I Get It, But I Don't Get It!

I mean that I realize that it happens over and over, but I will be damned if I can understand why! Aarghhh, no that's not right either. I guess that I do understand why we keep doing this thing, but... That's not it either...

If we've (Humans) learned anything over the millennia, it should be that when we work together, stuff seems to get better.

Our saintly forefathers and to be politically if not factually correct; foremothers, even came up with the motto "E Pluribus Unum" "Out of Many, One". Loosely represented as "United We Stand". They knew that as a loose collection of 13 states, we stood zero chance of gaining freedom from the Brits. As it was, we still couldn't have gotten anywhere if Great Britain wasn't already at war with France, who saw the value in joining with the nascent United States to defeat the British.

When the Russians finally got sick of letting the Czarists get away with their lifestyles and overturned them and their government, then used the concept of communism to unite the people and form a new order, people in neighboring states couldn't wait to join the new USSR! And for a time, it was great. "From each to his abilities, to each to his needs". Of course, after Marx and Lenin came Stalin. Who believed he knew better than anyone what the people wanted. Quick aside; we've been told that the commies were anti-Christian, etc. As far as Stalin was concerned, he considered the church a rival! If anyone was going to be a god, it had better be Josef Bloody Stalin!

It was so bad that when he died, he likely might have been revived, but nobody on his staff was willing to burst into his rooms for fear of provoking his wrath!

But I digress greatly.

Back to my subject, Europe has never been so successful as it has since the signing of the treaties beginning the European Union. Even with all the internal squabbles, the EU is an incredible success! If one ever thinks otherwise, all one needs to do is to look at how badly Britain has been since ratification of Brexit. For some reason, the foremost proponents of Brexit disappeared immediately after it was signed into law. Boris Johnson couldn't stay out of the spotlights and managed to pull off a run for Prime Minister. But it wasn't long before his antics got him ousted again. (Why is it that so many wannabe dictator types sport weird hair?) But look up some of the others like Nigel Farage post Brexit. I really believe that they never thought they'd win in the first place. They sure as hell had no idea what to do when they did!

And then comes Trump.

Like the Brexiteers who thought the majority of the voting public would never vote to leave the E.U. I don't believe that he thought he would win either. Once he did however, he was hooked. There was now no possible way that he could allow himself to give back that most intoxicating of beverages: the pure superheated draught of Power! I bring up His Marmalade Majesty only because of the similar tactics to those of the Brexit crowd. Even though if you really paid attention, you could clearly see that things were actually pretty good! By comparison, taxes were pretty low, duties within the E.U. were non-existent. Heck, as a British citizen, you could retire to the coast of Spain or Southern France if you were even moderately well-off! All gone now, of course. Free trade went away, duties are back, and Brit ex-pats are getting kicked out of their sunny retreats and having to return to the fog and rain of their native land. *heh* Hard to feel bad for the silly buggers. From what I've been able to read, the semi-affluent who were most likely to have those retreats in the South of Spain, etc. were the largest sector of the voting public to want Brexit!

And then comes Trump.

After generations of struggle, we had started to recognize the need for immigrants in our factories, fields and construction sites. Held back by the Right-winger's use of the low-hanging fruit of xenophobia for an easy re-election tactic, the U.S.A. had slowly clawed its way to the realization that acknowledging others as being equals actually seemed to make our situation better! In fact, looking at examples around the world it actually seemed like it worked among nations as well. At least among the few that were trying to make it work.

Then comes Trump.

We'd trained our children that the way to success was through the doors of a university, and as a result had bred a generation to whom the very idea of any sort of manual labor was abhorrent! But that was OK. As Bush2 said: "Immigrants are doing the jobs that Americans won't do!"

Then comes Trump.

So, what does he do? Fires up the never far from the surface racism and hatred of anyone that doesn't look or speak like we do! Being as it is never buried very deep in the American psyche, he makes it acceptable to voice that hatred again! Evangelical Christians and their like, ever on the lookout for anyone willing to assist with their persecution fantasies dived in with full-throated endorsement of his political ambitions. For them, Trump was a dream come true. The Right had been searching for decades for someone they could manipulate and mold into a leader sent from Jehovah! The Christian Right is a group representing, by all estimates, around one-third of the voting public. A huge portion if you realize that they get a pass from most other Christian sects on the grounds that even if one did not agree with them, they were, after all: "Doing the work of the Lord." It's a problem with believers. Once you've signed on to these precepts, it's not a stretch to accept just a little more, after all. Once you've realized that The Rapture is a real thing, it would be a small thing to help it happen. For example, if someone like your Pastor told you that a certain politician was sent by God to cause more conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and as such possibly bringing on the Apocalypse! You might make the effort to vote for him, even if you thought in your heart that said politician was a buffoon. Assuming of course, that your church hadn't signed on as One Hundred percent Trump is the Second Coming! Any time you think that there's no way on earth Trump could win the election, just remember the influence of the churches, and how little it might take.

And then comes Trump.

Even after all the evidence about how much better things can be otherwise, it is so incredibly easy to make people want to clan up, to fall back into tribalism, to circle the wagons around some make-believe "We" to fight off the "Other". How often do we hear politicians rail against the evils of "Globalism" or the old favorite boogeyman, Socialism. It is so ridiculously easy to rally already fearful people around these banners. It's nearly impossible to find any of them who can give you an explanation of what those terms mean, let alone why they should be afraid of them. But afraid they still are. Terrified even.

And then comes Trump.

He tells his cultists that only he has what it takes to resist the Globalist forces coming to take us back to some terrible existence that nobody seems to be able to describe. So bad was it that only with his unique set of skills can we return to some mythological place when America was "Great" and so convincingly that his cult identifies with the acronym. 

MAGA?  When exactly was this? 

The Journey To Here

 

Recently, as I was staring in open-mouthed awe at the latest batch of photos from NASA, I found myself ruminating on the dense star clusters and nebulae and thinking about the vast stretches of time that they represented. The earliest stars were accretions of gas, nearly 100% hydrogen if I understand the process. (No guarantees here) It is only after a sufficient mass is achieved that fusion kicks off in the star's core. It's only then that other elements begin to form. Before then, there were no metals, no rocks, only the simplest of elements. The periodic table was really simple in the opening days of the universe, there was only one, at most possibly three elements; hydrogen, a little helium and maybe a tiny bit of lithium. The rest of the elements were yet to be created by fusion in the hearts of those early suns.

Now consider our Solar System, and whatever other star systems that we've been able to acquire any information about, which began life as accumulations of rock and dust. Which leads us to the conclusion that the earliest stars had to live out their lives, explode as novae, and spew their newly formed elements across the universe before stars like our Sun and its surrounding planets even had the most basic building materials for accretion! We think of or little chunk of the universe as being unimaginably ancient, but there had to be at least a generation of stars, more likely several generations that had to exist and die before our current universe as we know it could even begin!

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I have existed for nearly 71 trips around our star, trying to gain a grasp on the chasms of time that had to pass before our unremarkable little sun got me to this place in time leaves me stunned!

Its times like this that I almost wish that I could convince myself that a deity was possible. It would be so much easier if I could just not think about it and claim that "Goddidit!"

It makes one understand the sheer seductiveness of religion.

Constitutional Militia

 Of all the times I have looked over our Constitution, I swear that the following passage just went past my eyeballs without sinking in at all. It seems that I am not alone either because if more than a few of our fellow citizens, especially anyone considering politics had actually read this passage, we might have avoided a few decades of confusion:

“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress” ~ Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 8, Clause 15

I've always been a little confused by the wording of the Second Amendment. In fact, I’ve written about this before. It seems that the writers would have wanted to be a bit clearer about such an important issue. Especially as they were emerging from a colonial legal system wherein weapons and the people who were authorized to carry them had been strictly regulated. It always bothered me that the founders would have been so quick to make firearms available, if not outright encouraged to anyone who wanted them. After careful study of this passage, it now is quite clear: The framers of the Constitution had a very clear idea of exactly what described a Militia! It was never intended to be a bunch of self-appointed weekend warriors. In fact, in colonial times, every able-bodied male was considered to be a member of his local militia.

It was certainly never imagined that a “well regulated” militia would be convened with the express purpose of defending the people from tyrannical overreach by the United States’ government. Especially as there are other parts of the Constitution that were expressly written for the purpose of defending against such an event. There are Amendments to deal with the legal removal of any office holder, including the President, for reasons ranging from abuse of power to incompetence. The fact that the system seems to be broken has little to do with any of that. Our problem is that we have allowed our legislators to be bought and paid for by the plutocracy, but that’s a topic for another time.

The reason that militias were thought to be necessary was that in those times, it was thought that the country had little need for a standing army to defend the country from foreign invasion! It was thought that if need arose, Congress could simply call up the various militias. Looking back at our history, this seems to have been the standard up until the First World War. If we look back at various conflicts, especially the Civil War, the initial call-up of troops were from the local militias. This turned out to be a fiasco leading to the formation of an actual Army.

I’ve discussed in the past that the founders could not have guessed the development of modern weapons. In the late 18^th century, a high-tech weapon was a musket that had a rifled barrel! It simply beggars belief that even such forward thinkers as Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson thought that they were drafting a document that would allow un-“infringed” keeping and bearing of something like an AR-15. If anything, it seems to this grantedly biased observer, that they would have perhaps envisioned something like modern-day Switzerland. The Swiss are required to attend regular training and exercises, and must keep and be practiced with a government issued weapon so as to be ready to be called up if needed for the defense of their country.

Bottom line? If you really feel the need to play with assault rifles or crash around the landscape in camos and body armor, join the fucking military! If you and your buddies are practicing for an armed rebellion, there’s a word for that, too and it isn’t Militia. The word you are looking for is TREASON!

Well Played Republicans!

 For the last two years, Republicans have been bloviating at anyone with a microphone that if Joe Biden was elected President, he would immediately open the borders to immigrants. Of course right-wing broadcasters had been gleefully repeating these lies as if they were gospel.

Did they think that desperate people huddling in countries south of the United States had no access to radio or television? Maybe they were unaware that there were refugees who could understand the English language.

No, the Republican leadership was perfectly aware of what they were doing. Their plan worked out very well too! No sooner was President Biden sworn in were the borders overwhelmed with refugees who had been impatiently waiting in Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and other countries. Some had been waiting for years in places as far away as Brazil and Chile. They had listened. They were absolutely positive that they would be welcomed into the USA by the new Democratic government of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After all, they had been assured that they would not only be welcomed, but be assured that they will be given money, health care, and schooling for their kids! The Republicans had been broadcasting exactly that for years.

Why on earth would they think that the Republican politicians would have lied to them?

While I am a firm believer in the First Amendment, there needs to be consequences for any so-called "news" outlet for knowingly repeating what are obvious and easily debunked falsehoods. We cannot be misled about the contents of a can of beans, or the horsepower of a new car, why can Fox News make claims about the intentions of a political party that are totally divorced from reality? As an aside, here's a small article from 2019 listing some of the blatant lies from that time.

For that matter, why are politicians allowed to blatantly lie with complete impunity? I realize that lying seems to be a time-honored and expected province of political types, but why is it allowed to continue? We eventually passed laws that put the sellers of snake oil remedies out of business, why can we not do likewise with those who would put our very country at risk by distancing themselves from the truth? 

More questions than answers?

Anarchy? Libertarianism? Are they the same? Or two sides of the same coin.

I've been bothered by both philosophies for a very long time. Both seem to operate on the assumption that people could live and be happier in a society where there is nobody that can tell them what they can and cannot do.

Recently, I asked a friend (Hi friend of BunnyCat) for help in trying to understand how people could be so committed to either set of ideas. Granted, they can make for a stimulating conversation, and can certainly be interesting to think about, but I have a real problem with anyone who seriously believes this type of philosophy could truly be the basis for a functioning society. She was kind enough to point me at a couple of YouTube videos of Noam Chomsky expounding on what he believed Anarchy was about. Unfortunately, I seem to be stuck right off the bat after seeing Brother Chomsky’s “clarification” of what it means to be an Anarchist. I can’t seem to be able to get past the part where he states that in a truly Anarchist society, anyone who assumes a leadership role must be able to prove that they have the authority to do so. He cites the example of stopping his granddaughter from running into the street, and said that he would obviously have the authority in this situation as he was the grandfather of the young child. 

My first criticism of that would be it’s not going to be "obvious" to any stranger observing the act. Plus the act itself might possibly be subject to misinterpretation. 

Be that as it may, Chomsky goes on to posit several more examples wherein any authority figure or person assuming some manner of authority must be able to demonstrate his right and/or ability to do so. How is this in any substantial way different from the current systems of population and market controls around the world? Chomsky does lean rather hard on women for examples of people who should be more questioning of masculine assumptions of authority. This is certainly true in some cases, but what of the rest of society? Let’s not forget that there are examples of matriarchal societies and countries with females in positions of leadership all over the world. 

In the USA, we make a great show of the supposed democratic elections of our leaders. By definition, those representatives are given their authority by the supposed majority of the voters. The fact that some of us disagree with the results of any election in no way invalidates the authority given to the winner.

Even in a totalitarian state like China, the leadership is granted authority to lead by the acquiescence of the majority of the people. As that same country has proven over the millennia, when the leader loses the “Mandate of Heaven” he is quickly removed from power, either by popular uprising or by invasion of a stronger ruler. Even truer today as we see Xi Jinping seize power from his predecessor Hu Jintao in an onging coup, all the while knowing that he's a Cultural Revolution away from ending up in front of a firing squad as many of his compatriots have done.

I guess the bottom line for me anyway, is that these kind of political exercises are intriguing to ponder, and likely could be workable in a small population of like-minded people, but quickly fall apart as soon as one person, or a group of people who don’t want to play by the rules enters the equation. 

Like Libertarianism, Anarchy requires everyone in the group to agree on its basic premises, whatever they might be. In a large group, even a moderate-sized village, let alone a large modern city, the whole concept would seem to fall apart relatively fast. The whole idea of businesses “Self-regulating” because they would be forced to be so by their customers has been proven over and over to be wishful thinking. Businesses have shown repeatedly that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing. When they are poorly regulated, they pollute the environment, produce shabby and unsafe products, lie to their customers and shareholders, and more. For every ten businesses that are sincerely trying their best to be good citizens, it seems we will discover at least one who is acting the part of a weasel in the henhouse, using other’s responsibility as cover for their misdeeds. Plus in today’s corporate accounting, it is a matter of faith that in order to maximize profits, they will actively seek ways to at least take advantage of tax loopholes if not deliberately misrepresent their profits and expenditures to illegally avoid paying their fair share. Not even talking about tax dodges like the Bahamas and lots of others that will allow foreign actors to hide their money from the IRS.

And yet for all this, we hear politicians and others bloviating about the “Invisible Hand of the Market” and the need to remove those “Job-Killing Regulations” that are holding back the economy.

But as usual, I seem to have digressed.

When I see the self-proclaimed “Anarchists” dressed in black and rioting on the streets of Seattle, what should I be reading into their protests?

Dictionary.com describes Anarchist as:

1] A person who advocates or believes in anarchy or anarchism.

2] A person who seeks to overturn by violence all constituted forms and institutions of society and government, with no purpose of establishing any other system of order in the place of that destroyed.

3] A person who promotes disorder or excites revolt against any established rule, law, or custom.

Also, I found a piece by a Paul McLaughlin titled “Anarchism and Authority” which I confess that I did not read, only skimmed, but I was able to summarize in part that it depends on the belief that human nature allows humans to exist in or progress toward such a non-coercive society. (Pp 25-26) 

It looks as if Anarchism goes quite a way further than Chomsky’s rather unsatisfying examples. He seems to be of the opinion that authority is okay, as long as it’s “legitimate” somehow. But the definitions of classical anarchy seem to put forward as a basic principle that all authority is illegitimate, therefore anything purporting to exercise control over a population is forbidden!

Libertarians are just as confusing. It began as a far-left Socialist organization, and truly they have more in common with them. Libertarians are opposed to war, they believe in universal healthcare & education, but have aligned themselves more with far-right groups in recent decades. Isn't that odd? But they do still adhere to the belief that peple and businesses can be trusted to behave and be responsible citizens.

Again, I’m struck by the supposition that humans are basically all good and will not need any sort of coercion to do what is right.

Am I missing something?

Perfect Storm Part 2

First off: No, I have no answers to propose for this crisis. Anyone who is claiming to know how to fix the situation we are in is either crazy or lying. Maybe 20 or 30 years ago..? But now?

I do know that Trump's presidency has vastly exacerbated the problems. We need to acknowledge though that Trump is merely a symptom of a much, much larger sickness in our country. The systematic reversal from a Representative Democracy which had worked reasonably well to an overt Oligarchy and what has been pretty accurately described as "End-Stage Capitalism". The largest corporations have unimaginable power and are mostly out of control. When a company's only concern is profit for their shareholders, anything goes.

Boeing's latest problems are directly traceable to an overworked and underfunded FAA who had largely turned over its responsibilities to the company. Trusting that Boeing had enough of a concern for the safety of their customers to "self-inspect" their products. The underfunded Customs and Border Protection service actually inspects less than 2% of cargo coming into the country. But our biggest concern is preventing smuggling is building some ridiculous wall on the Southern border. So we see an incredible epidemic of opioids like Fentanyl from China and Heroin from Afghanistan and other places flooding our Emergency Rooms with overdoses. Which our government and it's enablers in the media dutifully proclaim is the fault of unscrupulous physicians and families with unsecured medicine cabinets at home.

And if Drug Lords in Mexico wish to pump their own varieties of drugs across the border, they are simply running it up the coast aboard submarines or in those same containers which only get checked less than 2% of the time. The business is profitable enough that several tunnels have been found running up to over a hundred feet underground, and any wall, complete with tracks, ventilation and electric lighting. If and when any boat, tunnel or shipping container gets detected, it's a barely noticeable cost of doing business.

In 2016, I predicted that if Hillary won the country would continue its slow but quickening slide into the abyss. Slow poison. But if Trump won, it would be a relatively quick hand grenade into the heart of our government. Our nation was a big, strong and resilient beast however, and would take a long time to kill. Even with pyrotechnics. A Bernie Sanders might make the fall a little less violent. Perhaps even managing to slow our descent by a little. But nature always tends toward balance. When a population of rabbits gets too large, foxes, raptors and disease will prosper until balance is restored. Even disease can only spread to the point where it no longer has healthy hosts, or the hosts develop a resistance. In the world today, Homo "Sapiens" is the disease. We had already entered the perfect storm.

Economies have been thrown radically out of balance. All over the world, but mostly in the U.S. the nation's wealth has shifted to the top percentages of the population. In the U.S. there are three individuals who own more than half the wealth while one in five are destitute. This is not sustainable!

Here at home we, or at least most of us, know how difficult it is to get by on current salaries and job availability. For most, there's no safety net. No means of getting by if there's no money for food or housing. Even if one is lucky enough to have good insurance, bankruptcy is moments away if we, or our children experience a devastating medical issue. Whether it is from disease or accidental injury, co-pays and spending limits cause enormous debt to be accumulated quickly and without warning.

Traditional markers of economic well-being are no longer reliable. The stock markets which seemed to have been at all time highs have been so artificially inflated and tinkered with as to be complete fictions. Unemployment numbers are completely unreliable. I've seen reports that the true figures would be more like double the reported figure   or U-3 if the governments own U-6 is to be trusted or even as high as 23% if we include people who have given up on looking for a job for over a year. The U-6 only counts discouraged for the "Short Term" for some reason, and does not count at all people who are forced to work part-time, low-paying jobs because nothing else is available.

We have shifted the world's very climate. That means that regions which in the past were prime agricultural areas are becoming too hot, too dry, or too wet for crops historically grown there. This means people are leaving farms for cities. Cities are being overwhelmed. Depending on the local governments, these migrants are likely to be treated very poorly as long-term residents feel threatened. People from war-torn and climate-ravaged areas are seeking refuge and survival in areas seen to be less devastated. We know how well those people are welcomed in the U.S.A. The same thing is happening all around the world.

Now enters COVID-19. Old Ma Nature will restore balance. And there's nowhere for us to escape.