The Politics of Compassion, Part Two
[I have no idea why this post was only a draft until today… it is at least two months old already. Read it and weep or cheer, your choice.]
Democrats have a lot of problems. One of them is their inability to unify to achieve electoral victory. Unification depends, first, upon the leadership presenting a platform, that is a short document that indicates their preferences for an ideal society and proposed ways to go about achieving that society. Working toward an ideal society would include minimizing violence, maximizing freedom, and of course, choosing the greatest good for the greatest number.
The second component needed for victory is voter turnout. Ideally, all eligible voters should be turned out, by providing transportation and an escort, if necessary. Again, specific implementation of this vital component should involve such measures as chartering buses to drive through neighborhoods picking up voters of all stripes. It is much harder for Republicans to object to this measure if the bus picks up Republican voters as readily as it does Democratic voters and preference-blind pickup policy will still favor Democrats ten to one.
The third component needed for victory is propaganda. There is much to say about propaganda but suffice it to say here that the truth is the best propaganda.
Those three components, if implemented with vigor, will ensure victory if our cause is just. There is no need to stoop to infiltration of the enemy camp or consulting Sun Tzu or anything like that. Leave that to the military– they are above politics.
First, to the platform. The slogan might be, “The Politics of Compassion.” Our subject is politics, specifically political power, and there is a need in the consolidation of political power to define an US vs. THEM. This is, unfortunately, not an optional plank in our platform. I say unfortunately because fascism and other undesirable forms of government define US very narrowly and this limits compassion severely. Therefore, the US should be everyone on the planet as well as everyone FROM our planet who might reside, say, on Mars. This would maximize compassion.
Since I have brought it up, the reason I use the word “Compassion” is because it comes from the Buddhist term. And one can immediately divide US from THEM by saying that those who have compassion are with us and those who do not are with the Republicans. Everything else on the platform follows from that.
Having compassion for our fellow man means that we consider all human beings as equal, regardless of specific factors which include, but are not limited to, race, gender, sexual preference, quantity of money in the bank, and political preferences. Having compassion also means that we believe all humans have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Having compassion finally means that we believe women have the right to choose whether and when they will have children (although response to climate change may dictate that we ration births in case of extreme environmental emergency.)
The purposes of government can be readily divided by the Preamble to the the Constitution. Most of it is readily acceptable to the Republicans but the part about “Provide for the General Welfare” is controversial. Those who have compassion are apt to interpret this clause broadly, and the Democratic platform should include the following aspects of the “General Welfare”: free schooling at schools, not in the home (because home-schooling is inherently unfair, see below), to the point where a person is qualified to do work according to his innate abilities and serve the general welfare by performing useful work for pay; free health care; food sufficient to hold body and mind together; and housing adequate to protect people from their environment so that they have a safe place to eat, sleep, and recreate. To address the point most at controversy right now in Congress, we will say that the government should set up a two-tier health care system: a basic one that is free, and an optional form that depends on one’s ability to pay. The system in the UK resembles the specific system we should adopt: a National Health and private institutions that are accessed by optional private insurance.
This is not the ideal system, but it most closely resembles one– single payer– which will give the best health care to the greatest number and allow for continuation of the for-profit system which already exists in the United States.
The problem with the current system is that, simply, it is unfair. It is unfair because only an immensely wealthy person would be able to pay for potentially needed care in the worst possible case– that of an inborn genetic illness that is extremely rare and requires cutting-edge research to develop a remedy. Even a person who is relatively well-off would be bankrupted by attempting to research and produce a remedy for a unique illness like that. Most people would agree, however, that a person with a unique genetic disease still deserves care– although cutting-edge research may be rationed.
The only way to have a fair system is to provide for a tax– which has already been shown to be Constitutional– which is progressive, like income tax, and pays for “insurance” for everyone, sick and healthy.
To change the subject– the more important planks of the platform address economic issues. The first is one which is dear to Don the Con’s heart: GDP growth. Current growth is inadequate to address the deficit and our $20 trillion debt. Growth must be increased from 2% to 3%, and specific measures must be taken by the government to achieve at least 3% growth. The reason we need 3% GDP growth is the very reason that Don the Con’s budget assumes that we will have it: to create his fantasy of paying off the national debt in his proposed budget and other documents. He says that only rapid growth can make payments on or pay off our national debt and keep deficits down. The only way Don the Con’s numbers work is if there is sustained 3% growth, but he has not supplied any concrete proposals to achieve that goal. He simply assumes that his tax cuts and deregulation will provide that number. This is absurd. Specific measures must be taken, and they do not involve tax cuts or significant deregulation.
To increase GDP growth, it is necessary to have both full employment and continually increasing productivity. We are nearing full employment, although it is still necessary to get government organized to provide work for those who are unable for whatever reason to find work of their own. This need not be particularly pleasant but must create the minimum needed, again, to keep body and soul together.
The advent of automation and artificial intelligence in manufacturing and providing services will vastly increase productivity and this is essential to create the 3% growth. The problem is that people will have to adjust to the changing job market that will be a result of improving AI– again, government is the only entity capable of moving people to other jobs when their jobs are replaced by AI. The reason is that private interests cannot provide the breadth of programs needed to retrain everyone affected– in fact, private interests will be responsible mainly for throwing people out of work by replacing them with machines.
Another thing needed for growth is investment in research. This aspect is completely ignored in Don the Con’s budget. It is essential for government to organize and pay for a significant amount of research in all fields. The reason for this is that research done by private interests is biased to serve those interests and the best research only comes from completely disinterested investment. The products of pure and applied research will benefit everyone and stimulate growth, but only if research is financed and regulated.
The final thing that can be affected to increase growth is to make the population of workers younger. This can only be done by recruiting new workers from immigrants, who are by nature much younger than the average citizen. This is because Social Security pensions are a reverse Ponzi scheme: the pension takes from the active workers to pay off retired workers. In a normal Ponzi scheme, the benefits mostly flow to the one person who is running the scam; in a reverse Ponzi scheme, the benefits flow to everyone who contributes to the system. If the mix of workers is too old on average, then the pension payments become onerous.
The importance of new economic schemes to maximize growth is even greater when we consider another imperative: the survival of our species when confronted with climate change. To minimize climate change, it is essential to end population growth– at least Zero Population Growth should be our goal. However, when limiting population growth, we come up against an inevitable aging of the existing population. Societies which stop growing become older on the average, and as life expectancy increases, aging is further enhanced. When the population ages, however, economic growth is stymied. Our current low economic growth is a symptom of the aging of our population, and Japan’s major economic problems are in part caused by their aging population, due to zero population growth and increasing life expectancy. Therefore, to counter this tendency, the organized schemes mentioned to stimulate economic growth must be pursued with utmost vigor.
Fortunately, the technological advances associated with our response to climate change and pollution directly stimulate the economy, particularly if they are pursued with subsidized research and additional measures to subsidize conversion of older, polluting energy sources to newer less polluting sources as they become available. This is an aspect of growth stimulation that deserves considerable government support as the response in economic growth will more than pay for the investment.
Another imperative for the survival of our species in the long run is our response to the newly appreciated risk of asteroid impact. It has only been a hundred or so years since the Tunguska Incident in which a 130 foot wide meteoroid exploded over Siberia and obliterated 800 square miles of forest. Advances in technology now make it possible to first, observe telescopically all potential Earth-impacting asteroids, and second, develop a means of avoiding impacts which might wipe out our species. Government support for the development of this technology is a natural, as NASA already runs programs of this sort and the Defense Department has a lot of nuclear weapons lying around that could be used as a last resort.
A word about wealth inequality: this is only a problem when those at the bottom of the scale do not have the necessaries of life… the oppression of a great majority is the cause of wealth inequality, not the result. Therefore, in theory, inequality is well-tolerated as long as those at the bottom are well-treated.
Home schooling is inherently unfair because wealthy individuals are apt to provide better home schooling for their children (which they are privileged to do), while poor people will have major impediments to home schooling such as lack of resources, lack of expertise, lack of time, and so on. However, it is plain from the American frontier experience that at-school schooling provides a superior, more egalitarian education. Children are socialized in school, and the purpose of home schooling for most parents is to inculcate views that are in the extreme minority, such as authoritarian religiosity and denial of science, and are highly detrimental to society in general.
This post is intended for further expansion in the near future.
This article, in the National Prospect recently, explains what “immanentize the eschaton” means, and it’s not good news. AG Sessions, in a private speech to an anti-LGBT hate group, explained how he was going to eliminate any accommodations for LGBT folk in the federal government. Here is a quote from the article, about William F. Buckley and his coining the phrase “immanentize the eschaton”:
Buckley, who never said in two syllables what he could say in twelve, was speaking of that combo-concept, meaning that it wasn’t government’s job to make things nice for people by granting them their civil rights and feeding the starving poor. To do that would create Heaven on Earth, which would necessarily bring about cosmic extinction. And who would want that?
The topic of the attorney general’s speech to the ADF, which is defending Christian-owned businesses for the right to discriminate against queer folk, was “religious freedom.” Sessions promised that, any day now, he would issue a guidance to government agencies on how to apply the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in ways that conform to his novel interpretation of the First Amendment. The ways in which an anti-LGBTQ bias could be applied to the work of government agencies boggles the mind, given that the government is charged with providing health care to millions, fair housing protections, asylum requests, and ensuring the rights of all. For many, the eschaton may indeed be immanentized.
While a intensely public fight rages over Don the Con’s public pronouncements, which are profoundly disruptive on a daily basis, his henchmen are quietly going about the business of destroying the government, perverting its purpose, and hollowing out its expertise. This is the worst tragedy to befall the American government since Nixon hired his band of plumbers.
[for some unknown reason, I drafted this post a few days ago but failed to publish it… “Immanentizing the eschaton” means, basically, throwing the fat on the fire, putting a match to a bonfire, and other references to the Apocalypse.]
Comment of the Morning: The Way Forward
(an irrelevant anti-VD poster from WW II)
“moral ugliness and intellectual incoherence “… [From another article about — guess who?]
dadof2
What the Republicans need is to temporarily, or permanently, abandon their belief that Democrats are the enemy and realize that Donald Trump is the enemy of both, the enemy of Democracy, the enemy of the Constitution, the enemy of the America 2/3 of the nation believes in. You’re not going to get the Steven Kings or the Louis Gohmerts, but you will get the Peter Kings, and the Leonard Lances.
And you need to convince Democrats that Mike Pence WILL respect the Constitution, the Courts, and the separation of powers. Because any President who does that, doesn’t threaten the Republic. You may hate his policies, but policies can be changed.
Because it’s a numbers game. You need 218 votes in the House to approve an Article of Impeachment and 67 Senators to convict.
Probably all 193 Democrats would vote for impeachment. That means you need just 25 more, including the Speaker, and he’s impeached.
In the Senate you have 48 Democrats, all of whom would be happy to convict Trump TODAY. So you need just 19 more. Rubio, Corker, Collins, Murkowski, McCain, Graham, Flake, Heller, and, yes, Mitch McConnell are pretty much all there already, and I suspect Burr, Grassley, Toomey and Portman are nearly there. Just 6 more Republican Senators, and Mike Pence is President.
And that’s what the GOP needs to do to reestablish its legitimate claim to govern. It needs to prove it can remove a President who, though he claims to be Republican, is not, only a selfish Trumpian.
(Twenty-five Representatives, all Republicans, and nineteen Senators. Start working on them.)
William O. Beeman
San José, CA 16 hours ago
Trump has unleashed a terrible storm with his first pardon–and its name is not Harvey. Trump’s pardon of Joe Arpaio is perhaps the most infamous, divisive and anti-American action ever enacted by any president in our history.
I have no words to express my complete disgust at this action, or of its timing. Trump has issued this heinous pardon of an overt racist on late Friday afternoon just before we are facing a national hurricane disaster. I am sure he believes that the backlash from this action will “blow over” along with Hurricane Harvey, which will dominate the news cycle this weekend. The pardon is cynical, spiteful and an insult to the American public, entirely in character for this President.
Trump’s vile action tells the bigots of this nation that they will never be punished for terrorizing Hispanics, Blacks, LGBT citizen, Muslmss and–yes–Jews will all be fair game for the alt-Right, Oath Keepers and white supremacists.
Now just let the Trump apologists say: “He’s not a racist.” That is a patent lie, and Trump has proved it.
I hope the public will not let him get away with this. He and the Republicans who enable him must be severely taken to task for this awful act. I beg the news media to not let this event be overwhelmed by the impending hurricane. The effects of Trump’s Pardon (as it will be known) will last far longer than the damage from Hurricane Harvey.
It’s Worse Than You Think
With the pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio on August 25, 2017, Don the Con has placed himself beyond the pale of civilized discourse.
At the same time, there are three former generals among Don’s top staff at the White House. It appears that Don is no longer completely in control of events. He will not be given the opportunity to start a nuclear war with the press of a button. He will, however, continue his profoundly illiberal private agenda, which will further divide the country along extreme partisan lines.
I have other things to do than chronicle this descent down the rabbit hole into utter madness. Stockpiling canned goods is nearly complete. Enlarging the fallout shelter will be next on my agenda, starting tomorrow.
Did you ever read “Farnham’s Freehold” by Robert Heinlein? Lesser known than “Stranger in a Strange Land” but equally thought-provoking.
“History is what the present chooses to remember about the past.” -Eric Foner, 2010
“The way things turn out is often interpreted as the way things had to turn out.” -Murphy, 2012
The author of this opinion piece is a graduate student in history and, until fairly recently, in agreement with the rest of his family that white nationalism was a good thing. The point he makes is that America was founded as a slave-holding country and only allowed citizenship to free, white men. The Civil War only abolished slavery; it did not give black people equal rights. This situation only changed in the fifties and sixties with, first, the integration of the Army, then repeal of segregation policies and securing the right to vote for black citizens. The final piece was to be affirmative action, but that has been weakened officially and only exists voluntarily in private institutions. So the equal rights movement is still far from its goal of winning the hearts and minds of Americans. Oh, and you can forget about reparations. Here is a quote from his opinion piece in the NYT:
The United States was founded as a white nationalist country, and that legacy remains today. Things have improved from the radical promotion of white people at the expense of all others, which has persisted for most of our history, yet most of us have not accepted the extent to which white identity guides so much of what we still do. Sometimes it seems that the white nationalists are most honest about the very real foundation of white supremacy upon which our nation was built.
The president’s words legitimized the worst of our country, and now the white nationalist movement could be poised to grow. To challenge these messages, we need to acknowledge the continuity of white nationalist thought in American history, and the appeal it still holds.
It is a fringe movement not because its ideas are completely alien to our culture, but because we work constantly to argue against it, expose its inconsistencies and persuade our citizens to counter it. We can no longer count on the country’s leader to do this, so it’s now incumbent upon all of us.
Here is a helpful hint on how to survive an encounter with a bear: (from the NYT)
‘‘Help the bear identify you as human,’’ says John Hechtel, a retired wildlife biologist for Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game. Talk to it in a calm but firm voice. Put your hands above your heads and wave them slowly. Avoid reacting to a confrontation in a way that makes you look like prey: no screaming, flailing or running.
Biologists put attacks, which are exceedingly rare, in two broad categories: defensive and nondefensive. The best strategy for fending off a bear depends greatly on correctly diagnosing the bear’s state of mind. A defensive bear tends to look agitated. It might paw at the ground, roar or salivate. This bear attacks because it is usually trying to protect its cubs or food. The nondefensive bear wants to eat you. Such a bear tends to look coolheaded and confident — what Hechtel calls ‘‘pushy’’ — with its head held high and ears erect. In a nondefensive attack, fight for your life. Use anything you can — stone, log, knife. Aim for the face and ears.
EFDRN
Richmond Va 6 hours ago
Hundreds lit torches and marauded the streets of Charlottesville Friday night like a pack of wolves.
These marauders (people Trump called “innocent protestors”) assaulted UVA students on their own campus . THIS KKK and Nazi inspired torch march had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LEE STATUE, which was miles away.
They then beat a handful of students on their own campus with the torches they carried and pepper sprayed them, attackers Trump defends as “Very Fine People”, as one student cried in despair, “where is everybody?!
They marched to the church I WAS IN with the Charlottesville clergy collective,i.e…., a Presbyterian church holding an ecumenical serving calling for peace and love.
These marauders menaced a church service “Heil Trump”, “Heil Hitler” “Jews will not replace us”, “You will not replace Us” “Blood and Soil” (Blud en Boden) [Blud und Boden] with their torches.
Im talking going out of there way to INTERRUPT A RELIGIOUS SERVICE AND ATTEMPT TO TERRORIZE CLERGY
On Saturday I saw and treated all, including a Neo Nazi leader who stumbled into our medic tent after police sprayed him, who tried to direct his “troops” via walkie talkie while receiving care and was told to stop or he would have to leave.
This was not a “many sides event”- this was an armed invading army of out of staters, (first thought they were the national guard, until I got closer and saw SWASTIKAS on their uniforms) colliding with locals repelling the invasion.
#NeverAboutTheStatuesTheyAreAnExcuse
Quote of the Day: Republicans and Racism
In 1994 John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic-policy adviser and a Watergate co-conspirator, confessed this to the author Dan Baum:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
The era Ehrlichman referred to was the beginning of the War on Drugs. Nixon started his offensive in 1971, declaring in a speech from the White House Briefing Room: “America’s public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”
The object of disrupting communities worked all too well — more than 40 million arrests have been conducted for drug-related offenses since 1971, with African-Americans being incarcerated in state prisons for these offenses at a rate that is 10 times greater than that for whites, according to Human Rights Watch.
In 1970, Nixon’s political strategist Kevin Phillips told The New York Times, “The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”
–From a column by Charles Blow in today’s New York Times
