Election 2020: December Debate

Well, not expecting very much, I watched the debate with the off-switch of the Remote Control in my hand.  But, to my surprise, not only did PBS / Politico handle the debate with great zip, verve and style, the candidates said some useful and interesting things that were inspiring and thought-provoking.

But, looking at this firmly from my point of view,--and your mileage may vary, obviously, but we've got to be honest about the lenses through which we view this election--I must make clear what my objectives are.

First, let's make an unordered list (which means that the items are not in order of importance) of matters that I am worried about.

(1) Climate Change / Environment.  This is not the most worrisome thing for me, because I'm old, and I'll probably be past caring when the climate really goes to hell.  But on second thoughts, I probably should care about it, because it is a time-sensitive thing.  But practically, you can't get anywhere because the fossil-fuel (read oil, gas and coal) lobby has such a stranglehold on all businesses and politics, and through them on Congress, the Senate, and the Presidency.

(2) The Financial Well-Being of the Population At Large.  This does not simply mean that I want to have money taken from the very rich and given to the poor, though that would certainly be one option.  The wealth of the very rich is sort of illusory; capitalist economics has made it so.  For instance, if laws are passed making it impossible to burn gasoline, all the holdings of people who have stocks in oil companies will be worth nothing.  But guess what: the very rich have enough power to prevent the poor increasing their power, again through influencing Congress and the Senate, etc.

(3) Social Justice.  Discrimination is not something that the vast majority of us thinks about all the time, but for those who are affected by discrimination, it is right there, front and center.  As never before, we have enacted legislation that promises women, minorities, and those with alternate preferences equal rights and privileges as everybody else, but there is huge hostility towards this process from certain groups, which feel threatened.  Most importantly, there is hostility from uneducated whites, and their lack of education is not only in the areas of the three R's, but in general knowledge about how things work, or should work.  But those in power see advantages in keeping things the way they are.  Some of them are cynical, but others simply notice that ignorant folks are more easily persuaded by the advantages of wild schemes that only consolidate the power of the rich.

(4) As you can see, Money in Politics is a huge problem, and I see this as synonymous with corruption.  (This whole Impeachment story is one of how differently Trump and his handlers view money, from how Congress views money.)  Elections are now so money-driven that a person of modest means could almost never run for elected office, and win.  TV ads are expensive, and the political process is so complicated that TV ads are almost essential.

(5) Health Care.  Yes, this is important.  And I'm beginning to believe that a single-payer scheme is the most logical, provided the bureaucracy that it needs can be kept sane and streamlined, which certainly is a tall order.  (You can just imagine how much lobbying there is to prevent a government takeover of health care!)

(6) Education.  This is a very difficult problem for us to discuss.  How difficult is it going to be to persuade every parent in the US that a broad, intensive education is important, and worth encouraging their children to work for?  The American Way is cutthroat competition: get ahead by showing how much better you are than all the others.  The realities of a difficult life get in the way of kids learning to cooperate and work for a future that's better for everyone.

(7) Gun Legislation.  People are so tired of talking about this that it hardly came up during the debate.  It is not that people are no longer interested.  It is that there is so much agreement that it is a waste of time talking about it with those who agree about it.

So, to summarize, it becomes clear that Corruption and Money in Politics are the most acute problems that face us, because Combating Climate Change and Health Care Reform, and Financial Services Reform, and Gun Legislation, and Clean Energy Initiatives are all impossible if lobbies are allowed to influence policy decisions.

Elizabeth Warren.  Senator Warren (now in her early 70's) had consistently reasonable answers to every question, though her lecturing tone was a little annoying.  Not so much to me, personally, but because I could imagine that her tone would annoy others who would otherwise support her.  But will the hordes of former Trump followers be comfortable backing E. Warren?  I'm determined not to be looking over my shoulder at everyone else.  Warren is solid.

Bernie Sanders.  He comes across as a little more moderate than Elizabeth Warren, but he seems relentlessly angry.  And he is angry, not in a personal way, but angry at the system that disenfranchises ordinary folks.

Pete Buttigieg.  Most of the policies the Mayor espouses are fine, except for his Health Care plan, which is a little wimpy.  But the biggest problem with Pete is, in my mind, his lack of a sense of urgency about fighting corruption head on.  Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are mad about corruption.  Pete is more even-tempered about it, but will that work?

Amy Klobuchar.  She came across far more powerfully last night than ever before.  She seems a little too much of an insider, very much into her effectiveness as a Senator.  That's important.  But she must stop talking like a Senator, and talk like a President.  All her values align with mine, but in the US, values alone are not enough; you got to have charisma.  And, unfortunately, it is charisma that everybody is looking for in these debates.  If she believes she is a president in the making, she could make us believe.

Joe Biden.  The Un-Trump, Joe Biden, is a sort of a fall-back candidate.  If all else fails, we have Joe Biden!  He's too much of a old-school man to deal with the problems we have, and the problems that the GOP of the next four years will be throwing up to slow us down.

Andrew Yang, and Tom Steyer.  I hate to give these two guys a thumbs-down, because between them they have lots of good ideas.  But Yang has too much of a mechanistic view of social psychology, and--forgive me--I just can't take Steyer seriously, though if he had come along one year earlier, and if we watched TV more often, he might have been more convincing.

As one of the PBS commentators said it last night: people are watching the candidates to see whether their values align with theirs.  This is almost a no-brainer, but until it's expressed that way, it seems a puzzle about what is going on in these debates.

Once the values thing is sorted out, like me, most people are looking for charisma, and why?  Because it reflects on how other voters will vote!  I know, I know; I said I was only concerned about how I will vote.  But, well, I guess I lied!

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Kamala Harris, and Election 2020

It is such a shame that Kamala Harris has decided to abandon her run for President.  Most importantly, I believe that Senator Kamala Harris would be a good choice for President in a more typical election year.  There are few or no policy issues on which we disagree, she is a plausible candidate from the point of view of diversifying our nominees for elected leaders, and she is able to think on her feet, most ably when it comes to points she has prepared beforehand.

This time around, however, I believe that withdrawing at this point is the clever thing to do.  I explain below.

Reason No. 1.  This particular race for nomination has become confused between several groups of issues; principally two.  Firstly, there is the urgency of ensuring that the Democrats defeat the Republican nominee.  Of course, this is always an urgent problem; the Republican always seem to emphasize the well-being of wealthy individuals against the good of the nation, the majority of which is comprised of people who are poor.  However, this year we are alarmed at the particular team that the Republicans have allowed to steal their nomination, a more frustratingly destructive choice than ever before in history.  If you Republicans are congratulating yourselves on rattling the equanimity of liberals with the Trump presidency, be aware that a total revolution in norms is not what will work for you.  Now the Democrats want a counter-revolution in norms that is going to make you very sorry.

Secondly, there is the expectation from a number of different quarters, that it would be most convenient if each candidate would put forward a single major initiative that distinguishes him or her from the other candidates, so that everyone can call that candidate "The Environment Candidate," or the "Wall Street Reform Candidate," or the "Medicare For All Candidate."  By implication, a candidate who supports most, or all, of these initiatives, but who is not particularly focused on any one of them, is seen as wishy-washy.  This was perceived as Kamala Harris's weakness.  As far as I was concerned, it was really not a weakness at all, but rather an advantage; all these fronts need to be pushed forward, regardless of whether voters consider them important.  Once a president is elected, as I keep reminding my readers, he or she will appeal to her fellow-candidates for ideas or detailed plans to further all these plans.  But the media, the campaign staff, and the voters are all disappointed in the lack of a focus, and that results in low fund-raising results, and ultimately leads to the candidate dropping out.  It is a great pity.

Reason No. 2.  The Democrats--the more progressive party by far, whether or not it is the better party--has gradually embraced racial, ethnic and gender diversity.  Obama, the first non-white president of the US, was a great success (one reason why conservatives hate him with a passion), and being a moderate, and a flexible man, was able to get much progressive legislation passed.  (Another reason why conservatives hate him.  And he was articulate and eloquent, a third reason.  And he was educated, a fourth reason.  I shall temporarily now abandon this line of thinking.)  If the Democratic Party is to keep up this effort to reflect our diverse society with diversity in its presidential nominees, it would make sense to nominate a woman or a minority person.  Kamala Harris would have been perfect.

Instead, now, we're either going to get Bernie Sanders, who might be the first Jewish nominee (though I'm not sure whether there might not have been Jews in earlier times), or Buttigieg, the first openly gay nominee, or Elizabeth Warren, the second woman nominee.

I'm a little nervous about Elizabeth Warren; she seems a little oblivious to public sentiment, though her attitudes towards the Banks and Wall Street are perfect, in my opinion.  There is a danger in proceeding too far, too fast; it is the easiest thing for the Republican Party--if anything goes wrong with the reforms, and the Democrats lose the next election--to reverse all the changes (just as the Democrats can be expected to reverse the effects of the 2017 tax cut of Trump).

Bernie Sanders worries me because of his age; Joe Biden worries me because of his children, and because he seems to trip over his tongue, and sometimes lose his temper.  I'm fine with Buttigieg; he is clever enough to get the help he needs from among the talent in the party.  One feels sad for the arrogance of the present administration, which does not have the humility to admit to being unable to run the country.

So, Senator Harris: we expect you to take a break, and jump back in, in eight years, or four, as appropriate.

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Footloose (2011)

I just got done watching Footloose (2011), and I give it about four thumbs up.

Julianne Hough comes across in quite a different way than Lori Singer (who was first famous as the cello-playing all-rounder in the TV series Fame).  In contrast to the ballet-dancing, tall, slim Singer, Hough is a cute, pocket battleship of a girl-next-door, with great big blue eyes.  Julianne Hough is excellent in her role, as are Dennis Quaid and Andie McDowell, who play her parents.  Both Lori Singer and Julianne Hough are acknowledged to be excellent dancers, though in different eras, directions and styles.  Both are all-round dancers.  Julianne Hough is a professional dancer who acquired fame in Dancing with the Stars, and as a Country singer.

Kenny Wormald does a fabulous job as Ren McCormack, and projects quite a different personality than the taciturn Kevin Bacon.  Both actors did a wonderful job in their respective movies, but the 2011 actor had a certain sparkle that was appropriate to the expectations of modern audiences.

Dennis Quaid took on the role that John Lithgow played in the older movie, a tough act to follow.  But he did a better than adequate job.

Andie McDowell's role was earlier played by Diane Weist.  I adore Diane Weist, but I must confess that I can't remember enough of her performance in 1984 to compare with Andie McDowell's excellent job in this remake.

The writing in the 2011 movie is, in my view, excellent.  Writing a teen movie is not easy, since you have to capture the feel of the speech and the mood of young people, both the mood across the country, and the mood of the particular locality in which you have placed the action.  The humor and repartee has to be right, the references have to be right; a tough order for middle-aged writers, who have to base it all on the young people they know, or failing that, on other teen movies of the time!  The writers on the present screenplay is: Craig Brewer (from a story by Pitchford).  The writer for the older film was Dean Pitchford.  Standards for the writing in this genre have risen, in my opinion, and Pitchford and Brewer have made good use of the intervening decades to refine the story and the script.

The music for both movies was excellent, and the remake makes use of almost all the songs in the original, with necessary changes needed to handle modern teen dances.  There is a charming scene in which two little girls, Ren's cousins, sing "Let's hear it for the boy," a signature song in the 1984 movie, sung by the beloved Deniece Williams.  The little girls are seen on either side of Andie McDowell, in the inset.  (It turns out that Dean Pitchford is some sort of literary and musical genius, and co-wrote many of the songs in both movies.)  This remake is probably one of the most successful in the past few decades.

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Tariff Epidemic, and other unrelated facts

International trade is a delicate thing.  Trade, generally, is a delicate thing; in fact, when you come right down to it, all commerce, and economics generally, is delicate, and it is a wonder that the current position among political philosophers is that the economies of nations must be left alone, only steered with minute adjustments by those in charge of interest rates and the money supply.  From the point of view of rational socialists---people who take a more mechanical point of view of economics, and I believe I should count myself among them---this is just asking for trouble.  They believe in controlled economies, where the government controls production more directly.  They've said this for decades; it was just pure luck that the number of idiots who stumbled upon ideas to enrich themselves at the cost of the economy were few, until the junk mortgage debacle of 2006-2007, and now Trump.

One wonders whether the gambles that caused mortgage-gate were the results of ignorance and carelessness/stupidity, or sheer disregard for economic principles, principles in the sense of standards to which one holds oneself, out of consideration for the needs of society.  I tend to think it was ignorance, but one never knows.  Every once in a while, a child is born, who grows up to be an adult who's willing to throw the world under a bus, just to enrich him- or herself.

This brings us to tariffs.  Just this morning, the newspapers report that the administration has imposed tariffs on imports from South America, throwing various national economies off balance, and tariffs have been imposed against French imports, which have, or could, result in tariffs against certain luxury goods that are sold in high volume during the holiday season, including French champagne.  Now, I don't think I have ever drunk French champagne, certainly not knowingly.  I don't hobnob with the class of people who would splurge on the stuff, but if these tariffs throw the business of French wine producers (including champagne-producers) off-balance, then ultimately it is poor workers who suffer.  Most of my readers will look at the problem from the point of view of consumers; yes, our prices will rise, and the prospect of rising prices for luxury goods is alarming.  Trump himself will be unhappy, because his extended family is almost certain to be wanting champagne for the holiday season.  (But he would probably bill it to the White House, just as he bills his numerous golf vacations, which is very un-American.  Evidently, he and his entire entourage stay at Trump properties, which, in turn, raise their prices to profit from the stay.  I believe this practice is called price-gouging, but is not exactly illegal.)  But the workers in the fields, in the warehouses, the wait staff in restaurants, it is they who will suffer, and we must keep that in mind.

Again, I'm no expert, but it seems to me that tariffs must not be changed heedlessly.  (The word I want is not heedlessly, but I can't think of a better word at the moment.  Gratuitously?  Capriciously?  Arbitrarily?)  Because the consequences of a tariff do cascade in such long chains of implication, the world markets are not equipped to respond to a rapier-thrust of a punitive tariff, and they will never be.  These punitive tariffs are the actions of a cruel man who loses his temper, because the consequences are to punish those who are not near the decision-making center.  The chains of blame will not generally follow the chain of cause-and-effect, and quite innocent people will be blamed for the ensuing problems.  (Trump, if he himself were to have to suffer through such a situation, would most likely blame the wrong actor.)

Is international trade a good thing?  Initially, they provided the affluent with inexpensive luxury goods made by poor workers in underdeveloped countries.  But now, food and fuel and clothing have settled into flows on such vast scales, that when this flow is disrupted, people will starve, and be cold, and parents will be unable to provide the silly little things that kids expect, even if they're not the expensive electronic toys that American kids appreciate, but the little Tinker Toys that Third World kids probably play with.  The America First viewpoint is not something that many Americans themselves will be comfortable adopting.

In some quarters in the US, in some mega-churches, the rhetoric that is used is probably that Americans have been mistreated by foreigners, e.g. Chinese, for so long, that it is probably no more than simple justice that they should suffer, for a change.  But this sort of retaliatory thinking has never been Christian thinking, or rather should not be.

Well, this brings us to the fact that a businessman, one who is just a businessman without any experience in public service, is entirely unsuited to be the head of a nation.  Among all such individuals, we seem to have selected the most ill-tempered, the most ignorant, the most suspicious, the least diplomatic, the most unread, the most unprincipled businessman to be our president!  To be honest, it isn't his fault; the blame must be distributed among all the Republican rank and file, who have been made to believe that they have been wronged by the liberals and Democrats, by unscrupulous Republican demagogues.  It is unfortunate that American voters can be so easily manipulated by domestic demagogues, and foreign meddlers; but the world population at large has been revealed to be tragically susceptible to propaganda.  Propaganda, Marketing---what's the difference?

It's interesting that the Democrats, now that they have committed to keeping big money out of politics, have to drum up support among millions of ordinary people, whom they are cudgeling into making thousands of small donations into their campaign coffers.  So many families are targeted for piles of junk mail, ironically paid for by this very process of begging for contributions to various campaigns!  Even those of us who are determined to overturn the campaign finance decision of the Supreme Court are doubtless thinking that it is almost worth allowing dark money in politics, if it lessens the onslaught of political junk-mail to which we're subjected, particularly if we've responded to requests for money!

Political contributions that are not secret are tabulated and published by interested news sources, so we know, for instance, from where Elizabeth Warren's financial support came, before she chose not to accept money from big donors.  Unfortunately, vast numbers of voters of both parties have got out of the habit of reading this information for themselves.  Instead, they depend on TV Talking Heads to filter this data on their behalf, which is a very dangerous thing to do.  Talking Heads have their own agendas, and their filtering is often not a benign service they offer.

I have drifted far afield from the problems of tariffs, I'm afraid.  I'm going to alter the title of this post to reflect the chaos that is this post.

Archimedes

Thoughts About The Political Scene

I'll try and make this brief, because I honestly do not know as much about national politics as much as many of my readers undoubtedly do.  Furthermore, I'm going to write about other subjects, some of which I have talked about before, but which I want to bring up again, which have little to do with politics.

We're currently observing the progress of an Impeachment in the House of Representatives.  It has its seeds in Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President, Joe Biden, sitting on the board of a Ukrainian company, which was under suspicion of corruption.  Some folks believe that corruption is terrible all over Ukraine, which is very plausible.  Corruption in former Soviet Union countries is sort of endemic, because once the Communist Party got really large and powerful, and its bosses began casting envious eyes on the ruling classes of the world, some of the sorts of abuses that George Orwell outlined in his book Animal Farm actually happened.

Republicans, and lots of people in and out of politics, can't believe that the President is being condemned for asking the Ukrainians to investigate both the DNC*--and by extension, Hillary Clinton--and the Bidens, father and son.

This is a shakedown, from the point of view of the Democrats.  The Democrats think of what Trump and the new Ukrainian president were discussing as a personal request from Trump.  On the other hand, Trump and his supporters view the discussion as Trump bravely investigating wrongdoing by the Bidens and the DNC, on behalf of the American People, who hate corruption.

It is certainly foolish of Hunter Biden to have joined the board of Burisma, but Hunter Biden has done several foolish things, and ambitious younger sons of people in the public eye, who have had a taste of wealth and fame, notoriously tend to be attracted to dangerous and high-profile actions.  Trump's bafflement at having this incident elevated to the level of treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors, is understandable, if not exactly excusable.

Why are Republicans as a whole refusing to condemn Trump?  Many reasons.  For one thing, the only matter on which Republicans agree--or rather, the two matters on which they agree--are that (1) They hate the Democrats, and (2) The Democrats are out to get them.  For the rest of it, each Republican has his or her own little agenda, and the single recurring theme in all these agendas is that of trying to get re-elected.  This is no surprise.

There are many reasons why the Republicans completely disagree with what the Democrats want to do, is that the Republicans have as a main principle: We can't do everything for everybody.  If you ask any conservative, this is something they will agree on.  Now, the Democrats say: we're not asking to help every citizen with everything.  But we certainly must help them as follows:

(1) Help the poorest with basic needs.  Food stamps, cheap lodgings, etc.
(2) Help disaster victims after a hurricane or a flood, or fire, etc.
(3) Help partially with education.  We need this, because we need an educated electorate.
(4) Help the recently unemployed, the disabled, and the elderly, with money and health services.

To this list, the Democrats are adding:

(5) Help everyone (or at least the poor) with Healthcare.  Ideally, everyone.
(6) Help everyone get a college education.
(7) Help the country move to clean energy immediately.
(8) Help everyone with free family planning, and abortion, as needed.

A few years ago, I would have supported Health Care for All, except that I'm seeing how crazy the Health Care business is.  The prices are insane.  In fact, the costs for anything in the US is wildly different from anywhere else.  For example, the other day I got a blood test done from the local hospital, and I was charged on the order of $400. **  These blood tests are ordered by doctors as a defensive measure, to protect themselves from being accused of performing unnecessary procedures.  Well, I guess we've got to swallow that situation, because frivolous litigation does have consequences.  The fact is, a simple blood test only costs around $80, unless the lab technicians want to wear $5000 gloves, to prevent litigation on sterility failure, and want to perform only 5 tests a day, to prevent being accused of being fatigued in the workplace, and so on.  Mind you, I'm not exactly saying that these things happen.  But our culture certainly encourages cost inflation.

College Education for all is a sad thing.  Having got one myself, I would be a hypocrite if I were to say that other young people do not deserve one.  But the fact is: students do not learn very much in school--again, a cultural matter; all of US society pressures students to not pay attention in school--so that all the material they ought to have learned in school gets postponed to college, where it has the potential for being taught well, but in fact only a workmanlike job is done of teaching this remedial material.

We've talked about the Environment and Clean Energy already at length, and need not address it here.

As I have pointed out before, Business has been elevated to the status of the greatest occupation that anyone can have, in the USA.  People are mistakenly identifying American Business as what makes the USA great.  In actual fact, the US has had a large share of people who are thoughtful, and who write well.  The great wealth that the American Middle Class has enjoyed in the 20th Century meant that we could support more writers than many other countries.  Arguably, Business supports this wealth, which makes other things possible.  But it seems silly to point to Business as the genius of the USA, because it makes these other things possible.

As a result of this deification of Business, people assume that a business tycoon could run the country better than a lawyer, or a former Governor, or an Actor, or a Professor.  Trump was the first experiment in handing the reins of government to a business executive.  And what happened?  He surrounded himself with yes-men and lobbyists, and went off to golf.

Knowing that Trump had no government administrative experience, his circle of supporters indulged his eccentric whims, and in exchange, he pushed through a few pieces of legislation, highly damaging to the country, and to people of little wealth or income.  Most importantly, Trump finds it impossible to view himself with a critical eye.  Since a shakedown in business is considered perfectly fine, and since Trump considers that the USA is helping countries around the world with very little to show for it, he must have thought that doing a deal with Ukraine was a reasonable thing, and nothing to do with the election, really.  It seems to that this thing cannot be resolved until and unless Joe Biden drops out of the presidential nomination race.

To come back to Congressional Republicans: they're probably thinking, we must give the impression of fighting this impeachment all the way.  Of course, even if it passes, the Senate will (probably) not convict Trump, but Trump probably doesn't realize that.  Anyway, these sorts of gestures are important with Trump: if we sit out these Impeachment votes, thinking that the Impeachment will fail in the Senate anyway, Trump will still be mad at us.  Furthermore, making a show of opposition will stiffen the backs of Senate Republicans, who might otherwise cave, and vote for Trump's removal.

If and when the Impeachment fails, Trump will have a screaming victory at the polls, and a grateful Trump will help all the Republicans get re-elected.  (Trump isn't sure he has the energy to actually campaign on behalf of all his Republicans; instead, he's promised to help them from his campaign money chest.  He's going to buy the election for his party!)

Elizabeth Warren's quite reasonable suggestion that she is going to tax wealthy families at 2% of their wealth every year, is in my mind a minor step in offsetting the huge windfalls Trump obtained for very wealthy families and corporations.  For a family whose holdings are around a billion dollars (which is not rare these days), that is an annual tax of $20,000,000 per family.

On the other hand, after Trump's enormous tax-cut of 2017, our national debt is on the order of $23,000,000,000,000 (that's twenty-three trillion dollars).  This extra Elizabeth Warren tax will pay off this debt only after a thousand years (assuming there is a thousand families who will pay this tax).

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*DNC: Democratic National Committee, the steering committee of the Democratic Party of the USA.

**Startling as this is, in some places, the costs are higher.  Crazy.

Fighting Like Mad: The American Way

It seems that the American Way, certainly in Primary politics, is to fight like a cornered rat.  I see the ugly sight of Democrat candidates for president criticizing each other's economic policies.  Each other's foreign policies.  Health plans.  Plans to reduce gun violence.  Immigration Reform plans.  Education policies.  Voting Rights reform.

None of the candidates seem at all happy with how their fellow-candidates are approaching any problem.  Listen, kids: there just isn't enough space for each candidate to come up with a unique plan for each of these policy areas that's going to be any good.  I keep saying: yes, they have to have some sort of plan for each policy area, but they really should be open to adopting the best features of the plans put forward by their competitors.

But it appears that for any candidate to concede that one of the others has a good idea, brands him or her as a loser forever.  This is stupid.  Any one of their health plans is probably fairly all right.  They range from practically what we have now, to Medicare For All.  I personally think that Medicare For All would be wonderful--especially since I'm getting old, and need more health care each year than the year before; but some of the other plans are pretty good, too.

They're all unified in their approaches to gun control.  They all have similar approaches to reining in the unsavory practices of the big Wall Street investment banks.  They all have good plans for environmental policy reform, and energy, and for the economy, streets ahead of what the Republicans have offered for decades.

But in order for each of them to appear differentiated from the others, there seems now to be a temptation to adopt recklessly poor choices in their plans.  Rather than say: "I think a policy like Elizabeth Warren's would be what I like," they have to say things like: "Elizabeth Warren's plan is pure garbage; I have a better plan (which I rescued from the dumpster, but let's not talk about that,) which I have polished up."

I sincerely wish these candidates would relax, and give the audience at a debate a glimpse of  a face of someone we can happily vote for!  But the moderators seem determined not to ask them questions that would show them at their best, but rather to have them battling each other as fiercely as possible.  Why not give them knives, or Tridents, and put them in an arena?

Just last week, some commentators reported that some Democrat Supporters (read: big money donors) have been looking around for yet other potential candidates who might be induced to enter the race at the last minute.

Come on, now, people!  As Steve Colbert suggested, this looks very much as though these big Democrat supporters are afraid of Elizabeth Warren's tax plan!  Yes, there are some very wealthy liberals, who are apparently nervous at these sorts of tax plans.  To put a good face on it, they probably dislike the prospect of the government taking their excess wealth and putting it to fairly good use; they want to do their own charity.  Oh sure; if I were a billionaire, I would feel the same way.  Trump probably feels the same way, too.  (Jk.)  But though the Warren tax plan looks frightening to those of moderate means, they do not reduce these mega-billionaires to the level of people of modest wealth by any means.  They would still have enough wealth to buy up Alaska.  Or Greenland.  So they need not panic because of taxes.  But they might be anxiously looking for more millionaire-friendly Presidential candidates anyway.

Rest assured, none of the Democrat candidates are socialists, not by a very long shot.  That will probably not happen for fifty years.  But if, in the decades to come, conditions in the US deteriorate very badly, because of the greed of the wealthy, the depradations of the warming climate, the faltering international trade arrangements, corruption in government, and being overextended in foreign wars, we would be extremely fortunate if we manage to move to a socialist government at that point.  Socialism becomes attractive when conditions are bad.

But things are not that bad.

Arch

Desiderata for the Environment and the Home

The delicate balancing act which we need to learn to do, requires lots of judgement.

Should we recycle everything, knowing that there will surely be a point where the recycling guys at the landfill will be tempted to throw up their hands, and simply toss everything into the trash?  This happened at least once at my place of work, and it could easily happen even in the waste-recycling centers, if supervisors just happen to relax their vigilance.

Should we urge our friends to recycle everything, to the point where they begin to avoid us?  Those who do not recycle as aggressively as we do ourselves, probably continue blissfully along, until someone reminds them that they ought to be recycling.  You can imagine that they probably hate to be reminded.

Should we be doing our laundry so frequently?  (Should I be reminding you that this is a thing, and risk having you not read my blog?)  Every load of laundry means more detergent in the sewer, and more warm (or hot) water going into the water treatment plant.  On the other hand, if we get our clothes too dirty before washing, it might take more detergent to get them clean.  I just don't know.

I recently found that there has been discovered a way of extracting Lithium from frack-water.  You probably know that Lithium is a central resource in using battery-powered equipment; hybrid cars and all sorts of wireless equipment is powered by Lithium, and Lithium-ion cells.  I don't think this technique alone will result in an increase in fracking, but it certainly makes one think.

Notice, though, that despite the value of Lithium, nobody seems to be offering us any incentive for recycling our old battery-packs, from cellphones and laptop computers.  Those puppies are worth a lot, but the Lithium jockeys out there are cannily keeping quiet, because they want these old cells and battery packs for free!  Once they begin to have to pay a dollar for each battery, or whatever, their costs will begin to skyrocket.  One imagines that it will be cheaper than extracting Lithium from frack-water.

It is important to keep a sense of humor with regard to recycling.  Of course, anyone (like us) who regards recycling a deadly serious business is not entirely wrong.  But dealing with our kids, or our spouses, or our friends, and discussing recycling alternatives requires a gentle and delicate hand.

For instance, we know that it is bad to throw waste cooking oil into the sink.  (It ends up clogging the sewers, and is a load on the water-treatment system, as far as I know.)  So in our house, we put it in bottles, and once the bottles are full, put them in the trash.  Now, that's a load on the landfills.  But which is worse?  I know friends of friends who would rather not put anything in the landfill; they would rather recycle everything.  If there is an easy way to recycle household cooking oil, we really owe it to ourselves to do it.  If there is a biodiesel collecting point in our neighborhood, someone should tell me.  We have family in Missouri who are in the biodiesel business, but what are we to do, mail them our waste oil?  (Humor, don't forget!)

The other day I told the check-out clerk at the supermarket: no bags!  No bags, please!  I was buying just a couple of items, and I could easily put them in my pockets.  But I should have done it with a smile, without scaring the heck out of the poor young lady.

Our area is just backward enough that we cannot afford a full-time recycling Czar, who would function as the official reminder to let everyone know where the recycling centers are--for instance, the Friends' Fellowship (the Quaker Meeting) used to help recycle batteries at one time, but now, though such stores as Best Buy ought to do it, they occasionally confess to customers that they just throw certain sorts of batteries right in the trash, so we may as well do it, too.  Who collects used engine oil?  Who collects used tires?  Metal?  Wood?

People thought of burning wood as a service they performed for the environment.  (If anyone cut down a tree for any reason, they would ask for the discarded wood, to use for home heating.)  No more wood rotting all around the property, and they were saving their dirty, coal-burning electric plant from generating the electricity (or the gas company from having to deliver gas, or the oil company from having to deliver heating oil) for their heating system.  But times have changed, and we want to get away from burning anything.  We desperately hope that the electric company is releasing less CO₂ per calorie than anything we can achieve at home.  (If it isn't, we can all focus our attention on the electric company and urge them to improve, which would be the biggest bang for the buck, environment-wise.  The economies of reducing pollution using electric or hybrid cars, public transportation, every sort of improvement pivotally depends on electric generation plants reducing their pollution output.  Unfortunately, these plants are occasionally managed by people less interested in these goals than almost anyone else.)

The point is, because our attitudes towards waste management are evolving so rapidly, as the years go on, our conversations with our friends about what we do, and what they could be doing, are likely to become increasingly awkward, because our practices are going to diverge rather strongly, the more the state- of-the-art keeps changing.  This is where the Desiderata poem comes into play: we need to learn to talk to people in such a way that *they don't get mad, *they aren't embarrassed, *we aren't embarrassed, and *we don't discourage future conversations.

Not least, we have to keep an eye on maintaining our own equilibrium far more aggressively, the more that ignorant other folks out there deliberately try to destroy our peace of mind, simply because the sight of us Libtards, quietly going about recycling stuff--which of course, is to their benefit as well--is so terribly repugnant to them!  It makes me smile.  (Which shows that I'm a terrible person.  Sense of humor.)

A few months ago I wrote about guys in trucks who hated to see hybrid, low-emissions cars on the road.  Some of them would roar by, blowing horrible exhaust smoke at the vehicles they so despised.  Often certain types of conservatives, and certainly Alt-Right folk who really have no ideology at all, behave in highly puerile ways, which they cannot defend with logic, but which they do try to defend in various logic-defying ways, to the embarrassment of anyone who uses logic, and subscribes to the axioms of scientifically knowledgeable people.

For more of my thoughts about Desiderata, read on.

The First Post-Impeachment Debate!

I have to confess, my wife and I did not watch the debate last night (October 15, 2019).  I had to get the executive summary from various sources (which, of course, would have extracted different things from it than I would have).

It appears that Elizabeth Warren has become the candidate to shoot at, since Joe Biden has problems dealing with the smokescreen Trump has thrown up.

The Moderators are harping on Healthcare Reform, once again, and I wish the candidates on stage would have the courage to say what I think they feel, namely that it is difficult to explain the most complicated plan ever addressed in a presidential debate on a public stage.  If any of these folks is elected president, certainly it would be good to have a plan ready, for running through Congress.  But it can wait!  We don't need to know all the details before the election.  We only need to know the broad outlines.  I want Medicare for All!  (No, no, that's terrible!)  Ok, then, Medicare only for those you think ought to have it.  What's the big deal, at this point?

I saw, with approval, Tom Styer agreeing with Bernie Sanders that billionaires should not exist in this day and age.  So far, full marks for Tom Styer's values.  But I have seen that the ultra-rich have very nuanced social values, so we have to wait and see.

Tulsi Gabbard has unexpected support from the Alt-Right, including even David (Somebody), the former Grand Wizard of the KKK.  She has gone on the record as being unhappy about this state of affairs.

She has also met with Assad, the Syrian dictator, and this makes me unhappy.  She also seems to be in support of condemning Israel's policies towards the Palestinians, which makes me actually quite happy.  I do not think Israel should be permitted to expand its territory as it wishes, with or without US support.  The Israeli government has thoroughly discredited itself.

All the candidates, at least in the segments that I was able to see, spoke articulately and moderately, and reasonably.  (I felt that Kamala Harris tended to mumble, which was a problem for me personally.)  Kamala Harris was unhappy with Elizabeth Warren failing to call for Trump to be taken off Twitter.  I don't know about Warren, but I don't think it is appropriate to deny Twitter access to specific individuals, unless they have broken the Twitter rules in some clear way.  (Maybe Trump has; I don't know.)

Joe Biden has got into trouble because his son has got into international business deals that compromise Joe.  At the time that Hunter Biden involved himself in Ukrainian business, we did not know that Joe Biden II was going to run for president.  Even if he had known, I don't see how he could stop an adult son from pursuing any business he wants.  If it gets too politically messy, Joe Biden will have to take the hit, just as Trump must take the hit for his son-in-law fooling around with Israeli politics.

All these candidates are fine by me.  I can see some of them being able to more easily muster a group of advisors and specialists of whom the nation will approve than, others.  But there isn't a single one of them who is likely to be problematic.  Perhaps Joe Biden should step aside, because he would have trouble responding instantly to a pointed question.  But a president seldom has to do that.

I would like it if all these twelve candidates continued in the race (without having to spend any more money), and we could dispense with the debates.  I do not particularly enjoy watching the candidates needle each other.  It would also be good if Michael Bennett managed to get in as a 13th candidate; there was a strong following that was hoping he would make it.  Unfortunately, his poll numbers were not high enough.

There is some news that two of the young Democrat women in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, and Ilhan Omar, have declared support for Bernie Sanders.

Finally, Tulsi Gabbard had expressed the feeling that the DNC is trying too hard to manipulate the choice of nominee, by influencing the debates and the rules.  She had threatened to boycott the October debate, and that would have been sad.  Though she seems the most conservative of the candidates, certainly as far as foreign policy is concerned, I think that she is an excellent prospect for president, if not in 2020, then in a later year.

Archimedes

Peter Scheckele, A Musicologist For All Of Us

Peter Schickele

Peter Schickele is principally a composer.  For various reasons, he invented an extra, mythical son of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, named P. D. Q. Bach, which allowed Schickele to vent all his instincts to parody everything from Handel to Gershwin and Cole Porter through the prolific pen of P. D. Q. Bach.  In addition, as the 'discoverer' and tame musicologist whose obsession was this son of J.S.Bach, Schickele had free rein to first create numerous musical works, and then proceed to analyze them into the ground, first, of course, having performed them for everyone's coarse entertainment.

In the nineties, Schickele began a regular feature--principally on public radio--called Schickele Mix, which made musicology accessible to typical music-lovers, especially those whose tastes were on the broader side, because there were fewer opportunities for these folks to explore their instinctive feeling that phenomena that were attractive and interesting to them were to be found in most kinds of western music.  Today, popular musicologists spring up like mushrooms, and YouTube provides a ready forum for them, but Schickele was a pioneer.  The musicological connections between classical music and popular music was not the characteristic tool in Schickele's conceptual arsenal; it was rather just one approach, which was particularly powerful.  I don't remember details, but in a post (forgive me for talking about Schickele Mix as if it were a blog) about The Circle of Fifths--or rather, the sequence of fifths, since the circle was rarely completed--there were a number of references to popular songs that used the sequence.

P.D.Q. Bach

As P.D.Q. Bach, Schickele was revealed to be a parody composer second to none.  The compilation The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach is a veritable Pandora's Box of Schickele's parody compositions, ranging from opera, to overtures, to suites, duets, and even a deplorably bad parody of a play-by-play of the Allegro of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, in the style of a football commentary.  Though that opus makes me cringe (and keep looking for a remote control which I keep forgetting I do not actually have, since it was a cheap CD player) and skip to the next track, some Schickele fans undoubtedly regard it as a classic.

The level of musical performance on Schickele's records is exceptional, featuring numerous legitimate talents, which cross over beautifully into comedy.

For anyone who has the patience and the energy, perusing the archives of Schickele Mix is going to be extremely rewarding.  If there are bootleg tapes or any sorts of recordings of these episodes--there, I used the correct word; they're not posts, they're episodes--they would make interesting listening for long, cross-country rides.

Schickele's mainstream compositions are less familiar to this writer.  He has written for movies and for the Walt Disney production of Fantasia 2000.  One of these days, I'll get around to listening carefully to some of these works, and make an addendum to this post.

Arch

My Take on the Upcoming Debate

The editor of the New York Times, who will be one of the moderators, has invited suggestions for questions, which got me thinking.  I apologize in advance for the rather discontinuous nature of these comments that follow.

What do people want from these debates?  They do not really show the candidates in any special light that will help us make a decision about which of them is best suited to lead the country.  It is an environment more like a Congressional Committee than the Oval Office; a President does not have to give brilliant On The Floor ripostes--except for press conferences, I suppose.

What people should be looking for is:

Does this candidate share my values?  That is the most important.  Most of the other criteria flow from the answer to that question.

Does this candidate have the temperament to de-escalate conflict, rather than to aggravate conflict?

Is this candidate driven by attitudes towards issues rather than party loyalty?

All of the Democratic candidates so far seem to have displayed these qualities, some more than others.  Some have a gentler approach towards the problem, others have a more combative approach, which might have to be forgiven, given the fact that the Democratic Party has been on the receiving end of so many attacks--even granted that the entertainment industry has often been ruthless in their personal attacks on Donald Trump.

Behind what conservatives see as the push towards wealth re-distribution, we see the most pressing problem that American politics faces: money in politics.  Lobbying, corruption, dark money, campaign finance, all of these things are made possible because of the enormous income and wealth inequity that the fiscal conservatives have shoved down the throats of ordinary low-income people, and there is a lot of sense in taking that approach.  So while the candidates see the issue of wealth and income redistribution as bringing out the Anti Socialist rhetoric, campaign finance reform and directly associated problems can be tackled with greater agreement.  It would be good to know which candidates can see this to be true.

The issue of Health Care Reform, and Medicare For All has been pushed in previous debates.  In my view, it does not matter if a candidate does not have his or her head completely wrapped around the details of a Health Care Plan.  What do we want:  A health care consultant or a president?  Creating a good health care plan, be it a plan with a private insurance component or without, will take a team approach, with many knowledgeable people contributing their expertise.  A public debate is not the place for deciding this.   Which candidate will be sufficiently flexible to be open to the best ideas from the other candidates?

The Gun Lobby is widely seen as an obstacle to reducing gun violence in the US.  Guns are supposed to be used for personal safety.  For hunting.  For defense of the home.  Unfortunately, when guns are in the news, these are not what the guns have been used for.  Also, unfortunately, only a bipartisan reform will be likely to survive multiple administrations.  The only way to push reform forward is to identify representatives of the people who stubbornly oppose sensible legislation, and eliminate them.  It is hard to see how to identify candidates who are in agreement with this statement, but it would make sense to ask a question about gun reform.

Much of the terrible problems with waste control and environmental pollution is because the US is marking time until recycling plastic waste becomes profitable.  If ever there was an opportunity for Federal intervention, this is it.  Which candidates are on board with government support for recycling waste, and processing waste in a non-polluting way?  There may already be such an initiative.  Why haven't I heard of it?

There seems a certain degree of agreement that part of the solution to immigration pressures at the southern border has to be a reasonable aid program for Central American countries, as well as support for Mexican efforts at law enforcement within Mexico.  It is difficult to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries (though that hasn't stopped us in the past), but there is reason to believe that in many cases where heavy US aid has been directed to Central and South America, the aid has succeeded in fueling lawlessness and corruption, instead of improving the lives of the poorest in those countries.  What can be done?  This is a problem best left to specialists, but it cannot be ignored.

We have known for a while that Climate Change has to be addressed quickly and effectively.  Part of the problem is the personal transport habit of American citizens; in short, the love affair with cars that has been going on for more than a century, and spread to other countries as well.  Addressing the environmental effects of automobiles is soon going to be a very unpopular thing which a president will have to spearhead.  How will a candidate approach this problem, given the liabilities of taking an unpopular stand against the automobile as a source of entertainment and an expression of personal power and affluence?  Much of the auto industry has moved abroad, so economically a push against the auto industry should not be as painful as it would have in the past.  But public perception of the automobile as being emblematic of American power will die hard.  It will be difficult to win an election offering only blood, tears and sweat, but it looks very much as though those are going to be the means of bringing back America from the edge of the Great Again Abyss.

Arch

My Years in College

Kids have just got settled into their dorms at college, and freshmen just about ready to think seriously about Life, College and Everything.  Some of them have begun attending small four-year schools, and others have gone right into big state universities, and a few into very prestigious schools indeed, where everyone seems to look at you as if you were their biggest obstacle to a successful college career.

It was much the same in the bad old days when I first found myself on campus.  I had barely scraped through the examinations that decided which schools I was qualified to apply to, but I was thrilled to be actually going to college.

Those were the bad old days of hazing.  I was not bullied very heavily, but I was naive, and I thought I was being seriously victimized, though I wasn't.  Anyway, in retrospect, that is a non-issue.  (If any of my readers has to deal with hazing--I'd be surprised if you are; I expect that you're a mature 60-year-old, at the very least--I would be of absolutely no help whatsoever.  I'm sorry I brought that up.

So, though I was quite a mediocre student: a sort of C level type, I had been among the better students at my high school.  All my friends, among the top 5 or so in our school, were distinguished by how interested we were in our subjects: mathematics, physics, chemistry, principally.

I absolutely loved my first semester.  The professors actually knew their material backwards and forwards (which is not uncommon, obviously), and were eager to lay their stuff on us freshmen.  Most professors are inspired to do their best for freshmen; they're unspoiled, not jaded, and willing to believe that they might not have the whole story, coming in from high school.

Of late, however, I have encountered freshmen who are jaded, and who do believe that they know all there is to know.  This is unfortunate; the student is the loser in that scenario.

As the semester went on, I began to notice that some of the other guys were picking up the material a little faster than I was.  Welcome to the real world.  One thing we all have to do is to learn to handle not being the cat's whiskers any more.  But luckily for me, there was no shortage of people willing to talk about the material we were being given, to analyze the relative strengths of the different instructors--not in a particularly critical way; actually we were quite appreciative of their strong points--and to compare the various topics that we particularly enjoyed, which were obviously very varied.

My first year ended pretty well; I did a lot better than I expected.  Unfortunately, I was not permitted to declare a major in the area I was most interested in; I had to make do with mathematics.  At that time I was more into physics.  Too bad.

Once I discovered what a mathematics major (and a physics minor) entailed, I was amazed.  It turned out that we did an enormous volume of theoretical physics as part of the mathematics major.  You see, physics provides the fodder for a great deal of the machinery that we develop in mathematics, so this situation is unavoidable.  But we were signed up for courses in awesome areas, such as Quantum Mechanics, Analytical Dynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Relativity, Electromagnetic Theory, and so forth, but also Abstract Algebra, Matrix Theory, Differential Geometry . . . now I'm babbling; none of this has anything to do with what I want to say.

As time went on, though I did terrible at exams, we became quite a closely-knit group, and there a few fellows who preferred to study on their own, but many of us found it better to figure things out as a group.

In addition, though I did not take many courses in music or literature or social sciences beyond the absolute minimum, I spent a lot of time reading, and singing in choirs, and playing pianos, etc, which detracted from schoolwork.  I sang with a semi-professional choir about two hours away, where we met on the weekends.  A friend of mine and I took a bus out there, sang, stayed with family, sang again on Saturday night, and headed back to school on Sunday.  We also sang in the choir at college, though that was not a very serious thing.  (In fact, I took charge of the choir for a couple of years.  It was--OK.)

Things only got better, in terms of how interesting the topics were.  But as far as performing on tests, I was terrible.  So I graduated with a regular degree, not the Cum Laude's that so many of my friends managed to turn in.

As luck would have it, once I clawed my way into graduate school, I found that I was in a lot better shape than many of my fellow-students.  I had dreamed that doing research would be the most fun I could ever have.  Unfortunately, I simply hated research.  How interesting research is all depends on the problem you're assigned, and there just is no guarantee that you will stumble on a problem in which you're interested, and in which there is someone on the faculty to advise you.

But I put in an enormous amount of coursework--far more than most graduate students--and also learned a fair degree of computer science and numerical analysis (which probably means less than nothing to my readers!) and presently found myself hired to teach at an excellent school, and, as they say, the rest is history.

If there is one thing I can attest to, the greatest gift of all is the gift of finding something interesting about anything you need to learn.  That is all the Law and the Prophets.  I don't think anyone taught me this skill; I think it came possible from my mother, who was a teacher herself, and who was always interested in what I was trying to explain to her, be it topology, or programming, or whatever.  Either that rubbed off, or she passed on one of her interest genes on to me.

There are always some authorities who urge you to give up everything, and focus on what you're trying to do.  That may work for some people.  But it does not work for anyone who wants to be a teacher.  An ultra-specialized teacher is a bad teacher.  Your primary task is to relate to your students.  A good teacher is Interested in their subject, and Interested in their student.  To be the latter, you simply have to give up being specialized, and learn to be interested in many things.

As a teacher, I was required to teach several subjects in which I had little or no training.  Someone had to teach them, so why not me?  All I brought to the challenge was my insane tendency to be interested in oddball subjects.

School is a place that it is a privilege to be in.  To consider school a sort of penance, a sort of punishment, where you pay your dues, and somehow blossom into a highly-paid executive, is to set yourself up for misery.  Everyone in my immediate family just enjoys what they do to the utmost, and I don't think that it is luck; they all seem to be perfectly suited to be easily engaged with tasks they're given.  Of course, we're a small family; a large family unavoidably has some duds who cannot be inspired by anything.

Part of the trick is to surround yourself with people who have a positive outlook, and it often rubs off.  Similarly, if you surround yourself with lawless types, that rubs off too; surround yourself with pessimists, and you want to shoot yourself.  (I'm sure there's something in the Bible that says exactly this, but it's almost an embarrassment to have to fall back on religious scriptures to make a perfectly valid point.)

As I have said above, without any attempt at deception, I did not sacrifice my various side-interests to focus on my schoolwork.  This means that with my college degree I am quite unable to impress anyone.  For students who are determined to create an undergraduate record that is impressive, you must either give up--at least a part of--your side interests, in order to deliver a brilliant set of grades.  Or, you have to work like ten dogs, and hopefully your side interests will make you feel better about it.  Or, you have to work like ten dogs, and give up your side interests, and your memories of college will be sheer misery.  Just don't be an alcoholic and misbehave towards members of the opposite sex.

Archimedes

Ethics in Government: a Stumbling Block to Many

I was just watching Stephen Colbert interviewing Bernie Sanders on the Late Show (? Is that what they call it?) and it started a line of thinking, which resulted in this post, if it ever gets written.

My uncle Innocent once said that the problem with business people running government is that they're not very ethical!  In other words, business men cheat whenever possible.  This may sound like a terrible smear on businessmen generally, and I suppose very religious businessmen cheat very carefully, but in general, businessmen (and businesses) cheat every chance they get.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have been frustrated for some years, because the taxes they pay--I mean, everybody pays them, but the Republicans have opposed high taxes on behalf of all of us, bless them--are, they feel, too high.  In fact, they've got their taxes lowered for forty years, but they still seem too high; the Republicans would rather not pay taxes at all.

You must realize that there are several different kinds of republicans, though they have been roughly in agreement (very roughly) for a long time.

There are the Fiscal Conservatives.  These are the ones who are hawkish on taxes, and hate government spending.  (There are some exceptions; they don't mind government spending on their pet projects.  Nobody minds the government spending each on his or her own pet projects.)  They also used to be fierce about balancing the budget, but that particular agenda item has been put on hold for the moment, since the overspending is on behalf of the Right People, namely themselves.

There are the Religious Conservatives.  Among other things, these are the ones who oppose abortion, and family planning for women.  And they often want prayer in schools, and do not want Evolution being taught in schools.

There are the Neo-Conservatives.  These want America to be the most powerful nation on earth, and they want to go fix all the international problems with a war.  They are embarrassed by having to back off confrontations.

There are the ones who Oppose Gay Rights.  I can't think of a civil word for this group, which overlaps to a certain degree with the Religious Conservatives, but that is a marriage of convenience.

There are the Racists, and the Tribalists, who view society in terms of the ethnic origins of the people.  These are the ones who want to slow down, or stop, immigration, especially from poor countries.

There are the Libertarians, who don't want any restrictions, ("Its a free country, but not free enough!")

There is the Business Lobby, which fights for loosening government regulations that prevent businesses from exploiting the land and its resources.

Then there is the Gun Hawks, who do not want any restriction of gun ownership, gun sales, or anything to do with guns.  These fellows are often identified with the NRA (the National Rifle Association), but there may be a parting of the ways pretty soon.

The biggest thing that they have in common is that they do not like the Democrats, who oppose them on all of these fronts.  A coalition of all of these groups was created in the seventies and eighties, and they have done their best to oppose the Democrats since then, and often quite successfully.

Many of these folks are businessmen, and they have deplored the way the Democrats run government, and what they perceive as the moral straight-jacket that the Democrats have succeeded in putting on conduct in government.  A businessman, they have reasoned, would be more sensible about how to deal with people and foreign governments.  A deal-maker, like Trump, they must have reasoned, would be able to handle these tricky foreign governments.

Businessmen also have their rules of thumb.

Never pay taxes, unless you have to.

Do business off the record whenever possible.

Make creative deals, especially with weaker opponents, and bullying is allowed.

Go it alone.  Too many crooks spoil the heist.

Play your cards close to the chest.  Surprise is a big weapon.

Change your mind often.  Keep them guessing.  Be capricious.  Don't keep your promises.

Ally yourself with other thugs.

Threats are no use, unless you occasionally follow through on one.  (A small nuke would be ideal.)

A major weapon of businesses is advertising.  It is best if you have an entire Network that does your publicity for you.  Also, if you can get your brand associated with a great game show, you can rake in the shekels like nobody's business!

So now we sort of see where some of this foolishness comes from.  Trump's forthright way of shaking down his opposition is perceived as insulting and rude.  His deals are disgusting: a Wall for Releasing the Budget.  Dirt on Beiden in exchange for the foreign aid that Congress had already passed.  That is no good; the USA cannot be seen to be dabbling in, essentially, blackmail.  Ronald Reagan and Ollie North and gang did some very shady stuff, and so did George W. Bush and Cheney and his Halliburton gangsters.  But Trump's clumsy blundering with international "deals" are truly an embarrassment, even if they were not horribly illegal.

This brings us to this most recent attempt to discredit Joe Biden.  (Don't forget that Trump's constant harping on Hillary Clinton's e-mails seems to have succeeded with at least some Democrats, and certainly did succeed with almost all Republicans.)  Will Democrats stoop to chanting "Lock Him Up!" every time they gather?  I really can't see it, but if impeachment happens in the House of Representatives, something on those lines could be conceivable.

One plan the Republicans might be trying to implement is to break as many rules as possible while Trump can take the blame for it.  (Actually, there are numerous elected Republicans who have been Trump's enablers, and who will go down with him, or go down before Trump does: Mitch McConnell's name comes to mind.)  Of course, we know that they're eager to pack the Supreme Court with as many conservatives as they can.  Unfortunately, except for a few die-hard political judges, such as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the justices are difficult to herd one way or another.

On top of being a businessman, and being very self-conscious (a narcissist), Trump also finds it difficult to express himself verbally, which is why he Twitters so much.  In a decade or two, we will expect a president to use Twitter just as much as Trump does, if we can get a Millennial to run for office.  But for the immediate future, it would be lovely if a president stays away from all social media.

Anyway, things are not so bad.  There are annoying things all around us; every prospect annoys, to parody some famous person (Reginald Heber, actually; and he wasn't that famous, IMO), but those of us who are thoughtful will recognize that we can certainly recover some of what the Republicans have destroyed, in their desperation for Making America Great Again.  In future years, we may not be able to make it as great as it was a few years ago, but we can certainly make it halfway decent again.

Kids.  My last exhortation is to be careful how you phrase your pessimism to kids.  With a constant onslaught of environmental ruination, it has been observed that young people across the globe are falling into a sort of hopelessness.  We must be happy that there are Greta Thunbergs in the world; if and when she gives up, it will be a sad day for us indeed.

Part of the problem is that many adults (including me) are a little too weak in their science to understand the details of the kinds of things that catastrophic global warming will bring.  I think it is reasonable to assure young people that, though life is going to be quite unpleasant (e.g. wetter on this side of the Rockies, and drier on the other side; violent weather being common on the East Coast), it is not going to be impossible.  Also, decent people are going to have to work very hard, once life becomes as tough as it is expected to be, to enable the marginal population to survive.  We can't just throw up our hands and give up.

Arch

Odd Things That I'm Seeing In The News

Well, of course, Trump has been trying to bully the new Ukrainian president to give a report of what Joe Biden's son Hunter was doing in the Ukraine, in case it was illegal.  This is just Trump fooling around with public opinion.  This is the sort of thing that his followers think is perfectly all right, you see, whereas it will drive the Democrats crazy, and make impeachment almost certain.  Then what happens?  Trumpees begin to scream: what? Impeaching because of a minor thing, like getting help from the president of the Ukraine?  What's the big deal, you big babies?  And they will (Trump assumes) turn up in droves for the election.

This is quite unrelated, but Trump has a sense of humor.  Not a very well-developed one, but which his followers get, but the Late-Night TV comedians pretend not to get.  We like to laugh at Trump every chance we get (well, not I, personally, but my friends, certainly) but this feeds the belief of the Alt-Right that Left-Wing comedians are a bunch of nitwits that don't have a sense of humor after all.

Now this Iowa Caucus business.  For various reasons, Iowa was allowed, by the Democrat leadership in time immemorial, to have a sort of primary very, very early, which, it turns out, influences strongly which candidate is favored in most subsequent primaries.  But, the newspapers say, Iowa is 91% white.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On one hand, if black and minority voters turn out strongly for many subsequent primaries, that will erode the stranglehold that the Iowa Caucus has on the candidacies for the future.  But it does leave a bad feeling in the mouth, that white voters have such a great apparent advantage in selecting the Democrat nominee for president.

A funny thing I'm seeing is that many candidates are promising the media that they will have such-and-such a number of campaign staff working in Iowa, or New Hampshire, or wherever.  What is that all about?  How are voters to respond to that?  Should voters respond to that?  Why do candidates need to boast about how many staff they're going to have?  This seems to me another instance of the US tendency to believe that more is better in almost all cases.

Regardless of Nancy Pelosi's belief that impeachment proceedings against Trump will increase Republican voter turnout next fall, I think impeachment is almost inevitable now.  Unfortunately, whether impeachment happens or not, Trump is going to be happy, because: if they do start impeachment proceedings, which of course will not succeed, Trump will go about crowing that They tried to impeach me, but of course they could not succeed!  If they do not start impeachment proceedings, he will dance about crowing about something else, equally silly.  He is a silly man, and he tries to force his opposition to play silly games, to drag the entire federal government into the clown's ring with him.  Someone has convinced Trump that discrediting government is its own reward.  Why is this?  Because unity is strength for workers and people at the bottom of the economic ladder, whereas for the 1%, they believe that they can go it alone.  (They actually can't, very easily; they need to cooperate, too.  It all depends on a certain vision of how the economic elite can operate once the federal government stops functioning well.  It is by no means clear that things are going to go well for the rich.  What is certain is that things will not go very well at all for the poor if the effectiveness of the federal government begins to decline.)

Many of the rules of thumb that the Machiavellis of the conservatives knew and understood, when they laid down the rules of how to destroy the power of workers, were laid down before our economy was so globalized.  For their plans to work, they need to have the economy less globalized.  But that's not easy; many of the richest families depend of foreign labor, and foreign buyers to maintain their relative position in the hierarchy of affluence; it won't be easy for the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame) to replace their Chinese sources with sources from somewhere else.  (They probably meet at a Bible-Study somewhere to explain to each other how all this is going to benefit them.)

Have we anticipated all the shenanigans that the GOP and the Alt-Right has up its sleeves to perpetrate during the election, and after the election?  Perhaps the Armed Forces will have to intervene, to prevent utter foolishness following a bad result for the GOP.  This has never happened in the past, and the DOD does not know its way around a coup in the US, though we've watched coups so many times in other countries.  Nobody likes those things; they're almost an admission of the failure of free and fair elections.  But the GOP are turning out to be such a bunch of scofflaws, that anything is possible.

Finally, the reason that every candidate is desperately asking for money is that they need to run TV ads to counterattack negative messages.  (Now that PACs and other organizations can play in the political game, it becomes almost impossible for TV networks to give "Equal Time" to candidates.)  So the big winners, it seems, are TV networks.  Who'd have thunk it?  I can't stand the thought of dishing out money week after week, only to discover that I had been backing a losing candidate all along.  The way I think, though, I would indeed probably back a losing candidate .

Well, be of good cheer, as Charlie Brown would say!

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Thinking Rationally About Climate: The Youth Viewpoint

Before we go into the main topic, which centers around a lawsuit brought against the administration by a group of young people, I want to speak briefly about the somewhat widespread animosity by liberals and The Left against the current president.

As I have said before, there are many reasons why liberals and progressives are furious with the president.  Some are so angry that they refuse to give him his official title, and prefer to refer to him as 45.  There are numerous offensive cartoons about him and his actions, and his choices for secretaries of the various sections within government, and millions across the country are seething.  Millions, of course, have seethed against the presidents we've supported; conservatives have hated Obamacare, and to date it is something that unites the conservatives in hatred, though a few of them recognize that it is not only a difficult law to improve upon, it is the most business-friendly Healthcare reform possible.  Millions have hated other legislation Obama supported.  They hated the fact that he appointed Hillary Clinton, and that he supported her against many accusations of misconduct by Republican party members in and out of government.  Millions hated the bailout of Wall Street banks, and Millions more--some of them Democrats--hated that Obama bailed out the car companies.

But our hate is more reasonable!  (I say that in jest.)  But when we condemn, we must not stoop to insult.  Some of the late night comedians whom I admire are quite brutal in their onslaught against 45; of course, they're comedians, and provided they stop short of sexual harassment (something that brought Al Frankel down, to our dismay,) we can tolerate their viciousness as a necessary safety-valve.  But we should stop short of all of us trying to be safety-valves by demeaning the . . . demeaning 45.  Don't demean.  Vote.  Okay?  Thanks.

What we're seeing related to Climate Change
So far, here are some of the effects that Climate Change has resulted in:
1.  Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes.  These consequences would have taken place regardless of whether the warming of the environment was caused, or even hastened, by man.  So if anyone resists talking or thinking about the connection between Climate Change and extreme weather events simply from being defensive about human culpability, they should knock it off.  The warming environment is certainly the source of these events.
2.  Temperature extremes, e.g. hotter, dryer weather in the Northwest, cooler, wetter weather in the Northeast, which encourages major wildfires in the Northwest, and flooding in the East.  The chain of causes here is more subtle, but scientists are persuaded about the cause.
3.  Ocean Temperatures rising.  This makes it impossible for certain creatures to flourish in the oceans.  These creatures feed small fish, and the smaller fish are food for certain very popular sorts of ocean fish, eaten both by Westerners, and on which smaller Third World countries also depend for food.  In addition, the Oceans are getting dirtier, because warmer water washing into rivers and oceans bring more grime.  Warm water also encourages bad sorts of algae.
4.  Ocean Levels are rising.  Typically, people who live close to the sea are financially disadvantaged, and already, when ocean levels rise for temporary reasons, such as a storm surge, it is poor people who lose their homes, and become refugees.  This is part of the reason why Climate Change is a Social Justice issue.  As ocean levels continue to rise, people will continue to be displaced.
5.  Farmland is being turned into desert.  The implications are obvious.  Of course, certain economic policies are not helping.
6.  The habitats of polar species are being destroyed.  This doesn't directly impact humans, but many of use consider the diversity of species as a part of our quality of life, at least in an intangible way.

That provides a backdrop to our discussion.  Bear in mind that, as conditions deteriorate further, more extreme and surprising consequences will impinge on us, but it is not necessary--yet--to draw attention to those more extreme results of Warming.


From The Perspective of Youth
Recently, a certain lawsuit, which is called Juliana, has drawn attention in the news.  The suit, brought by a number of young people against the Trump Administration, charges that the plaintiffs

... risk being deprived of their “rights to life, liberty, property, and public trust resources by federal government acts that knowingly destroy, endanger, and impair the unalienable climate system that nature endows."

As I understand it, they're accusing the Federal Government of putting at risk their ability to enjoy the usual pursuits of happiness, etc, enshrined in the constitution, by its careless actions.

We might agree with the point of view of the plaintiffs, even if we do not agree with the legal path they have taken.  (My own point of view is sympathetic to the young people, though I do not take it carelessly.)  By the time those who voted in the 2016 election are safely dead, the plaintiffs in this case, who are presently about the age of 20, are going to be deeply involved in the suffering that has been brought on not only generally, because of global warming, but specifically, because of the actions of the present administration.

Normally, a government cannot be hampered by the threat of lawsuits, particularly for actions conducted in good faith for the good of the populace.  But are the environmental actions of the present government in good faith?  Good faith with respect to whom?  Can we equate the benefit of various business interests with the benefit of the people at large?  Can we blame government foolishness on mere ignorance and wishful thinking, rather than malice?

From where we stand, of course, it looks malicious.  But it may, in fact, have been the Administration being kind and generous towards certain businesses, and firm and stern towards nature, and the tree-huggers that conservatives have despised for decades.

If the plaintiffs can prove that the government actions of the recent past were malicious and negligent, then at least certain parts of the demands of the plaintiffs ought to be allowed.

Environment Austerity
As I wrote in the previous post, acting in an environmentally responsible way could be considered inconvenient, and a nuisance.  You have to balance that against the hardship that being irresponsible will cause for many, mostly the poor and uneducated.  Bear in mind that some of the potential victims of our irresponsibility might themselves be far more irresponsible than we are!  (Isn't that always the way it goes ...)
* Minimize sending hot water down the sink, or into the sewer.  Minimize using water at all.  (I must confess that I use a heck of a lot of water, but I try hard to reduce it.)
* Minimize using air conditioning.  Apparently this is a huge factor in Warming.  In fact, using air conditioning makes it necessary for our neighbors to use air conditioning also.
* Spay and Neuter pets.  Pets place a burden on the environment.  Make no mistake: I love our pets, and I love everybody else's pets, too.  But some folks are irresponsible, and as soon as it becomes difficult to deal with their pets, they abandon them.  Some folks take them out to wooded areas, and throw them out; some give the pets to people who are clearly ill-equipped to take them.  Do not construe my remarks to mean that only wealthy pet-owners should be allowed.  Pet ownership involves patience and work, and yes, a degree of expense, especially since veterinary services are not free.  Much of this is avoided if pets are spayed and / or neutered, as appropriate.
* Minimize the use of grills.  Some people enjoy grilling their food more than almost anything else.  Ideally, we ought to give up grilling altogether, to make a maximum reduction on our environment impact.  But if everyone halved their use of grilling, that alone would be enormous, until the time comes, of course, when matters become desperate.
* Use Public Transport!  Greta Thunberg avoids use of motor-powered transportation almost entirely, but at the very least, we can travel by bus (or train) whenever possible.  For parents with young children, I recommend this highly; kids are far more likely to consider bus travel as adults, if they have experienced it as children, especially in the company of their parents.  In some places, bus travel is considered dangerous.  All the more reason to travel by bus.  We do not need to encourage unpleasant people and layabouts to take ownership of public transport.  Personal transport is the single biggest source of unwanted heat and Carbon Dioxide.

All environmentalists end their litanies of things to do with the exhortation: Don't go it alone!  Drag your friends with you!

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