Tidy Up Decisions

Madame,

A great summer story!

Before we take our traditional summer soiree into lighter fare, let me “tidy up the place,” so to speak.

The Supreme Court handed down what were termed surprise decisions this week.  One essentially refused to give credence to a ridiculous argument about the Affordable Care Act, and the other removed restrictions on homosexuals legally marrying.

While there is much that can and should be celebrated, let us peer through the curtain a bit:

The Supreme Court threatened (by taking the cases) to do something that could have had strongly negative consequences for a lot of people.  It is a victory these days when they…don’t do it.

The little secret in Washington, leaked by more than a few credible sources, is that Republican Congressional leaders, and even many Republican presidential candidates, wanted (lobbied hard, albeit indirectly) John Roberts especially and his court in general to make the right decision, which he/they did.  Those “leaders” knew that they had no plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, and that it would be a political rebound disaster on them to have it gutted.  Their emergency contingency plan, that they worked feverishly on while awaiting the decision, was, if it had been gutted, to declare a 2 year continuation while they worked on something. 

Why, you or readers might ask?  Because Obamacare is, with some minor (albeit irritating to them) tweaks, their (the Republicans, from the Heritage Foundation) plan.  Opposing it via lippage and ineffectual measures serves their ends well however.  They like to whip up the suckers that comprise so much of their unthinking base and keep them distracted with it, because it serves their ends, but they know they have no substitution that would be anything but politically harmful to them.

Although there is less evidence concerning the other decision, much of the same rationale applies.  Few things, as demonstrated by the lightning-rod Indiana law against homosexuals, whip up their opponents’ supporters more effectively than gender-preference discrimination.  They know they only have a chance of winning the presidency and retaining control of Congress, given the change in demographics, if their opponents’ numerous  but flighty/hot and cold varying supporters stay home.   If those supporters think that things are “trending” in the “correct” direction, there is a very good chance they will lose focus and not turn out. 

Our food “system” is now so suspect on so many levels that merely making “good choices” is not a suitable mantra.  When 2/3rds of Americans are now overweight or obese, and obesity is showing up in younger and younger (and more of them) individuals, how can it be that they are all such sluggards?  Well, they all aren’t.  The system, by much evidence, appears stacked against them.  Many, MANY more people are gaining weight and feeling terrible, and one can no longer ascribe all of it merely to poor life choices, as there are systemic contributors that transcend most individual control.  In fact, it almost makes one want to believe the consipiracists:  That the plutocrats are deliberately enervating all but the upper class  and those that serve that class in order to, over the long term, create a sparsely populated, feudalistic society that is neither threat to the planet, nor, more importantly, a threat to them and their descendants.

While I’m not sure about that, I am in strongly questioning mode, and will be thinking about this a good deal.

Dang it, now I’m going to enjoy that 4^th of July hot dog a great deal less now! J

I Am and You Are

Madame,

Spending being good for the economy speechmaking has been around since at least Keynesian economic days of the Great Depression, but its tone was generally muted and occasional, although the rise of the expanded consumer economy in the 1950s began to change that.   In the late 1970s and early 1980s, spurred on by the ravages of inflation, but also by the surging strength of the plutocrats, such talk became more open, direct, and frequent.

You are right that beginning in the 1980s (although the 1970s had given it a boost), fewer families lived within their means.  While much of this had to do with the absurd phenomenon of  “Affluenza” (to use the name of a good book), where people spent to meet some ridiculous hyped-up “standard” set up by Madison Avenue and others, an increasing majority, unfortunately, came about because wages simply weren’t keeping up—and at the same time that even more burdens were being thrown on the individual/individual family.

Your points about interns are so appropriate.  The exploitative mentality has now infected most of the big companies, and even many big institutions.  The exploiters keep harping to the field, to the workers, to sacrifice and quit thinking about fairness and money, and instead serve the company/country and sacrifice “or everything will fail.”  The cruel irony that the best compensated, best treated, most privileged at the top are exhorting the least compensated, worst treated, and least privileged to do more calls to mind that very S word you mention.  Thus living out the worst aspect of robber-baron capitalism: How to get the most work out of the workers while paying them the least.

But despair is enervating.  Readers are suggested instead to watch a documentary called, “I Am.”  Everyday acts—even small acts—can change things over time.  Building up, over time, a consciousness that brings change.  Realizing that accumulation beyond your needs is probably a form of mental illness.  That nothing in nature really takes more than it reasonably needs.   That only aberrations do that.  Cancers do that.

G.K. Chesterton  is credited, when asked  by the most famous paper in Britain what was wrong with the world, as simply replying, “I am.”

The documentary maker—a rich and once high flying Hollywood filmmaker—says to us that can also be our answer when asked what is right with the world.

Readers can find out more at: http://www.iamthedoc.com/

How Close To The Bottom Do We Have To Go?

Madame,

Even if we manage to avoid a Great Recession/Great Depression type calamity, few are ready for the looming “Retiremageddon.”

Retirement is a relatively modern invention to accommodate much longer life expectancy.  Its invention rested on a three legged stool:  1) pensions companies and governments set up (defined benefit),  the largest piece; 2) individual savings (defined contributions, sometimes assisted), the next largest piece, and 3) Social Security, the smallest piece. 

In the 1970s and 1980s the assault on pensions was intensified for misleading reasons I might detail in another post.  Today,  the war of annihilation on pensions is nearly complete.  Few have them anymore and they are often being modified or eliminated (at least for new employees).

That left retirement to somehow make it on two legs, even though stools don’t make it on two legs.  Not to worry, the plutocratic misleaders told us.  Companies would “match” all sorts of savings, and the government would even give economic incentive to save.  What they failed to tell everyone was that, despite great increases in productivity (the profits from which went to a few), wages would almost certainly not keep up, leaving little to save.  And that each individual would also become responsible for more and more things, and thus further be able to save even less and less.

Contributing to the misleading discourse have been the financial idiots who are always blathering on that they wish they could “opt out” of their pension (for those few lucky enough to have one) or Social Security and “keep that money for myself.”  Those suckers are the financial equivalents of the voters who keep voting against their economic interests.  Like them, they have bought in to a philosophy where it is all too easy to exploit the individual.

An individual has so little economic power, even on occasions when they might have a little financial savvy.  They can’t command the economic clout that big institutions can.  And so, consequently, they don’t get the same financial returns, even when fees are small, which they rarely are.  What’s worse, individuals get hammered and exploited in the upswings and downswings of the market, let alone the crashes.  They have little to no protection against inflation either.  And that’s even if they don’t get outright ripped off by a financial industry that purposely complicates and confuses things to prey on ignorance and take advantage of greed.

A generation that bought the 401k, IRA, etc. “promise” is about to discover some pretty harsh truths.  When the money—for those frugal and lucky enough to have some saved—runs out, the wailing will begin.  What am I talking about?  Read on, readers!

According a March 2015 study, among households on the verge of supposed retirement, the median retirement account balance is…less than $15,000.  Not the yearly income one could expect from the “investments,”  but the total BALANCE.  Over 60% of American working households aged 55-64 don’t even have a total retirement savings sum that even equals ONE YEAR of their annual income.

And what of the formerly 3^rd  (now 2^nd) leg of this weak stool?  Social Security replaces, percentage wise, the greatest amount for lower-income earners.  Yet at most that is 40% of one’s annual income—and that’s for low income earners.  If they can barely make it now on 100% of their income, they sure aren’t going to make it on 40%.  For middle income earners, the prospects are even bleaker, with Social Security replacing at most around 15-35%. 

But even that is uncertain now.  The plutocratic (and their shills/politicians) assault against Social Security is relentless—and increasing.  The lies being spread against one of the most successful social responsibility institutions ever devised are repeated over and over because the plutocrats—and the media they control—know that a lie endlessly repeated gets believed.

Our disengagements from being informed and being involved mean we presently live in a plutocratic oligarchy with the veneer of a democratic republic and the last remaining vestiges of social responsibility.   The vast majority of Americans are poorer, more stressed, more insecure, see fewer opportunities, and see most of the economic trends going in the wrong direction, even though they strongly disagree on causes and solutions.  Their educational systems and infrastructure are either crumbling or starving for real investment, even when people don’t recognize the plutocratic withholding about all that.  Somewhere in the back of their minds, they suspect that all this debt—personal, business, government—is due to fundamental weakness, that things aren’t making it, once again even when they don’t recognize the plutocratic withholding that contributes strongly to that.  They fret about health care—the number one cause of bankruptcy—regardless of what “side” they are on.  They know the tax code is unfairly tilted away from them and toward the already rich.  They realize how corrupted and ineffectual the so-called “elites” have become.  They feel helpless against giant, rich, powerful entities that do what they want and face no real consequences from us.  They probably suspect at some level that our priorities are all off, that maybe we shouldn’t have a giant, ravenous, corrupting military-private sector-security-intelligence resource sink, and one used in perpetual conflicts that sink resources even more—and change us for the worse, maybe Orwellian-like.   They may see—or experience—freakish weather catastrophes, droughts, or floods, may even agree with scientists that we are changing the climate for the worse.

Then they blank it all out.  Or latch on to some minor thing.  Or simplistically lay blame on one (usually wrong) cause—and usually with some equally wrong “solution.”

Thus leaving the problems to the few activists—and to the power of money.  Leaving it to others (including their descendants) to deal with, let alone try to solve.

While the battering rams of our failures to meet our problems thunder at our doors, our response so far is only to turn up the volume louder on our electronic and other diversions.  This mass denial, if it continues, will be—rightly—judged harshly and venomously by future generations.  Instead of The Greatest Generation, we will be known as The Failure Generation, The Despised Generation, The Contemptible Generation.  Unless we quit diverting and “amusing ourselves to death” in Neil Postman’s apt words,  we will, like opiate addicts and lotus eaters, still be diverted when the problems break through and finish us.

Every day we don’t arrest our descent is future pain—deep, agonizing, lengthy pain—for ourselves and our descendants.

GD, we can do so much better.  I for one don’t want to be despised by the future.

And yes, I realize that, except for the last few paragraphs, I sound surprisingly similar to Bernie Sanders.  What a pity the man has no power base, no team of best and brightest, no movement to sweep with him into office in state and national legislatures.  Without that, any effectiveness of his would be greatly reduced.  Even a year and a half is not enough time for anything except near-total people power to overcome the many (and deliberate) roadblocks and transform the political scene.  It takes a lengthy effort, not some relatively brief and emotional one.  

It requires a continually engaged public.  One not in evidence so far.

“In the Back” Is Not “Back” Because It Never Left

Dear Readers:

Just when I was anxiously awaiting Madame’s reply to all of what I wrote on Sunday, she is off to a pleasant locale for a wedding weekend.    Guess I’ll have to wait. :)

In the meantime, of course, we have, as I said, other matters to discuss.  Mere days ago, another unarmed African-American man was shot and killed by a police officer.

And there’s video of at least the latter parts of the incident.  Another incident that once again appears to have escalated because a police officer pulled someone over for a minor thing—a busted tail light in this instance—and somehow things turned violent.

The now dead man appears to have been in a scuffle with the officer, appears to be have been shot at or actually shot by the officer with a taser.  The taser appears to have been discarded at that point, contrary to the officer’s story that the man took his taser.  The man attempts to run away from the officer.  The video does not record that the officer ever told the man to stop or surrender. 

Eight shots are fired by the officer at the 50 year old man attempting to run away.  At least three (and probably all eight; the forensics aren’t final yet) strike the man in the back, killing him.   The officer appears to then put HANDCUFFS on the dead man (what kind of CRAZY paranoiac fear causes that?).  The officer is recorded by the secret video as dropping something (appears to be the taser) by the dead man’s body.  Second cop, an African-American, arrives on the scene and goes to the body.  First cop appears to pick up an object (the dropped taser), violating crime scene protocol at least. 

First, my (Shameless plug!) 4+ piece post-Ferguson decision from several months ago would make for good reviewing here. 

In the North Charleston case, the police officer has been fired and charged with murder, albeit only after the evidence (from the video) was so damning even the man’s lawyer dropped him.

Many activists are suspicious of a local racist pattern, but it’s possible that the mayor and police chief are being sincere in their remorse and determination to take positive action over the incident. 

Some now familiar questions get asked:  When did running away from the police, especially when you aren’t wanted for a deadly force offense, become an automatic capital offense, carried out extrajudicially and immediately?

Do the police get to hire the best?  Do they get to give their officers the best training?  Even when resources actually get sent their way, isn’t it seldom for increases in salaries or training, but only for weapons and militarization and the like?

What are the effects on police who spend too much of their day looking at and dealing with the worst aspects of a disconnected society that they themselves are disconnected from?  Doesn’t it distort their views and feelings immensely, far worse than jaded teachers get about students?

Don’t incidents like this initiate cycles of violence?  Siege mentalities where arrogant, perhaps even racist, police shoot an unarmed black man for failing to instantly obey ANY command from police overlords?  Violence somewhere else that erupts in response?  Instigating police to then be even more trigger prone? Repeat?

And the now familiar refrain from the unrepentant, resentful segment of the white population who blamed the victim for his own death?  Has the changing demographic landscape frightened people that much?  Has the often degraded economics of their own situations made them, unlike during the middle-class centric (and white prosperous) 1950s and 1960s  that enveloped the Civil Rights Movement, less sympathetic to the plights of others?

And are we so blind to the plutocratic economy and social implications thereof, that we don’t see the irony of relatively poorly paid and trained police officers killing those also poor and poorly trained?  That some are just more put upon than others? 

Since at least the days of plantation owners, racist actions and racist policies have served intensely the interests of a few.    Getting angry because one points out racist incidents is reactionary.  People who want these things to stop being talked about need to help make them stop happening.

And for further irony, both the dead man and the police officer were Coast Guard veterans.

Or is it just tragedy?

Perspective and Prospective

Madame:

The “drifting” of power and money to the few does indeed take place all the time, because the majority of people are concerned with living their lives, not seeking to amass great power and wealth.  And power and wealth tend to slowly beget more power and wealth.

Largely, only the driven, ambitious, focused, etc. care to amass great power.  Unfortunately, those are also more likely to have among them great numbers of sociopaths, megalomaniacs, the dangerously insecure, the unenlightened, the monstrously selfish, etc., not to mention the hypocritical and shallow.  Even more unfortunately, many of them will not even be satisfied with fomenting the “drift,” but will move rapidly to strongly and unscrupulously to either 1) serve bad power, or 2) amass bad power for themselves.  The cycle will continue at least until we both infuse in ourselves the sentiment that Jefferson repeated—the price of liberty is eternal vigilance—AND find a way to improve the human mental, emotional, and spiritual condition to vastly reduce the numbers of sociopaths, megalomaniacs, etc.

Which also means the better rule sets we craft and enforce, the better the playing field can contain the attempted excesses.

Still, there is no doubt that perspective needs to be maintained.  For instance:

“News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen.  You never see a TV crew reporting that a country isn’t at war, or that a city hasn’t had a mass shooting that day.  Or that millions of 80 year olds are alive and well.

“Violent crime has fallen by half since 1992, and fiftyfold since the Middle Ages.  Over the past 60 years the number of wars and number of people killed in wars have plummeted (Prof note: The carnage of WW2 made that comparison too easy).  Worldwide, fewer babies die, more children go to school, more people live in democracies, more can afford simple luxuries, fewer get sick, and more live to old age.

“Problems that look hopeless may not be; human ingenuity can chip away at them. “We will never have a perfect world, but it’s not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one.” Steven Pinker, Harvard psychologist

“When things are bad, do good.”  Little known motto of a major charitable organization.

“I could do other things.  Make more money.  But I choose to be here, teaching here, because I believe in YOU.  That some of you are going to change the community, our society, even the world for the better. May your days be filled with passion, may you have a wonderful, exuberant career.”  Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, explaining to students why he teaches at Berkeley.

“The free MUST remember the oppressed.” Amnesty International motto.

Muslim countries often don’t charge interest.  They have fees for transactions and pay dividends instead.  There are ways to think outside the box, and it may make greed not quite so damaging.

And if we are paying attention, we will always find life more wonderfully complex than we realized.  For instance (‘free market” fanatics may want to hold their heads to contain any explosive force), competition in Europe has often been CREATED by governments.  Certainly this is so for the phone service there, with the added twist that the governments forced the phone companies to be interoperable (one of the reasons phone service is generally much better in Europe than in the US).

I am, as you know, no advocate for pollyanish thinking, outlooks, or behavior.  But I also know that we can do much to make ourselves better.  One of the ways is to embrace the written word.  As Levar Burton asks, do your children, friends, family, and colleagues see you reading?  How many books do you have around home?  Do you have an evening a week where you don’t watch TV or do other things, but just read?  

Our reply to those who focus ONLY on negativity, who do so without contribution or desire for action to change, can thus be two simple questions: “What good book are you reading?  What are you filling yourself up with intellectually and emotionally?”

And yes, good Madame, I realize that I am speaking to the choir!  Try not to roll your eyes. :)

Destructive, Consuming Stress and Anxiety from living in Constant Uncertainty

Madame:

The home educator in you has burst forth brilliantly.  I am in awe of your “I Think We Could Fix This” post, and there is nothing I can add that would contribute more value.  It is the Rx we should try immediately.  I think a bold state or two should authorize a few communities to begin doing so immediately and we should see how they fare. 

Hedges has written much on the cycling through the prison system that you mentioned.  How we even have an industry that feeds the demand for it.

And your post of four days ago?  I agree with it.  Self-justifying biases can be asserted in much of what the researcher says.  Perhaps even more importantly, studies are only as good as the data tools they use to analyze.

Since we’re topic flying, the title of today’s post is it.  How many citizens the world over, and how many Americans in particular, are being consumed by an uncaring oligarchical structure that uses them up and discards them without thought, compassion, or, especially, responsibility?  The bargain once struck by the wealthy with a needed professional and administrative (middle) class has partially and sometimes completely dissolved.  For even white collar employees are often exploited—or even abused—wage slaves these days.

So they join their blue collar disempowered former union brethren in the draining slog.  One done in a fog where nothing is clear economically about next year, let alone one’s “future.”  And this utter lack of ability to reliably plan or chart an economic course is that way for both individuals and the larger society and economy as a whole.  The selfish, uncaring, or devious oligarchs and their servants have forced workers into nervous serfdom.   Those serfs are both afraid to upset their masters, and yet uncertain when, through no fault of their own, they may be upended and turned out—impoverished or even made homeless—by the whims or designs of oligarchs with other agendas that have nothing to do with the greater good.

It’s one of the reasons why, in an economy where the basic indicators—unemployment and otherwise—would lead one to expect hot pressure for wages to rise significantly, that the “rise” is more like the change from cool to something distantly approaching lukewarm.

See, six paragraphs.  And you all thought I was too much of a windbag to hold forth that little.  Oh, wait, this is the third sentence, which means this technically counts as paragraph seven.  Darn it, failed again. :)

What's That Ticking?

Madame:

Citizen ride-alongs do need far better publicized.  One wonders if the police really want the program all that much, given the poor promotion.

An important side-note to all of this discussion is that effectively no police officers are killed by actually unarmed assailants.  In all 57 cases since 2000, all of the officers were shot with their own weapon that the assailant or assailants had wrestled away from the officer (more argument-strength for those who point out that the UK and other countries whose regular police are unarmed do not have the same problem). It is not even possible to get accurate data of the number of unarmed African-Americans killed by police in the same time period, for that isn’t even reported or tracked for statistical gathering.  The best estimates are that it is many factors greater than 57.

“There are bigger issues than sports,” one person, a sports fan, remarked to a newspaper reporter who was asking why he was protesting the killing of an unarmed person from a race not his.  When enough people feel that way, things will have a great chance to start changing.

On to some of the other issues:

In the budget just passed by Congress and signed by Obama, there were many reprehensible things, from letting wealthy individuals inject even more money into politics, to overriding a citizens’ referendum in DC, to fomenting coal power plants abroad, to allowing companies to push already tired truckers to even more dangerous working hours, to making pre-school and school meals even less nutritious, to cutting funds for students’ Pell grants, to cutting IRS’s ability to audit returns, to undermining pension plans and future retirees.  But the biggest one was the ticking nuclear financial bomb inserted into the US and world economy. 

If one wants to see how the wealthy and big corporations have effectively taken over in the absence of our attention and concern, and in particular, how the finance industry has taken over, there was plenty of evidence before this budget.  From rock solid insider trading convictions being overturned, to Disney and the Koch brothers dodging US taxes via foreign countries, to colossal corporate and wealthy individual loopholes, tax breaks, and subsidies, to Citizens United and McCutcheon  vs. Federal Election Commission. 

But the Wall Street rider that was added to the budget, a rider that had nothing to do with the budget, was egregious in multiple ways.

Starting with the way it was inserted.  In secret, after most everyone thought all the work was done. Caught only by a sharp-eyed staffer.  No way to trace who did it, but obviously it had to have had the approval of key portions of at least House and probably Senate leadership.

And who was it written by?  A Citigroup lobbyist (Citigroup is one of the largest financial corporations), representing Wall Street money organizations.  And guess who called many congressmen to strongly urge (demand) its passage?  The most powerful CEO on Wall Street, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan (and formerly of Citigroup).

What does the provision do?  It removes one of the key protections enacted in response to the financial crisis that brought on the Great Recession and nearly took down the entire world financial system.  A protection that required separation between federally insured deposits and financial institutions’ risky derivatives (financial hedges or “bets”). 

Derivatives are financial gambling.  “This was the epicenter of the crisis.  This is what brought AIG down, what brought Lehman Brothers down,” a former US Treasury official explained to the Washington Post.

Now, US taxpayers (that’s “us”) are on the hook if the derivatives lose money, even if the losses are catastrophic.  But guess who gets to to keep the profits if the

bets pay off?  The financial institutions.

For them, all smiles.  For us, tick, tick, tick…

The Taking In Of Ferguson, 3

STATUS QUO SUPPORTERS/TRADITIONALISTS AND MINORITIES

Those outside the case, who knew little of the case particulars, but who nevertheless strongly supported Officer Wilson, were numerous. 

And usually white.

They had common themes:  Respect authority.  Believe authority.  And especially police authority.

 

It sounded rather like the Germans of 1932.

“He deserved it.”  Far too many whites didn’t have empathy, let alone sympathy, over Michael Brown’s death.  They live in their echo chambers and give comfort to themselves and each other that it is all the individual black man’s fault.  Always.

White people often want to let themselves off the hook of confronting racial injustice—and especially, confronting their own white privilege.  Even while they hold within them remnants of discrimination, they tend to think that discrimination is largely over (unless, of course, it’s reverse discrimination). 

The mad rage that erupts over injustice can lead to rioting.  Many white people focus on this “riot porn,” as it gives them satisfaction that “those people” are “animals” who “tear up their own neighborhoods,” never minding that protesters have locked arms and protected businesses and buildings from rioters.  People’s confirmation bias is quite strong.

Far, FAR too many white people, with their established white privilege, grasp for any straw that will comfort themselves and justify that “that person/those people did wrong” (notice the code talk) and then leave unsaid what they’re thinking: “my (white) person/people did right.” Or worse, start a self-righteous lecture about what “those people” should have done/be doing, entirely oblivious of all their advantages under white privilege and the marked disadvantages of those without that privilege.  Ah, if only one’s skin color or ethnicity changed every year, how different things could be.

The shooting, whatever the unclear particulars, is unfortunately part of a wider tragic pattern.  Every 28 hours a black male is shot dead by the police.  Pervasive racism exists.  So does pervasive fear and intimidation, along with pervasive non-accountability.  Black people—unarmed ones—are being killed at the hands of those who are supposed to be their public servants and protectors.  Racial injustice and police violence are becoming commonplace, and what we appeared—briefly—to be learning from and getting smarter and better about has instead regressed.  25 years after Do The Right Thing, we have Eric Garner dying in virtually the same manner at the hands of the police as the character in Spike Lee’s film.

We do not have a single justice system, but really two systems, and sub-systems within them. 

One is for the well-off, and one for the not well-off.  And within them, one for whites and one for everyone else.  Since blacks differ—in many white minds—more than any other group, they get the most differential treatment, helped along by a tragic history of slavery and overt racism.

This lack of confidence by minorities in the fairness, integrity, and thoroughness of the “justice” system is borne out by statistics that demonstrate that lack of confidence is well warranted.  Even many middle and upper class African-Americans, including some who have traditionally been silent about or even critical of the actions of  many working class African-Americans, have spoken out to condemn the entire process in the Brown case.

To African-American communities, the unpunished killings—indeed, the almost casually dismissed killings—of unarmed African-American males connects agonizingly perfectly with the lynchings of the past.  It is, they feel, the sending of a message: “You minorities may be increasing in numbers and influence, but don’t try to mess with us.  Know your place—or else.”

The humiliating rage, fear, and trauma that African-American males must often feel is perfectly understandable.  Maybe Michael Brown felt that too.

Anyone treated like that would feel that way.  But especially so to black males with years of enduring profiling and subtle and not so subtle demeanings and persecutions.

“Our lives don’t matter!  Our lives don’t matter!” protesters shouted after Darrin Wilson was not indicted.  Indeed, those lives do not appear to matter.  John Crawford, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, Dante Parker, Sean Bell, Amadour Diallo, Vonderitt Myers, Darren Hunt, Trayvon Martin, Kendric McDade, Tamir Rice, and many more all shot down by police under at best questionable circumstances.  Even though white males outnumber African-American males greatly, African-American males are 21 times more likely to die at the hands of the police. 

“Hands up, don’t shoot,” became the previous rallying cry, and one which showed the hypocrisy of a US which is so smug in condemning other countries but bristles when it is called to task.  And the even larger pattern of boundaried poverty and radically different rates of incarceration—often for the same offenses—speaks to a systemic subtle and not so subtle persecution.

Black cops who shoot whites have a much higher chance of negative repercussions than white cops who shoot blacks.  For “regular” black citizens that do so, it means almost certain negative repercussions.  So when one hears the common refrain from status quo whites that “how come you don’t hear the media talking about when a black person shoots a white person?” here’s the answer:

Because it doesn’t happen all that often.  But more importantly, because the shooter is very frequently brought to justice and held to account.

As Newsday said: “It seems like every time something like this happens so many people pick sides based on who looks more like them, who earns more like them, who lives more like them or talks more like them.  We are a terrified nation, scared of “the other.” We are an angry nation, sure that ‘they’ are getting away with something. We are a frustrated nation, feeling unheard and convinced that the other side always gets the megaphone…We are a devastatingly divided nation, because of our history, our behavior and our prejudices.”

The disconnection that Vance Packard tried to warn us about—disconnection made worse by the insulating effects of modern electronics, games, and internet—has made it much harder to see our common societal bonds.  And so, so often, we don’t.

Being divided serves the plutocrats well.  Being pitted against each other, in a plutocratic economy where each race is stressed out, provides the perfect diversion for the 1%, and, especially, the .1%, to live well.

The rule of law has become corrupted and with different standards for different classes, different racial and different ethnic groups.  Minorities are the new “civilized barbarians” of Roman times, with the same level of partial acceptance and partial rejection.  The good news for minorities  who are about to become the new collective majority is that white privilege will eventually (by violence or not) give way to rule by the new majority.  The bad news is no one knows how long that will take—could be generations.

The Taking In Of Ferguson, 1

Brilliantly said Madame.  All should take heed of your entreaty, for it is maybe the only way we can move forward peacefully out of our isolated deadlocks.  We are all “others,” and in this disconnected society, we all want—no, NEED—to be heard, to feel that we matter, that some measure of good preservation and good change can be made.

I was going to write about how the economic squeezing of people in the plutocratic economy mean that they need to come out on Black Friday/Black Thanksgiving Night (an original negative connotation to the shopping spree has now often become a neutral or even a positive) as many of the bargains are real because the stores are taking advantage of the foot traffic that really does need those bargains to have any chance of pulling through another Christmas season.  Sort of holiday version of the Walmart spiral of low wages/low prices.

But like you, I recognize there are other matters to attend.  Therefore, I am announcing today a:

Special Four Part, Four Consecutive Days, Series of the P&H From The Professor.

“The Taking In Of Ferguson, 1, 2, 3, 4.”

Reading anything less than all four parts will give an incomplete and possibly inaccurate picture. There are important things that need to be said, and quickly, which is why they are being dispensed in rapid fashion. 

Alas, if only other and probably even more societally urgent matters could get the public’s and media’s attention…

People in a busy, information overloaded world want to make snap judgments about particulars without all the facts, without considering contributing factors, or even the history and background that mold, in your words, “thinking, perception, and judgment.”

Let’s begin by addressing that.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

Police and Prosecutors

Most police forces in America today are structured quite problematically.

It begins with the very lexicon, and how we perceive them and how they perceive themselves:

At one time we called them peace officers, who worked in tandem with justices of the peace.  Yes.  To keep the peace.

Then we moved on to calling them police officers.  Purpose?  To keep people and places safe.  Not as good or gentle as peace officers, but okay.

Now, although we still refer to them as police, we more often use the broad term law enforcement officers, to include state police, sheriffs, etc.  Purpose?  To enforce laws, including property rights, and, especially, enforce the desires of those who sit at the top of the power structure.

Their civilian oversight?  Effectively none.  Members of the military report to a civilian Secretary of Defense and a civilian President, but most local police have at best a loose structure of accountability to civilians.

Then we isolate the individual officers, and make them feel alone.  They work their days by themselves, the lone wolves of law enforcement.  The reduced money in this plutocratic economy means there are usually not enough resources to hire two officers to ride in the same patrol car in low to medium risk areas, let alone cover the reduced area one or two could get to by walking the community.

Think what this means.  No partner.  No one to talk to, no one to get close to, no one to soften the hard edges, no one to reaffirm your humanity with. No check on emotions or actions.  No one to have your back.  No one who can call for backup while you handle an incident.  How vulnerable and edgy you’d be every time you go into a dicey or even just unknown situation.

Think about that the next time you see two law enforcement cars stopping so the occupants can talk to each other.  It’s a human need that is missing from their everyday work lives, and they try to get in some small snippets to partially compensate. 

We are very far from community policing.  There are not enough officers to take the time to get to know and meaningfully interact with citizens.  Fear, suspicion, distrust of the unknown, etc., often result between citizens and police because of this lack.  Disconnection is bred.  Without the confidence and trust from the citizens, the job of the police, especially detectives, becomes exponentially harder.  After a while, precincts can de-evolve into a fortress and surge mentality.  And very much an us vs. them outlook, or even as occupying troops suppressing a heatedly simmering native insurgency.

Of course, body cameras would help things, but that level of transparency seems to be a ways off.  Indeed, in too many localities, it is illegal to video a law enforcement officer performing his or her duties. 

The difference in training, equipping, outlook, and expectation between civilian and military police is stark.  Military police have very few incidents of discharge of their weapons.  They handle things quite well without doing so. They also often attract higher caliber individuals than civilian departments.   

Ironic then, that more civilian police departments have been getting all sorts of surplus military equipment from the federal government, raising fears of a police state among the aware.  When one has military toys, one is constantly tempted to use them.  That police can seize cash and property from suspects without having to prove a crime further contributes to the reservoir of resources that can be designated only for equipment—and military style equipment gets the strongest interest.

Police departments with military equipment can start to think in terms of “force projection,” and “battle,” and “occupation,” and “crushing resistance.”  And the individuals in those police departments, many of them frustrated from being denied entry (for any number of reasons) into the military, can itch to be part of an “operation,” or a “war.”

Without redress, it bodes ill for the already struggling American democratic experience.

It’s a fact:  Prosecutors don’t want to prosecute the cops they work with.  From murder to even just involuntary manslaughter, cops are generally not charged when they kill a citizen.  They are given wide (sometimes VERY wide) latitude if they believe (or at least state they believe) their life was in danger.  Since it is THEY, the cops, that get to make that “determination,” and usually no other law enforcement officers are around to weigh in even if they wanted to (see above), most prosecutors let it go.  Especially for departments that are too small or resource strapped to afford adequate internal review/investigation divisions.

The Stage Where Things Act Out

For too many communities in America today in the new plutocratic economy, there are plethoras of problems that intersect and interact, with second, third, fourth and further effects.

The impact of poverty, lack of economic opportunity (jobs in general and living wage jobs in particular), and marked income inequality affect the community as a whole, the base from which the citizenry come.  Sociologists and criminologists can tell us well that where those conditions exist, crime and problems go up as well, often dramatically, further stressing the resources of that community to address those crimes and problems and the fallout from them.  The lack of money/resources to devote to police departments, who suffer in salaries (and attracting top people), training, and professionalism (and maybe respect) as a result, is sometimes nearly crippling.  A community without much economic opportunity has upticks in aberrant behavior.  Policing such a community tends to jade and even authoritarianize the policing members.  If there is marked racial disparity, as there is in Ferguson, this is accentuated even more.

Towns like Ferguson, where 22 percent of people live in poverty, are today the result of malicious unofficial housing industry practices and decades of government policies that—however well intentioned they may or may not have been—had a decidedly racist outcome.  Those policies and practices limited African-American citizens to certain areas of major cities and metropolitan areas. 

The federal government, deliberately or de facto, participated in the segregation of communities.  It built segregated public housing and provided subsidies and loans to developers if they agreed to build segregated neighborhoods in a number of cities—greater St. Louis among them.  Local authorities both jumped on the bandwagon and pre-empted things by passing ordnances (or directing their inspectors and enforcers) to prohibit liquor stores and other supposedly degenerate businesses from establishing in many white neighborhoods, only permitting them to set up where African-Americans lived, thereby overconcentrating such establishments and further undermining African-American community economic and social integrity and wholesomeness.   Utility companies carried out anything-but-benign neglect in many black neighborhoods as well. 

White flight—the moving of residences by white people as “those people” moved in to the neighborhood—contributed heavily to things also.  For all of the above and more, today, 2/3rds of Ferguson is black.

FERGUSON

Fairness, justice, education (public education defunding in Missouri is heavy; in Ferguson, it is extreme), opportunity—Ferguson’s indicators in all of them have pointed downward.

There is reliance on ticketing for Ferguson government income, like many towns in the new plutocratic economy where the wealthy and corporations no longer pay anywhere near their former share of supporting the cost of government.  Inflated traffic tickets, court fees, and fines for minor violations make up a large part of not only the Ferguson police budget, but Ferguson government’s budget in general.  Citizens perceive that as harassment, which only feeds the seething resentment.

The resources poor department can’t hire many top quality officers.  It also apparently can’t afford tasers (non-lethal weapons), as it only has one, and Wilson stated he doesn’t like to carry a taser (for flimsy reasons, even though military police carry them all the time).

Ferguson lives an apartheid existence.  It has a white government (only one black city council member, at last count), a nearly all white police force and political power structure (mayor, school board, etc.), and practices that clearly favor the white residents, workers, and businesses.  For instance, during the rioting, white businesses got protected.  Black ones didn’t.

Ferguson responds like an apartheid government would, with military like actions.  For instance, during the initial protests in August, it met them with military equipment —  mine-resistant armored vehicles, assault rifles, and combat fatigues.   Even US Attorney General Eric Holder, a corporate lawyer who will soon go back to corporate service,  remarked that by responding in force, local law enforcement needlessly antagonized the situation, risking further erosion of the community's trust.   Things still didn’t change much after that, leading to an investigation by the US Department of Justice into the practices of the Ferguson Dept.

MISSOURI

The incestuous--excessively close and resistant to outside influence--nature of Missouri politics and Missouri police and prosecutors meant that the lack of an indictment was effectively a foregone conclusion.  Which is undoubtedly why Missouri’s governor prepped state police and the National Guard to already be there.  They weren’t worried about an indictment setting the African-American majority city aflame with anger, but rather the probable lack of one.

One of the US Senators from Missouri is a former prosecutor.  Her rather odd statement about the case seemed to non-Missourians to further demonstrate  how very very (overly?) close the law enforcement network is in Missouri.

The Judging Countenances

Madame:

It is always laden with high risk of inaccuracy to speculate what predecessors, if they were mortally alive today, would think, feel, and say.  Just as if you were thrust into the future, with all its unpredictable, unimaginable changes, what could you say now for certain about how you might react?  And we would have to be asking, are we talking about elites, commoners, what, because their understanding and perspectives would likely be far different.  And how far back? 70 years? 100?  150?  200?  500? The time frame makes big differences.

Yet despite the caveats, I accept a bit of your speculative bait. :)

On the one hand, the more aware would see parallels to their own times, and recognize how much stays the same about the human condition,   regardless of material, technology, and knowledge changes.

The more discerning would see that we have as a people gotten better in some things, worse in others. That our characters are both better and not as good.

Of course, they would marvel at how much disease has been subdued (and maybe marvel at our hysteria over trifles).  How far women and minorities have come, and yet how much regresses.  How fast travel and fast, broad communication have shrunk regional differences, and yet splintered us uncommunally into self-centered echo chambers.  How real journalism—the valued-by-the-people counterweight in the robber baron era—has become too often corrupted, co-opted, or ignored in this one.  And how much opportunity for beneficial possibility there is—and how much of that is utterly squandered or never reached for.

What I think they would be most struck by is the ability of too many of us to stay near-constantly distracted, diverted, escapist, and disconnected.  The willing embrace of so much un-reality, and with it, the denial of so much reality.  And all the consequences thereof.  The wage-slaves of the robber baron era had few diversions, and most of those dipped into the vice arena, so it’s hard to say if they would be any different given different circumstances—probably not. 

Our predecessors were, however, as a culture more focused on the building (often relentlessly or even ruthlessly, to be sure—ask the natives) of the society and the various aspects of civilizational “wealth” as they tried to form their own futures.  They often dampened down expectations, delayed gratification, and were more willing to sacrifice.  One sees little of that among regular folks today—and almost none among “elites.”  The bad example of those  “elites” has either rubbed off on the regulars, or disillusioned them to the point that they don’t want to be the chumps adhering to the rule-set while the elites get rewarded for unethical or even illegal behavior.

In other news, Obama and China’s leader reached a deal this week on climate change.  Yes, it isn’t awesome at all, but considering the non-progress before, it’s a start.  And yet the plutocrats’ mouthpieces in Congress already oppose it.

As wealth is concentrated into the hands of the few and shifts to places far removed from the middle class, or even America at all, there will be a mirror of what happened in Italy as the economic center of Roman civilization shifted east.

Tronto, in her 1993 work and again 20 years later, coined the term “privileged irresponsibility” to denote that willful insulation of the upper class from concern how the 99% live, and with it any responsibility for the conditions that 99% must live under.

It is unfortunate (but understandable given plutocratic control of the corporate media) that more attention has not been paid to the Princeton study, released in April, that stated the US is effectively not a democracy anymore, but an oligarchy.  How did the study come to its conclusions?  Since the 1980s, when the plutocratic transformation really took off, the policies that have made it through to become law and regulation have almost entirely been those favored by the plutocrats.  And the ones that did not make it through, that were obstructed, were largely those that the wealthy elites (individuals and corporations) did not favor.

What should be a chilling reaction to such a revelation from so noted an institution insteads becomes—if even noticed—shrugged at in this land of the lotus-eaters.

We need another Progressive Era like the one that eventually—with the final help of an awful Depression—upended the robber baron era.  We should just know that this one will be harder, because the plutocrats have learned well from history and have either co-opted or made quite weak most of the usual counter-engines.

If we don’t initiate, and prevail, our predecessors would be quite right to judge us as not being made of their stern stuff.   A bit like the Romans of year 100 would have judged the Romans of year 300! 

Legacy Matters

Madame:

I like it that when you politically and economically fantasize, you go all out! LOL

You ask big, complex questions, don’t you?  :)  I’m not a curmudgeon.  I’m enjoying the dickens out of the Royals and their infectious, fun enthusiasm for a game that Americans in this fast-paced society can otherwise find long and not very exciting.  We can enjoy those things.  Then we have to get busy on taking action. 

ONE stunted, skinny, weak little earthworm.  That’s all I found on a sidewalk after a hard and not brief rain.  Considering I walked over 200 feet, there should have been dozens. 

But then I remembered that a management company paid a “lawn care” company to “care for” the grass around that sidewalk.

What should we do, you ask?

One small thing is to quit silently agreeing that a “little” eco-injury is okay. 

REPEATEDLY.

When we want-what-we-want for various aesthetic  (“I like the way the grass—yes, I know, it’s grass only and mono-grass at that—looks”), selfish (“I like the way things are; I don’t want to do something different”),  justifying (“What I do won’t make a difference”), conditioning (“But it’s always been this way”), arrogant (“No one is going to tell me what to do”), etc. reasons, we pile up the eco-injuries. 

The strands of life are intricately interwoven, and our awareness and discernment  of the interwoven effects of our actions is far too limited.  Severing or twisting the strands—and a great number of them—is not GOING to have consequences, it IS having consequences.

Plan B, the book (and its continually updated versions) by Lester Brown, lays out what we must do.  It requires first, fortitude.  We the people must say that we will accept short-term pain and hardship—and a lasting change in habits and routines—in order to attain intermediate and long term benefit and sustainability.  We must say that we will not have our short-term selfish instincts exploited by the unscrupulous systems managers of the destructive status quo, by all the “can’ts” of the naysayers and problem pointers who have no sustainable solutions of their own, but only vague generalities.  We must say that we are thinking of our descendants, our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, our cousins, our friends’ children—the future Americans and future humans on this planet.  We must “get the wind in our sails” by embracing many of the ideas in the now nearly 25 year old documentary “After the Warming.”

To do that will mean we can’t be diverted by pseudo-solutions that are wonky, manipulatable, and only half-solutions at best.  Credits, caps, and other complex solutions will not be very effective. 

People, businesses, and markets react to, and plan well, on things they can directly see, anticipate, and measure.  That means a gradually increasing direct tax on fossil fuels and associated warming substances, with the heaviest taxation on the most polluting and most climate change contributing, until those substances and practices reach their true social costs.  With that sort of direct and painfully clear indicator, things will change rapidly, and a sustainable energy economy will come into existence.  Ingenuity and enthusiastic energy opened up by doing something people can believe in and get behind eagerly will accelerate the process even more.  The renewable energy economy is not a far off dream; it is waiting on the edge of this one, and the world is waiting on a hypocritical America to move, to trigger the momentum that will tide turn in the right direction. 

The collected taxes should go directly to practices that attempt to ameliorate the effects of climate change and, ideally, move to stabilize the change.  In the long term, the tax can be part of a broader paradigm of heavily taxing things that are injurious to the common good, and easing (or even largely eliminating) taxes on things which contribute to the common good.

Of course, the tax should be rebated back to at least those payers (directly or indirectly) who are at the poverty level, and maybe a bit beyond.  What it should not do in any way is go to the fossil fuel companies and other polluters.  Those will either change and embrace renewability and sustainability, or they can go the way of the horse and buggy industry.  Their past actions have done the opposite of earning them the right to any favorable treatment.

We are in the beginnings of crisis management as to climate change.  It will get worse before it stabilizes.  When we first stabilize, then drop back to 350 ppm, we will have reached the sizable turning point.  Of course, we may be a planet re-covered in trees by then.

This tax will have pain.  This tax will have negative consequences, from lost jobs, disrupted lives, to agonizing short-term hardships and inefficiencies—in a world economy where fossil fuels affects, directly or indirectly, nearly everything, any number of things , some of which we cannot foresee, are going to be disrupted, have bad side effects, or worse—when the instant and disposable thoughtless economy transitions and shifts.  This tax will have recessionary effects that could last 10 years—on people and small businesses already so economically and structurally weakened by the plutocratic transformation that six years after the Great Recession we have not really recovered.

But once that transition period has reached the synergy point, we will see the benefits reverberate and cascade, and the pain will rapidly turn to improvement.  We will reap many benefits.  We will assume well the mantle to be good stewards.  We will be, for the first time in a very long time, rightly and continually proud as a society—even a world society—at the results of our courage, hard work, and sacrifice.  We may even rediscover each other, and a slower pace that comes with reconnection.

And we will be able to look our children and grandchildren in the eye and say, “I SACRIFICED FOR YOU, I HELPED CHANGE THE WORLD FOR YOU.  I LOVE YOU IN REAL DEEDS THAT TRULY MATTER, NOT JUST WORDS.”

“I DIDN’T LEAVE YOU A NIGHTMARE WORLD.”

Or we can have the opposite conversation. 

Madame Gets Answered

Madame:

Your question is complex. The answer partly depends on perspective on “evil” and “reformed (or transformed).”  The communist countries of Russia (and some other parts of the Soviet Union), as well as China, transformed their educational systems, as has Cuba, effectively going from largely illiterate to almost completely literate.

During much of the Progressive period in both Europe and the Americas, great reforms and forward strides were made in education.  The “relaxation” and “flowering” of here-thereto rigid German education was a part of this, although it would not see its full measure until after WW2.

Both Ghana and South Africa—for different reasons—have made significant reforms to their educational systems.

Israel—and Palestine, surprisingly—have instituted impressive educational systems, of course with different circumstances and different result measurements.

Considering the beginning and the rocky initial steps, Australian education has come impressively far.

The “Little Tigers” (e.g. S. Korea, Taiwan, etc.) built their now solid systems from nearly scratch, although, to be fair, they had a good amount of cultural legacy help.

Turkey after the Ottomans at the same time both consolidated and created whole cloth a new universal education system.  Of course, for 20 or more years, it was effectively under the control and direction of one set of people.

Even the American South  made impressive strides after the Civil War, albeit with some significant setbacks, going from a scant system to a pervasive one.

And the model we keep bringing up—Finland—was dissatisfied with its educational system and went through its own reform period after World War Two.

Yet there is a place I have mentioned before that probably best meets your question’s answer: Japan.  It is an incredible Japanese trait to be resistant to much change until the culture senses an overwhelming need, then change is dramatic and nearly total. Even pre-1868, some strides in education had been made, but the Meiji Restoration infused incredible transformative energy into the whole country—including education.  Setbacks, stifling, and even some degeneration occurred shortly up to and through WW2, but not too long after, another great change occurred, and the Japanese leapt forward.

Your sentiment about corporations and their employees after The Great Recession seems quite accurate.  Can you imagine what a Great Depression, sans a Rooseveltian interventionist administration and Congress, would degrade the attitude and treatment to?

Unions are often necessary, given the structure of capitalism, especially American capitalism.  They need governmental oversight of course.  Sometimes unions can be corrupt, selfish, short-sighted, frustrating, limiting its members’ productivity to the average or mediocre, and susceptible, when its members are minimally educated, to emotional manipulation and other malevolent things. 

I’ve known people who got turned against unions because of the above.  I myself  worked at a place during one summer where I had to pay union dues but got few of the benefits and a whole lot of poor treatment. 

Yet the alternative—no or weak unions—has been in the general shown to be QUITE disadvantageous to the average American worker—and the middle class as a whole.

Banned Books week—perpetual vigilance needed, especially in an era that is, for far too many Americans, post-book.   Apathy can be a catalyst for reactionary malevolence.

Well, I meant to get to talking about last week’s barely media-covered 400,000 person march in NYC on climate change, but I see my windbaggery has shelved that!