of kleptocratic behavior, was probably to be expected from this crowd, given its largely Wall Street pedigree. In the case of the Trumpies, it seems to have manifested itself into an obsession with free airfare. The exposure of this obsession began with the news that the Treasury Secretary wanted the U.S. taxpayers to pay for his honeymoon flights to and from Europe--allegedly because he needed "secure communications" for the trip. Only after the request became public did it become known (largely through social media, of course) that the Treasury Secretary is not one of the government officials required to have a government plane for secure communications. The request was then withdrawn. But in the wake of this story came other reports of other misuse of taxpayer funds for flights by Cabinet members, ultimately leading to the resignation of the Health and Human Services Secretary (already in hot water due to the repeal-and-replace Obamacare fiasco).
Next, an example of how to steal accountability, from outside of Washington and in the Sunshine State of Florida, much of which was devastated by Hurricane Irma. Turns out there isn't as much "sunshine" in the government as their should be, with this report of the deletion of unanswered emergency calls to the GOP governor regarding senior citizens trapped in a nursing home (a home, by the way, where 11 people died).
Back to the nation's capital now, and e-mails. Ah, yes, e-mails. Remember "Crooked Hillary's" private e-mail server? The one that was supposed to get her locked up? Well, the Trump White House has multiplied this crookedness, with Crooked Ivana, Crooked Jared, Crooked Steve, Crooked Reince, Crooked Stephen, and Crooked Gary. All at the expense of fairness not only to Hillary, but to all of us. What is it, exactly, about a level playing field that these people hate so much?
Finally, there's the truth. We require public officials to perform their duties under oath so that, among other things, truth (and faith) in government can be upheld. In the case of the President, he (or, one day, she) takes an oath to ensure that the laws are being faithfully executed. Donald Trump took that oath. And lied doing it. You can find the evidence for that in any number of places. Or, you can just take his former DEA leader's word for it.
Donald Trump is not making America great again. He's making Americans suckers again. And, perhaps, doing even worse than that. I'll refer you to my next post for more information on that.
Hugh Hefner, Gone And Best Forgotten
I have no doubt that there are many men, and not very many women, who were saddened by the news of Hugh Hefner's death. The men in question are, however, almost all adolescents either in age or spirit, unless they somehow shared in the financial wealth that Playboy magazine and its various cultural offshoots provided. I was, however, a bit more surprised by the tributes to him in mainstream media, praising him as an avatar of the sexual revolution and/or as a shrewd businessman who caught the waive of a changing set of American mores and rode it all the way to a business empire that many men would envy, whether or not they indulged in the fantasy life Hefner promoted.
Fantasy. In hindsight, that's probably the nicest thing that can be said about it. I am of the opinion that magazines like Playboy, and their smuttier counterparts, are far from being the gateway to a more fulfilling sex life. For far too many men, they are not a gateway at all. They are a dead end, a one-way ticket to a life of onanism that traps them physically and emotionally, and ends up being a barrier to meaningful sex--not only for the men in question, but for the women that could be their partners. The odds of paring off for women are statistically daunting as it is; rubbish like Playboy makes those odds worse, by training men Pavlov-style to only appreciate women who are airbushed (digitalized, later) into a "perfection" that doesn't exist.
And, in any event, Playboy was and is less of a celebration of sex than it was one of youth. Hefner claimed to be "liberating" women at the same time he was loosening up men's libidos. There was just one catch: the women in question had to be no older than their early 20's. After that, so far as Hefner was concerned, women shouldn't expect any sex in their lives at all, unless they somehow miraculously or surgically managed not to "age." Hefner, of course, didn't hold himself or other men to that standard; the more skeletal he became as he aged, the more grotesque he seemed by surrounding himself with women who were first young enough to be his sister, then young enough to be his daughter, and finally young enough to be his granddaughter and even great-granddaughter. Eventually, he needed phamacuetical help (both for him and his partners) to live up to the trap in which his "philosophy" had put him.
It is almost certainly not a coincidence that the peak of Hefner's cultural impact (and Playboy's sales) was in the 1960s, the peak period of boomer culture, the last decade in which Americans felt that they were always going to be young and rich forever. Hefner, perhaps, felt that way too. Had he really been the shrewdie he was supposed to have been, he would have seen the rising tide of even dirtier competition in his wake that would doom his position at the top of the skin heap, called it quits, and set up a foundation that would have truly pioneered free expression, without trying to commodify human beings for leering consumption.
In any event, given the exploration of sexaulity that was happening in other areas of the arts, Hefner gets far too much credit for liberating Americans from Puritanism, as worthy as that goal was. The revolution would have happened without him; all Hefner did was sell ammunition to its two greatest detractors: cultural conservatives and feminists.
That's way I'm inclined to think this is the fairest mainstream media assessment of the Playboy "legacy." And why I think Hugh Hefner, now gone, is best forgotten.
Fantasy. In hindsight, that's probably the nicest thing that can be said about it. I am of the opinion that magazines like Playboy, and their smuttier counterparts, are far from being the gateway to a more fulfilling sex life. For far too many men, they are not a gateway at all. They are a dead end, a one-way ticket to a life of onanism that traps them physically and emotionally, and ends up being a barrier to meaningful sex--not only for the men in question, but for the women that could be their partners. The odds of paring off for women are statistically daunting as it is; rubbish like Playboy makes those odds worse, by training men Pavlov-style to only appreciate women who are airbushed (digitalized, later) into a "perfection" that doesn't exist.
And, in any event, Playboy was and is less of a celebration of sex than it was one of youth. Hefner claimed to be "liberating" women at the same time he was loosening up men's libidos. There was just one catch: the women in question had to be no older than their early 20's. After that, so far as Hefner was concerned, women shouldn't expect any sex in their lives at all, unless they somehow miraculously or surgically managed not to "age." Hefner, of course, didn't hold himself or other men to that standard; the more skeletal he became as he aged, the more grotesque he seemed by surrounding himself with women who were first young enough to be his sister, then young enough to be his daughter, and finally young enough to be his granddaughter and even great-granddaughter. Eventually, he needed phamacuetical help (both for him and his partners) to live up to the trap in which his "philosophy" had put him.
It is almost certainly not a coincidence that the peak of Hefner's cultural impact (and Playboy's sales) was in the 1960s, the peak period of boomer culture, the last decade in which Americans felt that they were always going to be young and rich forever. Hefner, perhaps, felt that way too. Had he really been the shrewdie he was supposed to have been, he would have seen the rising tide of even dirtier competition in his wake that would doom his position at the top of the skin heap, called it quits, and set up a foundation that would have truly pioneered free expression, without trying to commodify human beings for leering consumption.
In any event, given the exploration of sexaulity that was happening in other areas of the arts, Hefner gets far too much credit for liberating Americans from Puritanism, as worthy as that goal was. The revolution would have happened without him; all Hefner did was sell ammunition to its two greatest detractors: cultural conservatives and feminists.
That's way I'm inclined to think this is the fairest mainstream media assessment of the Playboy "legacy." And why I think Hugh Hefner, now gone, is best forgotten.
Health Care: When Ideology Crashes Into Reality
As the latest repeal-and-replace-Obamacare fiasco on the part of congressional Republicans fades into the mists at the end of Barack Obama's last fiscal year, it's worth reflecting on the main reason why the GOP, with unified control of all three branches of the federal government, has repeatedly tried, and repeatedly failed, to repeal Obama's signature accomplishment.
It's a phenomenally simple one: the false free-market ideology they have promoted for decades on this issue has come crashing into reality. Two realities, actually.
The first reality is that the law, left to work in the manner that it is supposed to, actually works. Despite repeated attempts by Congress in the last six years of Obama's administration to sabotage the functioning of the Affordable Care Act, more Americans now have health insurance than ever before. And, contrary to conservative predictions, the health care exchanges, national and state, have largely functioned as planned.
That latter accomplishment is being undermined by the Trump Administration, currently engaging in subtle (and not-so-subtle) efforts to undermine the exchanges in the hope that this will destroy the exchanges and make Democrats beg to negotiate with Trump on his terms. At the risk of being obvious about this, Trump's strategy puts him in violation of his constitutional obligation to ensure the faithful execution of the laws, and provides sufficient grounds for impeachment proceedings. That latter point, along with related ones, can and will be re-visited in a later post.
It's enough for now to note that most Americans have caught onto the fact that the ACA is a success. This is why Republican representatives and senators are terrified at the thought of holding town meetings with their constituents, who have gradually accepted a significant expansion of the so-called "welfare state" into their lives. In the process, they have come to accept the second reality to which I alluded earlier.
Very simply put, the go-it-alone approach to paying for health care doesn't work.
It may be enticing for some people to think that a health plan can be specifically designed for them, based on their very optimistic view of their short-term and long-term health prognosis. But that's the terrible thing about illnesses and injuries: they aren't trains that arrive at fixed stations on fixed timetables. The randomness of life guarantees that they can, with no warning, affect anyone, anywhere, anytime. Here is an example of a young man who learned this lesson the hard way.
This is why health insurance is not something that can be created and priced out like consumer goods. They only way to calculate the cost of health insurance with any degree is to do so using the largest potential number of consumers. And, whether insurance is public or private in nature, and whether the object is paying for medical care, or for the protection of other personal interests (homes, cars, earnings in case of death, and so forth), anyone with any experience in liability coverage will tell you that as the number of insured individuals goes up, the cost of ensuring each one of them goes down. That is because the fixed costs of health care can be spread out over an increasing number of individuals. And in what system do you have the maximum number of insured individuals?
That answer can also be simply put: single-payer.
Single-payer systems are working, even now, all over the world to ensure that the citizens of the countries using these systems are guaranteed coverage for their health care needs. Regardless of cost. Regardless of ability to pay. Regardless of the nature of the condition, or the circumstances under which it arose. Everywhere but in the United States.
Well ... there are some exceptions there, too. The U.S. does, in fact, have a single-payer system for the elderly, and the disabled. It's called Medicare. And, curiously enough, none of the GOP attempts to repeal the ACA have even attempted to touch it. They know what the rest of us know: Medicare is a form of single-payer that, like all other forms of single-payer, works.
As does the other system we have that is close to being single-payer, for the poor: Medicaid. In every state where the ACA's expansion of Medicaid was adopted, whether by a Democrat or a Republican government, it has proved to be enormously popular.
Is that why, in trying to repeal the ACA, the GOP tried to bribe one senator by saying that her state could keep it? Or why some conservatives were trying to include language in the last repeal-and-replace bill that would actually forbid states from establishing single-payer systems? So much for states as the laboratories of democracy; it turns out that there are some experiments that the GOP doesn't think you should be allowed to try. Even supposedly "reasonable" Republicans like Lindsey Graham have blatantly and unapologetically participated in this abuse of the legislative process--an abuse that threatens to pollute it entirely.
The free-market ideology of the Republican Party and the conservative movement generally has come crashing into the reality that single-payer coverage is the only form of health insurance that works. It doesn't matter that it deepens government involvement; it gives the people what they want and need--the ability to choose health care providers and services without worry about the cost. It's time for conservatives to get away from worshiping ideology and get back to what liberals and conservatives should be doing together: serving the needs of the people.
It's a phenomenally simple one: the false free-market ideology they have promoted for decades on this issue has come crashing into reality. Two realities, actually.
The first reality is that the law, left to work in the manner that it is supposed to, actually works. Despite repeated attempts by Congress in the last six years of Obama's administration to sabotage the functioning of the Affordable Care Act, more Americans now have health insurance than ever before. And, contrary to conservative predictions, the health care exchanges, national and state, have largely functioned as planned.
That latter accomplishment is being undermined by the Trump Administration, currently engaging in subtle (and not-so-subtle) efforts to undermine the exchanges in the hope that this will destroy the exchanges and make Democrats beg to negotiate with Trump on his terms. At the risk of being obvious about this, Trump's strategy puts him in violation of his constitutional obligation to ensure the faithful execution of the laws, and provides sufficient grounds for impeachment proceedings. That latter point, along with related ones, can and will be re-visited in a later post.
It's enough for now to note that most Americans have caught onto the fact that the ACA is a success. This is why Republican representatives and senators are terrified at the thought of holding town meetings with their constituents, who have gradually accepted a significant expansion of the so-called "welfare state" into their lives. In the process, they have come to accept the second reality to which I alluded earlier.
Very simply put, the go-it-alone approach to paying for health care doesn't work.
It may be enticing for some people to think that a health plan can be specifically designed for them, based on their very optimistic view of their short-term and long-term health prognosis. But that's the terrible thing about illnesses and injuries: they aren't trains that arrive at fixed stations on fixed timetables. The randomness of life guarantees that they can, with no warning, affect anyone, anywhere, anytime. Here is an example of a young man who learned this lesson the hard way.
This is why health insurance is not something that can be created and priced out like consumer goods. They only way to calculate the cost of health insurance with any degree is to do so using the largest potential number of consumers. And, whether insurance is public or private in nature, and whether the object is paying for medical care, or for the protection of other personal interests (homes, cars, earnings in case of death, and so forth), anyone with any experience in liability coverage will tell you that as the number of insured individuals goes up, the cost of ensuring each one of them goes down. That is because the fixed costs of health care can be spread out over an increasing number of individuals. And in what system do you have the maximum number of insured individuals?
That answer can also be simply put: single-payer.
Single-payer systems are working, even now, all over the world to ensure that the citizens of the countries using these systems are guaranteed coverage for their health care needs. Regardless of cost. Regardless of ability to pay. Regardless of the nature of the condition, or the circumstances under which it arose. Everywhere but in the United States.
Well ... there are some exceptions there, too. The U.S. does, in fact, have a single-payer system for the elderly, and the disabled. It's called Medicare. And, curiously enough, none of the GOP attempts to repeal the ACA have even attempted to touch it. They know what the rest of us know: Medicare is a form of single-payer that, like all other forms of single-payer, works.
As does the other system we have that is close to being single-payer, for the poor: Medicaid. In every state where the ACA's expansion of Medicaid was adopted, whether by a Democrat or a Republican government, it has proved to be enormously popular.
Is that why, in trying to repeal the ACA, the GOP tried to bribe one senator by saying that her state could keep it? Or why some conservatives were trying to include language in the last repeal-and-replace bill that would actually forbid states from establishing single-payer systems? So much for states as the laboratories of democracy; it turns out that there are some experiments that the GOP doesn't think you should be allowed to try. Even supposedly "reasonable" Republicans like Lindsey Graham have blatantly and unapologetically participated in this abuse of the legislative process--an abuse that threatens to pollute it entirely.
The free-market ideology of the Republican Party and the conservative movement generally has come crashing into the reality that single-payer coverage is the only form of health insurance that works. It doesn't matter that it deepens government involvement; it gives the people what they want and need--the ability to choose health care providers and services without worry about the cost. It's time for conservatives to get away from worshiping ideology and get back to what liberals and conservatives should be doing together: serving the needs of the people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)