Becoming a World of Caregivers

THE CHINESE HAVE DECIDED to abandon their one child per family policy, because they have realized that with a diminished birth rate, and a population of billions of aging people, most of whom are expected to live longer than people of previous generations, the time is rapidly approaching when China will be a nation of elderly, with a shrunken labor force of young people, and a shrunken population of health care givers. Raise the birth rate, and over population ensues. Lower it, and the world becomes a world of the elderly, with few to care for them, or to keep industrial technological civilization operating. The situation is everywhere the same, especially in Europe and Japan, and, eventually, the United States. The solution which comes most readily to mind is unthinkable; to allow, or require people to simply die, by ceasing our frantic attempt at life extension. In his seminal book" Life Extension", scientist Dirk Pearson proclaimed his intent to live to be one hundred and fifty years old, by adding supplements to his diet. It is widely believed now that the maximum possible human life span is something short of one hundred and twenty years, as even now there are more than two hundred thousand centurians in the United States alone. Nobody knows what the carrying capacity is for planet Earth. Less, if we all want to achieve an upper middle class American lifestyle, replete with voracious consumerism. Human life extension and population increase advocates might argue that for each person on the planet, there are many acres of land available; those who disagree point out that it takes many acres of land per capita to sustain society. In the United States, nursing homes, and in general care for the elderly, is sorely lacking. Anyone who has ever visited a nursing home or placed a loved one in one is well aware of the assembly line, sardine character they embody. Nobody wants to live in one.In the nineteenth century and before Americans died at home, in the loving embrace of family and friends. Now, we warehouse our elderly, being too busy to care for them in their/our homes. By necessity, we are becoming a world of professional caregivers.

Squeezing Out the Middle

THE WORLD IS BECOMING MORE SECULAR,as traditional religions struggle against the headwind of science, technology, and education. Europeans are abandoning Christianity at a pace which would, were it to continue, render the continent entirely secular by mid century. In the United States, traditional protestant churches, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, have experienced a leveling off in membership, and even a slight decline in membership relative to population growth, over the past half century. Only the Catholic church has manifested significant growth, primarily in Latin America and Africa. In the United States, the growth of Catholicism has been brought about by immigration; one quarter of all American Catholics are Hispanic. The United States remains perhaps the most decidedly Christian nation in the world; overwhelmingly, Americans say they believe in God, and roughly eighty five percent of the population considers itself Christian. Attending church in the United States was once a matter of presumed habit; nearly everyone attended, including the lukewarm Christians, side by side with those of fervent belief. But, just as in politics, religious affiliation has become polarized; the lukewarm believers have dropped out, and what remains is a highly motivated core of church members, whose lives are shaped to a great degree by their religiosity. In politics, the moderates have left the scene, and what remains are two 'armies" of passionate political "believers", both on the left and on the right. In religion, politics, as in economics, the middle has been squeezed out. Thus, we are left with what has been described as a "cultural war", or "cultural gap". There is no indication that this trend is going to reverse or even mitigate. Ladies and gentleman, choose your weapons.

To Be An Owner, And A Worker

MARIJUANA IS NOW LEGAL in Colorado and Washington state, but nowhere else in the United States. Almost every large city in the country has has own minimum wage, every state has a minimum wage, and the federal government has a minimum wage. In most cases, all three minimum wages are different. If you happen to work in a mall which straddles two municipalities, you can quit your job at one end of the building, get hired on the other end, and improve your income by working in a higher minimum wage district. It can become rather confusing, a dance to determine what minimum wage is. Workers and employers, squared off against each other, doing their minimum wage dance. Federalism in action. How does one say "fragmentation"? The numerous methods by which corporations avoid paying workers well, and avoid paying taxes, is an amazing cobweb of strategies. One way is to move the corporation out of the country, after the fashion of Burger King. another is to declare that all employees are "independent contractors", after the fashion of Fed Ex. (they're the one's who wear brown, aren't they?) By declaring its delivery drivers independent contractors, Fed Ex is able to use federal law to reduce salaries, and to shift the burden of fuel, uniform, and vehicle maintenance costs to the workers, and away from corporate management. Ah, but alas, the ninth federal circuit court, in San Francisco, that bastion of liberal jurisprudence and bane of right wingers, recently issued a ruling that Fed Ex workers are indeed not independent contractors, owning and operating their own businesses, fulfilling the American dream. No, says the court, they are in fact employed workers, employees, because they are told how to dress, how to behave, when to work, and how to do their jobs. And really, under those circumstances, they don't sound much like business owners. Isn't the primary benefit of business ownership the prerogative to be one's own boss, to make one's own rules, to keep one's own schedule? When one owns one's own business, the court says, one does not accede to corporate rules from on high. Fed Ex, of course, the executive management thereof, properly indignant, claims, unsurprisingly, that hundreds if not thousands of legal precedents prove that they are right, and the court is wrong. The dirty little secret is, precedents, even if they actually exist, can be, and often are, overturned, by the United States federal court system. We'll see you at the Supreme court, where, one way or another, we can expect to be delivered a five to four decision.

Bowling Alone

ACCORDING TO THE HARVARD school of sociology, the American citizen has, on average, one friend fewer than a generation ago. Furthermore, the American community has been in a state of decline over the last third of the twentieth century, and the first tenth of the twenty first. Membership in organizations across the board has fallen significantly. Far fewer people attend PTA meetings. Bowling leagues are in decline. All manner of civic organization have suffered a severe decline in membership, including political parties, and local as well as national organizations. Traditionally, America has been a culture of joiners. when Alexis de Tocqueville visited the U.S. in the 1830s, he remarked that everywhere we went, he found Americans organizing into groups; professional, service, social. Nobody seemed to be a loner. That's what living in an untamed wilderness will do to a person, perhaps. This trait adhered until the 1960s. Then, the bottom dropped out, and is still dropping. When Napoleon Bonaparte took power in the wake of the turbulent French Revolution, he observed that France had become, as he put it, "atomized"; reduced to its smallest component parts. He considered this a problem for national morale, which is always of paramount importance to dictators. Thus he established the Legion of Honor, and numerous other organizations to spur a rebirth of community. America's situation may be attributable to various factors, including the invention of the internet and television, the rise of suburban life, and the increasing mobility of Americans, as they move here and there around the country, usually for reasons of employment. The most comprehensive study of this phenomenon is the monograph "Bowling Alone", by Harvardian sociologist Robert D. Putnam. Putnam decries the trend, but suggests that not only is it reversible, but that it should be reversed, because a well connected society, with high social capital,networks of connected people, enhances the functioning, efficiency, and well being of any society. But it may well be that the trend will get worse before it gets better, and will become permanent. We can hope not.

On Our Own

MORE THAN ONE BILLION PEOPLE live on less than one dollar a day. Another couple of billion live on two dollars a day. In all, forty five percent of humanity lives on two dollars a day or less. In the aftermath of the horrible devastation of World War Two, institutions were formed which were designed to create political stability and keep the peace, and to create economic stability and reduce or eliminate poverty around the world. Enter the United nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary fund, and the World Trade Organization. The WTO, though mandated in 1946 at Bretton woods, New Jersey, like the others, nonetheless did not actually come into existence until fifty years later, in the nineteen nineties. The bad news is that none of the above does its job, or ever has. The good news is that it still isn't too late for them to begin. All of them are dominated, indeed controlled by, you guessed it, the United States of America. The World Bank is always chaired by an American, the IMF is always chaired by a European, and the United States, believe it or not, has exclusive veto power over both. Both the IMF and the World Bank are headquartered in Washington D.C., over on nineteenth and K streets. The United Nations is a tad less undemocratic; there are five permanent members of the Security Council, all of whom have veto power; the victorious nations of World War Two. To the victors of World War Two went the spoils. The "developing" countries, those nations which are dirt poor and always have been, in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, were the intended beneficiaries of the economic policies of both the IMF and the World Bank, but they have only grown more poor during the post world war period. Its almost as if the policies of these two lenders are intended not to elevate the impoverished, but rather, to further enrich the rich. They loan money to countries in crisis, then demand that it be paid back, with interest. They make sure that the developed countries have unlimited access to the natural resources of the developing countries,and that their markets are open to American and European exports. If the day ever comes when the people who need help from these organizations are allowed to have a voice in their policy, the world might begin to make progress towards a better, more prosperous, more humane world. Until then, we're all on our own.

How Can It Be?

IT IS AN ARTICLE OF FAITH within the conservative American political community that America is a land of traditional american values and institutions.Traditional American values, deeply rooted in history, ought to be upheld, because they have withstood the test of time,and are as valid now as they ever have been. Hence, America is a "Christian" nation, and a nation devoted to free expression, freedom of religion, and free enterprise. Or so the reasoning goes, something like that. Then someone comes along, like this blog, and points out that the trouble in Ferguson, Missouri is the direct result of three hundred years of black slavery, and a hundred or more years of segregation and second class status for African Americans. Suddenly, among the same conservatives to whom history is so terribly important, history is no longer important. Slavery is in the past, and no longer relevant. Segregation and Jim Crow are no longer extant, having been remedied by the evolution of America towards a more perfect union. Thus the trouble in Ferguson becomes entirely a product of modern manufacture, a trumped up charge against police officers merely doing their duty, and prior conditions of servitude and oppression are irrelevant, unrelated to the needless, irrelevant, inappropriate, racially (reverse racially) motivated protestation and violence. How can it be that in certain instances history and tradition play such a vital role in our present, and in other areas history and tradition are utterly irrelevant?

Suddenly Becoming Color Blind

A YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE is gunned down by a European American police officer, the African American community stages protests, liberal European America seems to side with the protesters, while conservative Euro America justifies the slaying. Can there be a trace of truth in both viewpoints? According to conservative America, the police officer was acting in self defense, and according to liberal America, it was unnecessary to fire six shots into the young man's body. Would a stun gun have worked as well in the officer's defense? According to one conservative talk radio host, the young victim was not unarmed, because by instigating an altercation with the officer, the young man was attempting to arm himself, because he was a threat to gain access to the officer's weapon. This might be a bit of a stretch. Instances of white police officers killing young black males, say the conservatives, are relatively rare. But perhaps even one is many. The big picture is that after a quarter millennium of enslavement, and a hundred more years of inferior treatment, there is a tendency on the part of Afro-Americans to distrust Euro American authority, since such authority was responsible for the enslavement and inferior treatment. We are all the the victims and recipients of our history. How suddenly our modern conservatives become color blind!

Being Forced To Finally Play Fair

THE LITTLE LEAGUE World Series takes place every year, in the United States, and every year an American team is in the finals, and plays against a team from another country. That's the formula, one American team, and one non American team, after fighting their way through the tournament, meet for the championship. This is a really strange, yet somehow very American, way to organize it. In the first place, its a "world" event, according to its name. But, its always played entirely in the U.S.A..And anyway, why should an American team always be guaranteed a place in the championship round? Why not have all the teams participate against each other on a more equatable basis? Maybe that's indicative of why so many countries hate America; the way we do things. In essence, in anything in which the United States participates, the United States tends to insist that it control. The United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary fund, you name it, the United States of Corporate America controls it. But this may be changing. Global economic power, as well as global military power, seems to be shifting, away from the western hemisphere and to Asia, and, as often as not, some team from Japan, Taiwan, or Korea wins the Little League World Series, notwithstanding the great advantage held by the Americans in setting up the event to favor American teams. Maybe there will come a time when America actually NEEDS a head start; but by the time that happens, it will be forced to finally play fair, for once.

Looking For Better Beliefs

WE LIVE IN A world haunted by demons. The demons are thoughts and ideas. In particular, misconceptions. Falsehood, fueled by emotion and imagination, engulfs the global culture, and holds us back, keeps in in the dark ages, by preventing us from knowing and responding productively to reality. The people in Ferguson, Missouri, U.S.A. are protesting what they consider to be an unjustifiable homicide. Perhaps a cop should aim at the knees,and aim to cripple, not kill, or should use electrical shock, but they are trained to either use deadly force, or none at all. And perhaps they are protesting what they perceive to be a pattern of police brutality against black Americans. Among conservatives there is a widespread misconception that such racism is a myth, but in fact it isn't a myth at all; blacks are arrested, charged, convicted, and incarcerated at a rate grotesquely higher than white for the same crimes. Police brutality against blacks indeed does not happen in America with constant frequency, but the entire system of justice is indisputably stacked against them. We should all be out protesting against that. Likewise, we should all be out protesting against war, which, contrary to the popular misconception, most definitely does not stimulate and enrich the economy. War is incredibly expensive, and destructive of wealth, damaging to any economy. No serious economist anywhere believes that war stimulates economic productivity. And let's protest grotesque economic inequality, and hence social and political inequality. Supply side, trickle down Reaganomics is a sham, contrary to popular opinion. Again, go ask the experts. Go to the folks at Harvard and M.I.T.. they'll tell you that demand side, trickle up economics is the way to go. Get money into the hands of the poor, turn them into consumers, first........ All of these ideas, about racism, war, and Reaganomics should be consigned to the trash bin, or to the realm of pseudo intellectual thought, along with pseudo science. Doubtless we live in a universe full of marvels, such as life, and spirits, and magic. But until we can prove it, let's admit our ignorance, let's openmindedly question our beliefs and look for better answers, and, above all else, let's avoid embracing falsehood, and elevating false beliefs to the level of mainstream social acceptance.

America; Badly Needing Reforming

THERE IS A TOWN in Arkansas named "Lincoln", and I used to wonder why anyone in Arkansas would name a town after Lincoln. I found out why; the folks who founded the town were black. Now, its all white. I reckon whitey, over the years, just sort of gradually moved in, and perhaps inadvertently at first just kind of drove the African-Americans out. Ferguson , Missouri, on the other hand, was most assuredly founded by Euro-Americans, but now it is at least half black. In a town of twenty one thousand people, half or most black, the entire police force is white. That catches your attention. That don't look like America. You would think that over the years and months, enough qualified black police officers would be available, and that the city would deliberately hire them, just to look like America, and to conform to modern standards of ethnic equality. Your typical average white American conservative is going to denounce all the fuss and talk of racism in this tragedy, and will accuse the race card of being played. But the race card done got played a long time ago, through two hundred fitty years of slavery in America, yo, two hundred an' fitty... and another hundred of segregation, grotesque inequality, intolerance, hatred, and violence. We now see yet another echo of that. How could you expect less? Let's not play the race card, let's play the, oh, let's see, um, economic inequality card, or the corporate oligarchy card. Lest we forget, the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, like everything else in America, is a direct result of the American political, economic, and social systems, which, from all appearances, badly need reforming.

Tearing the Country Apart

THE SAN DIEGO city council voted to raise the minimum wage in that city considerably, but the measure was vetoed by the mayor, the new mayor who does not, so far as we know, harass women while at work. Then, the city council overrode the mayor's veto, and the new minimum wage is back in action. Within days we can expect to see every business leave the city, as per the new mayor's dire warnings. Or, maybe that line of reasoning is rubbish. Maybe prices will go up just a bit, and all the fast food places will stay put. Interestingly, all those on the council who voted for the higher minimum wage are democrats, all those opposed, you guessed it, republicans. America looks to be divided right down the middle, half conservative pro business, half liberal pro labor. Is there nowhere in the twain to meet? Right now about forty percent of the american people are financially stressed, which means that they can either barely pay the bills, or cannot pay them at all. when this number goes beyond fifty percent, then will the great economic reform movement begin? the gap between rich and poor grows ever greater. When will it grow so great that it tears the country apart?

Identifying The Real Enemy

THE ONGOING SITUATION just outside St. Louis is an echo of a demon which refuses to die;racism, poverty, inequality, resentment, violence, militarized police. In many American communities, particularly African American and Hispanic communities, nobody, including crime victims, wants to have anything to do with the police, with local or national government, or American society in general. And who can blame them? When you're at or near the bottom of the lower ninety nine percent, its a long, hard look up to see the top, hard to discern one's ultimate masters. The real enemy in St. Louis is of course not the poor terrified police officer who killed the young black man. The real enemy is the system which creates too many angry, impoverished, and futureless eighteen year olds. We might all wish to hasten to Ferguson, Missouri forthwith and turn the protest-demonstration, or whatever is it by now, into a new and revitalized Occupy Wall Street movement. Them folks had the real enemy accurately identified; our corrupt political and economic systems. While we're at it, we can protest the culture, spoon fed to us by our corporate overlords, the same folks who brought you the great recession, and the permanent poverty class in America, roughly forty percent of the people. Forty percent of the American people are right now financially stressed - in debt, bankrupt, or barely making ends meet. The gap between rich and poor ever widens. Political, economic collapse and revolution are more likely than you may think. A war between the rich and the poor. Pray it won't be necessary.

Removing Trees, Adding Trees

A SMALL TORNADO swept through my back yard in tornado alley, lower mid America, "tornado alley" being, in reality, the United States of America. f all America's charms tornadoes are surely the most riveting, and uniquely American. Hell, people come from all over the world just hoping to see one. Tornadoes are like that famous portrait of George Washington; wherever you are, its after you. three of my best trees were felled, and I sensed an upper body opportunity. Make lemons into lemonade. I bought a hand saw about eight inches long, a child's toy, and began cutting up the trees into small pieces, then stacking the pieces neatly for removal. Trees are hard to kill, and most trees, as they age, take on a look of having had a rough life, but having survived it. Gnarled limbs, missing branches, stooped tree trunks. I still don't regret having planted twenty five trees, including four notoriously destructible Bradford Pear trees. Why, if we could all just pitch in, and plant, say, a few billion new trees over the next few years, and perhaps sprinkle a little sulfur compound in the upper atmosphere, and global warming could be reversed, or at least slowed a bit. Is it true that there are more trees now in the United States than there were two hundred years ago? Or that the lost Amazonian rain forest could be replaced? How many trees, roughly, are there in the world? How many more should we add?

Droning On

INTRODUCING AMERICA'S LATEST FAD: drones. that's right, American's by the million are falling in love with remotely controlled flying robots. How terribly unsurprising, in a country where hula hoops and pet rocks made it big. Drones are not just top secret for the military and the military industrial complex anymore. The free market is speaking, loud and clear, and the American people, as usual, will get what they want. It is rumored that the skies over New York City are a non stop free for all shooting match of drones everywhere, already. Pizza deliveries, peeping Toms, police surveillance.....how many applications are there? As many as there are people remote control-ingly flying drones? Five'll get ya ten that within two years a debate will be raging over whether to outlaw the damned things, at least throughout the general population. the military will never give them up, we know that, nor will America's innumerable spy agencies and police departments. Its also hard to imagine corporate America going down without a fight; after all, it never does, and seldom does it go down at all. Seemingly, those in greatest danger of losing their drone privileges are John and Jane Q public, your ordinary civilian citizens, and their teen age children. Which might, if you really think abut it, be for the best, ultimately. I fear for my country when I think of drones in the hands of tens of millions of ordinary American citizens, and when I reflect that God is just, to paraphrase Jefferson. Good heavens, can you imagine our inner cities? Would they become perpetual aerial battlegrounds, just as they are on the ground? The best advice is to start paying considerably more attention to the skies over America, and knock on wood.

Great Gap, Waxing Greater

I HAVE A CHECKING ACCOUNT, a savings account, a mortgage, and some stock with Bank of America, and have for a long time. Problem is, it seems that my bank is nothing other than a pack of crooks. Just yesterday the B o A forked over about seventeen billion, yes, billion, in fines to the feds, pleading no contest to some sort of fraud or corruption charge, you name it. What else is new. Seems like every few months the bank is hauled into federal court by the feds, who extract a bit of blackmail from the big bank.Or, seen another way, the big bank saves a lot of money, and a lot of tax payer money, by buying its way out of a bit of annoying, unfortunate, but certainly not terribly harmful trouble. If memory serves, most of America's major corporations have rather lengthy rap sheets, but they keep right on profiting on, in an atmosphere of government deregulation, widespread citizen apathy,and the legacy of Reaganomics. What's good for the Bank of America is good for America, so it goes, and enough of the ninety nine percent still believe that rubbish that the revolution has yet to take hold. The problem is Colorado is that the big money from marijuana sales cannot be deposited in banks with a federal charter, because marijuana is still a federal crime. One can easily understand somebody not wanting to do business with a bunch of sleazy criminals operating on the edges of society, but, the pot dealers have to put their money somewhere, to paraphrase Bill Maher, just like the rest of us. Erstwhile, the great gap between the one percent and the ninety nine percent waxes ever greater.

Buying Beer With Cash

THE LADY AT THE LIQUOR STORE handed me my beer through the window, along with my debit card, and I drove off, happy. No, it doesn't take much to please me. Just as I was about to pull out of the lot, I noticed that she hadn't given me a receipt, and I hadn't asked for one. For some reason I always want to get a receipt on electronic transactions; maybe I'm too old fashioned, and don't trust electronic machines, or the way people use them, or maybe...I'm smart. So I went back and got my receipt. She was very nice about it, and remarked, "it would probably be online by tomorrow anyway." That comment puzzled me. All I said to her was "That's too complicated for me", she agreed, and I drove off. But, is it true, what she said? Is every receipt of every electronic transaction on the internet? Really? why, I had no idea. It seems hard to believe, frankly. But, you never know know. In this world it just may be that every electronic transaction, or every one involving alcohol, or every one involving an American, or every one involving alcohol AND an America. - or maybe every one of mine....in theory, of course, the internet could contain an infinite amount of information, couldn't it? Couldn't the internet in theory contain more information than there is in the entire universe? Or something like that? Maybe for now on I should just buy beer with cash.

Competing Among Classes, Not Nations

IF THE UNITED STATES, had, say, a much higher population and a much bigger economy, it could, in theory, stave off the advancing formerly red Chinese, and remain masters of the economic world. Or will international economic competition in the future be replaced by class warfare? Into what uncharted realms of growth will international economic competition take us? Because of political and economic structures, the concentration of wealth globally is reaching previously unheard of levels. Will the world eventually be left with teeming masses of impoverished billions, with a few million ultra wealthy and ultra powerful masters, and no middle class? The rules of the game are currently set up to accomplish exactly that, and that is exactly what has been happening. Eventually, so many people will be poor, with virtually no spending power, that nation after nation will descend into bankruptcy, and the global economic system will collapse, top heavy, bottom heavy, hollowed out in the middle. The trick is to turn the fight against climate change into a profitable industry. That, and some reform within the banking and finance industry, and putting an end to corporate welfare, and perhaps future economic collapses won't be as severe as our recent ones. Without sweeping structural change, prosperity for the many will be neither long lived nor widespread, any more than it is now, which, obviously, isn't much..

Real Tyranny

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA has determined, according to an unofficial security leak, that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not in the best interests of the U.S. That, presumably, is to say, that the recently occupied part of Iraq does not meet with American approval. For the newly self proclaimed Islamic state this could be both a good thing and a bad thing. A bad thing, because it means that ISIS is doomed to destruction. A good thing, because after its destruction it is likely to receive a great deal of American assistance and aid. So it always seems to go for those vanquished by the U.S.of A. Obama is currently incapable of accomplishing much of anything during the great gridlock of 2014. He really isn't accomplishing much either with all his independent executive orders, most of which have automatic time limits, or only effect a handful of people.But, of course, the republicans are screaming like wounded animals, pretending that Obama is engaging in real tyranny. Any legal expert will tell you that it simply aint so, and that the lawsuit initiated by the republicans against the President will go nowhere. Obama is no tyrant. Tyranny is the tower of London. Tyranny is Hitler and Stalin, making millions of people disappear with the stroke of a pen.