Losing Trust In Each Other In America

THE AVERAGE AMERICAN does not trust other Americans nearly as much now as in the past. Every year since 1972, when the study started, Americans have trusted each other less. Forty years ago half of Americans trusted other people, now, only one third do. That is a stark reality, that we Americans trust each other, trust strangers, less all the time. Social scientists are worried about this trend, which they see as unhealthy. There are many different purported causes fot this, many different places to place blame. Television, growing economic inequality, to name just a couple of the many and varied. Has anyone considered the possibility that it may be just good common sense? Forty years ago about half the American people said they trust other people, now, its down to one third, and declining all the time. Certainly the trend has been accompanied by a decline in community in general in American Culture, as the book "Bowling Alone" describes. Traditional community of all types, from churches to PTAs to bowling leagues, have experienced declining participation in America over the past few decades. Over the same time period, forty years, the average American has lost one friend, and has one fewer friends, accoridng to the same scientific statistical analysis. With less social trust, say social scientists, cooperative activiey can never be as effective, and conflict and diviseness will tear apart the spirit of community which is the backbone of any society. I will never forget the words my friend from China scorched us with: "you Amellican are the loneriest people in the world. You care more about your dogs and cats than you do each other." He sure got that right. I congratulated him on his astute understanding of American culture. He still lives here, by the way; evidently American standard of living trumped shortcomings in American community. Its money that matters in the U.S.A., as Randy Newman said. Maybe our loss of trust is necessary, in a complicated world. But then maybe there will come a time when we trust each other again.

Powerful Weapons in the Hands of Trigger Happy Fanatics

THERE IS, AS YOU PROBABLY KNOW, a powerful automatic weapon called something like a "Bushmaster223", or something like that. It seems to be rather popular, particularly among mass murderers. Its been the weapon of choice on several occasions, most notably, perhaps, when Adam Lanza killed twenty six people in a school with a bushmaster, then killed himself with a pocket pistol. On his radio talk show, Geraldo Rivera issued a challenge, for anyone to call in to his show and explain a practical use, any use, for this weapon. Evidently there are many bushmaster owners around the country, and Geraldo, quite reasonably, wanted to hear reasons why people own them. The closest anyone came was when one fairly literate sounding good ole soughern boy called in to say that he used one to hunt hogs. Now, that might be the best possible use for an automatic weapon. The United States is currently being overrun with the wild hog population, and its a very serious problem, in terms of damage to property. We need to thin this animal out considerably, by whatever means. In a perfect world hunters would take to the fields and forests with single shot rifles, kill the hogs, and feed the poor, but, this emergency really calls for a bushmaster. Good enough. But everybody else who called Geraldo tried to give a speech about the sanctity of the second amendment, as if this argument were good enough to answer a simple question about particular uses for a particular weapon. Second amendment fanatics never have been known for their ability to argue for gun ownership on practical grounds, so, they tend to stay in the realm of ideals. Ideally, the founders intended no second amendment restrictions, let us say for the sake of argument. But what about practical uses for a bushmaster 223? Other than killing hogs, maybe killing pythons in Florida. But that's about it. Certainly not good enough reasons for a powerful weapon to be in the hands of trigger happy second amendment fanatics.

Declaring, Invading, and Defending Air Space

THE LATEST INFORMATION is that the two American B52 bombers which willfully invaded Chinese air space a couple of days ago were accompanied, after all, by a squadron of Chinese fighter planes. This had not been reported at first. Everybody is mum about how close the Chinese fighters got to the American bombers, how long they kept pace, and so forth. For all we know, they engaged in a dogfight, and the B52s, unarmed, were shot out of the sky. We hope not, but stranger things have happened. And so now it looks as if the fun is just beginning. If China wants some uninhabited islands, so what? Nobody else seems to be using them! First, the United States asserts that increasing China's declared air space is "provocative". Then, the U.S. proceeds to take a provocative action, proving that China's air space enhancement was indeed provocative. Too funny, almost. Knowing the United States, it has no intention of refraining from further intrusions in Chinese air space. Nobody ever accused the U.S.A. of passing up a good conflict, or foregoing some good international drama. We simply must make our point, mustn't we? It isn't enough to simply say: "we do not agree with or accept your newly expanded definition of your national airspace." Oh no. We Americans have to prove our point. IN truth, however, China, Japan, and South Korea all claim airspace which extends rather far from their own shores. Almost, you might think, a bit too far. What about everybody cutting back a bit, and declaring the majority of the world's air space "international" and free access? By the way, how far up does national airspace extend? Surely there is an official United Nations rule regarding this. National air space can only extend so high, otherwise orbiting satellites and space stations would all be violating somebody's air space, every day.

Rearming America, Again, and Forever

TRICKLE DOWN INFORMATION is coming from the American military industrial complex, through the mainstream conservative American media,to the American people, to the following effect: American military readiness is currently being seriously jeopardized by the new federal budget cuts which we all quaintly call the "sequestor". The military has a very systematic system for measuring its own readiness to defend country and implement foreign policy, or whatever else the military does. It all boils down to training and equipment maintenance, both of which are allegedly sorely lacking at present. Standard American military policy is that the United States must be perpetually prepared to fight total war; multiple wars, or total world war. Must be ready at all times to do this. The only distinction between this perpetual state of readiness and actual warfare is the actual destroying of enemy human and material resources. IN effect, the United States is in a perpetual state of war, and has been, ever since Pearl Harobr The National Security Act of 1948, signed by President Harry Truman, a true war monger, spelled out the necessity of constant war preparedness, and the evils of peactime disarmament. Peacetime disarmament was the American norm before World War Two; it has proven to be considerably less expensive. You're almost tempted to think "what the hell, why not save some money, stop being so paranoid an,, defensive, and aggressive, and cut back on the military a bit unless some foreign army is camped out in the lower forty eight?" But no, that would never do, we must be bristeling with weapons at all times, and practicing, always practicing. Sending those billions of dollars from the poor working Americans to the politicians, who then fulfill their campaign promises to ccorporate campaign contributors by using tax payer money to purchase massive amounts of weapons from the corporations. And to justify that, you gotta convince the American people that an enemy is forever and eternally lurking at the gate. You gotta scare the hell outta the American people, as Senator Vandenberg said to President Truman right before the country decided to rearm permanently in the late 1940s. Permanent maximum armament, and permanent mediocrity in public education, infrastructure, health care, and living standard for the working class. And now, once again, we are being told that we must rearm. Choose our enemy, any will do.

Hanging With Hunger Strikers

WHEN PEOPLE GO ON HUNGER STRIKES, there is always a reason behind it, a cause so great, so worthy that people are willing to fast for it. You hear about hunger strikes fairly often; usually someboldy in prison does it, or somebody outside the prison trying to get someone inside released. Just a couple of weeks ago Greenpeace environmental activist types were hunger striking, protesting the lack of progress at the United Nations environmental summit meeting in Warsaw. How did that turn out, anyway? The hunger strike, that is. Did anybody starve to death? Presumably it eventually came to an end, the strikers got a little sugar water back into their systems for starters, then recovered. Hunger strikers never actually starve to death, do they? You always hear in the media about people beginning and continuing hunger strikes, but you never hear about them ending them. The end of a hunger strike must not be as lucrative in advertising sales as the beginning or middle of one. The most prominent hunger strike now ongoing is on an issue which you do not normally think of in terms of hunger strikers; immigration reform. Somewhere, at least eighteen people are on food refusal in protest of the lack of an acceptable immigration reform policiy by the United States. President Obama met with these people yesterday, presumably because immigration is the big issues he is now involved with, trying to draw public attention to it. Two kinds of immigration reform come to mind; the kind which is very harsh on illegal imigrants, and the kind which is very lenient on them. Obama favors the latter sort, presumably so do the hunger strikers with whom he met. Its just hard to imagine anyone willing to risk death by starvation in order to kick people out of the country. The same fervant spirit just wouldn't be there. President Obama, while meeting with these people, declared his comeplete allegiance to their cause, and his intention of producing real immigration reform, including a reasonable path to citizenship for illegals already in the country. The people with whom Obama met have been hunger striking since November 12. Tat's a bit long. they must be losing weight by now, and very weak. While he was hanging with these fasting folks, did he by chance, or was he tempted, to pull out a nice warm sweet smelling sweet roll from the White House kitchenn? Or maybe a fresh hot aromatic pizza, and take a satisfying bite, and offer to share?

A Killer In Our Midst, Ignored

THE YOUNG HUMANOID BEING who killed twenty six children and himself a while back turns out to have been a truly strange creature. He lived in the basement of his mother's house, and kept black plastic taped to the windows to totally cover them. He had a huge collection of powerful firearms. Automatic rifles, automatic pistols, and everything in between. His mother evidently bought them for him, and not long before his mass murder spree she had paid for an addition to his arsenal. She also frequently took him to shooting ranges for target practice. His mother, who lived upstairs, never, or almost never saw him. they communicated by texting and email. Evidently, not even any phone calls. This person never came out of the basement. He had a vast array of violent video games, which he evidently played constantly, during nearly all his waking hours. It is unclear how he got food; perhaps his mother aided him in that regard. Quite obviously, the young man was, shall we say, mentally disturbed. His mother quite obviously was an enabler of this mental illness. On the day of his murderous insane shooting spree, his mother was his first victim. If only she had done something sooner, gotten the kid some help. If only anybody in his life had done something, anything, to help this person, and maybe, just maybe, prevent the disaster which followed. But of course their were a limited number of people in his life. But his mother evidently did not perceive his behavior as being mentally disturbed. Such is the eternal non judgmental unconditional love that only a mother can feel. For those of you in other countries, tens of millions of Americns are heavily armed. Every few weeks somebody strolls into some public place, and starts shooting other people at random, surprisingly. American conservatives offer as a solution to this not removal of guns from society, but predicting in advance who is going to kill next, and stopping it before it happens.

Terrorism From the Comfort of Your Own Yard

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA has a long history of involvement with firearms. On the one hand, it could easily be argued that the second amendment is vague and impossible to know the founders intent, so we sould either rewrite it with our intent imprented upon it, or simply throw it out. When the sedond amandment was written, a muzle loading musket was the most advanced small firearm; now, we have automatic weapons that can spew hundred sof rounds per sedond and carried in a brief case. On the ohter hand, it doesn't matter how many thsouands of innocent people get gunned down by aecond amendment fanatics using futuristic death rifles; a fierce and hyge gun lobby, consisting of millions of well meaning Americans, insist that the second amendment if sacred, clear, and inviolable. What the founder meant when they wrote the second amendment is that anyone can have any weapon one wishes to have, period. One day in the Dollar General store I bought a three dollar toy for my cats. It consisted of a miniature laser flashlight which casts a bright red dot on the floor, or for that matter on your neighbor's house all the way down the street. Clearly printed in the safety instructions is a warning not to shine this light in anyone's eyes, and that it is a federal crime to aim it at passing overhead aircraft. So I bought one, my cats do indeed enjoy it, and every night I stand in my front yard, waiting for an aircraft to pass overhead, so I can aim my laser at it, in direct defiance of federal law. So far I haven't brought anything down. I wonder what my chances are? How would it work? Would it blind the pilot, or ignite the fuel tank? Does anyone happen to know why these things are legal? In all honestly, it seems almost impossible to harm an aircraft by pointing this little light at it. So why is the warning there? The preceding narrative is ficticous, and any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental, and unintended.

Making Peace, but Keeping the Swagger

ON THE DAY AFTER Thanksgiving, we are thankful that the United States is enegaed in fewere wars than at any time in its recent past. To be sure, the American military is scattered all over the world, in grand imperial fashion, sucking the money it takes to maintain an empire on a laregely tapped out American citizenry. But no American bombs are falling anywhere, there have been no drone strickes agains tPakistani civilians for, oh, several weeks now - Things could be much, much worse. The preliminary peace agreement with Iran, in which the Iranians agree to slow down on their processing of heavy metal to gain time for further, more extensive disarmement agreements, is being criticized by tough talking American conservatives and tough talking Israeli leader Netanyahu. they can tok tough all they want; let the word go out; the United States of America has signed a peace treat with one of its many enemies, and that, unto itself, is an achievement worthy of celebration. A military power capable of destroying the ancient Persian Empire, haveing proven time and again its willingness to spread destruction, instead seeking and making peace. The world turned upside down. And for those conservative war mongering types among you who fear that America has gone soft under Obama, please take note of that intrepid pair of flat black, angular B52 bombers which cruised arrogantly and defiantly, albiet ostensibly unarmed, through newly declared Chinese air space just the other day. The old fire is still there!

Impressing Various People With B52 Fly Overs

JUST TO REVIEW QUICKLY; The United States flew a pair of B52 bombers right smack through China's newly declared no fly zone, just because it can. Pretty exciting stuff. Go Yanks! Now, just between you and me, I woulda flown a squadron, maybe four to six F14 fighters, or some such similar, with guys like Top Gun Tom Cruise piloting, with orders to elude capture at all costs. A pair of big, lumbering B52s, unarmed at that, certainly gave the Chinese Air Force adequate targets of opportunity. So that must've been the intent, must've been what Obama, or his generals wanted; to tempt, and to provoke. How perfectly lovely, to live in a world in which a big powerful country aggressively expands its declared airspace, and another big powerful country, your country, responds with: temptation and provocation, and decides to dare, to issue a challenge. The United States has made it perfectly clear that it fully intends to fly whatever in the hell it wants to fly through this "new" Chinese air space any damned time it wants to. As an astute observer of American behavior over the past few decades,I would be willing to attest, and indeed remiss if I didn't attest, to the effect that it seems highly likely to me that the United States means exactly what it says, in this particular instance, and can be counted on to fly often through the new no fly zone. On the other hand, nothing is as awesome as a B52 flying low and slow, right over your head, on a bright sunny spring day, while you are playing tennis with a cute girl. I had to stop and look up at the thing, it was bigger than a city, and looked like something from another planet, flat black, huge, and angular, making this god awful screeching noise as it glided slowly no more than a hundred feet above me. It was circling the city, advertising the upcoming air show. The girl I was playing tennis with ignored the plane, and kept hitting. I just couldn't do that. I could not continue to play tennis with a B52 cruising slowly over my head, I had to stand there, frozen, and watch it. So I can understand why we (the U.S.A.) would send B52s to impress the Chinese. A low flying slow flying B52 is enough to impress anybody, even me, playing tennis with a pretty girl.

Telling The Truth as Being Preferrable

THE PURPOSE OF HISTORY is to shed as much light on the past as possible, to get to the truth. The fact is that some form of American Thanksgiving originated with pioneer groups in 1607 Virginia and 1620 Massachusetts, but really didn't take hold in New England until at least fifty years later. The fact is that the two groups, the 1607 group, and the 120 group of pioneers, barely survived the first few yeras in America, and wouldn't have, had they not gotten help from the local Indians. The first impulse and plan of the Europeans was to make slaves of the Indians, but they soon realized that the Indians wre too crafty, smart, and hard to control. If anybody was going to enslave enybody else, it wasn't going to be English enslaving native American. Then, faced with starvation, the English stole from the Indians, raiding their food stores in the dead of night, until they got caught. In both places,Virginia and Massachusetts, the Indians would gladly have helped, if only the English had asked. But no, asking was too humiliating, too risky, so they just stole. And there is really no reason to condemn them for this, any more than to condemn them for being hungry human beings. Its just a fact, just the way it was. The diaries of the time tell about it. And we have tended to leave that part out of the story of the founding of America, when teaching the story to children. We want our children to love their country, our country, so we tend to lie about it to them. But even if you tell the truth,that slaves came to Virginia in 1619, only twelve years after the first landing, it makes our country look a bit more human, a bit more imperfect. So we leave such information out. Too bad, because when you tell the truth about someone's negative behavior, it makes their positive behavior seem even more impressive.

Starving, Eating, Fasting, Stealing, but Giving Thanks

THANKSGIVING, LIKE Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Labor Day, is so important that it can be celebrated anytime, anyplace, and over the years has been moved around quite a bit. The current formula was imposed during the Roosevelt years, around the time of World War Two. The thanksgiving concept has accompanied the Christian faith for hundreds of years; throughout European history days of thanksgiving were set aside, and were usually treated like a work free Sunday, but included fasting. Our modern version in the United States hardly includes fasting; much the opposite, we have determined that the best way for us to give thanks is to eat as much as possible to accompany our thanks giving with a tangible display of gratitude. Lingering confusion surrounds the holiday's history in the "new" world. Did it begin with the 1607 group in Virginia, or the 1620 group in Massachusetts? Probably, a little bit of both. The first thing both groups did, upon arrival, was to take stock of their situation, and realize that they had consumed most of their provisions on the float across the Atlantic, and would have to live largely by hunting and gathering until an entire year of crop growing could be completed.The time of starving was at hand, 1610 was the worst year in Virginia. They got by, both in Virginia and Massachusetts, by stealing from the local Indians, who had plenty, and couldn't understand anybody being stupid or incompetent enough to go hungry in such a land of plenty. In both places, the Indians caught the Europeans red handed, informed them that they would tolerate it no longer, but that the only thing they had ever had to do was...just ask...."why do you steal with hatred what we would gladly give you with love?" In both places, the puritan-pilgrim-sprofit seekers made amends with the local natives, and got on their right side long enough to survive. It made their Christian faith seem more relevant.

Needing More of Both; Pope Francis, the Born Again Socialist

POPE FRANCIS IS A BIT of a mystery. Not long before he became pope, he was interviewed by American leftist Chris Mathews, and he sounded for all the world like a card carrying capitalist. Government control of the economy is tyranny, that sort of thing. Now, in his first big statement as pope he talks like a card carrying socialist, emphasizing repeatedly the importance of economic equality. Economic equality has nothing in the world to do with capitalism. The free market, left free, produces huge inequaltiy. Doesn't the Pope understand that economic equality will require government involevment in, government control of the economy, to at least a certain point, because in a free market, economic inequality, growing ever greater, will create, in the long run, even more economic inequality than we have now, which is considerable. Pope Francis is living as if he is a non materialistic, socialistic pope, living in a modest apartment, and kicking out a Cardinal because the Cardinal was living like a king; to wit, very materialistically. The Pope made reference in his eighty four page essay to the evils of unbridled free enterprise and corporate capitalism, which results in ever greater concentrations of wealth, and ever greater levels of poverty. He excoriated the love of money, the culture of materialism in his papal bull.So where exactly does our papal father stand economically, in favor of the freedom to be grotesquely unequal, or in favor of cooperative equality? Whereas previously he seemed to blame poverty on a lack of capitalism, now he seems to blame it on a lack of socialism. Can he have it both ways? Sure! Which is the real Pope Fraqncis? A visionary who appreciates the value of both capitalism and socialism? We need more of both, perhaps. We need more wealth producing corporations, and we need for those new corporations to distribute the wealth they produce a bit more equally than the old ones do.

Nations Acting Like Children

"CHILDREN! CHIDLREN!" It is remindful of a pair of spoiled six year olds, arguing on the playground. First, our Chinese friends flex their muscles by declaring an extension outward of their national air space, inside of which no one can go without Chinese permission. Then, within a day of this declaration, two American B52 bombers go flying through, you guessed it, the new Chinese air space. Children children. No need for alarm, the B52s were unarmed, (they claim.) Give the United States credit; a B52 once flew right over me, and it scared the hell out of me, even though it was on my side. Surely our Chines friends understand how many atomic bombs and long range delivery systems we the American Empire have, and how frighteningly willing we are to use them. We Americans may be fat, greedy, and arrogant, but give credit where credit is due: we know how to kill. Haven't we proven that time and again, in Iraq, In Afghanistan, in a millionn other places? The Chinese government expresses outrage over the incident, and announces its intention and ability to defend its air space. Whatever. You hope that they don't extend their air space any further, to include, for instance, the entire world. The United States, Japan, South Korea, and the Phillipines refuse to accept the new Chinese air space. Even Caroline Kennedy, feeling her oats as the new U.S. Ambassador to Japan, issued some sort of warning to China. In other words, more of the same typical human bullshit. Presumably, Obama ordered or approved the B52 stunt as a way of proving his manliness. Democrat Presidents tend to do that. A blogosphere rumor was that the Chinese people are qauite upset by all this; this seems hard to believe. The chinese people don't want to engage in conflicts with other countries, especially the mighty United States. International law defines proper national air space. China and Japan disagree on ownership of a small group of uninhabited islands between the two countries. Like children on a playground, drawing lines in the dirt.

Convincing Our Leaders to Prefer peace

ISRAELI LEADER bENJAMIN NETANYAHU does a very good job of projecting for his country an image of strength. This is important for a small country like Israel, particularly considering how deeply despised Israel is by its neighbors. Its important for Israel to sound tough, and to be tough. Not surprisingly, Netanyahu is condemning the agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons. Interestingly, and more importantly, the Israeli people do not feel the way Netanyahu does about the peace treaty. The Israeli people, overall, approve of the treaty, and want to give peace a chance, including further, broader agreements in the future. Three cheers for the Israei people, lovers of peace! How often in human history have the people in nations at war wanted peace? How often would wars be averted if the will of the people were heard? Iran spent several decades pledging to destroy Israel, so the desire by Israel and Europe that Iran not have nuclear weapons is understandable. But maybe the new leaders in Iran are different, more willing to accept the existence of Israel. It can easily be argued that the establishment of Israel as a nation was not entirely a good, solid, practical idea, but it cannot be argued that Israel isn't there now. An Israeli fait accompli. Israelis interviewed on the street indicate that they believe the benefits of peace with Iran and the Arab world far outweigh any benefits of war, and its worth whatever effort it takes to secure peace. The American people feel the same way, when it comes to war. People everywhere do, including Iran. The problem is in finally convincing our leaders of this.

A Car Hopping Sonic Cat Who Found A Home

AMONG AMERICA'S CULTURAL ATTRIBUTESS is a corporation called "Sonic". If you live in America, and you have a Sonic in your town, you are indeed fortunate. Our firends around the world who visit the United States are urged to visit a Sonic, a model for what a drive in restaurant should be. I started going to Sonic in the late 1960s. The company might not go back much farther than that. To this very day there are car hops who wear roller skates. You assume that delivering orders on skates is optional for the car hop, and that anyone who does is required to sign a medical waver, relieving Sonic of all responsibility for skating mishaps. That's just a guess. Sonic is such a wonderful place that every country in the world should have them, especially you friends in Russia, China, and Malaysia. Over the past few weeks, I noticed a pretty white cat hanging around the door where the carhops come and go. A busy door, and this cat, obviously friendly, obviously wanted attention from the car hops as they passed by. But she didn't get much attention, other than kind words. One car hop explained to me that every time a carhop touches something, he or she has to wash his or her hands up to his or her elbows. So, you just can't pat a cat every time you go in and out. They named the cat "Buttons", maybe because she had a pair of small, black, button-like eyes.I never worried about all the cars; once on Sonic property, people drive real slow, so I knew Buttons was safe. Then, I started noticing that Buttons wasn't around anymore, and I started to get worried, imagining the worst. I asked a car hop, and she gave me the great news that one of the other car hops had taken Buttons home, started her out in the garage, then shifted her inside the house, and it was working out well. There are millions of stray cats in America; they all deserve a good home and a good life, like Buttons is going to have. Always nice to end a story that way, and it makes the Happy Hour half price drinks go down even smoother.

Missing School to Punish, and to Reward

BACK IN THE DAY, Thanksgiving vacation was Thursday and Friday, and the weekend. Nowadays a lot of schools take Wednesday off, some even have a whole week break. An administrative assistant at one middle school explained to me that students with good grades and behavior are allowed to take off for Thanksgving a day early, as a reward for teh good grades and behavior. I thought about this for minute, then, it occured to me that my client, the fifteen year old student I work with,is suspended from school for bad behavior, as a punishment. Forced to missed a day of school as punishment for bad behavior. So, having the student miss school days is used by the school as both a reward and as a punishment. Is there any way that this makes sense, that a reward and a punishment can be the same thing? Is it possilbe? On the surface, upon quick reflection, seemingly, it is not possible. Then, upon deeper consideration, it still remains dubious. If it is an effective punishment, how can it be a good rreward? I really think the kid I work with enjoys getting to spend an extra day at home for acting out at school. Why not? At home he can eat all he wants, watch anything on television or paly any video game he wants, and just lay around, doing nothing all day, rather than spending the day being forced to cooperate, and obey authority. It is remotely possible that American societly is a culture in which punishment and reward are held in much too high esteem as tools of shaping behavior.

Vicarious Violence as Therapy

THE FIFTEEN YEAR OLD disabled kid I work with was in the middle of a Bruce Willis movie, "Red 2" I think it was called, and by the time it was half over, I swear Willis had had at least one hundred thousand rounds of live ammo fired straight at him, but he had managed to duck it all. I was beginning to wonder how much longer his luck could possibly last. Willis was on his belly, on a sidewalk in Paris, hiding behind a row of cars. Across the street, a Chinese guy was spewing bullets out of the fastest, most deadly automatic weapon I have ver seen, period. Not a scratch on Bruce. Suddenly, my client pulled out the movie, and put in "Call of Duty", the video game he is currently hooked on, along with, I take it, the rest of America. Its an amazing game. Marvelous computer images, on the big screen HD TV. Like watching a movie with real people, almost. My kid is now killing people, somehow in charge of aiming a weapon and pulling the trigger. At the same time, he wears earphones, and shares a game with kids all over town, special ops Bruce Willis types running all over the place, my kid killing the enemy, usually zombies, or monsters. After about a half hour of this, the Bruce Willis movie goes back in, and the two hour fire fight continues apace. I found it difficult to resist the notion that watching the Bruce Willis movie incited within my kid a need to participate more directly in the orgy of violence, hence, the quick switch to Call of duty. Makes me wonder whether video games make people less violent, as a few outside the box researchers are claiming. Without Call of Duty to siphon off his heightened blood lust, would my client be out walking the streets, looking for victims in real life? Surely not. Maybe ultra violent images in movies and video games have no impact on people whatsoever.

Making the Impossible Possible

OUR JOB IS TO KEEP THE TORCH BURNING, and to pass it to a new generation on our way out. Because we are all gone soon enough, we must think of our legacy. Goethe said "We are indeed immortal, of only because of the effects of our actions." Rock on, honkie. If we the living of 2013 can keep the torch aflame, our descendents have a chance to live in a wonderful world of miracles. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Our grandchildren have a chance to live in a world free of poverty, disease, and war. But that is only the beginning. Some of the miracles our grand children may experience are described in a fascinating book entitled "Physics of the Impossible", by Michio Kaku. Michio Kaku grew up reading science fiction and dreaming of following in the footsteps of Albert Einstein. Somehow or other, he managed to build a nuclear reactor in his parents basement his senior year in high school, and for this he got a scholarship to Harvard. Kaku is,in a sense, the heir to Carl Sagan, as the most popular and effective popularizer of science and space exploration. In his book, Kaku discusses all the best science fiction fantasies: space travel, time travel, teleportation, invisibility, extraterrestrials, the whole realm of imaginative high tech futuristic life. He gives a brief history of research into all these areas, discusses where the research stands now, and what problems it faces in the future. Then, he gives his estimate of how likely each development is. The exciting part is that Kaku seems to think that all these impossible developments are in fact possible, within the next one hundred years.

The Greatest Generation

A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, a high school classmate of mine, lost his mother yesterday. He'll find her in heaven. She was 86, so was born in 1927. Typical of her generation, she was hard working, patriotic, and successful. One of our friends referred to her as being a member of America's "greatest Generation". The book by that title, by Tom Brokaw, is very interesting, by the way, even if it waxes a bit one sided in expousing the virtues of the world war two generation. My personal experience with the men of that generation led me to see them as domineering, men who regarded their women as personal property. The women seemed to accept this. My friend's mom, it srtuck me, was just barely old enough to be a member of the greatest generation, which can be defined as "anyone the proper age to have fought in World War Two". Fighting means fihgting. Eisenhower, Patton, and McArthrur were not members of the greatest generation; they didn't do any of the actual fighting, did they? If you were born in 1927, you turned eighteen in 1945, just barely in time to see action in the second war to end all wars. So, yes, you were a member of the greatest generation, just under the wire. My own mohter tried to enlist in the army immediately after Pearl harbor, she was 21 years old, and a nurse. My father and my uncled made her refrain from that, by pointing out that nurses would be needed on the homefront during the war just as much as ever. Mom is now ninety three, says she never once voted for Roosevelt, but has finially decided to ease up a little on the Japanese, since I explained to her that FDR goaded the Japanese into attacking, because without United States participation in the war against Hitler, Htiler might not've been stopped soon enough. Members of the greatest generation who are still alive do not considers themselves heros, so the rest of us have to remind the ones still around that we will always consider them to be our heros.

Stopping Obama, at All Costs, Even If You Agree With Him

BY NOW YOU KNOW THAT the United States, along with England, France, Germany, Russia, and somebody else, have signed an agreement with Iran, on nuclear weapons. And that, all by itself, is impressive. Its a start. Amazing that the United and Iran can get along, at all. Its amazing that it was possible, and only the recent change of government in Iran made it possible. Their new leader seems like a man you can try to communicate with. At least, you can try. According to American conservative Republicans, Obama only signed this deal to deflect attention from Obamacare, as if he has the power to get the Iranians to cooperate in a bizarre scheme to deflect attention from Obamacare. You just know the Iranians would agree to help Obama with that! Now, Obama is trying to deal with the immigration issue, and once again, republican conservatives will do what they yalways do; they will oppose Obama's immigration reform plan, not because they really disagree with it, but just because it comes from Obama. Anything Obama proposes, the republican plan is to stand against it. Everything in Obama's immigration reform plan makes sense. Good border security, reasonable pathway to citisenship for those illegals already here. Better government protection of the country, through documentation. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should vote against it. Yet, the republicans in congress will, unless they get to have their say, unless thay get to blackmail the president for a few weeks into changing some small part of the immigration program, just so they can save face, and have some small little victory to claim as their very own. Delay, and obstruct. Whatever. Obama will probably end up agreeing with whatever the republicans want, whatever it is they want, then, as soon as he does, the republicans will no longer want it.

Seeking Justice in America

AMONG THE MARVELS OF THE modern world, the American judicial system stands, quite possibly, alone at the top. Nobody knows exactly where it came from; England, Europe, anciet Greece and Rome, the Bible, the Good Lord, all of the above. Nobody understands all of it, or even much of it. Lawyers and law professors pick out their own little legal specialty, and leave the rest, a huge amount, alone. But it works like a charm. Matched in the system of checks and balances with the legislative and executive branches is the judicial branch of government, Americans alternately accuse all three branches of having too much power relative to the ohter two, which can only mean that the balance is perfect. The only time the judicial system fails in America is when the other two branches mess it up, by failing to agree on judicial appointments over politics. Being conservative, or being liberal, does not disqualify someone from being a good judge. And after all, everyone is either one or the other. Throughout American history the judicial system has been flawed, and has rendered horrible decisions. Turning blacks into three fifths of a person in the constitution was not a good start. the Fugitive Slave Act was horrendous, as was Plessy vs Ferguson (spearate but equal). The Scopes trial was doung incorrectly. there are many more examples of judicial miscarriages in American jurisprudence; but, in the fullness of time, the system is self correcting, like good science. The Unites States, by being founded late in history, was founded in the age of lawyers, and expanding legal systems. America has from the beginning been a legalistic, litigous nation. Today one third of all the lawyers in the world are American, and most of them have plenty of work. The O.J.Simpson verdict was horrendous, as was the Zimmerman verdict. But, surely we must all agree; 'tis better to set criminals free than to imprison innocent citizens. Best to err on the side of leniency, which we, we hope and trust, do.

New Man at the Top of Wal Mart

WAL MART WILL SOON HAVE new chief executive officer. Middle aged white conservaqtive well to do guy, been with the company a while, just like all the other Wal Mart CEOs. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It must be a fairly demanding job; Wal Mart changes CEOs fairly frequently, as if the job wears people out, or perhaps wears out their welcome. For a few million dollars a year plus a private jet, I think I could wear myself out a little bit. Wal Mart has its share of troubles. The new guy will certainly have plenty on his plate when he takes over in about two months. The outgoing CEO will stay on as an advisor to the new guy. One day Wal Mart may have a female or minority CEO; so far, they have not had an impressive record with minorities or women. Low level employees are increasingly making noise about low pay. Look for protests outside about half of America's Wal Marts this Friday. Also, the compay has recently been convicted of dumping toxic waste materials illegally in California. Wal Mart, like most American corporations, has a rap sheet that would make Al Capone envious. And, being CEO of a companylike Wal Mat is a great gig if you can get it, everything that goes wrong below you, no matter how far below, is seen as ultimately your responsibility; so out the door the CEOs go, and in come the new ones. It may be that chaning CEOs often helps a huge corporation maintain a reputation as being above board; new man at the top, new improved, cleansed corporate culture.

Encouraging Corporate Equality

THE LIMITED LIABILITY CORPORATION, the magical mystical incarnation of a business as a legal individual, is among mankind's greatest inventions, along with compound interest, and a few other things. Since the day of their invention, corporations have tended to vest great power and wealth in the corporate CEO, without any pressing reason, other than sheer force of habit, for doing so. What could be more suitable to democratic, elegalitarian disposition of power and money, than a publicly owned stock issuing corporation? Where anyone can own a piece of the business, and many workers share the burden of the success of the incorporated body. The argument that the CEO has greater rsponsibilities which should be compensated accordingly certainly has merit, but to what degree? Do corporate CEOs around the world really merit a salary five hundred times greater than the entry level workers? This question is being asked more often around the world, particularly in progressive minded Europe. In Switzerland the electorate voted on whether to limit CEO pay to a mere tweleve times that of lowest level corporate employeses, and the issue was defeated, by sixty five to thrity five percent, a real landslide. However, the mere fact that this question was even on the ballot at all in corporation friendly Switzerland is a strong indication that this issue has legs, as they say. Other European countries are considering similar proposals, and some will probably pass them. Why not let socialism save corporate capitalism from its tendency to comsume itself? Or better yet, why not educate and empower the shareholders around the world to take control of their companies and their CEOs, and manage their businesses for the benefit of everyone, rather than a chosen few? The only problem here, as you might suppose, is that most corporate stock in the world is owned by a very small number of extremely wealthy people, who aren't about to give any real power to small investors. So the people at large must act.

Dealing With Ourselves

IN A MORE PERFECT WORLD, food, medical care, energy, and transportation would be free or very inexpensive, a money economy would persist only for the production and distribution of luxury goods. In a more perfect world, not only would Iran not have nuclear weapons, nobody else would either. Let us remember that the purpose of advancing technology is to make life easier for humans, not more difficult. Lest we forget Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law: "All sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The technology of the future could very well give free food and energy to everyone, if we can use it properly. All technology ever developed has been abused, by somebody. Human technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, but human emotions are the same as they were tens of thousands of years ago, and human moral philosophy is no more advanced now than it was in the time of Jesus. You wouldn't want the people in Biblical times, or their remote ancestors, to have atomic bombs. And you wouldn't want us to have them either, if you know what's good for you. The politicians, chosen by the corporate military elite in America, and the most devout religious political tyrants in Iran, are barely able to even get started on agreeing on limits to atomic bombs. Anybody make an atomic bomb. The problem is to obtain the heavy metal. There's a lot of that around, however. The only real answer is for everyone, including and especially the United States, to get rid of all atomic bombs. Then, we could call in the aliens, or the U.N. to verify the whole planet. Most all of the seven billion teeming masses of humans around the world would most likely agree to this. We the teeming masses must force our elite leaders to act.

Saving Our Planet, We the People

EACH YEAR FOR THE PAST nineteen years the United Nations has had an international environmental conference, the ostensible purpose being to reach international agreement on ways to protect the environment, specifially, how to stop global warming, if that's even possible at this late date. The only problem with the annual U.N. conference is that nothing ever gets done, and this year's version, just now wrapping up in Warsaw, is no different. All the environmental groups, like Greenpeace, are angry, not without reason. The environmental groups claim that the conference is dominated by the fossil fuel industry, which, strangely enough, sponsors the event. Is the wolf in the hen house? The Phillipines believes that the recent super typhoon which destroyed it was caused by glbal warming,which was caused by the wealthy developed countries, like Europe, the United States, Japan, Russia, and China. Small countries effected by weather disasters, including sea level rise, want the industrialized world to pay for their damages, and its easy to understand why. Malaysia is cutting down its forests at a rapid rate. Australia and Japan are only the two latest countries to announce that they intend to slow down on their rate of reduction rate of fossil fuels. World wide, the fossil fuel industry is large and powerful, and seems to have a great deal of influence in most of the world's governments. So,the prospects for saving the planet may be slim to none. Nobody, corporate or governmental, seems willing to make the necessary sacrifices. If anything is ever going to be done, it may require a popular movement, of the people, from the grass roots. Every country in the world is invited to these annusal environmental conferences, but most countries send low ranking representatives, rather than government leaders. This shows a lack of international commitment to the environment. We the people, organizing online, must save our environment. Our governments and corporate masters have no intention of doing so.

The Jungle Will Change Your Mind

THERE ARE PLENTY OF INTELLIGENT, perfectly well educated people who will tell you that they never read fiction. There are plenty of facts to keep one occupied. Some fiction, however, definitely needs to be read. Some fiction can teach you more about history than any history book. "The Jungle", by Upton Sinclair is such a book. There must be other books available about the urban american working class at the beginning of the twentieth century; it is doubtful that any are nearly as illuminating as The Jungle. As you read deeper into the story, you feel as if you yourself are living and working in a filthy Chicago slum, and you are miserable. The story begins when a farm laborer from Lithuania, Jurgis Rudkus, decides to move his entire family to America, where the streets are paved with gold. The family saves up enough money to buy third class passage to New York, living like animals in cages below decks on the voyage. The Rudkus family arrives by train in Chicago, where there is a large community of fellow eastern european immigrants, and jobs in the meat packing plants. Turn of the century Chicago was a growing city, with a large labor force of immigrants, and low wage factories. Rudkus and his family are exploited by landlords, and shift supervisors. All the women and children in the family must work, the same brutal hours and conditions as the men, for less pay, so the family can feed itself. There is no union, wages are pathetically low, hours are long and brutal, working conditions are miserable. Workers are hired and fired like throw away pieces. There is no government regulation of the industry, and the meat packers of Chicago put ground up rats on grocery store shelves mixed in with ground beef. Workers die on teh job regularly, and their bodies are swept aside like trash. Most members of the Rudkus family die in the ghetto, but Rudkus himself survives - and becomes a socialist activist. "The Jungle", published in 1906, motivated the government to pass laws to improve working conditions. Anyone who does not believe that there is a place for labor unions and government regulation of free enterprise, read "The Jungle", and you'll change your mind.

Honoring JFK by investing in Space, and Serving Country

"WE CHOOSE TO GO TO THE MOON" ARE MY FAVORITE WORDS OF John F Kennedy. Very bold and risky, those words. No one had any idea how to go to the moon. Profound words, nonetheless. Plus, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." On the day of the first moon landing, July 20, 1969, everybody in the world watched on television, amazed, and I thought about JFK, and how proud he would have been. it seems so obvious to thinking people that all the incredible amount of money and effort we put into military weapons could be invested in space exploration, and the economic pay off would be far better. Many of the same corporations which benefit from military spending could probably manufacture the space exploration hardware, and do just as well. And as we all know, in America, if the corporations aren't making maoney, nobody is making money. Ask what you can do for your country, Maybe the baby boomers could work longer, retire later, volunteer more, and receive slightly less social security benefits. Equally cool would it be if a few of our millions of fellow Americas currently receiving unemployment or disability payments could become employed. Disability insurance has become unemployment insurance. The younger folks? You name it. The military is always a good option, if only becdause of the help you get with education and career. Whether the United States can afford to keep doing this, maintaining an outrageously expensive military, is another question. If the United States cut its military power in half, it would still be able to destroy every country in the world, and the world itself, several hundred times. The U.S. military would be able to destroy the entire solar system. So why not divert a bit of military money, just a bit, into space exploration and development? Any good scientist at NASA will tell you, space travel is far cheaper than weapons, and yields far more economic advantages. Any good American will encourage the U.S. government to bear this in mind.

Keepng JFK's Flame Eternal

THE FACT THAT THE FIFTIETH anniversary of the JFK assassinstion fell on a Friday, just like the actual event, brings to mind the memory of all four days of shock in 1963, Friday through the funeral Monday. In retrospect, it seems rather amazing that the elaborate funeral was held only three days afer the death. For some reason, everybody seemed to think the sooner the better. As if wanting to complete the nightmarish whirlwind weekend process as quickly as possible, and then maybe pretend it never happened. Maybe it would have been better to give us all a few more days to openly mourn and grieve, before getting back to reality. We had no school Monday for the funeral, but went right back to work Tuesday, the day after the funeral. My biggest problem in thrid grade was subtracting a number like nintey three from a number like two seventy two, where you had to beg, borrow and steal firght off the bat. I remember staying up late Friday night, as the president's body was shown on TV landing in Washington after dark. Throughout Saturday and Sunday cameras in the White House showed mourners passing by as the casket lay in state. The military guards were statuesque. Even though I was only eight years old,I was not bored by all this. I recall needing to take breaks from the TV throughout the weekend, and get outside for a few minutes occasionally, but in general, I sat in front of the black and white TV. We had only two channels, CBS and NBC. I believe CBS was the first choice, spending the entire mightmare weekend with Walter Cronkite, who brought comfort. When told that the flame at his grave site would be eternal, that amazed me, the very thought of it, like it must have other people. At the time it seemed like anb awfully long time to keep a flame aflame. It still does. Didn't it go out for a few minutes, for some reason, just the other day? They got it lit right back up, though.

Avoiding Madness, At All Costs

JOHN F KENNEDY ONCE SAID "There are three things that are real: God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, let us do what we can with the third." Amen to that, brothah. Amid the pervasive human madness, there are two things that are worthwhile: the Rover vehicle on the surface of Mars, and the Cassini probe deep in the solar system. Both are working beautifully right now, and have been since they were launched several years ago. Both are doing their jobs beautifully, giving us a bountiful harvest of knowledge about the planet Mars and the planet Saturn, its moons, and the solar system. And the crazy thing is, both of them may be forced to shut down, to cease operations, due to budget cuts. It may be necessary to turn off the Cassini probe, and the Mars Rover probe. Both of them cost in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars a year to operate; mere pocket change, for the U.S. government. Common sense tells us that after going to the trouble to build, launch, and operate these space probes, to shut them down now, when they are in the middle of their missions and working perfectly, would be madness. Unfortunately, it somehow seems to be precisely the kind of madness of which the United States government is not only capable, but the kind for which it is quite well known. Obama already cut out the entire manned Mars program, a huge mistake. Surely he won't be stupid enough to allow Rover and Cassini to be turned off, in the middle of their grand advdntures. Or will he? He won't, if enough uf us let him know that we don't want him to. The United Sates recently commissioned a new aircraft carrier named the G"erald R. Ford". If the United States is naming aircraft carriers after Gerald R. Ford, the United States has too many aircraft carriers. Convert swords into spaceprobes.

Saving the World, In Spite of Ourselves

THE FATE OF EARTH'S ENVIRONEMENT hangs in the balance, as the world's wealthy powerful few decide what to do about the rest of us, and about the world. A group of GreenPeace activists arrested by the Russians for protesting Russian drilling in the North Sea, received fair treatment from Mr Putin. Mr Putin called their case noble, but said that they broke the law. Fair and balanced. If Valdimir Putin thinks enviromental preservation is a noble cause, then perhaps the environment has a chance! The nations of the earth cannot agree on carbon emission restrictions. The developing countries, like India, Brazil, and China, want the already developed countries, like the United States, Japan, and Europe, to absorb the cost of environmental clean up. The United States seems to want every other country to pay for it, except the United States. The big loser in all this is the environment itself, getting pushed aside in the midst of all this human squabbling. The human race is going to use every last drop of oil in the ground, every whiff of natural gas, and every chunk of coal. Who're we trying to kid? The answer is to reinvest at least some of the profit from fossil fuel exploitation into the development of sustainable energy systems, solar, wind, geothermal, etc. Give the Chinese crdeit; even though they are developing coal reserves at a sufficient rate to suffocate all of us, they are simultaneously heavily researching and developing sustainable energy systems. So there is hope! What can the rest of us,the billions of little people do? Plant trees, that's what! If all of us planted one tree, it would make a difference. A trillion trees, and we could save the world. We the people of the planet earth, independent of any government or corporation, can unite, and plant trees! Thus we can take over the world, by saving it.

Big Time Greed Gone Bad

J.P. MORGAN CHASE, the biggest bank in the galaxy, will pay a thirteen billion dollar fine, in a deal reached with the United States Department of Justice. Even though the U.S. government is owned and controlled by the corporations, it still has the power to regulate those same corporations. Those regulations tend to protect and encourage the right of corporations to profit freely. But there is a limit to how much corporate misbehavior and exploitation even a business friendly government can allow, for the sake of appearances, if nothing else. During the free wheeling housing boom which preceeded the ongoing current housing bust, mortgage lenders outdid themselves giving home loans to questionable borrowers. Millions of shaky loans, which they then packaged together in financial securities and sold off to other poor suckers, thus precipitating first the boom, then the bust. Obviously, people should know better than to take out a mortgage they can't handle. But its only human nature to try to live in a nice house, if someone is willing to loan you the money to do it. Our greedy financial corporations were writing mortgages for people who had no business taking on a mortgage. I was one of them. I got a mortgage loan even though I had no credentials. It turned out well for me, but not for everyone else who did the same thing. The huge corporate mortgage lenders make money whether mortgages are paid in full, or foreclosed. Without some government regulation of the industry, the big banks would consolidate their power, and financially enslave the population. The Bank of America, which has a rap sheet longer than Al Capone, sold off my mortgage to some other company. I had no say in the matter. Oh well. When is the next "Occupy Wall Street" activity?

Our Corporate World

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SUGGESTED that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship, the key word being "benevolent". A global corporate culture is growing, independent of any national government, subject to no national or international oversight. This "corporate complex" could become the most powerful governing force on the planet during this century, if it hasn't already done so. Whatever economic agreements are made in the future between nations, decisions concerning the International Monetary Fund, and trade agreements, may well be determined by the emerging international cartel. Where does this leave this rest of us, the nearly seven billion workers of the world? How large and how prosperous will the middle and working classes be in a world of huge corporations in control? If its any indication, corporate culture does not tend to be very middle class. A few people at the very top, and a great number of people at the bottom of the pyramid. Corporations are not compassionate organizations by nature. Their only purpose is to make a profit. When laobr and ownership do not share a common interest, labor is exploited. The solution to this is ownership by the workers. There is a great deal of evidence to indicate that the common people of the world do not want to live in a future world dominated by corporations, unless those corporations encourage human equality, not elitism. Every year the World Trade Organization has a meeting somewhere in the wrold. The WTO is nothing other than the international corporate cartel, organizing itself, setting its strategy for future global corporate domination. Every time it meets, a massive protest of workers takes place nearby, in an attempt to enlighten the world to its impending corporate domination. The eventual war between the rich and the poor may be international.

Our American War Against the Poor

THE POOR WILL ALWAYS BE among you, said an astute observer of human nature.Although actually, in the modern world, the poor aren't so much "among us", as they are clustered together away from us. In America, only when the working poor are providing menial service to the wealthy and the fabulously wealthy do rich and poor intermingle. The United States is segregated according to economic class. Also, according to race. Fortunately, there are very few all white neighborhoods, but there are many all black neighborhoods. Not only are America's poor isolated and segregated, the truth is, there has always been, and still is, a sort of war being waged against the poor. As if being poor were some sort of crime, or some form of threatening enemy activity, rather than a tragic condition of millions of our outcast friends and neighbors. The late date on which the miminum wage law was enacted, and the sluggishness with which it has been increased throughout the decades is but one aspect of America's war on the war. The resistenace to raising it now is an impressive example of how complicit the American people are in the war. The best explanation of the war on the hard working but poor is "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. Its a great novel, and it clearly answers the question of whether this war is real. Where are the millions of Americans coming out in support of fast food and Wal Mart workers as they cry out for a living wage? One percent of the people own one third of the national wealth. The Walton family, of Wal Mart fame, is wealthier than the bottom forty percent of the American people. The millions of poor and homeless in America are not universally stupid or lazy. And their answer to their plight is not to build ghettos, prisons, or a low wage service economy.

Advocating For Wal Mart Workers

HOW IN THE WORLD WAL MART has avoided being unionized over fifty years of explosive growth is a mystery as great as who killed JFK or how many species of aliens live among us. Millions of employees, hundreds of thousands making below a living wage, and no labor union. Incredible. Have they systematically "eliminated" all in store pro union sentiment? If nothing else, this lack of a workers union at Wal Mart is a tribute to the victory of corporate power over the American working class. Decades of relentless free market propaganda, aided and abetted by a government bought and paid for by the corporate owners. You end up with a nation of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. But how much longer can this continue? The gap between rich and poor continues to grow. More and more Americans are experiencing hard economic times. There are at least two organized groups advocating for Wal Mart workers. One is called "Our Wal Mart", and the other is called "Making Changes At Wal Mart", and both, judging by their names, sound serious. Both groups promise a bigger "Black Friday" protest than last year, and last year's protest was nothing to sneeze at. On black Friday, there will be hundreds of Wal mart employees outside Wal mart stores across the country, drawing attention to their exploitative plight. It almost seems as if a union of Wal Mart workers is already in existence, in a sense. Has Wal Mart simply fired workers over the decades who showed the slightest indication of organizing? That might not work this time; there may be too many workers protesting to fire them all, this time. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year - is one week away. Friday, Wal Mart will be packed with customers, all of whom will take notice of their brothers and sisters, the exploited workers of Wal mart, outside.

Obamacare As Pseudo Socialism

OBAMACARE CAN BE FIXED; its just a matter of the details worked out. Everybody knows that, even the republicans who are comparing Obamacare to the end of the world. Yes,its a bureaucratic nightmare so far, but so is everything new a mess at the beginning. The website will be fixed, eventually... All these people who are losing their health insurance will be taken care of, although its likely to take a mountain of red tape to do it. Government always seems to choose the least efficient way of doing things. But in the end, everyone will be insured. With regard to capitalistic free enterprise health insurance in America: hasn't it had over two hundred years to work properly? And, whether it has ever worked properly in the past, and rest assured it hasn't, it certainly wasn't working properly immediately prior to Obamacare. Not with forty million Americans uninsured. For Obama to fail to anticipate that the insurance companies would drop coverage of their customers in response to Obamacare is hard to believe to the point of being incredible. How else can you describe this executive debacle other than incompetent? A tremendous disappointment to the real socialists of Amrica, Obama is. To whatever degree conservatives are disappointed in Obama, liberals are even more disappointed. His watered down version of socialized medicine completely misses the point; that you cannot leave a bad system in place, a corporate dominated system, and try to improve it with government intervention. The corporations will find ways of abusing and manipulating the weakly socialistic Obamacare, such as, dropping customers and blaming it on Obamacare, when all they had to do was to upgrade the existing customers. If you're going to have socialism, make it real socialism. The government must implement an entirely new system, a single payer system, superior to the one it replaces.

Making Government Work by Changing the Rules

MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON shows up on great movies lists, largely because it embodies the eternally appealing David and Goliath theme. Never mind the fact that David was no underdog; Goliath never had a chance. There is just something more dramatic and inspirational about Jimmy Stewart's filibuster than Ted Cruz's filibuster. Every filibuster ever filibustered in the United States Senate has ended hopelessly as a last ditch effort to a long lost cause, correct? Has any filibuster ever had any real impact, other than temporary delay? Any filibuster can be seen as gallant, and any filibuster can be seen as just plain old silly. There has to be a better way. Couldn't something sensible be arranged? For instance, simply declare a "state of filibuster", without making some poor bozo stand up and talk for twenty four hours, or until he passes out from exhaustion, and the rest of us pass out from sheer boredom. And sure enough, Senate democrats, tired of republican filibustering Obama's judicial appointments, have voted to end the practice, by requiring only fifty one votes to end a filibuster, rather than the traditional sixty, on judicial confirmation votes. This might seem a good idea. Tempting, at least. The question is, how will the minority have any voice in judicial appointments in the future? If you keep changing the rules to make government more efficient, you might end up with a very simple, efficient government; a dicatatorship.

Meeting Our Emotional Needs About JFK

THE WEEKEND THAT KENNEDY WAS SHOT, I cut out every article in the local newspaper which had anything to do with the event, and by Sunday night I had what I thought was a pretty good scrap book, of which I was very proud. I couldn't wait to show it to my father. When I did, he looked at it for a split second and brushed it away. He obviously didn't want to see it. He hung his head an brushed away a tear, and I began to realize I had done something very wrong. I was very disappointed. I guess I wanted him to praise me and compliment me on my good work, like a school project getting an A grade. Eight yeras old was a stange age to be when JFK was assassinatied, because you were, I was, just barely old enough to understand what was going on, but not experienced enough in life to react to it properly. I reacted to it as if it were the most exciting thing in the world. Neither positive nor negative, merely....exciting. If I had been a couple of years older, I think I would have understood the insensitivity of the scrapbook. A couple of years younger, I would have understood nothing. I was the wrong age, the scrapbook age. As the weekend, which included the funeral Monday, passed, it must have slowly dawned on me the absolute nightmarishness of the event. I recall that was indeed the case. Then I spent most of the next fifty years convinced that any or all of the various conspiracy theories was correct. Anything Oliver Stone came up with, I was good to go. I begin to feel now as if another fog has cleared from my mind, the fifty year conspiracy fog. Just another emotional denial on my part. First, I failed, as an eight year old, to realize that a tragedy had occured, then, as the years passed, I failed to realize that I was inventing, along with millions of other people, an elaborate mythology to accompany it, presumably to meet my emotional needs. It looks like about seventy percent of the American people are still clinging to belief in the elaborate conspiracy. My, the things we do to meet our emotional needs!

Surveilling Us All, Looking For Terrorists

THE PROBLEM IS THAT its too late. The United States is full of terrorists. Its only a matter of when they strike. You just know they've been coming across the border all these years, disguised as illegal Mexicans. They have a plan, you can count on that. These terrorists have valid complaints which, if listened to, might make the situation better. Bring every body together. Stop being terroristis, we'll listen to you. Would it work? And they use the same channels of communication the rest of us do. The same email, cell phone, and smart phone channels. They, those terrorists who hate the perceived evils of American corporate imperialism, communicate with terrorist networks all over the world. Plus, they interemingle among us, the good Americans, freely. In order to listen to what the terrorists are saying, the National Security Agency must listen to what all of us are saying. On several occasions the United States has allowed civilians from foreign countries into this country in compensation for, say, bombing their village, or killing their children, or dropping atomic bombs on them, or whatever. In some cases, those let in were and are terrorists, dedicated to the destruction of America. Faulty background checks. The United States government has a list of these people, every single one of them, or not, and intends to deal with them all. The only problem is, the United States government has no idea where all these people are, or, for that matter, exactly who they are. Also, of course, it could be argued that native born American liberals are as great a threat to the status quo in America as any foreign entity, and more so. Thus, the government listens in..to us all. You folks in the former Soviet Union aka Russia are indeed fortunate, that you are surveilled less effectively than we Americans. We the billions of poor oppressed people of the earth who are controlled by all too powerful central governments should unite, and overthrow the various forms of tyranny which oppress us all. But don't look for it to happen soon, or overnight.

Those Liberal Intellectuals

IF YOU SPEND MUCH TIME ON campus at major academic institutions, harvard, Princeton, most other college campuses, you notice that a very percentage of the people on campus are liberals. It would be hard to not notice it. According to conservatives, liberals have "taken over" the higher education system like some fungus or weed. Or with some highly complicated, massive conspiracy. The possibility that college campuses are where intelligent educated people gather together is not mentioned. How awful, for conservtives to admit the possibility that well educated intelligent people tend to be liberals. Liberals are by nature critical of the status quo, whatever the status quo happens to be. Liberalism is where resistence to established authority begins. The status quo, according to most people on these college campuses, consists of a small percentage, one percent, of the population, and its control of the corporate and financial system. A pyramid of wealth, power, and authority, with the elite few conservatives on top. It may be that the more successful a person, the more likely to be conservative, to support the status quo. So these intellectual liberals want to change everything. They tend to be opposed to unfettered capitalism, and opposed to any popular religious or philosophical monopoly. Freedom of thought! Anytime protests break out in the streets of America, which is surprisingly often, intellectuals intermingle with the unwashed hippies, or the angry tatooed workers and gang members. Most of these protests and riots are miniature wars of the poor against the rich, the revolutionaires versus the establishment. If hard economic times keep spreading into the middle class from the working class, the uprisings may get bigger.

Bullying, An American Way of Life?

WHEN A NICE YOUNG GIRL jumps off a tower, after telling the world exactly what her problem was, you have to take it seriously, don't you? The whole society, the whole culture, the whole country in which this happened should perhaps pay heed to it. For a fact children are capable of giving each other a hard time over a long period of time; the girl who killed herself probably wasn't making it all up, about being bullied. The question is, why didn't the school do anything about it, since that is apparently where it all happened, where it all started? For that matter, why doesn't our society, our culture, and our country do something about bullying, since it happens all the time, everywhere, in America? That should be obvious by now. Are we a country which nutures bullies, then defends their right to bully as "free speech"? That might be a fair and important question to ask, and an even better one to answer. The problem is, answering this question requires a close examination of ourselves, our values, our behavior. This, of course, is never easy. The sheriff who filed charges against the two girls who bullied the suicide victim was just doing his job, thank you. He already has my vote for reelection, and I don't even live in his county. The two accused girls were smart to get a lawyer. Everybody needs a lawyer in America. This lawyer threatens to file suit against the sheriff. Good luck with that. Would it be possible to find twelve jurors who would find fault with the sheriff's job performance?

Being Given Good Advice by Big Government

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT really and truly cares about the health and well being of the people over whom it so benevolently and thoroughly governs. The public service announcements on radio and television are tangible proof of this. Are radio and television companies required to donate a minimum amount of air time for publc service announcements from our protective federal government? Or, does our federal government use our tax payer money to pay radio and television corporations for air time to give us advice on how to live? Or is it a combination of both? Either way, is that what we really want? We the people? A benevolent big brother government looming always above us, protecting us from ourselves. Some mysterious entity called the "advertising council" or some such is involved in this ceaseless flow of progaganda. Heaven only knows what this organization is. Just another means of keeping wealth and power in the hands of the wealthy, and out of the hands of we the teeming masses, maybe? Or a noble union of government and free enterprise, keeping the little people out of trouble. A conspiracy of government and the military industrial bureaucratic ccomplex, perchance. The corporations own the government,which pays the corporations to tell us what to do or not to do. Maybe that's the way it works. We are told not to smoke, not to drink, not to have sex, to drive more slowly, and to wear seatbelts. We are told to save our money, to sepend our money, and to register for the selective service. How much longer before we are told to salute the flag, and to say good morning to big brother? The National kidney foundation happily announced that its easy to give something away when you have more than one, and you only need one! The excitement of this revelation rippled through the radio waves. Now, you can donate an organ and live to tell about it! The preceding annoucement was approved by the National Security Agency.

Protecting Workers

AFTER THE CIVIL WAR, the United States continued with an accelerated industrial revolution. The steel industry, the oil industry, the coal industry, the automotive industry all took off like rockets, drawing poor workers to the cities and factories. An urban labor class developed, and with it the labor union movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Corporate ownership was not about to stop mercilessly exploiting labor without a fight; labor management relations were violent during this period. Finally, in 1933, the National Labor Relations Board was established to provide oversight of union elections, and to prosecute violations by employers of fair labor practice laws. The NLRB has recently announded its intention of prosecuting Wal Mart, Inc. for violations of the fair labor act. You may recall that over the past few months there has been considerable controversy over Wal Mart's treatment, specifically its wages, of low level workers. On several occasions Wal Mart employees have staged union-like protests, temporary works stoppages, with sign waving, and such. The NLRB accuses Wal Mart of retaliating against the associates who participated in these events in various ways; reduction of hours, particularly. Wal mart corporate management, of course, vehemently denies all charges. There is a movment, among fast food workers and Wal Mart employees, to seek a living wage of fifteen dollars an hour. Will this movement get support from the various labor unions? The NLRB might force Wal Mart into a plea bargain, to pay a fine, and stop mistreating workers. Free marketeers might oppose government regulation of the economy, but who would stop huge corporations from mistreating workers, if not the government? (there is no wal mart workers union).

Catching Criminals, Making Criminals

THE LATEST VICTIM OF the great American fun house culture is a previously respectable conservative republican Congressperson who bought enough cocaine from an undercover police officer to have a very good time at a very wild party. The Congressperson immediately confessed to alcoholism leading to further bad decision making, entered a rehab program, and got off with only six months probation. End of controversy, end of scandal, end of story. Smart move. No word yet on whether the fall out from this will cost him his seat in Congress. A fallen man, from lofty respectable conservative status to disgraced druggie. How we Americans love our public drama! However, by striking first, he is trying very hard, obviously, to hold on to his political power. Rest assured you'll hear more about it, as his political opponents try to run him out of Congress. Ironic, his cocaine use, since he voted to administer drug tests to all recipients of federal aid. It makes you wonder how many members of congress (of the 545 members) use drugs. You can rest assured that a good many of them have tried illegal, but very fun recreational durgs, and that a good many still use them, on a fairly regular basis. If a detective poses as a hot 14 year old girl and goes online to where people go looking for sex, chances are, some pre-existing pedaphiles will be caught, some will be manufactured on the spot. If someone starts dealing drugs, chances are, some drug users will become customers, and some people will become drug users. Lay some money down in public and leave it there, over and over again, a new criminal will be born every minute.The ugly truth is, and we all know it; you could have an undercover cop approach anyone in the United States, and offer something that would turn the person into a law breaker. We sure know how to catch criminals in America. We know how to make criminals too. The question is; can we catch them as fast as we make them?

Celebrities Enduring Stardom

EVEN AS REGULAR DAILY NEWSPAPERS printed on paper vanish, swallowed up by the internet, and are replaced by online versions of themselves, supermarket tabloids, the kind sold at the grocery store cash register, seem to be doing very well. Is there an online version of the "National Enquirer"? One is almost afraid to find out. Companies like AOL and MSN put celebrity gossip front and center; the minute you sign on, up pops the gossip on ye olde homepage, celebrity this and celebrity that, in response, presumably, to popular demand. Does popular demand determine corporate marketing, or does ccrporate marketing determine popular demand? Some of each, maybe? The celebrity culture makes big money. Like P.T. Barnum said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. There's a sucker born every minute. And so forth. P.T. made a fortune selling tickets to look at people with two heads, and things like that. A fortune. Our paparazzi profession has equally deep historical roots. Benjamin Franklin made a fortune publishing gossip, and retired at forty. A fledgling frontier country starved for culture, entertainment, information, emerges into modernity with a full blown celebrity culture, worth billions of dollars. Isn't it Alec Baldwin who has all the trouble with aggressive photo-journalists? Didn't Alec recently say that in his opinion, American interest in celebrity culture is, like, way over the top? Sharp as a tack, those Baldwin boys. But until we see Alec Baldwin eschew the spotlight and vanish into the crowd, we can assume taht he doesn't mind the celebrity culture too terribly badly, or that he is very very determined to endure its downside.

Homeless Veterans, An American Outrage

MOST AMERICANS WILL TELL YOU that as they go about their busy daily lives, they never see a homeless person. More likely, when they see homeless people, they don't recognize them as such. Homeless people often greatly resemble people who simply do not give a care about dressing properly. Its always been questionable exactly how many homeless people there are in the United States. Whether the estimate is high or low, it is in the millions. Then comes the question of why. Most homeless people are neither lazy nor stupid. None of the homeless veterans are, else they wouldn't be veterans. Releasing institutionalized mentally ill patients in the nineteen eighties during the social darwinistic Reagan years has been cited as a cause of increased homelessness. Another possible contributing factor is the general reduction in the standard of living of most of the population. Ravi Batra, an economist at Southern Methodist University, in his book "The Pooring of America", blames the reduction of U.S. import tariffs for gutting American industry and sending millions of Americans below the poverty line. Between 1970 and 2000, the average import tariff in the U.S. fell from thirty one percent down to seven percent in the movement to create global free trade. Global free trade benefits domestic corporations and consumers, but it doesn't do much to create or maintain good jobs for the working class. Then comes the truly shocking news: there are currently, it is estimated, sixty thousand homeless veterans living on the streets of America. People who served, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, now unable to find a career back home, unable to readjust to life back home after unspeakably stressful experiences abroad. This, needless to say, is a national outrage. Any homelessness in a nation so wealthy is a national outrage. Post Traumatic Stree Disorder is Common among veterans returning from our modern wars, which make everyone miserable while they last, and no one content when they are finally, if ever, over.

Inventing New Words

WELCOME THE OFFICIAL new word to American English: selfie. A "selfie" is a digital photograph of a person, taken by the person, of the person, and for the person, using a hand held computer. Just hold your smartphone at arm's length, point it at yourself, click, and send. Its easy! And, quite popular. The practice has become so common in our amazing computer age that a name had to be invented for it, and leave it to our youngsters to invent it. There is evidence that the young people of America deserve credit for the new word. Where other than in America would the practice of taking pictures of yourself ever become popular? Case closed. "Selfie" reigns supreme as the number one new word of the year! Give America credit; we use our narcissism inventively. Soon, there will be an even newer word added to our vocabulary: tradie. A "tradie" would be when two strangers agree to take pictures of each other. That will be next, won't it? How can it not be? Is not public picture trading, the logical next step? The more the merrier! The word "selfie" is remindful of the newest word of the twentieth century "movie", to describe a picture in motion. "Automobile" perfectly describes a machine which moves by itself, don't you think? The English language has a million words, roughly, and each year several dozen more are added to it, by various means, criteria, and organizations. There are no hard and fast rules for the evolution of languages, for the the addition and removal of words. Every word added has a pretty good argument supporting its addition, based on widespread common, popular usage. Every word which falls out of fashion is discarded, and relegated to the scrapheap of antiquated words. American English in particular is highly evolutionary, just as American culture in general seems to change fast.

Caring, Controlling Politicians

NEW YORK CITY is a city which wants to make sure everyone is healthy. Large soft drinks are forbidden; you have to fill the cup up twice to get what you wanted to get in the first place. New Yorkers might not lose any weight, unless they do it burning calories walking back to the soda fountain for a refill. Now it is suddenly illegal to buy cigarettes or any other tobacco products in the city if you are under the age of twenty one. The flaws in this law are so obvious that they hardly need mention. Most twenty year olds can find someone to buy cigarettes. Most eighteen to twenty one year olds are not gonna let some stupid law keep them from getting cigarettes. Eighteen year olds are grown up enough to be forced to fight for their country, but their country does not trust them enough to allow them to choose whether to smoke. But wait; its city, not country, limiting freedom to smoke. My, we Americans have so many layers of government! Better than having it all at the very top, perhaps. Someone's weak response to the widespread criticism of New York City's new anti smoking law was: just because we make them die in battle is no reason to kill them with cigarettes. Highly questionable reasoning. Citizens should be educated against smoking, not coerced against it. Outgoing Mayor Bloomberg signed the law which is intended to make it harder for kids under eighteen to get cigarettes by getting someone between the ages of eighteen and twenty one to buy them. Under the new law, anyone wanting to buy cigarettes will have to solicit help from an older person. It is unclear whether this will really make it harder for kids to get cigarettes, or will merely make polticians feel better about themselves, and look better in the public eye, by pretending they care whether people smoke.

Saying Much, With Few Words

SEVEN SCORE AND TEN YEARS AGO today, Abraham Lincoln gave a two minute two hundred and sixty nine word speech on a miserable day at a miserable place, which everybody thought was a miserable speech. You can't blame them; Lincoln's speech did nothing for them, promised nothing, provided no guidance for the future with specific ideas on exactly how to deal with the miserable mess eveybody was in. The only good thing about Lincoln's speech for the people who heard it, was that it didn't last very long, and everybody could go home, and get warm ahd dry. Lincoln had only been invited at the last minute to speak at the ceremony in a pasture to honor thirty thousand people killed there three months earlier. The only person who realized that Lincoln had remade America with words was Edward Everett, the great speech maker, who talked for two hours before Lincoln talked for two minutes. "That speech aint gonna scour" said Lincoln. Everett replied: "Mr President, you just said more in two minutes than I did in two hours." Civil War historian and movie maker Ken Burns has a project to get as many Americans as possible to memorize the Gettysburg Address. Its really easy to do. The words in the speech are all so simple, but so easy to understand and remember. Lincoln himself thought the speech was a miserable failure, and didn't live long enough to find out otherwise. He made it up and scribbled it down hastily on his way to Gettysburg, like a school kid scribbling something, anything, on a piece of paper so as to have something, anything, to turn in as homework completed. Fortunately for us, Lincoln didn't just blow off the assignment altogether, and tell the country that his dog ate his speech. But the people at Gettysburg on that cold windy day wouldn't've cared if he had.

Using the "N" Word, Politically Correctly

MY FEAR OF THE "N" word is so great that not only can I not say it, I cannot type it. It will not come out of my mind and onto the computer screen. The last time I remember saying it, was in a game of poker in my early twenties, decades ago, and one of the players was black. I blurted it out after getting a bad draw, and had no idea why at the time. My black friend's eyes got big. It always seems strange to be in the company of happy, robust african-amreican men, and hear them all calling each other the N word. Over and over again they say it,and they obviously mean no harm by it. Its all in good fun for them - but not for me. I sit there and cringe. Perhaps I am a victim of politicial correctness run amok. Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal make no bones about it; they will say the N world anytime, any damned time they want to, and they sure as hell won't let a bunch of honkies make them stop. Their ancestors were forced to adopt this language, and they will use their own words any way they want to, including the "N" word! They made that clear, perfectly. The ShaQ also made it clear that when african americans use the N word, they do so in a positive way. Its hard to argue with that. Then, along come conservative whities, screaming that political correctness is a sickness of liberal white people, not conservative white people. The word police come from the left, trying to truncate our first amendment right to free speech. So, perhaps the N wording african american community and the tea party have made common cause; the destruction of meddling, word policing liberalism. Are all you conservative crackers ready to get rid of political correctness entirely?

Forced To Be Tolerant; Dick Cheney and His Gay Daughter

YOU REMEMBER DICK CHENEY, of course. Vice President for eight years, under Bush. Extremely wealthy corporate oil executive. Extremeley conservative. Had several heart attacks; about a year ago he had a heart transplant, which seems to be working beautifully. Many people believe that Dick Cheney was the real decision maker in the Bush White House. Cheney the architect of Iraq and Afghanistan. Cheney the war monger. He has two daughters, Liz and Mary, who have a sibling disagreement. Liz, currently running for Congress from the Cheney state of Wyoming, conservative like her father, is opposed to gay marriage, and just about everything else gay, like her morally upright Christian, conservative, capitalistic materialistic imperialistic militaristic daddy. The usual conflict between traditional conservatism and modern reality. Mary is gay, and is married to another woman, and is a staunch advocate of gay marriage in particular, and gay rights in general, as you might suppose. How irksome for Dick and Liz, their deeply held values at odds with circumstance! They all seem to be civil about it, however, at least, in public. All this has put, as one might imagine, Mr Cheney in a rather, shall we say, precarious position, from which he cleverly, wisely runs, by never saying anything definitive on the obvious matter at hand. How many erstwhile American conservatives with traditional conservative moral values have been forced to reconsider their opposition to homosexuality and gay love, their intolerance of it, because and only because of the homosexuality of a very close loved one? The answer is; many. Dick Cheney, like all conservatives, was once once adamantly opposed to homosexuality because it was immoral, a sin. Then, under pressure, they decided it was a sickness, a mental illness, a perversion. Now, after half a century of being dragged, kicking and screaming, towards tolerance, they have given up the moral and mental illness crap, and accepted, at long last, gay people as civic equals. Now, they are having gay marriage forced down their throats. Dick Cheney has had it forced down his throat, hook, line, and sinker. So far the conservative community is swallowing..but is it digesting?

Banning Killer Robots

SOMETIMES YOU WISH THAT science would simply give us the technology we want, then leave well enough alone so we could play with our fancy new gadgets without having to worry. No dire warnings about its possible misuse, no intellectual analyses concerning possible downsides and unintended consquences. Then we could live in a fantasy world where all high tech is good, and fun. But, unfortunately, that aint the way it is, at least, not yet.Let's face it. We have abused every invention. We are currently abusing smart phones and computers, using them to spy on each other and blackmail each other, increasingly. Cars and cell phones would be so much more fun, if we didn't have to feel guilty about using them. Cars are destroying the environment, cell phones are making mush of our minds. All that may be true, but don't mean we want to hear it. The latest alarm going off in the world of technology concerns robots. Robotic science is advancing at a geometric rate; every year a quantum leap occurs in our ability to program intelligence into computers, and physical dexterity into robots. The Japanese are coming out with butler type robots which can replace human domestic help. Any computer worth its salt can beat a chess grand master. All the potential military applications of computers and robots have not even been thought of yet, and already, robotic scientists are warning us that it is now time to start developing international treaties regulating the use of robots, and banning them as weapons, the same way we now ban chemical and biological warfare.The reason, we are being told, is that soon, very soon, robot technology will be sufficiently advanced to make possible killer robots, kinds of machines which would be deadly in battle, against other machines, against combat soldiers, against whole populations of people. If the people who are desigining and building these things are telling us all this, which they indeed are, we would perhaps be well advised to listen.

Running Out of Labor to Exploit

AMERICAN MANUFACTURING IS RETURNING to America! Jobs are coming back home! At least, a little bit. Maybe nothing to get all that excited about, but its a start. The cost of labor is increasing in places like China and Mexico. American corporations are helping, by increasing the demand for labor abroad. Thus, the cost of labor in countries less prosperous than the United States is catching up with the low cost of labor in the U.S.. Ironic, since the one and only reason American corporations do their manufacturing in other countires is to exploit their low cost of labor. Corporations are not compassionate organizations, they are profit seeking organizations. Its getting harder to exploit foreign labor, and easier to exploit labor in America, whose living standard is in decline, and millions of poor people try to survive, after the fashion of a third world country. There is really a very thin line between the United States of America, and a so called "third world country" demographically. A few extremely wealthy corporations at the very top, and millions of low wage workers, struggling to survive. Millions of impoverished Americans, willing and eager to take low wage manufacturing jobs, until they can get organized later, or find something better. International free trade, agreements NAFTA and GATT, were and are intended only for the purpose of allowing the world's largest corporations free reign in shopping for the cheapest labor the world has to offer. That may be getting more difficult to do, and this is good new for workers. The working masses of the world will benefit only when there is so much manufacturing occuring the world over that the global cost of labor rises, through demand, to a high enough level to give the world's working masses enough income to live on. At least half the world's workers currently do not get paid enough to live. At least half of all American workers are not paid a living wage.How do they live? With many people crowded into very small living spaces, with no luxuries and barely enough to eat, that's how. Karl Marx may have been wrong about many things, but he was quite right about one; the workers of the world will never be treated as equal partners in industry until they insist on it, vehemently and vociferously.

Never Ending Season of Heat & Wind

THERE WAS A TIME when tornados were rather rare in November. They started happening in April and May, then, as the summer progressed, dwindled in number. The big batch of twisters which stormed through the midwestern United States yesterday are for some people another indication of climate change, and for other people just another unusual weather event. Take your pick. Tornado season is longer now than it used to be. Tornado season from February through November is a new twist. The theory is that hurricanes will be no more frequent in the future, but they will be bigger and more powerful. Tornados will be more frequent and more powerful. The wealthier we become, the more material things we will manufacture, and the higher the cost of tornados will be. A healthy and responsive insurance industry will be demanded by the market. Much if the world's manufacturing capacity will be devoted to the replacement of storm destruction. Couple of years ago, on a ninety five degree day in late May, I was standing in the middle of a pile of rubble that the previous day was somebody's lovely home. Thousands of other people were doing the same thing, but nobody was in sight. I had my own devastated suburban neighborhood, my own vast field of rubble, all to myself. The town had been destroyed by a two hundred mile an hour rotating wind. It made you wonder, how strong can stright line winds become on a sunny day? Americans from all over the country were in town, helping remove rubble, much of which would later be recycled. For the moment, on that hot steamy depressing day, it seemed as if the mess would never be cleaned up, no matter how many people came to help. But eventually it was, of course, at great cost. In the American midwest May is becoming a summer month, spring starts in February, and summer lasts into October. It almost seems there will soon be a time when the growing season, and the tornado and hurricane season, never end.