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/

Be Brave and Spend

Professor J,

The picture you paint, all too realistically I fear, is grim. And then I got all the way to the bottom of the post and saw that you have come to the same conclusion as me. Bernie Sanders is the only person running who is even bothering to address any of the real issues in an honest way. Bet you never thought you'd hear me say that! Socialist Smocialist.

Is it just me or is the entire Republican party leftover from an 80s frat house? Donald Trump's announcement seemed like the rich father who shows up and instead of trying to bring about order offers to buy kegs for the next party. It would all be laughable if it weren't alternately sad and terrifying. The Dems don't impress me much either but Sanders and Warren (if she would run) look like sensible grownups who have an understanding of how the world works and how scary and dangerous that makes it.

I'm not surprised at all to hear about the abysmal savings and for all the reasons that you point out. I can remember saving being a big thing to my parents and other adults when I was a kid. Then in the 80s something shifted and the appearance of affluence, name brand products and certain labels on clothes seemed to become inordinately important. Fewer families lived within their means and went without the extras to save. And we began to hear about how good spending was for the economy. I'd be interested to know when that kind of terminology came into political speech. This idea of spending in frivolous things being almost our patriotic duty. We remember the worst example after 9/11, of course but it was programmed in previously. Be brave and go shopping.

So we did. The Millenials have wised up a bit more than their parents thanks to the recession, but as you point out, the system is failing. The system is rigged and unbeatable under the current circumstances.

And people don't see solutions. They certainly don't see politicians who offer up solutions. It's just more of the same. The same tired ideas. The same phony candidates. The same feeling that there isn't any real choice. The realization that no change is coming. Voluntarily by those in power, anyway.

I found this article this week that I thought was telling, Goldman Sachs tells Interns to Take it Easy and Only Work 17 Hours a Day.

Corporations have really hit a gold mine with internships which, according to this article, do not tend to lead to jobs. Is it just me or has the idea of internship exploded? I can remember when being an intern meant that you were going to be a doctor but now every corporation has scores of minions that they don't have to pay or give benefits to. And just like the actual employees of these businesses the attitude is that no one can question it, because, you are so lucky to be there.

But back to the GS article. We'd call it slavery anywhere else. But this is the mindset we've created and the values we've embraced. More. Bigger. Shinier. Better than the next guy. At any cost.

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.

Connect Or Die

Madame M:

I did not know.  Thanks for the education!  How very many things there have been throughout history that have been subverted and perverted away from the originator’s intent.  Thinking about that makes me wonder how likely it would be that my Independence Week idea could be corrupted in much the same way.

You and I have not met in person in quite a while now, and we are both not the richer for it!  If we feel that way, how much the letter writers from the days of difficult and long travel must have felt it even more.

When the female bees demonstrate social and economic cooperation, amazing how much easier and more satisfying things seem to be.  In the book The White, which I mentioned once before, a similar phenomenon was demonstrated among the Native American women, of whose society the white woman had become part of.  She contrasted it with the hectic, overworked, highly stressed life her white mother had lived in the hyper-individualistic society of her youth.  When are we going to be ready to take our lesson?  Our good friends the Scandinavians have demonstrated that one does not have to give up one’s individualism to live in a cooperative society.

Yes, we need men and women of calm and reason in aggrieved and put-upon communities.  But as you rightly intimate, if we just end only with our very, VERY large expectation—that the repressed and victimized swallow their emotions and not “get out of hand” or “go violent”—then we will have selfishly, arrogantly, compassionlessly failed to be siblings to our fellow human beings.

What’s more, we will be self-blind to the intricate pattern we are ourselves woven into.  Because just like about environmental responsibility, in social and economic responsibility, we keep thinking there can be an “away.”

But sooner or later, there isn’t.  The social and economic injustice we inflict, or even that we permit or look the other way and deny about, has a way of coming back to haunt us.  Even if we don’t make the connection.  The brutalized, the marginalized, the communities nearly sucked dry of hope, the young with no real opportunity, the lack of ever growing up safe or getting to feel safe, the ever-present racism (both overt and subtle) that infects law enforcement and society both like an angry poison—how dangerously foolish we are to think that all that can be contained or quarantined. 

Things spill out, spill over, spread.  Those with few options and little to lose are a powder keg of hostile variability.   It happens in the Middle East, and it happens right here. 

Except we keep missing the connections.  That actions and lack of actions have consequences, sometimes delayed years or decades, but consequences nonetheless.  Robbery, drugs, kidnappings, violence, death, to name just a few.  Where there is little or no justice, there is no peace.  Where there is little or no fairness, there is no tranquility.  Where there is marked economic inequality, there is no sustainability.

Connection may be our only hope.  We need—desperately—to reconnect with each other. 

Because the alternative is, for both us individually and as society, literally killing us.

That Quarter

Madame M:

First, let me wish you and all mothers a great Mother’s Day!

Second, let me thank you for covering for me while overload was upon me.

There is as usual, entirely SO much that needs to be talked about in just the American landscape, let alone elsewhere, and that doesn’t even take into consideration all the points I need to address while you’ve had the soapbox solo the last three postings!  I will try mightily to restrain and focus in order that some faint measure of brevity can be attained!

To cover a bit of previous before addressing your recent post:  1) I was not aware we had been “struggling,” but maybe that’s the surest sign, lol, 2) if we had been, your “Digging For Answers” post came through and bulls-eyed it superbly (prime exhibit #1: “We ask people to live under impoverished conditions while pressing their faces up against the glass of wealth and privilege. Then we just can't imagine what all the anger is about”), 3) The “Digging For Answers” post needs to be taught nearly verbatim as part of a lesson in a university social science class, 4) Plan B, the book, listed some correctives to the disconnection that design of our American cities brings, 5) answer to your question:  Community Policing.  It has worked and does work better than anything when it is implemented earnestly (including when police and citizens sit down in relaxed and informal settings), and can work (and has worked in specific instances) in this large country precisely because law enforcement in America still retains large measures of de-centralization,  6) all efforts at law enforcement reform are made harder inside a plutocratic political-economy and widespread poverty, 7) how interesting that the worker bees you illustrate in your Rethink Community post, the cooperative engines of bee society, are female.

As to your post, I see we have swung the pendulum to full agreement, and I am sparked to add some things.

We the undiscerning, mindless robots of tragic failure, in order to perpetuate a more dysfunctional disunion, foment injustice, ensure domestic discontent, feed the devouring military-surveillance-fear-repression consortium, ignore the general Welfare, eviscerate the environment, and undermine the foundations of Liberty to ourselves and our descendants, do hereby disestablish preservation, protection, and defense of the Constitution of 1787 in favor of a vague and misty imaginary one we cannot articulate but still“know“ is being “threatened” by those we choose as ideological enemies.

I came up with that after reading your quite on-target “rant.”

Thomas Frank,  born in the heart of America in Kansas City, has chronicled very well the infuriating and frustrating phenomenon you/we relate.  In his books, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule; Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right; and his most famous one, What’s The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, he details what has happened.  For those who have not yet read his books, just going to the Wikipedia entry on him will give you some quotes from them that can be instructive.

Kansas has, in the 10+ years since he wrote the book, become even a deeper example.  It has a governor and legislature so in tune with ideological extreme (and demonstrated failure) policy that Kansas has gone into economic and governmental dire straits.  And what was once an educational system that ranked in the top third in the nation has been shredded.

A plutocratic political-economy takes three broad groups, and that’s precisely what we have:  1) The enormously wealthy individuals and corporations.  These are the true rulers.  They are the plutocrats.  2) Their mouthpieces/shills/politicians and other paid or sponsored henchmen.  These are the otherwise “powerful” that have been purchased or forced through money and influence to make the system work for the plutocrats—and to gum it up so that it can’t work against them.  3) the emotionally manipulated (emotions—often false ones—of fear, disgruntlement, resentment, anxiety, greed, distrust, racial “preference,” religious “persecution,” etc.).  The unkind call these low-information voters “suckers” for voting against their economic and democratic interests, but there is no doubt they are vocal, demanding, organized—and they vote in droves.  In so doing they perpetuate the plutocracy.  And in the process do all—and more—of the insensible things you list. 

Including campaigning for Mike Huckabee, a man who, while he doesn’t believe in a minimum wage, believes in a MAXIMUM wage, a limit for those who are EARNING a living.  He, of course, being a shill for plutocrats, says nothing of maximum income.  No, no, no.  That would step on the strings of his puppeteers who thrive on carried interest, dividends, capital gains, and other unearned income.

But there is another catalyst in this plutocratic setup.  The apathetic, the distracted, the ill-informed, the uncritically thinking, the diversion-fanatics, the shallow, the willfully ignorant, the uncaring, the selfish, the overly apolitical, the self-indulgent, and even the despairing and the disgusted share a common trait.

They rarely show up to vote, and even then not consistently.  Or even to register.  And getting them to be engaged and retain focus on an issue is usually beyond their capacity.

Thereby giving excessive, destructive influence to the vocal, demanding, organized quarter of the population who arm and armor themselves to fight cultural wars while the real problems slowly devour all of us.

Hey three-quarters, are you listening?

Out of the Blue

Friendly Bubble Blower!

I see you and I are determined to keep our disputation going a while longer, lol.

But first, yes, agreement! Wisdom in the justice system is in short supply and yet so desperately needed!  

Security is close to the first of the basic needs, of course.  For women in general it tends to become even more valued than for men.  And for some women, it is nearly equal to the primal basics of food, clothing, and shelter.

The title of your last post implied the famous Lord Acton dictum about power.  Therefore, I cannot fully agree with your stipulation that wanting to go home at the end of a shift makes police less likely to do anything that would interfere with that.   Distortion can occur far too readily for anyone with the potential power of freedom or restraint—or life and death—be they military members or law enforcement officers.   It doesn’t have to occur in a majority to be a serious problem, it only has to occur in a significant number, with the other members ignoring, going into denial about it, or even closing up or covering up about it.

Many of us—you and I included—have friends and family members who are in law enforcement, and we like and trust them.  Most people have no contact with police, outside of traffic tickets.  There is also the “Congressional phenomenon”--being unconfident about and dissatisfied with the police, but satisfied and confident with a friend or relative one knows who is on the police force.  Of course, we likely count our family and friends in that majority who do, at least in their minds, their best to serve and protect and get home safe.    But what do they tolerate?

It happens enough in “well funded” and “highly professional” police forces.  Yet especially in the poorer or lesser desired forces, there tend to be larger numbers of the marginals—those who shouldn’t be police officers—but because we value police officers little better than we  do teachers, it’s hard to attract sufficient high caliber folks in numbers.  And that’s even where there is adequate pre-testing and screening.  In many places, primarily for money reasons, there isn’t.

But more importantly is the blue code:  they don’t turn each other in.  They don’t “police” their own ranks.  Indeed, only when forced to, or when they are punishing someone for personal or tribal reasons, are members “given over to the justice system.”

THAT is corrupting.  At first, only a little.  After a while, it is like a descent into a group psychosis. 

Wishing it were otherwise will not unmake it so.

Yes, a great many law officers try to do their best. That’s who I’m appealing to.  The good ones must transcend the ones who have gone astray, and correct things. 

Yes, protocols of force usage do exist in a great number of police departments.  But even where protocols exist, are they followed?  Are there sanctions when they aren’t?  Is the standard override of “I was in fear for my life or the public’s safety” justification ever strongly questioned?  In the vast majority of cases for all these, the answer is no.

We do levy high expectations on officers who must work in often continually stressful environments.  They often deserve our reward and respect.  That’s one reason that law enforcement and military often get to retire after 20 years; the strain beyond that is often too telling.

Let’s suppose for the moment that I have overstated, at least for white people, the fear issue (which is entirely possible, but I will supply further arguments later) and that “safe” is the overwhelmingly dominant reaction.  There could still be complexity and nuance and situation-dependence there.  For example, even the neighborhood bully is a welcome sight when the menacing gang from another street shows up.

Also, would one feel “safe” if an officer seemed to start following you?  What if a police car seemed to start following you?  What if a police officer called from behind you, “Excuse me sir/mam, I need to talk with you for a minute.”

Would one feel the same if the police knocked on your door in the middle of the night?  How about if they knocked forcefully?  Shone lights from outside into your bedroom? 

How about if one were an activist?  Worked for justice?  Stood up to police and systemic abuses?

Even for those people who feel no fear at all toward the police, do they feel closeness?  Warmth?  Confidence?  Surveys cast some doubt.

I both looked at the research and canvassed many people from a variety of backgrounds and situations to get some additional words or phrases of how they feel around the police:  Besides Fear, there was Uneasy.  Intimidated.  Wary.  Skeptical.

I also dug into how citizens see the police:  Lazy.  Complacent. Unprofessional.  Arrogant.  Loners.  God-complex.  Not happy.  Ticket-crazy.  Snooping.   Abusive. Unfriendly.  Not courteous.  Biased. Disrespectful.  Unethical.  Not part of us.  Can’t catch real crooks and don’t try.  Tardy.  Aggressive.  Rule-breakers.  Harassing.  Excessive in use of force.

But there was also: Dedicated.  Cool-headed. Helpful.  Fair.  Needed. Protectors.  Reliable.  Tough.  Rule-enforcers.  Unappreciated.  Underappreciated.

The George Mason University study is some of the most comprehensive research, but it is now dated, nearly 14 years old.  It has been critiqued not only because of its being commissioned for police chiefs, but for being a product of the low-crime, go-go economy of the Clinton years, and thus some feel it is not representative of overall patterns, and especially those of today.   That criticism probably goes a bit too far.   For one thing the study did chronicle was that confidence in police has been on a steady (although slow) decline.  And, one of the most troubling of trends, individual citizen interaction—almost any interaction—with the police tends more often than not to to drive down satisfaction, confidence, trust, and support. 

Age plays a part.  Younger and disadvantaged people tend to have a perception of the police  that is FAR harsher than other age groups.  In general, one’s perception of the police tends to be increasingly milder and positive the more of the following factors one has:   older, socio-economic advantaged, suburban, white, and neighborhood satisfaction.

The more times police actually try to help citizens in some fashion, the better perception, the better cooperation, the better satisfaction, and the lower the crime rate.  Community policing is not just some buzz term; it works when done properly and embraced by both officers and the public.

According to the George Mason study, 20% of Americans fear the police will out of the blue (no pun intended) come and arrest them when they are completely innocent.  Since the study’s release 14 years ago, we have 1) had the Patriot Act and other measures of the security-fear state, 2) a marked decline in socio-economic wellbeing, and 3) the continued disconnection trend, all of which, and more, have given strong indication that the percentage cited in the study has substantially increased.

Of course white people don’t feel the same fear that minorities often do.  Not even close.  And white privilege makes our eyes less sharp to the realities that others face.  If one talks to African-Americans, they will readily tell you that North Charleston was not some isolated incident.  It is what happens all too regularly all over the country.

Most of the time un-recorded, unbelieved, and uncared about.

But we should care.  MLK was right when he said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

“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. :)

Sunning Up

Madame,

Adore the picture! (and caption)

Yes, it’s maybe the lack of sunlight. :)

Only YOU could be sunny and cheery and also avoid the false positive psychology trap.  Consider yourself in need of bottling. :)

Yes, yes, as the historian, I have been quite remiss in pointing out improvements.  For instance:

Even as the population increases, millions rarely die in a short period of time.  Thousands sometimes, certainly.  And we take note of such a tragedy.  Past generations dealt with a lot worse.

American unemployment is down, even adjusted for the hidden unemployed.

More comforts exist for more people than ever before (I am aware that Gibbon would find this a weakness, at least among elites).

Great medicines and medical advances exist.

Travel is way more than hoofing it 20 miles to the next town.  And better, and convenient, and comfortable!

Food is a lot more interesting.

People can post naked pictures of you one week, and no one cares (or much remembers) a month later.  For both celebrities and “regular” people.

Information is very plentiful and convenient.  Mostly! :)

Mass nuclear war/utter destruction is far less likely.

Smoking is restricted or penalized.  Okay, personal bias on that one.

The younger are making music that I enjoy.

Jon Stewart is still around. :)

Ah.  Much better. :)

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. :)

Missing: Young Males

Madame:

I have the same sickness.  Then when I finish a whole bunch all at once, it makes people think I’m a fast reader when just the opposite is the case. :)

We had an overemphasis on elites during the Revolutionary period.  It explains much about the capsule items. 

Treated self to some needed comedy relief last night:  “The Wedding Ringer.”  It was funny and entertaining, even farcical.  While its premise is undoubtedly overblown, like many things, it holds at its core a kernel of truth—that fewer of us, and especially fewer young males, have close friends.  In fact, researchers tell us, the reduction in close friends for the general population is by at least a third, let alone the drop for young males. 

Young Western males, and young American males in particular, seem on average to not be heading in a preferred direction.  For example, the percentage of young females disappointed with close age male prospects appear to be rising, according to social researchers.  While this might be of some deflective benefit to older males, sociologically it’s not a good trend.  While we can all think of numerous exceptions to the trend, exceptions only illustrate trends, they do not circumvent them. 

Many factors seem to be involved.  Among them, for a great number of males:

1.     Delayed maturity.  For many reasons, some of them interfacing, the average attainment age of male mental and emotional maturity as measured by social researchers continues to go up.  It’s far more than the proverbial “male living in his parents’ basement playing video games” image (albeit, which is true enough in a great number of cases).

2.     Social awkwardness.  Far more than the traditional shyness of many males, the disconnectedness of American society has contributed to social inexperience in a sort of downward spiral.

3.     Reduced testosterone (act less masculine; less drive to connect with females,etc.).  The decline in American male testosterone has been well documented.   The second and third order effects have not.

4.     Video games.  The number of young males who say they would rather play video games than attempt to socialize with females has risen sharply.  This is so even as the number of female gamers has risen significantly.  Even older males have become Neil Postman’s examples:  “Up until 5 playing.” “Up until 7 playing, and had to be at work at 8.”

5.     Diminished economic prospects.  The poor economy for aspiring middle class males, let alone working class males, helps to contribute to both diminished self-assessment by the males, and diminished interest by the females.  That college graduates have been particularly hard hit has only accentuated the problem.  The real prospects, and especially the exciting ones, have gone away for far too many young men.

6.     Poorer physical fitness.  It tends to magnify the other trends, contributing to reduced attraction, poorer self image, diminished energy, etc.

7.     Diminished attraction of, and diminished prospects for, marriage.  In 2007, for example, only 40% of the men in the prime wedding age group were wed.

8.     How men in general and fathers in particular now are the butt of too many jokes, and too poor or even demeaning an image in our popular culture. While I am by no means letting young men off the hook here (and even their same age icons often contribute to the image), it’s simply the case that too often today’s males are living up to the low expectations the culture has for them.

There are surely more, but these are all I could find (please list any additional factors that come to mind).  And I am particularly interested in your view on all this, Madame, including what might be done.

And I realize there are many problems and many things to talk about, but last night prompted this one! :)

Personal Values

Madame:

I am recovering, slowly.

I believe the good English gentlemen would comment that we have diminished ourselves.

The gas guzzler truck mania is well in swing around here as well.  Self-delusion and self-justification are in full swing.  Plus there’s a lot of mental and emotional unresolved issues to boot I’m guessing.

Time capsules are always a bit problematic because what we truly should store—massive data—does not hold up well typically for long, unrefreshed storage, for a variety of reasons.  That’s a pity, because everyday life needs to be depicted.  Social history is needed, but often the most shortchanged.

What definitely should be included are measurements of where we are.  Soil, air, water, resource depletion, reserves, etc.  A long listing of where exactly things stand at the moment in history.  And what we value—and no longer value.  What we’re concerned about—and no longer concerned about.  How we communicate, and how we no longer communicate.

We also need the words of every day  people and their concerns, hopes, plans, etc.

They might despise us a little less if we include an apology to future generations as well.  That we didn’t take action, better action, sooner action.

Our mistake, unfortunately (mine too especially), has been thinking that “changes” could be “fit in” among ALL our entertainment—sports, games, shows, movies, etc. The result?  We have “fit in” little or nothing.  Neil Postman was right—we have amused ourselves to death, and in the process let ourselves become near defenseless and near powerless against the corporate and individual oligarchs (and the politicians and judges who serve them) who dictate to us with near impunity.

My father always said I had too many hobbies and not enough focus.  I truly, magnificently, deeply enjoy games, movies, entertainment, and other recreation.  It’s just that I now realize I can’t really enjoy them like I want to when I know that American and maybe world civilization appear to be sinking towards a dark abyss.  It’s like trying to enjoy dinner and dancing aboard the Titanic when one knows ahead of time what’s about to happen.  I would much rather right our course so I could truly enjoy my hobbies, without guilt, without that terrible feeling that I am sinning against my children and their future.

The oligarchs hold a great weapon over us—fear.  Of jobs, of security, of personal safety, and other Maslow hierarchy basic needs.  There is a small amount of time yet to resist and reverse the slide toward overt totalitarian control.  But it can’t be mere intention.  It has to be that action thing.

Those who can be activists, great, engines like you are sorely needed.  For the rest of us, two things:

1.     Make your choices fit your values, even in little things when you can.  Here’s an example I used in my choices.  I like green tea.  Since I’m going to buy green tea, I decided if necessary I would buy less of it if what I did buy supported values I agreed with.  There are probably several that do.  The one I settled on was Organic India.  Why?  Listen to their story—“At the heart of Organic India is our commitment to be a living embodiment of love and consciousness in action.  We work with thousands of small farmers in India to cultivate sustainable organic farmland.  All our products produce health and True Wellness and are made with loving care.  Each product is one link in a chain of love and connectedness between Mother Nature, our farmers, and you.  By choosing Organic India you are actively participating in our mission to create a sustainable global environment, provide training and a life of dignity to our farmers, and bring health and happiness to you while supporting well being and respect for all beings and for Mother Nature.”

2.     Simply starting a new conversation with those in your social circle is the second thing you can do.  And especially those of you who are skittish about being labeled “weird” or “radical,” there is a method to use.  Socrates gave it to us over 2000 years ago…

Ask questions.  It raises fewer defensive barriers and elicits fewer defensive reactions.  Questions like:  “Did you hear about X?  Have you ever thought about X?  Have you ever thought about why X?  What do you think we should do about X?  Does it bother you that X? Have you ever spoken to your friends and family about X? Do you think that Neil Postman was right?  Does it ever make you uncomfortable that X is happening while we amuse ourselves?  Have you read Aldous Huxley?  Have you read George Orwell?  Does that ever scare you?  Do you ever get uncomfortable when people you know know more about sports figures, sports teams, and celebrities than they do about all these things happening?  Am I making you uncomfortable now?  If so, why do you think that is?  What should we do about it?  Do you think we’re part of the problem?”

The alternative is to watch 1984 put into place.

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…

Reform

Madame:

There is MUCH more to say on all this I have been posting about, but those other important things are cropping up as well, everything from catastrophic risk coming back from Wall Street actions, to deception, deflection, and obfuscation from the security-intelligence complex in the wake of the Senate report.  But to continue, at least once more, this blogstream on injustice and its many ramifications:

People are fond of saying we should stay safe and be completely, surrendering-ly subservient to every police demand, and accommodating to all police behavior.  How nicely set up that would make us for authoritarian or even totalitarian rule. 

We have to worry and adjust OUR behavior to avoid being shot by our supposed protectors?  And then, if there is ANY trouble from or by the police, we are supposed to merely file a complaint—with the organization and system that perpetrates it? An organization and its members who are sole judge and jury (and, too often, executioner)?

Police impunity.  Willful ignorance by the white public.  Institutional racism.   Refusal to acknowledge black reality.   Even otherwise powerful black CEOs have to worry: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141204174020-261404895-it-s-time-to-revolutionize-race-relations

And some further evidence we sure as hell don’t have a post-racial America: How Obama has been treated, spoken about, disrespected, obstructed, hated and reviled with such a passionate, frothing fervor.  I dislike intensely many of his actions and policies, but I can recognize when there is a treatment difference that is consistent among many members of one color against a president of another one.

To think that racism doesn’t exist is delusional.  We desperately need a dialogue (and willingness to act and change) about race. 

Police often have a hard job and need our respect.  But respect has to be earned AND warranted.  Community policing works best when the community trusts that the police will treat them with dignity and so that community WANTS the police to come in and make them safe from the criminal element.  That trust is missing in far too many places, particularly for African-Americans, and in those places only systemic bias exists instead.

Of course, police and prosecutors too often are given impossible tasks because the plutocratic economy has emplaced all over this country drastic economic inequality, lack of opportunity, and few or no livable jobs.  This bleak picture is intensified many times over in too many African-American communities.

Maltreatement and disproportionate focus on certain people and certain communities are bad enough.   In this society we have become, however, one of disconnection and lack of community and affiliation with and for our fellow citizens, we then make things even worse.  We take away most chances of making it economically and then wonder why there is crime?   And for the unfortunate citizens who are picked up for bogus reasons and then get bogus trumped up felonies because they have no resources to defend themselves legally against?  What then?  Felons can’t get most jobs, and certainly no decent ones.  And yet we are astonished that people turn to or return to criminal ways?  We are fomenting the behavior!  What does society truly expect?

The bitterly ironic thing is that White America’s 99% are economically stressed, yet largely without a clear idea of who is responsible for that stress.   And so too much of that White America falls back on simplistic blame spewed forth by demagogues with agendas, instead of seeing its true adversaries and true threats.

We need systemic change to really make a difference, including about police and minorities.  But in the meantime, there are some things that can be done:

State and local court systems are separate from federal ones for a reason, and constitutionally need to retain that separateness.  But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be procedural protections for all citizens no matter where they reside.  With that in mind, here are some proposals for federal legislation  or amendments (or even just things people can urge their state legislatures to adopt) to standardize procedures:

1.     Each state must conduct a wide ranging experiment to equip law enforcement members with body cameras, funded initially by the federal government.

2.     Require all law enforcement officers, even state police/highway patrolmen, to work together/ride and travel together 2-3 days a week, to decrease isolation, increase resiliency, improve well being and sense of security, and boost humanity and compassion.  This is not a panacea, of course, for two law enforcement officers have often done bad things.  But it can decrease the chances.  Also, when an officer would otherwise ride alone, a citizen of the community should ride with him whenever possible.  A local community panel can choose a pool of volunteer citizen riders.  While ideally they might be law students, criminal justice majors, or those interested in police work, any willing citizen chosen by the community could be eligible.  This would further decrease isolation of the officer, while improving ties with the community--and giving the community an idea of how hard law enforcement work can be sometimes.

3.     Whenever a citizen dies at the hands of the police or in police custody, an independent prosecutor from another state, chosen at random from a pool of special prosecutors, is required appointed by the governor of  the state where the death occurred.  This independent prosecutor will have at least two investigators from outside the state.  If criminal charges are not filed, a public report will be released.

4.     If the citizen was unarmed, the deceased citizen’s family lawyer is appointed as a special temporary assistant prosecutor and acts as a member of the investigation and prosecution team.  This lawyer must agree before a police officer is allowed to testify before a grand jury on their own behalf (civilians under investigation by grand juries aren’t allowed to testify on their own behalf).  Otherwise, the police officer would have to wait to testify at a trial.

5.     If the citizen was unarmed, the officer or officers involved are automatically indicted UNLESS ALL 12 GRAND JURORS UNANIMOUSLY VOTE NOT TO INDICT.  This differs radically from present, where 9 of 12 jurors are required to agree to indict.

It’s not enough.  But it could be a start.