#274 / A Penny Saved

Warren Buffett, pictured immediately below Benjamin Franklin, was featured in a relatively recent Wall Street Journal article. The article identified Buffett as "one of the most successful investors of all time." The point of the article is that Buffett's investing success has been premised upon his practice of maintaining his investments over time. Money grows! That's the point upon which Buffett has made his billions. 

Upon reading the article about Buffett, which I found quite interesting, I immediately thought of Benjamin Franklin, who is alleged to have said, "a penny saved is a penny earned." This is certainly wise counsel, but Buffett's investment strategy suggests that Franklin's investment expectations were way too low. 

Sure, it's better to save than to expend, but if you end up with the same penny, years after you've saved it, all you have really done is to defer the expenditure. In other words, all you have done is to have delayed whatever benefit the expenditure of that penny might bring. In the worst case, of course, you will have missed that benefit entirely, if you happen to die before recovering that penny from the bank, or from wherever you have squirreled it away, and finally spending it.

I was pleased, therefore, when seeking out a verification of the Franklin statement, to find that Franklin never actually said, "a penny saved is a penny earned." That, at least, is the claim of The Franklin Institute. 

According to the Institute, Franklin's actual statement, made in the 1737 edition of Poor Richard's Almanack, is as follows: 

A penny saved is two pence clear.

Ben Franklin, in other words was propounding the same advice as Warren Buffett, and he was doing that some forty years before the American Revolution. Save those pennies, he said, and double your money.

It's still good advice!

Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.fi.edu/benjamin-franklin/7-things-benjamin-franklin-never-said

(2) - WSJ Zweig warren buffett and haircut

#273 / Incipient

Could I suggest another answer? How about fundamental political, social, and economic change?

Play Now!

Image Credit:

https://www.wordgenius.com/words

#272 / Aw Shucks Fascism

As far as I know, this New Yorker Article on "How Wagner Shaped Hollywood" should be accessible to those who click the link. Having had a chance to watch the entire Ring Cycle twice, and as someone who is hoping that I may be able to see it at least one more time (before my time runs out), I was fascinated by how author Alex Ross documented the deep penetration of Wagner's music into American culture.

Wagner's music, of course, is often associated with Fascism and the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Ross' article begins with an evaluation of "Birth of A Nation," a 1915 silent movie credited with having stimulated a renaissance of the Ku Klux Klan. He considers how Charlie Chaplin employed Wagner, and then moves on to our modern superhero literature. You will be particularly interested in this article if you are a movie buff, or a fan of various television series that have apparently employed Wagner's music in unexpected ways. Many of the film and television references were way beyond the boundaries of my personal knowledge.

The picture at the top of this blog posting, of course, is a scene from Apocalypse Now, picturing American helicopters on their way to destroy a village in Vietnam. That is a film with which I am familiar. The kicker in the film, as Ross notes, was that Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" was portrayed as an explicit part of the American assault. If you haven't seen the movie, or if you need to refresh your recollection, you can watch a brief video clip, below. Turn up the sound for the full effect!

Ross says that George Lucas and his original "Star Wars Trilogy," ends with an "aw shucks" appropriation of Fascist style, based on the use of Wagner's music. The question Ross wants us to explore is whether or not Hollywood films and other forms of popular culture are complicit in the exercise of American hegemony.

"The urge to sacralize culture, to transform aesthetic pursuits into secular religion and redemptive politics, did not die out with the degeneration of Wagnerian Romanticism into Nazi kitsch," says Ross. We are still facing that, today. It is a feature of our contemporary politics.

To the degree that using Wagner as "background music" assists in the perpetuation of American hegemony, in all its "chauvinist exceptionalism, its culture of violence, [and] its pervasive economic and racial inequities," we need to make some changes!

Image Credit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuvSA0rLiiA

#271 / Resistance By Insistence

A rather terrifying article is set to appear as the cover story in the November 2020 edition of The Atlantic magazine.* Because the article is timely - and important - The Atlantic has made it available in a "special preview." Just click this link to read it. There may be a paywall problem that gets in the way, if you are not a subscriber, but see if you can track it down. It is not a short article, but it is a worthwhile one. There has already been quite a lot of press discussion about it.

The article I am referencing is by Barton Gellman, and is titled, "The Election That Could Break America." Essentially, the article examines how a president who is determined "never to concede" can bring the nation to a Constitutional crisis, with very uncertain outcomes. As you may have read in my blog posting yesterday, at least some people think that the expected outcomes aren't that uncertain at all. If the president refuses to concede, and plunges the nation into a Constitutional crisis, these people think that "civil war" will result.

I am arguing against that, of course. I refused to go to Vietnam to kill people, and I am not going to stand around and watch video games come to life in the streets of America - not without trying to stop that from happening, at least. I am of the opinion that there are a lot of people just like me. "Civil war" is not the right response to the kind of conflicts that Gellman identifies, even admitting that these potential conflicts pose truly terrible problems. Giving in and giving up to an authoritarian assertion of power isn't the right thing, either.

What, then, is the correct response? If an unconstitutional and illegal ururpation of democratic self-government is attempted, isn't resistance required?

Well, yes. I think it is, but let's get our definitions right. "Resistance" and "violence" are not the same thing. 

One of the "Five Guys" upon whom I rely suggests "insistence" is the best form of "resistance." That's Gandhi, and I'm sticking with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., who was of exactly the same mind. Gandhi had a special word to describe the process he advises to combat injustice. "Satyagraha" is Gandhi's word. It means "clinging to the truth." It means "insisting" on what is right.

If the crisis comes, as Gellman suggests is a real possibility, we need to refuse to accede to what is not "true," and we are not limited to standing by and watching how democracy dies, either. In fact, we can "insist" that the right thing be done, and refuse to capitulate to any attempt to destroy our democracy by illegitimate claims and the imposition of force. Thousands and tens of thousands of nonviolent actions, as a response to an unjust and authoritarian claim of power, is the response that I propose.

Of course, that kind of response is the opposite of "passive." Ir requires us to set aside our normal activities, and it requires us to put our lives on the line too. We will do that, when the crisis comes,  only if we value our collective life together - our country - as a higher priority than our individual safety and convenience. Patriots have to be willing to die for their country, we're told. I think that's right. 

But being willing to die for our country is a a lot different thing from being willing to kill for it. I am not going to kill for democracy, because that isn't how democracy will be preserved. 

We need to insist that we will not tolerate the theft of our government. Insistence is resistance, and that's what we have got to be ready to do - clearly, forcefully, and for as long as it takes - if the worst thing happens.

________________________________________________

Image Credit:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/28/the-legal-fight-awaiting-us-after-the-election

*Other recent articles make many of the same points that Gellman does. John Cassidy's short article from The New Yorker is titled, "Donald Trump is Attacking American Democracy at Its Core." Jeffrey Toobin's article in The New Yorker is "The Legal Fight Awaiting Us After The Election."

#270 / Four Possible Civil Wars

 

A "wargame designer" named Mike Selinker has decided that his professional expertise qualifies him to outline four different kinds of civil war, one of which we will almost certainly face rather shortly, the way he sees it:

We're facing a civil war (Selinker says): 

Up until yesterday, I wasn’t thinking a civil war was probable. But then Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. With her likely went the last chance the 2020 election will end peacefully.

Here are the four types of civil war that this wargame designer is envisioning: 

Scenario #1: A Biden blowout - Comparable war: The American Civil War

Scenario #2: A close Biden win - Comparable war: The Russian Revolution

Scenario #3: A contested result - Comparable war: The Irish War of Independence

Scenario #4: A Trump win - Comparable war: The Rwandan Civil War

I was alerted to the Selinker analysis by a local political activist who distributed Selinker's prognostications to a local, Santa Cruz County mailing list. He accompanied the Selinker analysis with this statement: 

 

How do we not give in, or see violence as the inevitable result of all the information and actions on the part of Trumpism that we know about at this point? Is there some kind of inevitability to what’s going on?

I apologize. I am sorry to do it, but please allow me to vent. When I got the posting from Selinker, accompanied by the message just quoted, I felt like I should yell at these people: 

WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST STOP THIS!

Perhaps it is understandable why a person who dreams up "war games" for a living might be trying to dream them up in real life. Experienced political activists, however, should not be positing about "some kind of inevitability" when it comes to civil war. 

As I am fond of saying in this blog, "nothing is inevitable." To suggest that we will soon be killing each other, and that "some kind of inevitability" might be going on, is to capitulate to  a prospect so filled with horror that it is almost too much to contemplate. If we really think that this is a possibility, we should be doing everything possible to prevent it from happening, not sitting on the sidelines doing commentary and analysis. 

Telling people that a civil war is "inevitable," or even that such a civil war is "maybe" inevitable, is to make violent conflict ever more likely. Are we really thinking that this is a good idea?

I think any one of the four scenarios outlined by Selinker is possible: (1) A Biden blowout; (2) A narrorw Biden win; (3) A contested election, or (4) A Trump victory. That is pretty much the waterfront in terms of what we will see on and after November 3rd. One of those things is almost certainly going to happen!

That does not mean I am buying that civil war will be the result. Can't we all start telling ourselves that whatever happens, we will live through it and continue to work for the kind of democratic government and democratic change that we know, from both history and personal experience, is not only possible, but that is capable of transforming our world in positive ways? 

Can't we, please, stop dreaming about a civil war? That's what the right wing militias are doing. No need to join them! 

Once again, if you're in the business of designing "war games" as your job, it's clear why your mind might trend in the direction of envisioning such wars occuring in "real life." None of the rest of us need to go there. We must not go there! Civil war is not a "game."

We do need to be thinking of how to respond to whatever scenario identified by Selinker may come to pass - but let's think about nonviolent, positive responses - not responses in which we start killing each other. 

Read my blog posting from this last Thursday for one approach. Go watch Eyes On The Prize, for other ideas. Eyes On The Prize documents how the Civil Rights movement used nonviolent action to change the course of the nation. We're going to need to do it again. 

Killing each other won't win the prize. Only in video games. Never in real life!

So for heaven's sakes, friends, let's stop trying to talk ourselves into a civil war. OK?

Image Credit:

https://medium.com/@mikeselinker/a-wargame-designer-describes-our-four-possible-civil-wars-cf5b2e980099

#269 / Dream On

A few days ago, my magic inbox, which delivers way more material than I can read, gifted me with an article from Governing. The article asked readers to "Stop Pontificating About The American Dream." That might be a good idea - or maybe not. I decided to say something about that proposition. 

Having made that decision, I then had to find a photograph to head up my blog posting. The one associated with the article in Governing was clearly not suitable. You can see that photo by clicking on the link to the article. It depicts a happy American family, a father, a blonde-haired mother, a son, and a daughter, gathered in a nice living room (circa 1950, with a rotary dial telephone clearly visible). Everyone is paying great attention to the father, who is introducing the family to the wonders of television. I well remember my father doing the same thing for us, when our family got its first television. 

Except for the fact that my mother was a brunette, not a blonde, this was a real scene from my past!

Given that the family depicted in the Governing illustration is all white, I decided that anyone seeing that photograph at the top of my blog posting might (erroneously) conclude that I am dreaming of an America where Black people just don't get seen. That is not really my idea of "The American Dream."  Quite the opposite, in fact. I felt compelled to look elsewhere for an illustration. This brought me to an article by Mark Manson, an author who promises "Life Advice That Doesn't Suck." He tells us that "The American Dream Is Killing Us." Assuming that he was going to be critical of our habits of over-consumption, I thought his article might be a better reference point. I got the tattered flag image from him.

The Governing article is a thoughtful review of how "the American Dream" has been variously portrayed throughout our history. That dream does, according to Governing, seem to have a lot to do with material possessions, and, also, according to Governing, with real estate. Here is a quick excerpt, suggesting that "the American dream" is something of a late-blooming concept:

IT MAY SEEM THAT AMERICAN DREAM FANTASIES must date back to the founding of the Republic, but in fact they are a modern conceit. The phrase "American Dream" was first used in 1931 by the historian James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America. It meant, he wrote, "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone." Better and richer and fuller in what way? He didn't say. Maybe in the middle of the Depression it seemed obvious. It doesn't seem quite so obvious now.

Manson makes explicit what is implied in the article in Governing. In Manson's telling, there is no question about it. "The American Dream" is all about money, possessions and, yes, real estate: 

The American Dream is simple: it’s the unwavering belief that anybody — you, me, your friends, your neighbors, grandma Verna — can become exceedingly successful, and all it takes is the right amount of work, ingenuity, and determination. Nothing else matters. No external force. No bout of bad luck. All one needs is a steady dosage of grit and ass-grinding hard work. And you too can own a McMansion with a three-car garage… you lazy sack of shit.

As I have mentioned before, my father always told me, "If you don't have a dream, Gary, you will never have a dream come true." Steeped in this wisdom from an early age, I am reluctant to discard "dreaming." I do have an observation, however, about that "American Dream" idea. 

As can be noted in both the Governing article and the Manson article, the so-called "American Dream" is historically portrayed in individualistic terms. It isn't, really, so much an "American" dream that we are talking about; it's a dream that individual persons can make more money, and buy bigger houses. That kind of "American Dream" is, I would have to agree with Manson, "killing us." I am in agreement with Governing, too, that we ought to stop "pontificating" about that idea. 

But what about a dream that was truly an "American" dream, a dream for us all, together? What about the idea that we ought to be dreaming about how to make real the promise of the American Revolution? That is what I think is the genuine, and true, and appropriate "American Dream."

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Like my Dad always said, "if you don't have a dream, you will never have a dream come true." So, let's not stop dreaming about that truly revolutionary idea, presented above, articulated in The Declaration of Independence. 

By the way, my Dad didn't mean "wishing" when he said, "dreaming." He meant "working at it."

As long as we have all our definitions right, I say, "Dream On!"

Image Credit:

https://markmanson.net/american-dream

#268 / Violence Is Not

I just recently heard about a group called Nonviolent Peaceforce. Click that link to find out what they're doing. Essentially, Nonviolent Peaceforce is training people all around the world in how to deal with violent conflict in a nonviolent manner. 

Here is what Nonviolent Peaceforce says on the stick-on button they provided me, in the letter I recently received: 

Conflict Is Inevitable

Violence Is Not 

That sounds right to me!

Up until recently, Nonviolent Peaceforce has been working in South Sudan, in Myanmar, in the Philippines, and in Iraq. They have an international office in Geneva, Switzerland, and their U.S. office is in Minneapolis. 

You remember Minneapolis, right? That's where George Floyd was killed by officers in the Minneapolis police department. 

I can't help but think that what has happened in Minneapolis has caused Nonviolent Peaceforce to decide that their expertise and intervention are now needed right here in the United States. Their latest projects are in Minneapolis, Portland, and Chicago. They're training local communities, here in the United States, on how to work towards security (and social change) without violence. 

I am glad that Nonviolent Peaceforce is turning its attention back home. We are going to need to figure out just how we can move forward with the social, political, and economic changes we have to make, without becoming enmeshed in the kind of military and quasi-military confrontations that our current president seems determined to promote. 

It is true that "conflict is inevitable." And John Lewis put his finger on it. That's "good trouble," he said. We're going to need quite a bit of that!

Conflict is inevitable. 

But violence is not. 

I think I'll send Nonviolent Peaceforce some bucks!

Image Credit:

https://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org

#267 / I Think I May Have Lost Control Of My Life

Exactly one month ago, on Sunday, August 23, 2020, I was reading my newspapers in the morning, as I almost always do, and since it was a Sunday morning, the pile of papers was large, and I felt at leisure, sitting comfortably on the couch in my sunny front room. The fires raging in the mountains around Santa Cruz were, somehow, not on my mind. Not yet, anyway!

On Sunday, The New York Times sends along both its New York Times Magazine and The New York Times Book Review. They are special treats, not available on weekdays, and I can spend a lot of time reading them. I already spend way too much time reading the newspapers (or so I frequently tell myself), and Sundays are definitely when I most often come to that conclusion. It is not unknown for me to sit down with the papers, and a cup of coffee, at, say, 6:30 in the morning, finally getting up to make my breakfast at a little before noon!

At any rate, on Sunday, August 23, 2020, on facing pages in the Book Review, I found an "Essay" by Karan Mahajan, and another "Essay" by Naomi Huffman. Mahajan's "Essay" was titled, "'The Golden Notebook' neatly foreshadows the unrestful mood of our era." Online, the Mahajan "Essay" is headlined, "Doris Lessing's 'Golden Notebook' and Our Era of Unrest." Huffman's "Essay" was titled, "Carol Shield's depictions of ordinary women and their lives are still radical." That's the hard copy title. Online, it's titled, "The Radical Ordinariness of Carol Shields’s Literary World." 

Unless you are a subscriber, you might have trouble penetrating The New York Times' paywall, to read these essays for yourself. I really liked them, and can recommend them. I was convinced by Mahajan and Huffman, in fact, that I should read Lessing's The Golden Notebook and Shield's novel, The Stone Diaries. 

Before rushing off to order these books online, however, I thought it might be prudent to see whether I actually had the books in my home library, part of which is shown in the picture at the top of this blog posting. This set of shelves fills one entire wall in my front room, and the books are organized alphabetically by author, so it was short work to discover that I not only already owned these two books, but that I had read and heavily underlined and annotated them. 

What a surprise! While I definitely knew the titles of these books, I had no independent recollection that I had actually read them myself, and that I had interacted with them to the extent that my underlinings and notations indicate that I did. This discovery is what has led me to write this blog posting, wondering whether or not I have lost control of my life. Have I?

Maybe I have, and I have decided, looking on the bright side, that this may not be such a bad thing. "My" life, a life that I control in all its details, is perhaps less important than "life" in general, in simply being alive. I truly have no specific memory of either The Golden Notebook or The Stone Diaries; however, while I don't hold them in memory individually, I really do think that all those books I've read, all the experiences I have had, and all the wonderful people that I have known, have come to penetrate to the very heart of who I am, and what I have become. They are me, by now, and I am them. I do know who I am, and what I think, and every day I write about it, as if to remind myself. 

Losing control of my life, I think I would say, is how I have found it. 

I have heard that there is supposed to be some wisdom in that approach!

Image Credit:

Gary Patton personal photo

#266 / Evil Geniuses

I have just finished reading Evil Geniuses, The Unmaking of America, by Kurt Andersen. The cover of Andersen's brand-new book is shown at the bottom of this blog posting. One of the "evil geniuses" that Andersen identifies is pictured above. That's Milton Friedman. Also included in Andersen's "evil genius" list are Charles and David Koch, generally known as the "Koch Brothers," Grover Norquist, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Richard Mellon Scaife, and Joseph Coors. I am providing you only a "partial list," which doesn't include any of the conservative think tanks that carried out the extreme right-wing agenda put into play by the "geniuses."

Andersen documents how a discrete number of well-connected businessmen and their supporters (all men, of course) collaborated with others to design and then implement a program systematically to turn America away from all of the social and economic gains made in the first part of the 20th Century. Their project was to change American politics and law to build a governmental structure that  would advantage corporations, and disadvantage working people, and that would siphon wealth from poor and middle class Americans into the small class of the super-rich. Andersen calls it the "long game." As he tells the story, the plan was initiated in the late 1960s and came to fruition in the 1980's, and  has been working itself out in all the years that have followed. 

They had a plan, those "evil geniuses," and what do you know? The plan worked! Andersen's point, in telling us what is, in some sense, a very familiar story, is to point out that all of the changes that have led to our current economic, social, and political situation - the conditions that gave us Donald J. Trump as president -  didn't just "happen" by some sort of autonomous process. There was an actual plan in place - and not really even a "conspiracy," because it was pretty public. People worked to carry it out, and their work paid off. 

It paid off for them, that is! As Andersen says on Page 190: 

It wasn't just that serious salary increases started going only to a small group of fortunate workers. The share of money that went to all employees, rather than to corporate shareholders and business owners, also became smaller. Until 1980, America's national split of "gross domestic income" was around 60-40 in favor of workers, but then it began dropping and is now approaching 50-50. That change amounts to almost $1 trillion a year, an annual average of around $5,000 that each person with a job isn't being paid. Instead, every household in the top 1 percent of earners has been getting $700,000 extra every year. It undoubtdly has been the largest and fastest upward redistribution of wealth in history. 

Andersen does an outstanding job helping us to understand exactly how our economy, and society, and politics were transformed over the last fifty years, and he shows us that the way things are now was not, ever, inevitable. Now, it's time to turn the tables, he says, and he does give us a few suggestions.

oooOOOooo

Meanwhile, as I have been reading about Milton Friedman and the other "evil geniuses" in Andersen's book, The New York Times has also been turning its attention to Friedman. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that the critique of Friedman outlined by Andersen is directly addressed by an Opinion Editorial in the September 19, 2020 edition of The Times. In the hard copy version that hit my doorstep last Saturday, The Times' Op-Ed is titled, "Blaming Milton Friedman." Online, The Times expanded its thought, headlining the Op-Ed as follows: "50 Years of Blaming Milton Friedman. Here’s Another Idea."

Before we get to that "other idea," what is the essence of the complaint against Friedman? The Times' Op-Ed, authored by Binyamin Appelbaum, puts it this way: "Corporations, [Friedman said], have no social responsibilities except the sacred responsibility to make money." Andersen would concur that this is something to complain about. One of the main themes of his book is that this so-called "principle" of of our "political economy," in combination with the various activities of the other "evil geniuses" he names, has produced the horrific economic, social, and political effects that we are living with today.

So, what's that "other idea" that The Times suggests we ought to consider? Here is how Appelbaum presents it: 

Friedman, a free-market ideologue, published an essay 50 years ago this week in The Times Magazine in which he argued that corporations should not go beyond the letter of the law to combat discrimination or reduce pollution or maintain community institutions. Corporations, he said, have no social responsibilities except the sacred responsibility to make money. 

The essay was a big hit with the executive class. Rich people were only too delighted to see selfishness portrayed as a principled stand. Friedman’s creed became the standard justification for corporate callousness. The Business Roundtable, a leading lobby for large companies, declared in 1997 that maximizing profit was the purpose of a corporation. 

Critics have been fighting ever since to get corporations to acknowledge broader responsibilities. 

It’s the wrong battle. Instead of redefining the role of the corporation, we need to redefine the role of the state (emphasis added).

I tend to think that Andersen would agree with The Times' Op-Ed. I agree with it, too. 

Instead of begging the corporations to "treat us nice," we need to ressurect a government that acts on behalf of the public (not the corporations), and that makes these corporations conduct themselves in ways that don't siphon off wealth to the ultra-rich. Using our political power, we need to ensure that corporations are enforceably required to share the amazing productivity of our economy with everyone in the country. As I like to say, whenever it seems the slightest bit relevant: "We are all in this together."

Here is the most amazing thing I read in the Andersen book. Think about it. Understand what is really being said here:

In a U.S. society of perfect economic equality, all the money would ... be divided equally among Americans - the total income of $19 trillion (according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis) and the U.S. personal wealth of about $100 trillion (according to the Federal Reserve) all parceled out equally to each of the 129 million U.S. households.

In this imaginary America 2, every household has a new worth of $800,000 and an annual income from all sources of $140,000. 

Those numbers shocked me. They shocked me so much I had a long correspondence with a Harvard economics professor about them to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding something.

In this leveled-out America 2 not only would nobody be poor (or rich) but everyone would be upper middle class. Everyone would have an income and net worth that would put them, in today's actual America, well within the most affluent top fifth of the population. It would almost be as if the American Dream tagline of the fictional town in A Prairie Home Companion, "all the children above average," came true for the whole country economically. 

A "perfect" sharing of all our nation's resources is probably not going to happen anytime soon. But there is clearly lots of room to "level up." And let's not think that "leveling up" is impossible or unrealistic. Remember that the "evil geniuses" implemented a plan that has "leveled us down" over the last fifty years, and that has created the mammoth income inequality that characterizes our country today.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. What goes up must come down. All of that good stuff!

Let's remember that democratic self-government means that it is "We the people," not the corporations or the "evil geniuses," who actually have the ultimate power. Of course, to make that work for us, we have to organize and use it.

So, having read what Andersen tells us could be possible, here's my thought: Let's make a plan!

oooOOOooo

This book is highly recommended!

Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Milton-Friedman

(2) - https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Geniuses-Unmaking-America-History/dp/1984801341

#265 / The Barr Speech

I am no fan of Bill Barr, pictured above, who is currently serving as Attorney General of the United States. Barr was appointed by our current president, and many have criticized Barr for acting more like the president's personal lawyer than as the lawyer who is supposed to represent the United States government in its entirety, as the government's top prosecutor. 

On September 16, 2020, Attorney General Barr delivered a "Constitution Day" speech at Hillsdale College, generally considered to be a bastion of right wing politics. Here is how Wikipedia describes the college: 

Hillsdale, a private conservative college in Hillsdale, Michigan, was founded in 1844 by abolitionists known as Free Will Baptists. It has a liberal arts curriculum that is based on the Western heritage as a product of both the Greco-Roman culture and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hillsdale requires every student, regardless of concentration of studies, to complete a core curriculum that includes courses on the Great Books, the U.S. Constitution, biology, chemistry, and physics. Since the late 20th century, the college has been one of several in the United States that decline governmental financial support, instead depending entirely on private donations to supplement students' tuition.

Barr's speech at Hillsdale, a complete transcript of which is available by clicking that link, was roundly criticized in the media. Much of the criticism focused on Barr's claim that coronavirus stay at home orders represented something akin to slavery: “Other than slavery," Barr said, "which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history.”

The comparison of health-based orders to control the pandemic to slavery was not the only part of Barr's speech that some found objectionable. Vox called the speech a "stunning hypocrisy," and noted that Barr advocated for his personal control over the prosecutorial decisions of lower-level prosecutors who are pursuing prosecutions throughout the United States. As Vox observed, Barr has been intervening to call off prosecutions that are unfavorable to the president, and in which the president's friends and associates have been accused of crimes.

The Wall Street Journal came to Barr's defense on Friday, September 18, 2020, in an editorial that claimed that "the left" has distorted Barr's speech. 

For those interested, it is worthwhile to test the claims of the editorial (presented below) against the text of Barr's speech. Personally, I believe that Barr is misusing his office, and that his appeal to "principle" is, essentaially, bogus. His allegience is solely to Donald J. Trump, not to the nation. As I say, that is my belief, but if you do the reading of both the Wall Street Journal editorial and the speech, you can make up your own mind. 

One statement made by Barr in his speech, and highlighted by the Wall Street Journal editorial, is worth highlighting. Barr said this: 

Political accountability—politics—is what ultimately ensures our system does its work fairly and with proper recognition of the many interests and values at stake. Government power completely divorced from politics is tyranny.

I definitely agree with Barr on this point. Our system of democratic self-government operates on the basis of the following fomula: 

Politics > Law > Government

If we think good government is independent of "politics," we are sorely mistaken. We will not have a satisfactory "rule of law," and good "government," unless we, ourselves, are engaged in the political life of the nation. That is because the laws to which we are held accountable, and the legal institutions that enforce them, or that decline to enforce them on the basis of "prosecutorial discretion," are ultimately responsible to the elected officials whom we have, ourselves, selected to execute the law. Our political choices, in other words, always come first.

If you don't like what's happening in the office of the United States' Attorney's Office, get yourself in gear to influence everyone you know - and even those you don't - to get to the ballot box on or before November 3rd!

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Bill Barr’s Prosecutorial Warning

The left distorts his important speech on political accountability.

We live in a strange time when progressives say American law enforcement is racist, yet they’ll also go to the mattresses to defend prosecutors from political accountability. Witness the partisan distortions of Attorney General Bill Barr’s Wednesday speech celebrating Constitution Day.

Mr. Barr delivered a thoughtful address on how a democracy should handle the profound power of prosecution. Yet for the Washington Post, it was a “breathtaking broadside” against the “professional attorneys” in the Department of Justice. Former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted that Mr. Barr is “dangerous” and “increasingly absurd,” and Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal called him a “disgrace.”

It’s worth setting straight what Mr. Barr actually said—and its vital significance for our polarized society. First Mr. Barr conveyed the awesome power of prosecutors. “Once the criminal process starts rolling,” he explained in remarks that are on the Justice website, “it is very difficult to slow it down or knock it off course.” He quoted Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, an erstwhile liberal hero, who wrote that prosecutors “strike at citizens not with mere individual strength, but with all the force of government itself.”

In a society that rests on the consent of the governed, such power should not be wielded without democratic accountability. That’s why the Constitution provides that top law-enforcement officers—U.S. Attorneys, senior officials in the Justice Department and ultimately the Attorney General—be appointed by the elected President and confirmed by the Senate. They can also be brought before Congress for questioning, censured or even impeached.

This seems like a straightforward point, but the idea of political accountability for prosecutors is now controversial. Perhaps it’s because of the leftward turn of the legal establishment, or the rise of the “Resistance lawyer” industry during the Trump Administration, or the attachment to the idea of “expert” knowledge superseding political deliberation. Whatever the reason, many progressives seem now to believe that career prosecutors ought to have free rein to pursue cases without supervision. In this view, the Attorney General and other Senate-confirmed officials should be figureheads atop an autonomous lawyerly civil service.

That’s a reversal of the Constitution’s design. It’s also based on a false premise. As Mr. Barr explained, career prosecutors should be trusted and supported, but that does not mean their decisions are free of personal or political motives. Often they take aim at targets to boost their careers. And “like any person, a prosecutor can become overly invested in a particular goal.” Far from an attack on career prosecutors, Mr. Barr recognizes human nature. 

He also noted the dangerous trend of prosecutors bringing cases based on creative interpretations of statutes to punish non-criminal behavior. The Supreme Court agrees with him on this point, having overturned several convictions in recent years, such as one against a fisherman accused of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-shredding law because he tossed a small grouper back in the water (Yates v. U.S.). 

Mr. Barr admits it is “counter-intuitive” to recognize that politics plays a role in the fair administration of justice. “But political accountability—politics—is what ultimately ensures our system does its work fairly and with proper recognition of the many interests and values at stake. Government power completely divorced from politics is tyranny,” he said.

Accountability also means an AG has to take the political heat for decisions, as Mr. Barr has. For an example of the alternative, recall James Comey’s willful decision to absolve publicly Hillary Clinton in the email case in 2016. Both AG Loretta Lynch and deputy Sally Yates abdicated their duty to supervise the FBI and take responsibility for the prosecutorial decision. No end of political trouble ensued.

In a better era, Mr. Barr’s speech would have been praised by progressive civil libertarians. It should be now too.

Image Credit:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-barrs-prosecutorial-warning-11600384711

#264 / Eleanor

I have great affection for both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and I have a hunch that without Eleanor, Franklin's presidency would not have been nearly as inspiring. 

I also have great affection for The Sun magazine, and I found in the October 2020 issue a quote from Eleanor, lodged on the very last page of the magazine, in its "Sunbeams" section. One more good reason to love Eleanor Roosevelt: 

One thing I believe profoundly: We make our own history. The course of history is directed by the choices we make, and our choices grow out of the ideas, the beliefs, the values, the dreams of the people. It is not so much the powerful leaders that determine our destiny as the much more powerful influence of the combined voice of the people themselves. 

Image Credit:

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/1/eleanor_roosevelt

#263 / Lucky Us

David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, wrote an opinion editorial on May 22, 2020, that featured the picture above. It was titled, "The First Invasion of America." Here is an excerpt:

To be born American was to be born boldly individual, daring and self-sufficient. “Trust thyself: Every heart vibrates to that iron string,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in an essay called, very Americanly, “Self-Reliance.” 

To be born American was to bow down to no one, to say: I’m no better than anyone else, but nobody’s better than me. Tocqueville wrote about the equality of condition he found in America; no one putting on airs over anyone else. In 1981, Samuel Huntington wrote that American creed was built around a suspicion of authority and a fervent rejection of hierarchy: “The essence of egalitarianism is rejection of the idea that one person has the right to exercise power over another.” 

I found it all so energizing. Being an American was not just a citizenship. It was a vocation, a call to serve a grand national mission. 

Today, of course, we understand what was wrong with that version of American history. It didn’t include everybody. It left out the full horrors of slavery and genocide. 

But here’s what has struck me forcefully, especially during the pandemic: That whole version of the American creed was all based on an assumption of existential security. Americans had the luxury of thinking and living the way they did because they had two whopping great oceans on either side. The United States was immune to foreign invasion, the corruptions of the old world. It was often spared the plagues that swept over so many other parts of the globe.

Brooks is certainly right that Americans have generally had the sense that we are "safe," because we are protected by those two oceans. The pathological fear of immigration felt by some portions of the population, which is another less-than-estimable part of American history, is based in part on the fear that the nation's protective borders can perhaps be penetrated, making us vulnerable. 

Brooks thinks a change is going on, with the current global pandemic playing a major role. Past understandings are being modified, and Brooks' prediction is that "economic resilience will be more valued than maximized efficiency ... The local and the rooted will be valued more than the distantly networked." "Community" will be valued over "individualism, [and] embeddedness over autonomy." 

Brooks speaks, always, as an "observer," trying to see what will happen to us. As "actors," we know that we actually create the reality we inhabit, ourselves. What we think will be possible - and thus what is possible - depends, of course, on our sense of who we are and where we are. We have been lucky in being able to grow up with those two "whopping great oceans" to the East and West, but we may be starting to get the sense that it is not those "borders" that provide us security, but that security is something we provide for ourselves, as we act together. If we are changing our way of thinking, to understand that our "security" comes from our commitment to one another, then this is an evidence that we have turned an important corner. The latest invasion that has come our way is the stimulus that can help us to discover a whole new world.

That "New World" thing should be pretty familiar. Americans have some experience with that, and this time around, let's not leave anyone behind, as we retool that Declaration that set us off the first time. Those truths are still "self-evident," that all persons are created equal, with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We were lucky to learn it, early on, and there is no reason to forget that, now!

Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/opinion/us-coronavirus-history.html

#262 / Everybody Got To Move

This picture, of the Ranch Fire, in Azusa, California, is one of several horrific photographs included in an article that ran in The New York Times Magazine, and that was published online in collaboration with ProPublica. This was the second article in a series that began with "The Great Climate Migration." 

The first article, which I have just linked above, took a global perspective. The second article, from which the picture comes, is titled, "How Climate Migration Will Reshape America." It was published on September 15, 2020, and it focuses on the United States. The article is extremely long - but worthwhile reading! I am providing a short sample, below. I encourage those reading this blog posting to read the article in its entirety.

Let’s start with some basics. Across the country, it’s going to get hot. Buffalo, New York, may feel in a few decades like Tempe, Arizona, does today, and Tempe itself will sustain 100-degree average summer temperatures by the end of the century. Extreme humidity from New Orleans to northern Wisconsin will make summers increasingly unbearable, turning otherwise seemingly survivable heat waves into debilitating health threats. Fresh water will also be in short supply, not only in the West but also in places like Florida, Georgia and Alabama, where droughts now regularly wither cotton fields. By 2040, according to federal government projections, extreme water shortages will be nearly ubiquitous west of Missouri. The Memphis Sands Aquifer, a crucial water supply for Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana, is already overdrawn by hundreds of millions of gallons a day. Much of the Ogallala Aquifer — which supplies nearly a third of the nation’s irrigation groundwater — could be gone by the end of the century. 

It can be difficult to see the challenges clearly because so many factors are in play. At least 28 million Americans are likely to face megafires like the ones we are now seeing in California, in places like Texas and Florida and Georgia. At the same time, 100 million Americans — largely in the Mississippi River Basin from Louisiana to Wisconsin — will increasingly face humidity so extreme that working outside or playing school sports could cause heatstroke. Crop yields will be decimated from Texas to Alabama and all the way north through Oklahoma and Kansas and into Nebraska. 

The challenges are so widespread and so interrelated that Americans seeking to flee one could well run into another. I live on a hilltop, 400 feet above sea level, and my home will never be touched by rising waters. But by the end of this century, if the more extreme projections of 8 to 10 feet of sea-level rise come to fruition, the shoreline of San Francisco Bay will move 3 miles closer to my house, as it subsumes some 166 square miles of land, including a high school, a new county hospital and the store where I buy groceries. The freeway to San Francisco will need to be raised, and to the east, a new bridge will be required to connect the community of Point Richmond to the city of Berkeley. The Latino, Asian and Black communities who live in the most-vulnerable low-lying districts will be displaced first, but research from Mathew Hauer, a sociologist at Florida State University who published some of the first modeling of American climate migration in the journal Nature Climate Change in 2017, suggests that the toll will eventually be far more widespread: Nearly 1 in 3 people here in Marin County will leave, part of the roughly 700,000 who his models suggest may abandon the broader Bay Area as a result of sea-level rise alone.

I read the article on the day it appeared, and I had what I think might be an unusual reaction. The article dramatically points out the horrors that are just over the horizon. In fact, where I live, in Santa Cruz County, California, thousands of community members have already been experiencing these horrors personally, as local wildfires have destroyed their homes in Last Chance, Bonny Doon, and the San Lorenzo Valley.

One very reasonable reading of what Abrahm Lustgarten has to say is that "we're doomed." Considering our current, dysfunctional response to the Covid-19 global pandemic, there seems to be little reason for any optimism that we can somehow avoid the massive, climate-caused destruction that we know is coming - that we can already see, in fact, coming like wildfire, over the hill.

Yet, I had virtually the opposite reaction. There is no doubt about the daunting - almost insurmountable - challenges ahead, which are the result of heedless, human-caused global warming. Surely, despair is a reaction that does makes sense! What struck me, though, was the fact that the challenges were so great, so serious, that it is now impossible for us to ignore the most important fact of our human existence. We are not a bunch of isolated individuals, separated by race, gender, nationality, income, and education; we are in this life together. 

There is no way our nation - and indeed the world - will be able to survive what is coming (what is already underway) without a fundamental restructuring of our lives together, what I call "politics." All the divisions, from income inequality, to racial injustice, to gender discrimination, to you name it - ALL of them - all of these divisions which we have sanctified as inevitable and normal, must be swept aside. I think that is what is coming. That is what must come. 

Bob Dylan has a wonderful song, Mississippi, which has these lines in its final verse: 

Everybody movin’ if they ain’t already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now

Everybody is going to have to move. But we can do it. Despair is not our only choice. There is such opportunity, adventure, and enterprise ahead. Really! I mean it.

Things should start to get interesting, right about now!

Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html

#261 / Let's Talk About It

Pictured at the front of the class is Dr. Adolph Reed, Jr. Reed is an Emeritus Professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in studies of issues of racism and U.S. politics. Reed has taught at Yale, Northwestern, and at the New School for Social Research. He has written extensively on racial and economic inequality. Reed is a contributing editor to The New Republic, and he has been a frequent contributor to The Progressive and The Nation and other leftwing publications. He is a founding member of the U.S. Labor Party He was a Bernie Sanders supporter during the recent primary elections.

You might think, given this background, that Reed would get a pretty positive reception at a meeting of the New York City Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. Well, he never got the chance to speak!

Reed, it appears, at least according to The New York Times, happens to believe that "the left's intense focus on the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on Black people" is counterproductive, in that it "undermines multiracial organizing." It is Reed's view, apparently, that such multiracial organizing is critically important as a way to move the nation towards health and economic justice. 

Reed might be right (or he might not be right) about this particular viewpoint, but if you were a member of the New York City Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, wouldn't you want to hear what Reed has to say about this?

Apparently not! As reported in the Augsut 15, 2020, edition of The New York Times, after an invitation was extended to Dr. Reed, to speak to the DSA Chapter during a Zoom call meeting, outrage within the Chapter caused the invitation to be withdrawn. The title of The Times' article, which is worth reading if you can slip past the paywall, was "A Marxist's Views on Race and Class Expose a Rift Among Socialists."

Let's be clear that it's not just those "Marxist" types who refuse to talk to people with whom they disagree - or with whom they think they will disagree. I know from some personal experience that people who think that they will disagree with me, or that I will disagree with them, don't want to risk including me in any conversation about the desirability of using masks during the coronavirus crisis. 

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Frequent readers of these blog postings will probably remember the formula that I suggest is the best way to think about how our government works - or should work: 

Politics > Law > Government

We govern ourselves by following various "laws," or "rules," which tell us what we have decided we should do. "Law," however, is never preordained. "Law" is the product of "Politics," which requires robust debate and discussion, as we collectively try to figure out the best rule to make for ourselves. Without that discussion, without that conflict, controversy, and compromise, we are not - collectively - engaging in the process we call "democratic self-government," because that process requires that we all be involved. A group that doesn't want to discuss differences, and different approaches, may not even realize it, but such a group really just wants to impose its ideas on everyone else. That is not the "democratic" way.

Groups involved in "politics" that try to silence or discount persons with whom the group disagrees (or persons with whom the group thinks it will disagree) is opting for a profoundly anti-democratic approach to government. 

When we disagree, and when we think we might disagree, here's the right response: 

Let's Talk About It

Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/adolph-reed-controversy.html

#260 / Five Guys

There used to be a Five Guys hamburger place in Santa Cruz. It was at the corner of Pacific Avenue and Cathcart, right downtown near the Del Mar Theatre. I never ate there, since I had moved beyond hamburger a few years before the Five Guys restaurant showed up. I do remember hearing, though, that the burgers were really good. I always liked the name, too, "Five Guys." Five is my favorite number. Maybe that's the reason. 

At any rate, I realized, just the other day, as I was working in my home office, that I have my own "Five Guys," upon whom I know I can rely for good advice and counsel whenever I find myself in need of that. 

Most days, in other words. 

The "Five Guys" that I am talking about are found in pictures, hanging on my office walls. One of those pictures is immediately below, a 2001 pastel portrait of my father, Philips B. Patton. My father's advice is probably not too accessible to those who may be reading this, though I can refer you to an earlier blog posting, titled "Father's Day Stories." My father's basic teaching, outlined there, was that "anything is possible." I have come to believe it - though not without a struggle, I can assure you. Another one of my father's admonitions has also struck me as good advice: "If you don't have a dream, Gary, you can never have a dream come true."

The teachings of the other authorities upon whom I regularly rely, all of whom are also pictured on my office walls, are much more accessible to the general reader. I am hoping you know who is pictured below, and how to access the Sermon on the Mount. Or, you can try The Jefferson Bible, if you'd like to read a little bit more.

The three others included in my "Five Guys" line up are all on one wall, above my desk, as you can see from the photograph below:

Bob Dylan's website (not to mention YouTube) provides an easy access to what Bob Dylan has to say. It is not a coincidence, I think, that Dylan has a rather powerful song specifically calling out three of my "Five Guys" for special recognition: Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Click here to listen. Click here for the words. "They Killed Him" is the name of the song.

Guidance from Martin Luther King, Jr., and from Gandhi, can be found with no trouble at all. Just click those links to get started. However, you might want to order yourself a poster for your own personal use. I think that would be a pretty good investment. When I start thinking about the social, political, and economic topics on which Gandhi and King have advice worth considering (in other words, when I am thinking about almost any such topic), I always start by looking at those posters on my wall. Here they are in a close up view, making it easier to read the words:

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I always liked that name, "Five Guys," and the five guys on the walls of my office provide me with what I think is some particularly good guidance - appropriate guidance for all of us seeking to live a good and meaningful life.

Please feel free to follow up with any one of them!

Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.oakparkeats.com/food-news/five-guys-in-oak-park-to-close/

(2) - (4) Gary Patton personal photos
(5) - http://viewfromabus.blogspot.com/2012/
(6) - http://divine-cosmos.net/hate-cannot-drive-out-hate.htm