Stem Cell Options - March 2012

Let’s suspend for a moment our preconceived positions on the issue of embryonic stem-cell research. Assume temporarily that the vast majority of scientists who claim that embryonic stem  cells offer unique therapeutic potential are correct. Of course the treatments and cures, if and when they materialize,  will be worth billions of dollars to the patent holders who get there first. Whether the disease is autism, cerebral palsy, MS, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injury, stroke, or any of the myriad of illnesses in which embryonic stem cells may prove helpful,  many patients and their families will gladly pay whatever it takes.  Now let’s suppose that the patient is the child of an individual whose beliefs oppose the use of embryonic stem cells in this way.  That individual will have two options – allow his/her child to continue suffering and perhaps die prematurely, or submit to a type of treatment the he/she philosophically opposes.  Are there more than a handful of zealots who would choose the former alternative? I think not. 

The politico-religious advocacy of those determined to block advancements in this area may slow America’s efforts, but will prove irrelevant in the global competition.  China, known for its brilliant scientists and its ability to fund such research, will be among the first to cross the finish line. Russia will not stand idly by. Europe is already a player. So the quandary over whether to honor their prejudices or save their child will eventually confront many of the anti-progress activists.  Confronted with this moral dilemma, some will elect to access the treatment while hiding their participation.  Thus the moral bottom line is that they will chose hypocrisy over science.

Another point for the Luddites to ponder is that nothing they do will have any effect on  how embryos are harvested.  American scientists with a specialization in embryonic stem-cell research will simply go to other countries where their expertise is welcome, where rewards may prove greater, and where they are not vilified by those unqualified to debate the issue.   Somewhere along the way, a treatment derived from embryonic stem cells may save the life of a future president, or even a community organizer who personally improves thousands of lives.

But we live in a country in which the militancy of people who can barely imagine the complexity of a cell may determine whether America is allowed to move forward in this vital area of research. These people’s expertise lies in less practical areas, such as how best to advocate the commands of an organization that replaces thought with mumbo jumbo.  Can’t we pass a law that says that those who oppose science now will not be allowed to enjoy its benefits in the future?  If so, I am willing to submit to a law that forbids me from enjoying any of the future benefits of religion. Besides, why do they need science when they have access to something far more powerful, the healing power of the creator of the universe with whom they are in daily contact.

Distributing the Wealth - January 2012

How are we doing on income distribution? To look at 2011 luxury car sales, it hard not to get the impression things are moving in the right direction for the 1%. Bentley sales were up worldwide by 37% in 2011, 32% in the U.S with just over 2000 sold. Mercedes reported its best sales year ever, with an increase of 17.5%. BMW was up by 14.9%, its second best year ever in the U.S. December 2011 was the strongest month for several manufacturers, a good sign for 2012.

Except for some low end (but very cute) two-seater models of the BMW, none of these cars are made in the USA, so they fit nicely with the Republican philosophy that job creators – people who buy luxury cars – are doing their part regardless of the country the job is created in.

American Exceptionalism - January 2012

Are there reasons for voting Republican this November (2012)? Many! And you may find them persuasive. For starters, if you feel wealthy people are being treated shabbily by our government, the Republican party has promised to attack that problem.  If you believe America will become more successful in the worldwide competition for jobs by providing less education to its citizens, the Republican Party has already proven its ability to lead in dumbing down our children. If you maintain that healthcare should be limited to people who share your values, then the entire group of Republican candidates still in the presidential race are fully behind you.

But there’s much more. If you have determined that the best way to prove America’s exceptionalism is to start another trillion-dollar war in the Middle East, your party stands ready to get tough with Iran.  If you deem certain kinds of “uppity” people as unworthy of running our government and are determined to “take back our country”, you don’t need to look far for a political party to support your view. If you are confident that taking the U.S. to the brink of default and signing pledges never to raise taxes is a clever way to put our government in its place, look no further.  If you approve of boycotting the State of the Union address or shouting “Liar!” from the floor when the President is speaking, then your choice is clear. If doing whatever you want to whomever you please and then requesting a pass from Jesus is your kind of religion, the Gingrich/Santorum wing of the party sees salvation in the same light.

But some of the most compelling reasons for voting Republican have yet to be mentioned. For example, if you shun compromise, the principle on which our democracy operates, so does your party.  If you think that the Majority Leader of the Senate should ignore legislative priorities and dedicate himself and his party to the defeat of the President, have I got a recommendation for you!  If you wish to vote for a political party that kowtows to a radio talk show host who often appears demented, that opportunity is at hand. If you hope to eliminate regulations, such as those that get in the way of your enjoyment of lead paint and asbestos, the anti-regulation party has a home for you. And if you will fight for the right to encourage your child’s obesity without government interference, then punish those pesky Democrats by voting Republican.

This review of Republican positions should help you select the party you believe will take America in the right direction.  But if not, get in touch. This is merely the short list.

Newspaper Ecology

6-29-08           

In order to save space (column inches) in the editorial section, all newspapers should immediately cease publishing conservatives’ explanations of their positions on political issues. Instead, simply list their concerns without elaboration. How could that be fair? Conservatives’ positions on important issues need no longer be written down because they are unanimous, invariable, and widely known by all newspaper readers. Guns? Nothing better. Abortion? Evil personified. Change of any kind? Mankind’s curse. Separation of church and state? Obviously the founding fathers experienced a senior moment. Therapeutic stem cell research? God is opposed. Capital punishment? The Old Testament approves so what else do you need to know. Wars? If you don’t kill bad guys, the world will never understand how peace loving we are. The economy? The free market solves all problems, except maybe $4 per gallon gasoline and housing crises and environmental devastation. I could go on, but you probably see my point by now.

A recent letter – running to 15.5 column inches - from a conservative argued that America’s enemies do not deserve Constitutional protection. This argument might hold a little water if we had used our pea-sized brains to pinpoint who those enemies are. Of the 13,000 prisoners randomly thrown into Abu Ghraib at its peak, 10% are believed to have harmed America’s interests in some way. That means 90% were incarcerated out of ignorance or laziness, or simply because our troops were too rushed to check them out. Of that 90% who meant us no harm, a number are now committed jihadists as a result of their unlawful and abusive detention.

If the 775 Guantanamo detainees are the offspring of a late-night union between Beelzebub and the bogeyman as our government would have us believe, why have 420 (54%) been released without charge? Given this proven proclivity to lock up the guiltless, why is our government apoplectic about the Supreme Court’s verdict requiring adherence to the Constitutional requirement for habeas corpus? Is there a possibility that the evidence doesn’t support our President’s oft-repeated assertion that these are the worst of the worst? But even if they are, only our reverence for the rule of law protects us from the savagery with which governments of previous centuries (and some still) treated their citizens and enemies as well. Perhaps we should, out of self-interest, honor and trust the Constitution that made this debate possible.

Conservatives are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but since we already know in detail what those opinions are, why use valuable space to print the same thing again and again? Lest I be accused of unbalanced views, this opinion applies equally to left-wing liberal writings exhibiting little or no thought. Opinions deserve a hearing only if there is an obvious application of at least one ounce of brain power to their formation.

Privileged Information

America has a dirty little secret, and it forms one of the pillars of our democracy: Many in our voting population – perhaps a majority - are so distracted or so ill-informed that they can often be persuaded to support candidates opposed to the voters’ own interests. Politicians wishing to exploit this large group need only aggregate lists of voters who rely on mysticism to guide their lives, stay in touch with the 60% of Americans who can’t find Iraq on a world map, maintain that dissent and disloyalty are synonymous, promote tax breaks for the rich as a means of helping the poor, and ferret out those who lay claim to political conviction but whose attention span seldom lasts through a complete news cycle.  By appealing to the misconceptions of this multitude in ways that evoke nostalgia, machismo, and unquestioning obedience to authority, exploitative politicians can persuade them to ignore evidence when it shows their representatives acting in politically abusive ways.

Pity the poor Democrats.  They not only don’t know about these political victims, they mistakenly believe that any voter can be persuaded, by reason, logic, facts, and evidence, to support his own self-interests. More reality-based political parties see in these folk a rich vein of political ore that can be mined time and time again to achieve electoral gains.

While marveling at the self-destructive nature of our policies in recent years, both foreign and domestic, the rest of the world seems to have discovered our dirty little secret before we became aware of it ourselves.

No Longer in Denial

Hosni Mubarak has acceded to the wishes of 80 million of his countrymen, or "children", as he calls them, and taken up residence in Sharm El Sheikh, where the $40 to $70 billion he looted during the past three decades should keep him comfortable  for the foreseeable future. At the lower number, he paid himself, annually, 2500 times as much as the President of the United States. He was accumulating wealth almost at the same rate as Bernie Madow, and with only slightly more ethical slippage. If his job performance was that stellar, you'd think his fellow Egyptians would have had fewer complaints.

Egypt has stood up and nominated herself for great nation status. By the nature of her revolution she seems to have earned it.  Let's hope that by this time next year the deal will be consummated. Like America, success will be measured in jobs created. It's rumored that unlike America, Egypt will not provide tax incentives to businessmen for creating employment in low-wage countries.

Defending Our Defenders

At last. A complex issue that even those who paint the world in black and white can understand. USA Today (Feb. 10, 2011) reported that 16% of homeless people are veterans. Since veterans make up only 10% of the adult population, this ratio far exceeds expectations. More than 136,00 veterans spent at least one night in a homeless shelter last year, a number which fails to tally those living exclusively on the streets.

Those whose extol the virtues of war and pound their chests over their professed support for the military are caught, it seems to me, on the horns of a philosophical dilemma. The stereotypes we hold of the needy don’t jibe with our notion of the character of our troops.  Yet the numbers tell a story of people who need a hand and whom, in an earlier life, all of us would have applauded. What’s going on here?

There are, it would appear, real problems that can’t be solved by issuing more guns, excluding aliens, or giving further tax breaks to the rich. People who served this country, and who once made it on their own, are in need of a hand to help them get their lives back on track.  Will private industry extend that hand? Not likely with 14 million unemployed workers and no clear self-interest at stake. Will churches or charities provide anything more than a meal or a cot? Most can’t afford to.  Will state governments fill the breach?  Not with the current stampede to trim down every aspect of their budgets that involve any form of benevolence.

That leaves only (gasp!) the Federal Government to provide job retraining, healthcare, counseling, and whatever else is needed to help these veterans regain some modest level of prosperity.  Yes, you got yours because you are so smart and self-motivated. Some of us just caught a lucky break. But wouldn’t we all be better off if we lived in a country where there is a pathway to renewal for all those who choose to walk it? 

There are a million gut wrenching stories out there.  Many are complex and deserve a hearing and perhaps even a helping hand.  Those who instinctively turn their backs on the needy suffer from a kind of moral bankruptcy that far exceeds the poverty of those sleeping under bridges.  Worse, they are uncaring or ignorant of the innumerable instances where intervention has elevated a life or an entire family.  When distributed rationally, the $10 trillion national income pie is big enough for all of us to enjoy a generous slice, especially those who fell on hard times after, or perhaps as a result of, defending America.

Now Which Piece Was Dialectical? 6-28-2008

With all due respect to Mr. John Brock (a moralizing columnist for the Waccamaw Times, an extension of the local church bulletin), I believe rumors of our moral demise are greatly exaggerated. While devoid of any understanding of what dialectical materialism is or means, Mr. Brock is at least clever enough to use the adult surrogate for the bogeyman, Karl Marx, to panic us into shunning ‘change’ in all its nefarious disguises.  Prohibit change, the conservative Brock  tell us, and we can begin to turn back the clock to those halcyon days of yore when all was right with the world.  He and his nostalgic (mostly) male collaborators suggest that all important decisions on all important issues were made before the year 1800, and the really big ones long before that. If you concur, then while re-winding your grandfather’s clock, smack yourself soundly on the head to erase the knowledge that those were the days when powerful institutions controlled nearly all of the life and death forces that determined our well being on earth and beyond.  Tighten your blindfold to avoid exposure to the fact that suppressing the minds and circumscribing the rights and activities of women were the primary tool for inhibiting change.  Struggle to ignore the reality that without change, a significant portion of Americans would still qualify as the “property” of another American.  Do all this, and you too can be numbered among those conservatives with minds like steel traps that, to our sorrow, snapped shut when they were 17 and have not been pried loose since.

Change is not a liberal plot. It is a fundamental process of reality that envelopes us when science begins to dominate our intellectual processes, when superstition and fear begin to loosen their grip on our lives, and when well meaning men and women work arm in arm to make what improvements they can  to a flawed world. To those unpersuaded by these arguments and still lusting for a return to yesteryear, please check ticket prices to Iran or Saudi Arabia. If you promise to take Rush Limbaugh with you, and not return, I will send a check for both your tickets.

Tea Party Tidbit

Is there a way to understand how people who deny the relevance of facts, history and the importance of knowledge have become a power base for a major political party?

The Germ of an Idea - 9-29-09

The phrase ‘Death Panels’, a fevered figment of Betsy McCaughey’s fertile imagination, was adopted by Sarah Palin to bludgeon Democrats. Ironically, it may contain the germ of an idea worth discussing. The end-of-life scenario in which God alone writes the plot is, far too often, excruciating,  impoverishing, and inhumane for both the sufferer and surviving loved ones. Thoughtful people cope with end-of-life issues with living wills, but far too many neglect this option until it is too late for a self-directed outcome.  After a heart attack, my neighbor and Congressional representative, for example, lay in a coma for nearly eight years with no hope of recovery while her loved ones agonized and the family’s reserves disappeared.  In Florida, legal battles raged and politicians paraded their piety to their base while a woman declared brain dead by doctors was displayed over and over on television. Dying with dignity, it seems, is no easy achievement.

But a legally established panel of ethicists, medical professionals, and other qualified and compassionate parties without agendas (no preachers, priests,  or politicians, please) could, at least in part,  restore the most important individual right routinely denied millions – the right to depart this life on one’s own terms.  Since 2.5 million people die each year in America, this issue is of current concern to a vast number of citizens, and eventually to all but a fortunate few. In cases of terminal illnesses where recovery is impossible and there is no quality of life, physician-assisted suicide should be available. It is used responsibly, respectfully, and effectively by a small number of people in Oregon and should be an option for all who consciously choose it. This concept offends only those who believe they should control your choices.

For better or for worse we are all mortal. No one among us sees ourselves as a conduit for constant pain in circumstances that are humiliating and costly, but many of us arrive there with no way out.  Death Panels, a lie designed to deceive people about their end-of-life planning responsibilities, might be turned to a more noble purpose, Death with Dignity Panels.

Anyone who believes that our national wealth is infinite, that it’s appropriate to spend  vast amounts of that wealth on lives devoid of sentience, and that people get the suffering they deserve should feel at liberty to disagree with the opinions expressed, as should anyone wed to the notion that compulsion is to be preferred over compassion.

Cursed Complexity

Curse you, complexity! Half of America reviles you more than the tax collector.  Between denying your existence and refusing to come to grips with the reality that you rule, they solve the problems you create with slogans: My country right or wrong; If you hate the war, you hate the troops; Right to life;  the ‘real’ America; lock and load; Guns don't kill;  Let's take back our country; You’re either with us or you’re against us. If only this level of simplicity had ever solved a single problem in the course of history, what a wonderful life this would be. But “nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could,” as Julie Andrews, who apparently understands complexity, musically revealed.

Our country is not, at the most fundamental level, divided by racism, nor by intellectual barriers, or even by class hatred.  What keeps us on different pages of the American hymnal is that half of us refuse to acknowledge that our planet is a complex place to live a life.  This is not a matter of degrees.  My brother-in-law the truck driver, whose formal education ended at high school, holds sophisticated views on politics and is well informed on a variety of important topics.  He deals with complex personal issues with a wisdom beyond the reach of most of us. Above all, he meets the only requirement our world lays down for those wishing to lead a meaningful existence – he keeps his mind open until the facts are in, and then he acts appropriately.

Open mindedness is a door to adulthood.  It’s a simple attitude that captures the spirit of all the complex ideas the founding fathers used to invent a democratic form of government. It is a mindset that certifies its possessor  as a grown-up who believes in his ability to make a difference.  But when absent from people’s approach to the world,  it disqualifies them from being taken seriously about anything they think or write or say.

Infinite Wealth - 10-26-08

Much of importance has been mysteriously missing from the national dialogue in recent years.  To me, the most critical element is the lack of a cost-benefits analysis addressing our national priorities. Boring but absolutely essential. Even the wealthiest nation in world history faces financial constraints. To fight a war is to postpone bridge building and child health care. To bail out investment bankers is to cut back on elements of the War on Terror. To purchase a multi-billion dollar fleet of air-to-air refueling tankers may mean delaying steel reinforcement of Humvees. To build up the strategic oil reserve could delay implementation of alternative fuel strategies.  None of this is a judgment on the merits of one choice over another.  It is merely a statement of the obvious – a choice, national or personal, once made and funded, inevitably affects the range of other choices that can be considered.

For some years now, we have seemed to be operating on an assumption that America’s wealth is infinite. America, of course, has no wealth other than that it collects from taxpayers and what it borrows in the hope that taxpayers will repay the debt.  To date I’ve not met a single taxpayer who regards his ability to respond to the needs of the IRS as infinite – thus the requirement for a dialogue.  

Left to their own devices, politicians may or may not make choices responsive to the wishes of the citizenry. Ideology and political expediency seem to be trumping recognized national needs more and more often. Therefore, citizens must explore ways to make their priorities known and felt in Congress and the White House

Never before in history has this been possible in any realistic sense. Now, with the Internet as a tool of information exchange, we are positioned to tell government how we think and feel on all the issues that directly affect us. All that is missing is the government’s desire to hear our voices, and the relatively simple computer program that would collect, tabulate and forward our opinions to Congress and the President. Is there anyone inside the Beltway who believes in participatory democracy enough to listen?

Columbia's Corridor of Shame -3-11-09

The “Corridor of Shame” is not, as we once thought, a cluster of schools in rural South Carolina.  Instead, it meanders through the heart of  an imposing building at the corner of Gervais and Assembly Streets in Columbia.  In his drive to take the helm of a party that makes the Know Nothings look like the National Science Foundation, Governor Sanford is willing to personally promote the educational mediocrity for which our state is so deservedly famous. After all, what’s the value of political power and a good education if you can’t use them to deny the same to others?

Thanks to the courageous efforts of Congressman Jim Clyburn, Sanford is in position to misdirect less than ten percent of the federal dollars the stimulus package will provide to our state. But $700 million for roads, schools, and unemployment is not chicken feed.  In the most blatant act of unhinged self-indulgence since Bernie Madoff, Sanford will prove his dedication to fiscal responsibility by obstructing payments he asserts would prove “harmful” to South Carolina.

As a left-of-center moderate who until recently believed Republicans had constructive ideas to offer,  it distresses me to see our governor compete with Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Joe Wurzelbacher, and other stunningly mediocre talents for leadership of a party about to be removed from life support.  But apparently this is the field of battle on which he feels most comfortable – the few, the brave, the clueless. And let us not forget - as a man of principle, he walks the corridors of power serving shamelessly the people who put him where he is.

Is That A Gong I Hear In The Distance?

With gas prices skyrocketing, jobs disappearing, recession looming, wars raging, and concern about America's direction spreading like California wildfires, any attempt to pump up interest in China is, at this time, a hard sell. Soberingly, China may play the largest role of any nation, outside our own, in this litany of converging nightmares. In making a sale, timing counts. Even Americans who dismiss China as no more than a far off dictatorship purveying cheap products will soon be watching a nightly NBC program from Beijing. The Olympics will bring the reality of China's progress into sharp contrast with our own national decline in ways that may touch the previously unimpressed. 

Why should Americans, with no shortage of their own problems, begin to pay attention to a country that, until 30 years ago, was populated by a billion peasants and a handful of autocrats? This page of the newspaper lacks the space to list all the reasons, but here are a handful worthy of attention: 

1. By negotiating away America's advantages in international trade deals, Presidents Clinton and Bush ceded China the right to a $256 billion trade surplus in 2007, now growing at $1 billion per day; 

2. By resorting to Chinese financing for the Iraq war, America has increased its debt from nearly $6 trillion in 2000 to nearly $10 trillion today; 

3. General Motors, which often seems to have lost its hunger for pre-eminence, sold more Buicks in China last year than in the United States;

4. China is successfully carrying out a national strategy of coöpting Africa's natural resources to promote China's growth and, in the process, shoving aside all would-be competitors; 

5. The number of Chinese drivers continues to increase by 30% annually (that doubles the base every 2.5 years) while China is aggressively pursuing a policy of replacing the U.S. as the world's largest auto producer.

If we didn't have to leave America to our kids and grandchildren perhaps we could ignore Thomas Jefferson's conclusion on the meaning of our current situation vis-a-vis China: I place...public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We need to sell ourselves and our leaders on the urgency of dealing with China in a way that protects our most vital national interests. We have recently been reminded that in a democracy nothing constructive happens unless we citizens push for it.

Where Are The Muckrakers When You Need Them?

While agreeing with Bobby Chandler (Oct. 26) that capitalism is the best economic system ever devised and that Michael Moore can’t cure its ills, I don’t share his optimism that we can impose a system of checks and balances to make it work for most of us. Capitalism’s headlong plunge to join the dodo bird in extinction is no longer disputable. Even the best economic system ever devised is fragile. With Gordon Gecko as their role model, the titans of finance have irreversibly undermined capitalism. These are a group of men so driven by self-indulgence that the continued existence of the world economic order seems a minor concern to them. 

Just 13 months ago we stood on the brink of economic collapse caused by the deranged avarice of wall street powerhouses - spurred on by misguided politicians -  who turned worthless mortgages into an international ponzi scheme.  In a government grab for a flotation device before going under for the last time, we gave hundreds of billions to AIG and others who used the public’s money to award themselves billions in bonuses for behaving badly. In recent news we learn that AIG is about to bestow another $198 million on its failed executives if the company chooses to ignore, as it apparently can, the government’s pleas for restraint.

In more directly  prosecutable criminal activity, we learn that IRS loses $100 billion a year in tax revenue because the super wealthy set up unnumbered accounts in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. The glue that once held the system together was the sense of shame that restrained would-be perpetrators.  Now that greed has made shame obsolete, there appear to be no limits to the mafia mentality that undermines our capitalistic system. Under performing CEO’s who lack accountability while earning 100 times as much their workers foster a tone of “anything goes as long as I get mine”  within their organizations. 

Those at the peak of the financial pyramid have something in common with those who run the healthcare industry.  They are among the most richly rewarded members of the business community, and they add nothing to their product to merit that status.  By buying one political party and making a down payment on the other, along with purchasing the appropriate number of congressmen, both groups acquire exemption from the checks and balances that might otherwise protect our endangered financial system.

Our words and our wishes will not bullet proof our economic system.  It is being plundered by plutocrats with a certainty that they will not be prosecuted. There are still great companies, but within the financial community their number is dwindling, and none are immune from the obscene excesses of those too big to fail.  

How We Doin', Adam Smith?

If a system can be manipulated to the benefit of those at its center, and to the detriment of those at its mercy, it will be.  Capitalism, by any measure the most effective and durable economic model the world has known, seems unsuited to today’s realities.  The threat of world economic collapse is not easily ignored. Pretending that our leading politicians and our smartest economists know how to deal with the current calamity has proven delusional. Capitalism-based economies have collapsed in ways equally obvious to curry salesmen in Mumbai, saki salesmen in Sakura, and shoe salesmen in Cincinnati.  Besides, events of the past five months have already transformed our system into something unnamed and unrecognizable.

For example, in an economy where tens of millions of blue-collar workers rely on manufacturing for their incomes, market forces and tax regulations have driven American factories to countries offering low-wage workers.  In a system designed to reward success, failed executives receive annual bonuses exceeding the lifetime income of most Americans, as interlocking boards of directors vote breathtaking bonuses for mediocre performance.  In an economy where high school graduates learn that the path to success is smart investing, the stock market appears bottomless.  Seniors worry about their children and grandchildren’s ability to enjoy reasonably prosperous lives while repaying debt their grandparents bequeathed them.  Capitalism’s most doctrinaire supporters propose bank bailouts, mortgage relief, and unemployment extensions. Huge numbers of America’s hardest workers make too little to afford dental work, a car, or education for their children (read Susan Ehrenreich). Most fundamentally, since 1980 the nation’s wealth has migrated to the top of the economic mountain, leaving an echoing sucking sound in the valley. Banks won’t lend, giant automakers threaten bankruptcy without government assistance, and the world’s largest insurance company accepts an $85 billion down payment from the government to repair self-inflicted wounds. Enron, it appears, taught us nothing.

But we are not here to serve the system. We selected the system to serve us.

To get here, we ignored the most fundamental principle of systems, economic or otherwise: no system can long survive predatory greed, graft, and corruption on the part of those who manage it. Of course this reality has been understood since the Bronze Age, so what went wrong?  Too many members of a mutual admiration society, the politically and economically powerful, concluded that any system that met their needs so admirably had to be near perfect.  To perfect it, they concluded, it was necessary only to elbow government out of the picture completely, and to make all forms of government service punishable as unworthy of rational people (i.e., themselves). A political party sold out to the nonsensical proposition that if you give enough money to rich people, they will allow some to fall from their pockets to be scavenged by the needy.

But we are where we are. It was all about money and how I get my share and yours too.  Reality requires us now to find a system that works or to lead very different lives than we imagined.  As our only viable model, the fundamental tenets of capitalism must be re-worked in ways that account for and control managerial tendencies which many of us deem criminal.  Techniques for divorcing politics and Wall Street must be devised. Draconian regulatory and oversight practices must be adopted to curb insatiable greed.  To ignore the depravity that led us to the brink is to condemn ourselves to a Sisyphean  fate.  Capitalism seemed superior to alternate systems because it appeared to do a better job of recognizing man’s basic nature.  Let us now dip deep into the well of cynicism to extract the required level of suspicion to cope with man’s base nature.

Oligarchy by Adjudication

 

The already vast chasm between how we think and talk about politics, and how politics really works, continues to widen.  The recent Supreme Court’s campaign finance ruling (Citizens United) reversed a century of law limiting the ability of business to affect political outcomes. But a conservative Court, out of compassion for corporations which long ago mastered techniques for circumventing the law, has abolished the few remaining spending constraints. 

True, corporations still cannot contribute directly to political campaigns.  But since a major portion of campaign funds goes toward advertising, and corporations are legally permitted – for the first time - to relieve politicians and parties of that burden, what is the logical outcome? Corporations have owned politicians in the past, but ownership was fluid.  The Supreme Court ruling authorizes direct purchase of politicians at all levels, and thereby transfers governance at all levels to those with bulging bank balances.  No doubt the interest of the wealthiest among us will be served, but we may be left with a form of democracy that makes China seem liberal.

In the short run, this seems to aid Republicans.  But Darwinian Democrats, fighting for survival, can undergo genetic changes as well.  In the long run, no one wins but those who agree with Ayn Rand that money is the appropriate arbiter of human survival.

Like the rest of us, politicians are motivated by a combination of  values and priorities. Nearly all holders of public office value power and position, and all see themselves as abler servants of their constituents than any possible rival. The only antidote to abuses – term limits – is beyond our reach. So America will, more than ever, be run by boards of directors who bankroll the campaign advertising of the candidate who best aligns himself with their corporate priorities. Ergo, America’s brief experiment in participatory democracy is in cardiac arrest. If you doubt this, ask John McCain or Russ Feingold.

We Have Nothing to Fear But Fear Mongers

By using their public platforms to shout the words “terror”, “terrorist”, and “terrorism” countless times in every form of media, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Rudy Giuliani turned America from a nation of confident men and women into a cringing and cowardly country in under five years.  We now plead for someone to take care of us, protect us, and deliver us from the bogeymen our government created. We’ve reached such an alarmist state that we refuse to allow transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to federal “supermax” facilities that have never known an escape.  These facilities house, among others, a man who has ripped out and eaten his victims’ brains.  Is he less intimidating than the 19 Guantanamo Uyghurs from Northwest China who are mad at their own government? Besides, don't we have a couple of hundred million guns to protect ourselves?

While irrational fear eats at the soul and undermines the spirit of otherwise rational people, it serves as an easily calibrated control mechanism for those who need us to behave in ways they dictate.  Only six members of the House of Representatives had the courage to oppose the bill prohibiting transfer of Guantanamo prisoners. That’s 1.4% of our national legislators who think they can keep their jobs if they put prisoners in jails from which there is no escape.  Is this reasonable?

We are told to cringe because these masterfully trained instruments of destruction mean to end our way of life.  Yet every training video we see from  terrorist camps shows them dressed in boy burkhas,  swinging on monkey bars as we did at my school in the second grade.  In addition they’re seen climbing a wooden wall that would  be laughed at any Army boot camp.

Cringing and cowardly people will no doubt submit letters in opposition to bringing any “terrorists” into our prison system, thus supporting the effectiveness of the Bush/Cheney/Guiliani mind-control techniques.

Bad Conduct Discharge

Comander in Chief George Bush’s Bad Conduct Discharge, to be conferred on January 20, 2009, is awarded to any member of the military whose actions are deemed dishonorable. Even the tiny group of myopic supporters who stuck with him to the end are now washing their hands of their erstwhile leader. There seems to be a consensus that Laura Bush, a woman of understanding and compassion, would have made a far better President.  His father, whom Junior has spent his life trying to impress, sees his own legacy evaporating in the miasma rising from the economic quagmire.

Time will heal the national humiliation he brought his country, but many won’t live to see America crawl out of the hole he dug.   Bin Laden’s attack on America will begin to dim in memory before the wounds left by this Presidency heal. But before bidding him adieu – fittingly, a French goodbye - we should thank President Bush for teaching every voter one of the great lessons of history: If we send small men to struggle with great challenges, we spend a long time regretting our choices.  Intellect in politicians is not much honored in America.  Now that we each personally feel the effects of its lack, it has earned a second chance.

Blagojevich is One of Us

December 10, 2008

Crude, mercenary, mendacious, corrupt, and delusional he may be, but Governor Blagojevich need feel no sense of isolation in 21^st century America. Is he so different from Bob Nardelli, the Bush friend who expedited Chrysler’s failure after his ouster – with $210 million in severance pay – from Home Depot? Is he greedier than Grasso, the NYSE head who accepted a year-over-year salary raise from $5 million to $180 million? Does he compare, either in venality, hubris, or recklessness with the $85 billion AIG executive crew who had the foresight to make their criminal corporation indispensable to America? Has he wrecked as many lives and as many futures and as many countries’ economies as the designers of the financial derivatives built on worthless mortgages? Has he failed so completely and over such a long period as the GM executives who sing “Hey Buddy Can You Spare A Dime” twice each month in front of Congress? 

Blagojevich can at least argue that his brand of corruption is a long-standing tradition in Illinois, whereas America’s Corporate leaders are still in the process of establishing their own brand of incompetence and corruption. His yearning for a $250K job is not much more than an update on the Spiro Agnew dream. Our anger at him resembles my enduring anger at myself for my eight-year-old vote for a man inferior in intellect, character and personality to my mechanic.

If such commentary imparts a taste of sour grapes, then let me dispel the notion that I’m feeling cynical.  Basically, I think we’re doing about as well as our species is capable of. We have, and we will always have, millions of selfless, caring, adult, compassionate and concerned citizens.  They are what holds us together as a nation and what, in the end, justifies our existence.  The undeniable reality that politics seldom appeal to people with these qualities concerns me only insofar as it limits what we might have become. But that ship has long since sailed out of sight.  

It is now left to us to fight the economic Armageddon that our political and business leaders have thoughtlessly triggered with their “bring-it-on” egos. In this cause-and-effect world, those few who retain a trace of conscience will be consumed by the insatiable greed that brought us to this awful moment in our history.