Reversing Racism

ON THREE OCCASIONS I have been "victimized" by what might by some be called "racism", or perhaps more accurately, "reverse racism", seeing as how I am European-American, and my arguable discriminators were African-American. All three occured well into my adulthood, and left no permanent emotional scars, since I was by then a "big boy" as we say. The first happened in my hometown, in which I was born and raised, a mid sized blue collar midwestern city in which the African-American population was segregated, and lived, literally, across the tracks. The segregation had probably been mandatory in the town's rough and tumble late nineteenth century early days, and had endured as a matter of habit, voluntary segregation. I had a good friend who lived in the black section, a black man ten years my senior, who had played college football at our local college on a national championship team. He would often join ne and my other white friends for poker games. He was a delightful man, and we all loved him. Well, one night we honkies were cruisin', and decided to drop in on him, at his girlfriend's house. We knocked, he answered the door, and behind him a party was obviously in progress; an all black party. He did not invite us in, and hurridly got back to the party, barely opening the door, as if wanting to conceal from his black friends that some white guys had had the audacity to even knock. We left wondering why, or pretending to wonder why. Our black friend had his black friends, and his white friends, and never the twain did meet. Later, I had moved to a university town to pursue graduate studies, and lived in an apartment complex. My neighbor was a young beautiful African-American lady, and always pleasant to me. One night I needed a postage stamp, and for some reason could not wait. I knocked on her door, she opened it, furtively and barely, and obviously there was a party going on, all black. She quickly told me that she had nary a stamp, and closed the door, rapidly, as if wanting to conceal from her guests that a white man had come to her door. Less than an hour later, her party still hapnin', she knocked on my door, quickly handed me a stamp, and vamoosed lickety split, as if not wanting her guests to know that she has slipped out and given aid to me. A few years later, my teaching career underway, I had a job working for a state agency, teaching living skills to disabled children. Many of my fellow employees were African-American. On one occasion I was at the home of one of them, a good fiend of mine, and there were several other men present, all large, athletic, African-American men. They were having an animated conversation about sports, of the sort American men often do. They kept calling each other "nigger". Each time, I cringed. By the time it had happened about fifty times, I became somewhat inured to it, but never enough to stop the cringing. They were utterly unconcerned about my presence. I remained quiet during the group discussion, keeping my opinions about sports to my white self. I can still recall how much I later wanted to speak to my good friend, and try to expalin to him how awkward and uncomfortable the repeated "N word" had made me feel, that among most white people the word "nigger" is the most taboo word in the English language, so taboo that we always call it "The 'N' word", being wholly unable to even speak it aloud. But I never had the conversation. I didn't think it would have helped, and still doubt that it would have. He probably would have shrugged it off, and explained that for them to call each other that horrible word was perfectly acceptabe, which I already knew, and meant only as a gentle insult and actual term of endearment. He would probably have chided me for my over-sensitivity. I doubt he would have apologized, or that he would have thought he had anything for which to apologize, which, in truth he really didn't, although I wished he had. Whether the three above incidents had anything to do with racism is questionable. Doubtless not, at least overtly. All three were, arguably, predicated merely upon social exigencies and circumstances. I myself have often argued - a questionable argument - that it is impossible for black people to be "racist", because their objections to white people have nothing to do with skin color, but instead are entirely based on the treatment of black people by white people, past, present, and likely future. I actually treasure the situations I described as cherished memories, with humorous overtones, and for the benefit of having experienced, directly and personally, the emotional sting of being treated differently, because of my skin color. Empathy enhances people, of all colors.

Aspiring To Democracy, Dealing With a Dying Party

THE UNITED STATES was never intended to be a democracy. In fact, until the twentieth century, the word "democracy" carried a negative cannotation, akin to mob rule. Brainwashing by the powerful elite few. The founders enshrined in the constitution of 1787 a an oligarchial, plutocratic system of republican rule, governance by the wealthy, educated elite, the "better sort", as Madison put it, who would govern and represent the interests of the remaining ninety nine percent, the "lesser sort", the poorly educated rabble whom Madison and other founders considered unqualified and unable to govern themselves. Within five years of the constitution's installment, Madison regretted it; it had become obvious by 1792 that the better sort had no intention of representing the interests and well being of the lesser sort, but instead, only their own. And so it remains today, despite women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery and land requirements for voting. A plutocratic republic. Rule by the corporate elite, who have supplanted the landed elite, who choose our political candidates and fund their election. Hence, our political, economic, and legal systems favoring the wealthy at the expense of us, the modern lesser sort. Neither did the founders intend for political parties to exist, which they saw as divisive, but within the presidency of George Washington political parties had come into existence, consisting of those who supported Washington's vison of a powerful central government, and those who preferred a more decentralized system. With two political parties, when they are roughly equal in power and popularity, the government enjoys a reasonable level of stability, unless the two parties are either too similar, in which case they are meaningless and represent no one, or too ideologically divergent, in which case lurks the constant possibility of internal national conflict. Two widely divergent parties with unequal strength, in which one of them is in decline, presents a dangerous situation. It should not be surprising in that event that the party in decline will seek to strengthen and perpetuate itself by any means necessary, including voter suppression and subversion of democarcy, resorting to authoritarian government to keep itself in power in minority rule. That is exactly what is happening now in the United States. Hillary Clinton got three million more votes than Donald Trump, and Joe Biden beat Trump by more than seven million votes. In seven of the last eight pesidential elections, Democrats have won the popular vote. Republican governores, state legislatures, and national congress, Senate and House members represent forty five million fewer constituents than do Democrats, currently. Ninety percent of registered Republicans are white, in a country in which only sixty percnt of the population is white. Ninety percent of Republicans are Christian. In the nation as a whole, barely more than fifty percent identify as Christian. White Christian conservatives, as a percentage of the general pupulation, is a minority, and declining. Republicans on average are much older than Democrats. The millennial generation and those younger are mainly non religious and progressive. The Republican party is a shrinking party of angry old white men, seventy percent of whom falsely claim that the election of 2020 was stolen from Trump, and seventy percent of whom believe that Trump's Capitol insurrection was justified, a valiant attempt to right a great wrong. A dying party, crying out in despair, trying to steal power, passing laws in Republican controlled states making it harder to vote, in what will be a failed attempt to prevent the rise of ethnic minority power and the interests of the Democratic party. Conservative, white, Christian America resents the gaining of equaliy of minorities, and the loss of the traditional patriarcal society. They resent the encroachment of ethnic minorities and religious diversity into American society. And they reesnt their own impending political death, and are not finished trying to fight back and destory those who are facilitating their political demise.

Acknowledging MLK, Conservatively

JUST FOR FUN, next year on MLk day, since its too late to try the experiment this year, pay attention to conservatives talking about the iconic civil rights leader. Really, any regular old day will do, but there is something special about discussing MLK on MLK day, when the enthusiaism for him is at its one day per year fever pitch. Invariably, conservatives will cite as King's best attribute his alleged emphasis on a "color blind" society; a term which to conservatives really means a "failure to acknowledge the rampant institutional racism with which the United States is afflicted", and a preference for believing that rampant racism ended in american culture when slavery was abolished, and that Martin Luther King's primary achievement and purpose was a sort of "mop up" operation, in eliminating the last, lingering vestige of racism by replacing it with ubiquitous color blindness. What you will never hear a tried and true right winger acknowledge is King's radicalism, that his anti-racist crusade wass not onlly based on the Christian religion in his capacity as a minister, and that by the standards of his times, the nineteen fifties and sixties, he was as radical and controverisal as they come, which is why he was murdered, and why he knew he would be murdered well in advance. King's tolerance and embrace of unconditional love is of course what all Christians should embrace, but which racists, al of which are conservative, since racim is a traditional, core American value, do not. King also, late in life, realized that without economic equality there could never be racial equality, and so he openly espoused socialism, a fact which conservatives can scarcely bring themeslves to accept. In the nineteeen sixties conservatives were still universally racist, as many of them still are today. The difference is, in those days they were unabashed, and today they seem somewhat ashamed of it, and tend to conceal it. Today's conservatives, racist? The white supremacy movement, which has a substantial following, is growing, and is to a person made up of christians and political conservatives. And that's just the tip of the right wing racist iceberg. There isn't a screeching liberal nor black lives matter member to be found among the lot. Color blindness, a noble sounding aspiration, simply doesn't work, for the simple reason that people are not color blind, can easily discern skin pigmentation, and also, because color blindness is merely another means of allowing the free market of values and attitudes to reign unfettered; meaning that one can be as color blind as one wants, but be covertly, if not overtly racist. It is easy for a problem to exist when one simply chooses not to see the problem. A more realsitic approach is mandated by logic. It is this: educate the general population to understand that every living human being has a unique skin color, and that skin color, like most other human traits, is a continuum, a spectrum, along which we all can be placed, ranging from extremely light to extremely dark. Race, in other words, is an arbitrary categorization. Humanity is not divided into three or four races and skin colors, but rather, into an infinite variety of unique individuals. When we discard our categorical thinking and categories, which we create for the sake of convenience, we enter a realm of a much more complicated, confusing world. But if accepting reality for the complexity of unique forms that it is allows us to be more tolerant of everyone and aids us in elimianting an idiotic attitude like racism, then having a better understanding of the universe is not the only benefit we gain from forcing oursleves to do a better job of thinking.

Sundering the Faith, Again

THERE IS A SCHISM within the holy kingdom of God, trouble in paradise. Or rather, there is a schism within one of God's apparently many diverse kingdoms. Since there are thousands of religions on Earth as it perhaps is in heaven, and roughly four thousand Christian denominations, including about thirteen hundred and fifty organized religions registered with the federal government for pusposes of tax evasion, one must conclude one or more of the following: 1) there are thousands of different Gods in, out of, or thoughout the universe. 2) God has many separate religions, and either desires to be worshipped in many diverse ways, or is discontent with all but one, whichever one that might possibly be. Everyone has an opinon, like rectums; yours is a good as any, but no better. Now, consider a venn diagram, one representing the Christian community, the other Donald Trump's conservative base of support. The two intersect, deeply. The intersection section is the Christian conservative Trump movement, comprising about eighty percent of evangelical Christians in America. It includes tens of millions of Americans. Politically far right fundamentalist evangelical Christians, Trump's people. Perhaps not too suprisingly, there is a growing number of them beholding belatedly a wolf in sheep's clothing, a big elephant in the room, as it were, almost as if, like Saul of Tarsus experiencing an epiphamy, the blatant contradiction between Trump's life and behavior, and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Welcome to the club. What took y'all so long to get here remains inexplicable, but, hey, there are many pathways to the mountain top, they say. In truth, the Christian religion has been one "hot mess", as folks say nowadays, of divisions since its very, inception, since the disciples walked away from the master's convuluted, arcane, metaphorical parables utterly confused, disagreeing about their possible meaning. When they became apostles, they scattered in every direction, to all four courners of their flat Earth, teaching diverse doctrines, founding diverse varieties of the church of "the truth", as they all called what much later became widely known as "Christianity". A veritable hodge podge of small local churches emerged, precipitating the frustrated but newly devout Reoman Emporer Constantine to summon everybody together, to bring everybody together, to get everyone "on the same page" as we like to say today, into one...true..religion....as only emporers can do. Problem is, it didn't work, at least not for long. Within a few short centuries we had the Roman church, the Eastern Orthodox church in Constantinople, and then..more and more. At one point there were three different Popes ruling simultaneously, one of whom ruled from Avignon, France, of all places. All this, even before Martin Luther's Lutheran revolt in 1517, which of course eventually resulted in the thousands of denominations we have today. In the United States, over the past two hundred years or so, dozens of "made in America" denominations have been invented: Mormons, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and on and on, many of them familair to all, and quite popular. There is no end in sight. Stay tuned. More will follow. As Goethe said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine." Now we have "Christian natioanlism", a mixed denominational marriage of fervant American patriotism and conservative Christianity, a mix which has been with us since, really, the country's founding, but has become expecially virulent in the age of Trump. The shining city on the hill, the greatst nation on Earth, and the one true faith, joined at the hip. This is a toxic mix, made in hell. Why? Because of what it embraces. A majority of the conservative christian Trump community denies climate change, a disastrious attitude, embraces neo-liberal economics, contray to the teachings of Christ and common sense, and cares not a whit about curtainling fossil fuel use. This toxic mix, with a few other malignancies thrown in, is a recipe for societal collapse, about whcih they care nothing, since they anticipate being reptured into heaven within their lifetimes, as the world ends, according to prophcey. Never mind that the founders, including Madison and Jefferson, spoke of and wrote into the constitution what they called "an impermeable wall" between church and state. The founders actually created a nation of religious freedom and tolerance within a secular governmental framework, but..never mind that. Never mind that about half of today's living American have no religious affiliation. Onward march the Christian soldiers, with Trump their temporal leader, ordained by Christ, lies, extra-marital affairs, big election lie, Capitol insurrection, and all. And yes, they believe Trump's big election lie, and they consider the violent mobsters who stormed the Capitol to be patriots, all presumably sanctioned by our lord Jesus Christ. In a word, these people are fervant, deluded, crazy, violent, and they believe all the rest of us, especially Biden and the Democrats, are evil. They have it backwards. Hell, they have everything backwards. Our one hope, considering their current political strength, might be that they are all raptured into heaven poste haste, leaving the rest of us to muddle in a suffering world, though content, if only becuase of their sudden absence. With regard to the schism endengered by their newly sane expatriots, more power to them, and, if they don't win the battle, maybe the two sides will consume each other in the great schismatic struggle to come. One can only hope.

Talking Interminably

THE TERM "FILIBUSTER" is a derivation of a French word, a Spanish word, or both, meaning, "to talk one's fool head off" In truth, the technique of talking interminably until one is blue in the face, drops dead, or the cows come home as a technique in a legislative body to avoid the undesirable, the inevitable, or both, is a demonstration of desperation as old as the United states constitution itself. Older, maybe. In recent times it has gained greatly in popularity, beginning about sixty years ago, and even more so in the past thirty. One might even argue that delaying through loquacious verbosity is a method inherent to human nature, to high school students, for example, wanting parents to forget all about report card day, going all the back to god. God was ambivalent about human existence from the get go, and he (she, it?) said so. He talked us into existance, and talked about everything she did before and after doing it. But among American humans, the talkathon really got going in the late nineteen fifties, when southern conservative Senators of both parties, horrified by the very thought that African-Americans might by law be elevated to the exulted status of five fifths equality rather then the constitutionally mandated three fifths, magnanimously concluded that if they could keep talking until the second coming, then christ would rapture them, the conservative Christian saved, straight up into heaven, where they the elect could finally stop talking, start listening for once, and for once be rid of those inferior irksome racial and religious minorities, forever. In today's perfectly polarized everything, all bills which come before the deliberative higher legislative body (the U.S. Senate) are filibusted by their opponents. Filibustering, in a word, is out of control. Staunch constitutional "origilalists" seem unconcerned with the reality that none of the nation's founders was in favor of it. The bottom line, as we say, is this: the filibuster should be banned, and is about as harmful, useless, and outdated and anachronistic as the following" the electoral college, extreme racial, social, and economic inequality, the American constitution itself, primitive, barbaric organized religions of all makes and models, political, social, and economic conservatism, and the Republican party. Tragic but true is that we are stuck with all of the above until such time as saner heads prevail, our society becomes civilized, and Joe biden is able to cajole, persuade, or coerce a certain two Democrats - In - Name - Only United states Senators into behaving decently, reahter than like Republicans.

Caring Much About Medicare

I CONSIDER IT a great honor, privilege, and benefit to live in a country which maintains such enlightened, beneficial, socialistic programs as Social Security and Medicare. Anyone who argues that these programs are anything other than socialism is mistaken. Certainly, they are not capitalistic. Goods and services may be produced and distributed by privately owned (non governmental) businesses in a free market, competitively, for profit, or cooperatively by the government, at taxpayer expense. The former is capitalism, the latter, socialism. In a general sense, capitalism is competitive economics, socialism is cooperative economics. Both can be beneficial to society, both can be abused and harmful. Both may exist within an authoritarian form of government, or within a democratic political system. They can coexist within a single economic framework, as they do in the United States and Europe. Conservatives are always gung ho about programs like Social Security and Medicare, until I point out that they are socialism personified. Then, they either try to argue that somehow they are not socialism....maybe not capitalism...but, umm..somehow or other..not somiclaism...or they change the subject, bemused. Those who asknowledge that they are indeed socialiam often advocate for their termination, like some plague, trying to argue that they are unsuccessful, or inefficient, a claim clearly belied by historical reality and current society. Throughout my life I had never been especially anxious to reach the age of sixty five, but was instead content to be young. When I was seventeen I considered twenty one old. When I was twenty one I considered thirty old. Now I like to think that sixty six is not terribly old, though it is, and eighty seems old. Obviously, its all relative. If age is indeed "only a number", as we like to say, then we must agree that, if nothing else, it is a rather significant number. When I turned sixty five not only the government congratulated me, but so did many corporations, people, and, admittedly, I congratulated myself. To be automatically enrolled in Medicare upon turning sixty five is a great benefit from a great government in a great country. To people who have not yet reached the age of Medicare and Social Security I always say: "You're gonna love Mecidare and Social Security". Medicare supplemental plans are available to people of low income, people who rely exclusively on Social Security. I am one such person, and I take full advantage of all opportunities. My Medicare coverage comes with so many benefits, benefits such as membership in fitness facilities through the "Silver Sneakers" program, benefits which include dental, hearing, and vision insurance, monthly food allotments, among others, that I can scarcely keep track of all the benefits I receive. All I know is that I am sincerely grateful for every benefit, notwithstanding the fact that I worked my entire adult life and contributed to the programs from which I am now benefitting. My mother was born in 1920, and Social Security came into existence when she was fifteen. She and her parents were all good Republicans with a profitable dairy farm: they hated Roosevelt, and they all were convinced that they would never receive the full beneifts from all the money they paid into Social Security. Once I asked her whether she voted for Roosevelt, and she gave me two answers' "No!", and "Hell No!". Damned if anybody in my ancestral family was gonna vote for any damned socialist... Mother worked as a nurse until she retired at sixty five, and she lived to ninety three. Late in life she acknowledged that she had indeed gotten back all her money paid into the system, and then some. Now we are told that by the year twenty forty one, or something like that, the system will go bankrupt. I don't think it will. Even my modest understanding of mathematics tells me that a few simple, modest adjustments to the system, involving changes to full retirement age and benefits paid, will suffice to permanently repair the currently broken system. And its true; some people work their entire life paying into the system, then die before they retire, or soon after retiring, and thus never receive what they are owed. These people are the unfortunate victims of life's inevtitable vicissitudes and unfairness. We must be content with the knowledge that every good citizen who works and pays into the Social Security system contributes to someone's retirement, if not their own. When the system was started, there were thirty three workers for every recipient. Now, the ratio is less than three to one. So, obviously, adjustments will be necessary. For more than eighty years Social Security has kept almost all older Americans out of poverty, and for that reason alone, despite any shortcomings, Social Security is well worth the effort it has taken to maintain socialism in concert with a free market capitalist economy. I am constantly receivng phone calls from companies who offer to carefully examine my current Medicare benefits package, and, perhaps to add more benefits to it. I alwasy respond that I am quite content with my current enrollment, and can hardly imagine getting more than I already do. I express appreciation for what I have, for my country, and for the phone call. Rarely does this discourage the caller, who insists that she or he can give me more benefits, if only I change my enrollment to what she is offering. My older sister says that she doesn't trust the phone calls, and always hangs up on them. What does she think is going to happen to her, that whe will be bored to death?

Succeeding Without Racism

THERE IS A LADY in Virginia who came from another country, is black, (according to our simplified somewhat arbitrary racial categories), well educated, and has become quite successful professionally and politically through hard work. She is a Republican. She asknowledges that race can be a barrier to social advancement, and that life is full of barriers, but believes that it does no good to dwell on racism as a determining factor in American society, that it is time to "move on", achieve according to one's abilities, and avoid becoming a victim. All well and good. Arguably, she is stating the obvious. After all, American society is replete with example of African-Americans who succeeded in spite of their skin color; we know it can be done. Part of her philosophy is that by dwelling on America's enslaved and racist past, we are giving ourselves an excuse not to succeed, and failing to recognize the abundant opportunites manifest in the land of freedom and opportunity. Her mistake is her presumption that one must do one or the other; that one must either dwell on the past, or overcome it by reducing its importance and influence on our lives today. The obvious question is: can we not do both? Can we not at once accept the realities of our flawed society, and our ability to transcend the limitations they impose on everyone? Lord Acton's maxim "Those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them" does not contradict the belief in the ability of the individual to succeed regardless of external, societal circumstances. To ignore or forget history, or any other academic discipline, only serves to perpetuate ignorance at the expense of knowledge and education. If we study history, and study America's history of slavery, segregation, and racism, we need not "dwell" on it, merely because we are aware of it. To be unaware of it is not an acceptable option for people desirous of being well educated. Nor is it acceptable to be willfully unaware of the reality that the KKK still exists, as do many white supremacist groups, and racism, depsite our preference that it had long been elimiated, persists in America. Racism is pervasive in America in the year of our lord twenty twenty two, all research clearly shows, and any cursory examination of contemporary American society and culture plainly reveals this unfortunate fact. Arrest records and court records, all of which are public knowledge, cannot be whitewashed; African-Americans within and throughout the criminal justice system are treated less leniently, more severly than their "white" fellow citizens", an indisputable fact. It does nothing to eliminate any disease by pretending that the illness, personal or societal, does not exist, or to ignore it. One can acknowledge and live in reality as a citizen of any color, gender, or sexual ortientation, fully aware of the obstacles presented by social bias, without succumbing to any urge to constantly feel victimized, or unable to achieve due to the nonsensical biases of other people. Congratulations to the lady in Virginia and her success. Congratulations fo people like Lebron James. Talent and persistence usually result in success. But in no way does this give us good reason to pretend that social evils do not exist, widely, or that they are not impactful, and that it is our responsiblity as good citizens to accept this reality, and to at least try do something about it.

Knowing and Reading the Right (left) People

THERE ARE SEVERAL ESTEEMED PEOPLE WITH WHOM ALL AMERICANS should be familiar. Among them are: Noam Chomsky, Joesph Stiglitz, Chris Hedges, Gore Vidal. Obviously there are many others, but these four are a good beginning. Of them, only Vidal is no longer living. His best works are his nonfiction books and essays on politics in America and on American society generally. Although Vidal became successful as a novelist at a very young age, his non fiction comprises his most incisive contribution to the sacred spirit of truth.... Noam chomsky became a professor at M.I.T. the same year I was born, 1955. He is still active academically, although he transferred to Arizona state a few years ago, presumably to get away from the Bostom climate. At ninety two, Chomksy is proof that the key to avoiding dementia and remaining mentally sharp is at least partly embodied in continuing, ceaseless intellectual activity. Chomsky has written more than a hundred books, a prodigious number of academic papers and essays, and is widely regarded outside the United States as America's most accomplished intellectual. The fact that he is not especially well known among ordinary Americans nor featured prominently in the mainstream conservative corporate media is evidence of and precipitated by his radicalism socially, economically, politically. His primary field is linguistics, a science which he has revolutionized in much the same way that Einstein revolutionized physics. It is accurate to say that Chomksy is the father of modern linguistical theory. His passion otherwise is political activism. Among his more controversial beliefs and assertions is that every American president since World War Two was and is a demonstrable war criminal, and that the United States is owned and operated by an elite corporate oligarchy which ignores the will of the people. In this, of course he is hardly alone. Most intelligent people, meaning progressives, have long been aware of this. Gore Vidal also expoused this theme. Becasue of his age, Noam Chomsky will not be among us much longer. The day he dies is the day America loses one of its brightest, most illuminating forces of reason and truth.... Chris Hedges has lived one of the most interesting lives imaginable. He obtained a doctorate in divinity studies from Harvard, impressive in its own right, but went on to pursue a career in jourmalism. He has not failed to throw himself into journalistic research completely, having embedded himself in every major conflict in the world for purposes of reporting: the midle east, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Latin America, among others. All his books are fascinating and illuminating. One of his most recent, "Unspeakable", focuses on controversial topics that are avoided or ignored by most writers and most Americans. That is the essence of Chris Hedges: he deliberately seeks out an directly addresses the most controversial, least desirable aspects of American society and addresses them head on. He, like Chomksy and Vidal, is considered "radical", but only because he tells the truth in a world filled with obfuscation, conservatism, and misinformation.... Of the four scholars, Joseph Stigliaz is by far the least controversial. He has taught at Columbia long, and was the chairman of President Clinton's council of economic advisors. He has also served as an advisor to the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Stigliz is a progressive economist who warns against the concentration of wealth in America, and its destructive impact. The greater the concentration of wealth, the less demand for consumer goods across the broad economy, and the less supply, production, distribution, and prosperity. Capitalism itself greatly benefits from an equal distribution of wealth among workers and owners. Stiglitz, like the other three, makes perfect sense, which is probably why he is eschewed among conservatives.

Resisting the Party of Misinformation

NINETEEN STATES AND COUNTING have enacted laws making it more difficult to vote. More will probably follow. They have one thing in common; they are controlled, legislatively, by the Republican party. It all began with Trump's big lie that the election was stolen from him, a lie embraced to this day by three fourths of registered Republicans. So much for the credibility of the conservative Republican party; Trump's credibility took flight within hours of his birth. To a person, Republicans claim that by reducing the number of ballot drop boxes in cities, shortening voting hours, reducing the number of polling places, making it illegal to give a cold cup of water to a voter waiting in line for hours on a ninety degree day, they are somehow eliminating fraud from the American electoral process. This argument is rendered fatuous by the verified fact that fraud hardly exists at all in American elections, by the fact that making it more difficult to vote will have no impact on what vanishingly little fraud there is, and, finally, that the real reason the Republicans are so hell bound on making it harder to vote is that basic demographic and election research and statistics reveal that it is the minorities in America, the poor, the black, and brown, who will be most adversely affected by the movement the movement to suppress the vote. The fewer the voters, the less likely Democrats win elections, decades of analysis clearly reveal. Conservative Republican dishonesty does not end there. On several occasions Dr Fauci has testified in Congress. Every time, the Republican committee members try to insult him, inpugn his integrity, and tell lies about the nature of Covid 19, the Biden administration's response to it, and about Dr. Fauci's advice and guidance. Dr. Fauci responds in kind. Having abandoned all hope of reasoning with unreasonable people, Dr. Fauci the other day called Rand Paul, himself a docter, "liar". Any inteligent person who compares the comments made by Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci cannot other than conclude that the former is a maniac, a seriously misguided ideologue, and the later an intelligent, well trained doctor and scientist. America's conservative community, represented by the Repbulican party, is hostile to science, and ignorant of it. They much prefer the superstition of religion, and the false narratives given by conspiracy theories. To this day a majority of conservatives deny the reality of climate change, although they can all see it happening in their own back yards. They fear that by accepting it, they will be forced to conclude that progressive policies to fight climate change must be pursued. In this they are quite correct. We recall that conservative America elected a president who called climate change a "hoax", and whose energy policy consisted of "bring back coal", even though coal is being priced out of the free market, and must be abandoned, to save the world from future (and current) disaster. Interview any conservative Christian supporter of Donald Trump and you will most likely find a person who denies human evolution by natural selection, refuses to embrace cooperatvie economics of sharing of the sort preached by Jesus, and who is willfully ignorant of the massive damage already done to the United Atates by Trump, his lies about election fraud, his attempt to overthrow the government violently, and so much more. Conservatism in America is the probem. The antidote is reason, intelligence, and progressive policies.

Getting the Flu No More

IN 1991 I HAD what I presumed to be the flu for the third time in my life. I was so miserable I resolved to never have it again. That, and no auto accidents,became my two rules of catastrophic avoidance. So far, so good, knock on wood, as we say. With advancing age, I add more rules to live by: no borken legs or sprained ankles on my own doorstep, things of that nature. No amount of booster shots can persuade me to go among the unvaccinated. I mask up, avoid Monday morning gospel singing till further notice, and stay home a lot. I have my cats, my books, and my treadmill. My masks I have upgraded to M95s, or whatever the designation is. Eagerly I await anti Covid shot number four, and beyond. Meanwhile, America's remaining forty million odd unvaccinated seem more determined than ever to risk spreading what is to them a harmless virus while contributing, nay, causing new forms of it to mutate, the new forms increasingly contagious. Anti-vaccination lunacy, like superstitious religious nonsense and lunatic conspiracy theories involving pedophiles in Pizza parlors, originate on both ends of the political spectrum, but are far, far more common, and proliferate far more freelly on the far fringe right. And this, far right lunatic thinking, is the true enemy, the only pervasive enemy, the source of most if not all our troubles and societal turmoil. The late great Carl Sagan wrote a book titled "Our Demon Haunted World", whose cntral thesis is that people go astray when good, solid, fact based thinking is supplanted by fantastical, unreasoning thinking for purposes of perceived personal gain. Well, duh. No harm in stating the obvious, I suppose, and even less harm in pinpointing the source of nonsense; the far right, aka, most American conservatism. History hath shown that most folks prefer to avoid reality by escaping it, escaping into fantasies of their own making, such as religion and support for liars like, say, Donald Trump. Reality is seldom as desirable as our fanciful self delusions. The election was stolen, and what not. Hence, our universal human addiction to drugs, which infects every culture save those which threaten death for drug use. In the early twenty first century, we humans know more about the true universe than ever, having accumulated a massive body of proof concerning its true nature. And yet, religious superstition of all kind persists, like a lingering illness, or crutch. And so it is with anti-vaccination nonsense. About one third of the American people openly embrace the fantasy that the cure is more harmful than the cause. Generally, the fantisizers who cling to their fantasy that the election was stolen from Trump are the same ones who most fervantly believe in amaginary gods and holy books, who deny science, and embrace anti-vaccination idiocy. Nearly one million Americans have died from covid 19; the purveryors of nonsense persist. Our only hope and comfort is that there yet remain people who prefer to think, speak, and act intelligently amid the morass of misinformation. In 1968, while in eighth grade, on Christmas eve, I was sick with the flu. I watched on my sick-couch as an Apollo spacecraft orbited the moon, six months before another one would land on it. It made me feel better. It began my recovery from teh flu. Christmas morning, as I began to open presents, I suddenly felt much, much better; I had magically recovered from the flu, by the divine intervention of my youthful materialistic greed. The mind is amenable to disparate external inflluences. Mind, as the Dhammapada begins, foreruns all conditions. Sometimes, the minds assists us in surviving harsh realilty. To maintain sense and sanity, the mind must discipline itself.

Rumbling With Russia

I CANNOT REMEMBER Vice President Richard M. Nixon showing off a modern American kitchen to the premier of Russia, and the premier sneeringly responding by allowing as how, yes, capitalism makes some people very prosperous, but generally causes civilization to descend into a materialistic amoral quagmire. When all that happened, I was but a wee lad, scarcely aware of plastic soldiers and tinker toys, let alone global geopolitical realities and the capers of "Trickie Dick". I do however, vaguely recall the same Russian premier banging his shoe on the table top at the United Nations, and wondering: "what the heck"? Is that how grown ups behave? Later I found out that indeed it is, sometimes, and often, they behave even worse. Khrushchev often behaved rudely, like the time he got up and walked out of a summit meetng in France, after interrupting a pompous but obligatory welcoming speech from the French, who welcomed everyone in the room to "France's ancient soil". Top hat and tails and all, Nikita was gone. But..."ah distinctlly I remember" as E. A Poe might say, ducking for conver beneath my wooden desk in third grade, 1963, gaining protection from Soviet nukes, which could come at any time. I wondered as a nine year old, and still wonder as a sixty six year old, what possible protection could have been gotten by buildings full of young baby boomers, cowering beneath wood and notebook paper, other than being saved from falling plaster, necessitating an after school shampoo. Still naive at thirty five, I recall how, in 1991, the break up of the old Soviet Union tricked me into believing that all that bad stuff was gone forever; that I would indeed not have to spend the rest of my life memorizing the location of every local bomb shelter, skaking my fists at make believe Russians as school - I played the part of the United States, two of my best friends pretended to be China and teh U.S.S.R. during spit ball fights in eigth grade social studies class, appropriately. But as they say, boy, was I ever wrong. Enter Vlad Putin, who believes that the disintegration of the old Soviet Union into its constituent parts was, and remains, the greatest global catastrophe since the Visigoths entered Rome, or something like that, and often says so. After having his sinister ass kissed by the deferential Donald J. Trump for four years, one can hardly blame the dictator for being a bit emboldened, now that a well intentioned but seventy nine year old good guy has replaced the obsequious devil himself in the White House. Khrushchev actually gave away the Crimean pennninsula to the Ukraine in a rare fit of generosity in the fifties, thinking he would have no further need for it. Putin wants it back, and wants back the rest of the former Soviet Union. And that, my fellow former nuclear bomb dodgers, is why roughly one hundred thousand Russian troops are presently massed at the Ukrainian border. No less an authority on the region than retired lt. Colonel A. Vindman, of Trump impeachement fame, estimates the chances that Putin will send 'em on across at eight in ten, and syas he hopes he's wrong. So do we all, except for the demonstrably insane, which incluldes many Republicans, appeasers and war mongers alike. One wayy or another, to quote Blondie, we'll find out soon; they must put up or shut up before spring, when swampy melting ice renders armor and artillary movement nigh impossible in western Russia and Eastern Ukraine. that vies us enough time to scope out any left over bomb shelters, but, mark me, I'll be damned if I'll go back to uselessly, theatrically hiding beneath a wooden desk, no matter what Putin throws at us.

Thinking Clearly

IN 1976, the Mariner space probe landed on Mars, took pictures, and showed what looked like the letters "BG2" etched into the desert-like Martian surface. Many people were abuzz. Out came the alternative cosmic paradigm crowd, including millions of alleged alien abductees. Intelligent life on Mars verified! A day or two later famed astronomer Carl Sagan made one of his frequent appearances on "The Tonight Show" with famed host Johnny Carson. Seated between Johnny and famed side kick Ed McMahon, Sagan, in response to Carson's question, asked: "How likely is it that an intelligent species on another planet, with no apparent prior exposure to human culture, would inscribe a message into another planet's soil using Arabic numerals and English letters"? A disappointed but content studio audience remained silent, as did probably millions of disappointd but newly aware American television viewers. Ed McMahon probaly guffawed, as he did at most anything, but memory has faded after forty five years. Or, maybe the Martains had been closely observing the English speaking world, and wanted to communicate effectivelly. But..why only two letters and a number? Why not a coherent sentence or two? And..where, otherwise, were they, the intelligent Martians? Invisible, on the already comprehensively photographed Martian surface, or lurking beneath? Or had they left the planet long ago, presumably long before the English alphabet and Arabic numbering system were invented, and leaving behind not a trace of their highly technologically developed civilization?... Five years later, in 1981, I once again encountered problematic thinking, this time from my older sister, a patriotic American supporter of Ronald Reagan with a military background. During one of our infrequent "intellectual" converstaions, she informed me, in response to a claim I made, that, no, the United States did not lose the Viet Nam war. Sensing a biased, hagiographic viewpoint, I camly, Sagan-like, inquired of her: "Then why has Saigon been renamed 'Ho Chi Minh city', and why does the communist government in Hanoi now govern the entire country of Viet Nam? In 1981 she had no answer; now she admits her inadequate interpretation of modern American history, and, god bless her, it only took forty years for her to evolve and accept our American defeat in Viet Nam. It could have been worse, I suppose. Like Sagan once said, there is no shortage of intelligence in America nor anywhere else; there is only inadequate eduction and inadequate teaching of critical thinking skills. Sagan also said: "Extraordinary claims of fact require extraordinary evidence". Now in the science fictiony year of 2022, education has expanded, but so has uncritical thinking. The list of examaples is long, too long. Anti-vaccination folks, stolen election sycophants, conspiracy theories of all make and model flood the internet and abound and multiply in the hearts and minds of the improperly educated, the uncritical thinkers. A high percantage of Americans refuse to believe in the obvious reality of human made climate change and human evolution by natural selection. Poor thinking runs the gamut. Our modern proliferation of false thinking is dangerous. Dangerous because it harms society. A single, powerful, influential person can do great harm. Twice, the reverend Wm. Miller disrupted the lives of thousands of Americans, in 1843 and again in 1844. His followers liquidated their assets and their lives and camped atop hilltops in anticipation of the second coming of Christ, which failed to happen not once, but twice. That they were fooled a second time discredits them, not him, as the Chinese maxim says. The most brazen diaboical example of bad mental processes is Hitler, who murdered millions with the power of his intellectual nonsense, conatined in his pompous idiotic book "Mein Kampf", publisned years before he made it come true, aided and abetted by poor thinking among millions, like a contagious disease. That weventy five million Americas tried to reelect Donald Trump, that one third of the American people still believe that his reelection was "stolen", and that his insurrection was justifiable speaks volumes, not only about putting political dogma and party before country, but also about the willingness of erstwhile intelligent human beings to abandon reason in the defense of malignant personal beliefs and agendas. The world needs more Carl Sagans, more Anthony Faucis, and far, far fewer shrill, bleating radio talk show hosts screeching right wing lies and hatred, and at least one fewer narcissistic, mentally ill demagogue.

Acknowledging An Anniversary, Dubiously

JANUARY 6 was a painful day for me, as it was for millions of good Americans. For millions of bad Americans, not so much. It was all over the media, of course, as it should have been. That fact alone made it more painful, "mixing memory and desire" as T.S. Eliot said, but, as Lord Acton said, paraphrased, "those who fail to learn the mistakes of history are condemed to repeat them". The media attention of itself was enough to bring out the bad Americans, led by Trump and followed by his followers, all of whom still beleive that we are making, as Shakespeare said, "much ado about nothing". People who think that are, of course, idiots and traitors. The date will, as FDR said, "live in infamy", along with Pearl Harbor Day, JFK asassination day, and a few others which should be equally or more infamous but are not, due to our unique American penchant for forgetting anything which happened more than ten minutes ago. My entire life I have acknowledged Pearl Harobr Day, althougH I wasn't born yet when it happened, and since I was nine years old have scknowledged JFK Day. "Insurrection Day" now joins the list, along with the day my mother died in 2014, January 8, and a few other personal ones. On every day of the calendar year something horrible has happend in the seemingly never ending saga of horrible human history; our negatively remembered dates thus become a purely personal matter. The trump insurrrection arguably has a special place of its own in the annals of the infamous. For the first and we hope only time in American history a president who was quite plainly and badly defeated for reelection refused to accept defeat, lied that he had actually won, and, without evidence, convinced seventy five million Americans that his lie was not a lie, simply because it suited their purposes ande egos to believe a lie rather than what was for them an unbearable reality. Failing to overturn the legitimate election result by lies or litigation, Trump resorted to violence. The mob, the attack on the Capitol, the deaths it caused, and the damage it did to American electoral democracy all belong to Donald Trump, and to those who enabled him. He will be rememberd as the worst president in American history, because he was, and his followers will enter the history books as the worst traitors, surpassing the loyalits who remained loyal to King George III in 1776 and beyond, equalling the confederates of 1861 who abandoned then attacked their former country and made war, all for the cause of perpetuating the evil but economically expedient institution of slavery. The confederates fought for "state's rights" to the extent that they fought for the right of states to enslave human beings. Trump and his traitorous supporters fought to overthrow the United States government, not as they claim, in order to right a great wrong of the election of 2020, but rather, to perpetuate tyranny. Their claim that the actual insurrection occurred with a stolen election remains, and shall forever remain, fatuous, and treasonous. Between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousands Americans who refused to support the revolutionay cause between 1776 and 1781 left the country on ships bound for sundry destinations. The confederates would have done a greater service ahd they done the same thing, leaving free African-Americans and a great deal of real estate behind. Trump and his insurrectionists know exactly where they can and should go.

Giving Birth, and Advice For Jesus

THE MOST EYE CATCHING if grotesque Facebook post I have yet encountered was a superbly painted portrait of a young woman giving birth while seated, legs apart. The red infant is ready to be caught, on its way to the ground. The caption said: "He became one of us". Since Facebook posts are fair game for comments, I typed: "Arguably, he exercised poor judgment". I haven't been back to read any responses to my irreverant comment, but as I always do, I stand by what I typed. I live in a liberal bubble, so perhaps they took it easy on me. If not, so what? Exquisite though the painting is in color and detail, depicting the sacred moment of childbirth, the sacred moment of the arrival of the Christ child, I scrolled on, and might never return. The painting is a bit too good for me. Maybe everyone should witness a childbirth in art or even in "real time", as we say, to gain greater appreciation of life, and its processes. The painting was more than enough for me. I already appreciate life, and I meant what I said about poor judgment .No one should ever question God's judgment, we are told, but I dare do, particularly the Christian version thereof. Occam's razor cuts both ways: the simplest explanation for problems is usually best, and the simplest solution to problems is usually best. If, for example, you're God, and you're going to enter the world as a human being to teach and offer salvation, why not do some good along the way, amid the confusion and conflict you so sow merely by being there, and by teaching by using confusing metaphorical anecdotes? First, drop the pretense of being illiterate. Write the New Testament yourself, with clarity, with witnesses. Spare us the strife, confusion and choas engendered by the couoncil of Nicea, and by coutntless rewritings and editings through the ensuing centuries. Although it is hard to think of a worse way to convey knowledge than with books, they are, after all, the best game in town, or were in ancient times, and what could be more definitive than "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ", first, and last edition. Basic literacy classes for the desicples would have greatly enhanced their credibility as apostles, for that matter. And this approach would certainly not have violated the prime directive any more than magically mass producing bread and fish out of thin air, and probably less so. Using literacy as a tool to spread the faith would not exactly have been like pulling a laptop out of one's robe in the first century A.D.. Every now and then some wayward inquisitive heretic ponders at the necessity of staging a purely theatrical tortorous death, subjecting the greatst man who ever lived to three days of nonexistance, instead of simply offering forgiveness to humanity without all the drama. The question is valid. How meaningful is it to pay a debt you owe yorself by putting part of yourself to death for three days as payment for the misbehavior of creatures of your own creation? Another valid question. The answer, of course, is that in human form, on Earth, Christ is at once God, the Son of God, both, and neither. That was decided at the Council of Nicea also, in 325 A.D., by popular vote, just as the clerics voted on the holy scripture, what to leave in, what to take out. What a pity, and much ado. Upon historical reflection, we could just as easily, much more easily, have gotten the word, and could still have it, straight from the Son of God, straight from the horses mouth, so to speak.

Waiting

"AGAINST STUPIDITY, the gods themseves contend in vain" (attributed to ancient Greek philosoher Agathon).."The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius is somewhat limited" (Einstein). Years before the 2020 election, Donald Trump warned that if he lost, it would only be because the election was stolen from him. Priming the pump, grooming America, preparing for the worst. When he indeed lost, he played his "trump" card (pun intended), lied his big election lie, parroted by tens of millions of his sycophantic adoring supporters. In every state, the votes have been counted and recounted ad nauseum, by Republicans, Democrats, indempendents, computers, and accounting companies. Biden wins every time. Yet, Trump and his legions of liars refuse to cencede the elecion a year later, substituting poor sportsmanship and traitorous behavior for honor, honesty, and decency. No appeal to reason and simple decency is sufficient to convince the self deluded election lie mongers of the truth, nor ever will be. Pressed for more than a year to provide even a shred of evidence of election fraud, nary an itoa has been, and the Trumpers are resorting to a new tactic, one form of desperate dishonesty. Some of them now claim, astonighingly, that there indeed exists strong evidence of election larceny, and that it is in their possession. They claim that it was obtained from detailed examination of ballots and voting machines in several states. Predictably, this astonishing information cannot be revealed to the rest of us at present, but soon will be, they promise. The reasons for the current secrecy and delay in divulging have not been given, unsurprisingly. Thus we the uninformed masses must be content to wait for the enlightened few to grace us with revealed truth, like Christians awaiting the second coming of Christ, which Christ himself promised would take place within a generation of his death. Proof of election fraud will not be provided in the near future, not within the next two thousand years, according to any reasonable analysis, for it does not exist, and those who claim that it does are merely continuing the pathological dishonesty startd by Trump, taking it to a new level of weirdness. Our wait will be endless, like that of the Christians. Precisely what the delusion Trump believer hope to accomplich other than the assuaging of emmotional pain and enhancement of self esteem remains murky. Everyone alive now will eventually die, with the election fraud promise intact, and they will have run out the clock, and handed the secret informatin to a new generation of Trumpers, who will doubtless protect it like the Ark of the covenant.It is no more possible to persuade the devout to give up the ghost of Trump's lie than to convince Christians that Christ is way late, and not likely to show up soon, or ever. The christian devout will keep waiting for their lord, and the unbelieving but open minded, patient Trump skeptics will keep waiting for evidence of election fraud. None of us will ever receive what we are waiting for. The only difference is that we will be neither surprised nor disappointed.