What's in a name

           I am used to seeing odd looking and sounding names, having been a teacher with students of numerous national origins over the years. However, there is one name in the news these days which I find amusing. I acknowledge that I'm being childish a bit in making fun of a name, but in this case, the guy has taken an already odd given name and chosen a nickname which is even weirder, so strange, in fact, that I've never seen it before - ever.

        I am, as you've probably guessed, referring to Republican National  Committee  (RNC) chairperson and world class whiner,  Reince Priebus.  His actual name is Reinhold Richard Priebus.  I could  understand eschewing Reinhold, as it does sound a bit "Hitler Youth-ish."  I could understand if he chose to be known as Richard (he seems a bit of a Dick, anyway), but Reince?  Is that even a real name?  He chose it, he must like it, and the RNC pays him $180,000 annually plus expenses, so they must like it.

        Of course that party has had some seriously weirdly named persons of prominence, either as candidates, or friends of elected officials.  Nixon had Robert Abplanalp and Bebe Rebozo. Piyush  (now Bobby) Jindal has anglified his name, and that seems to work for him. There is a slew of Republicans with names which sound like contestants in Ru Paul's Drag race, including  Saxby Chambliss,  Stacey Campfield, Connie Mack, Tucker Bounds, and Pierce Bush (think about it).  Of  course Chambliss, and  Campfield are raging homophobes.  There's one amphibian -Newt Gingrich.  Alabama has a State treasurer named Young Boozer, and a Public Service Commission president named Twinkle Cavanaugh, and that's not a nickname!

     But back to Reince Priebus. It keeps going through my mind that this name is so bizarre that it could actually be a scientific name or brand name. Accordingly: What other things could Reince Priebus be?

 I'll start:

A high end hybrid car?

The generic and specific name for a tropical fish?

An uncomfortable outpatient procedure?

A former Roman emperor?

 A really annoying breed of small dog?

The answer to the question "Who do Reince Preib?"  

The answer to "What do you do with a soapy Priebus?"

OK, you're on your own.

Not all Police involved violent incidents are the same

        I didn't really want to write this, but it keeps nagging at me and when that happens, sometimes formulation into prose helps me come to grips with it.

        I've seen two really disturbing videos this morning on Good Morning America and both were followed by commentary by one or all of the hosts.

        The first, which is all over the media, concerns the girl dragged from her desk by a school resource officer (SRO) and forcibly removed from her classroom. Of course, as expected, essentially all of the chatter regarding this rather obvious use of excessive force  revolves around the SRO and his apparently non-existent impulse control. I would agree that his actions were more than over the top, and indicate that he was a lousy choice for a job which entails dealing with high school age kids. Of course since he was white and the girl black, it has become a racial discussion, too.

        What no one has even hinted at or mentioned but which is apparent on the video shot by other students is that the other adult visible in the classroom is a youngish, healthy looking black male, either the Algebra teacher or the Principal. There has been no discussion related to what measures the teacher and/or administrator used to achieve their aims before calling the SRO. In 20 years of teaching all grade levels 9-12, I never had any situation reach the "call the SRO" stage (or "call the administrator", for that matter .

       There can be little doubt that the young woman's behavior was inappropriate. It seems that she has a history of non-compliant behavior.  What many who see the video will not know, however, is that under the  current restrictions in most school districts, such a disciplinary problem is hard to remove from school.

       Thanks to "No Child Left Behind" and the "everybody is above average"  mentality reflected in this lamentable relic of Bush 43, it is essentially  impossible to permanently remove behavioral problems from the mainstream classroom. In most states a "child" can elect to remain in school until the age of 19.  I am aware of one case where the parents of  a disruptive 19 yr old male with below average mental capacity were insistent that this be the case. This put a 19 year old male in a classroom with 14-15 year old girls, also learning disabled. See a problem here?  

       So, before you decide that the only "real" problem here is simply an SRO with lousy impulse control and a bad attitude, as true as that is, consider the classroom teacher and principal. both of whom sanctioned the forcible removal and who, apparently  are ineffectual at discipline. Remember, the educators are required to have had a course in adolescent psychology, the cop - not.   Then consider a system in which persons far removed from the public school classroom legislate conditions which in some cases are antithetical to good order and discipline, and force a disruptive student to be mainstreamed, with little chance for suspension or removal. It's almost a perfect storm.

       Should the cop be removed, suspended and prosecuted? In my opinion , yes, since this wasn't the first time for either excessive force or racial bias in his behavior. A better question is why he was hired in the first place, or kept on the payroll after it became obvious he was a lousy choice for an SRO.

        Do the classroom teacher and Principal share some of the responsibility for this abysmal episode? You  bet your ass they do. Were they "burned out" by repeated dealings with a student who should not have been in a mainstream classroom? Possibly.  Do we believe that neither had any idea what might happen after the SRO was called? I don't. Could the teacher or principal have called a halt and called the parents when it became obvious she was non-compliant? Maybe.

       Finally, what is the one factor that could have made this discussion irrelevant? The student could have shown a little respect for herself, the teacher and her classmates, stopped her inappropriate behavior and done as she was told. I'm just sayin'.

        The second disturbing video shows a fatal officer involved shooting in a McDonald's parking lot, where, in a drug bust gone terribly astray, a 19 year old is shot in his car by a police officer. Of course the parents are blaming the police officer and claiming their son was (essentially)  an innocent.

       The video shows the officer approaching the parked car with gun drawn and repeatedly telling the driver to get out of the car with hands up.  As it turns out the 19 year old driver was in the car with his 23 year old pot supplier, and a post mortem  tox screen showed  him to have cocaine and several other illegals (not marihuana) in his bloodstream .  

        Rather than obey the lawful order of the policeman, the young man put his car in reverse, backed up, shifted into drive, and,  accellerating, began to drive away, very, very close to the officer, who, had he not been quick would have been struck by the car and could have been seriously hurt or killed. In the milliseconds available to him to decide a course of action - a time span immensely shorter than all the Monday morning pundits who second guess him will have -  the policeman fired at the driver, killing him.

       While there hasn't been the same degree of hue and cry generated by this as the school incident, there are  still  rumbles of police overreaction and/or excessive force in this case. The parents are appalled that there will be no prosecution in this case, and of course will easily find a lawyer eager to undertake a wrongful death civil suit.

        The difference here is that, in the first case, if the officer had done nothing, no one would have been hurt, while in the split second of decision time, the second officer, afraid for his life, made the decision to shoot. I would propose that no one who has not ever been in such a situation refrain from  piling on this officer. If he feared for his life, all else is legitimate. I'm so sick and tired of the truly inane comments such as "Why did 'they' have to fire 16 times?"  One or 16 shots, the basic guideline is cancel the threat, everything else is just a statistic.

        Equating these two incidents is irresponsible and foolish.

Televangelism 101 Syllabus/course outline Qs & As

Televangelism 101 Syllabus/course outline Qs & As

Q. Why is there no section on moral responsibility?

A. You're kidding, right? Next question.

Q.  How do we get people to come to us ?

A. Good question. The short answer is that most  of them are afraid that they might have to be responsible for their own actions, take control of their own lives and be responsible for their own happiness.  Religion on TV offers an easy way out.  They already want to buy a stairway to heaven and we offer an escalator! Next?

Q. How do I get started with speaking in tongues without sounding like I'm just making shit up?   

A. OK, this is easier than you think. Remember the guy in high school who always drank waaay too much at weekend keg parties?  What you want to do is be as unintelligible as he was after 15 beers, but with a more guttural sound.  If you do it right it'll sound like a combination of a pre-puke burp mixed with Hebrew numbers.

Q.  How long should we actually pray over the prayer cloths they send us?

A. Pray? Why? Take the checks carefully out of the envelope and discard the rest, you don't know what kind of germs might be inside. Besides,  who has that kind of time? Next?

Q.  Isn't it dishonest to claim to actually care for these poor folks?

A. define dishonest. We tell them God wants them to be rich. They believe it. They want us to be rich. Hell, we owe it to them, don't we?

Q. What's the best way to make yourself cry on camera when asking for them to send us their medication money as a "love offering?"

A. Now you're getting it! The trick is to focus on the mansion, the plane, the trophy wife and young "assistants" and when you reflect that you with only  nine years of school and a GED have all this, tears of joy will flow. The marks won't be able to tell the difference!

Q. How much actual theology do I need to know?

A. Not much really. All the things the viewers think is Biblical is really dogma and someone has already gone to the trouble of making it up centuries ago. When you factor in the marginal literacy of most of the viewers, shit you can read 'em the danged phone book and they'll buy it!

Q. But what about the hard line doubters?

A. Repeat the following: "abortionist Planned Parenthood baby murderers,  Black President, Godless Liberals,  Satanic yoga pants,  commie homo-sexuals, and Pat Robertson for president."  If that doesn't wear 'em down, forget it and move on. Time for one last question. Anyone?

Q. How do we deal with occasional pangs of conscience?

A. What's a conscience?   

Whew, that was close!

Whew! That was close!

        I had a strange moment today while imbibing the first of many cups of coffee. I was doing the daily  crossword - in ink because that's how I roll! I was  also  sort of listening to/watching  Good Morning America. I am watching now on a daily basis to see just how many more ways Ginger Zee can look absolutely fantastic in maternity wear. Oops, got sidetracked there for a moment.

       Anyway, a commercial came on for a treatment for fibromyalgia. The last paragraph contained the assurance that whatever the stuff was, it was "made from 'naturally sourced' pumpkin seeds."  I immediately, analytical thinker that I am,  began reflecting on just what other kind of pumpkin seeds there might be. I had nuthin'. There are no alien pumpkins as far as we know, (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) unless those Area 51 gummint guys at Roswell have some we don't know about.  I realized that I'd been briefly captured yet again by the use of undefined high sounding but nugatory advertising doublespeak.

        The term "naturally sourced" may be used with impunity simply because food quality regulators choose not to define either word.  Those words are not orphans, never fear. "But Mike,"  you might ask, "What other bullshit terms are we subjected to?"  Relax, don't you know I'm gonna tell you?

        "Sustainable" Doesn't it sound  noble, just to pronounce it?  Almost  makes one think of a handsome farm girl in hemp Crocs, gently stirring cow manure and table scraps into a raised bed made of recycled barn wood while composing an ode to her vegan bicycle, doesn't it?  In reality has no meaning other than "I think we can still get this cheap stuff through the end of next month."

        "Local/Artisanal."  Either of these two terms sounds good alone,  but together, they are advertising Kryptonite for the unwary. "Artisan" is just an undefined name for a person who produces a product. If you see art in pumpkin production, you are an ad agency's nighttime fantasy." Local" should have some limitations, one might think, but in reality, one major restaurant chain which I won't name, but it rhymes with "Chipotle", considers "local" to be anywhere within a 350 mile radius! To put that in perspective, that means anywhere within 384,845 square miles. A Chipotle in western PA could claim that produce from both Detroit and Boston were "local!"          

        "Light (or Lite)."  While this may actually mean fewer calories, it almost assuredly means "far more processing" a close second is "less real nutritional value."  A not so distant third is "probably contains some chemicals which aren't really food." Again, undefined,  persons considering "Light/Lite" alternatives to real food might consider that margarine is only a molecule or two away from paint.  In fact Lays "Lite " potato chips which originally were marketed with Olestra, a fat substituted, sold poorly when consumers read the part about Olestra possibly causing  (swear to God) "oily anal leakage." MMMM salsa anyone?

        "Real."  Real, I guess, means not fake. Unfortunately, a label blurb like "Made with real chicken" (and pet food producers are masterful in this misdirection) may mean that 144 grams of food contains 50 milligrams of fowl, and the rest other stuff.  Made with real beef, for essentially all main stream pet food producers means  beef, if the first ingredient on the label is the  largest portion of the whole product. What it will never say is that  most of said "real" beef meets the "3 D" definition. Dead, Dying or Diseased, when processed.  

        So now, it's time for another cup of  "fair trade, sustainable artisan produced, locally sourced, real, all natural vegan K cup coffee. I'm here to help. Return to your usual programming.

Dear Congressman Nugent

The same Congressman whose dweeb aide called me re: the USNA Golf shirts made in China, sent me his weekly update from Washington e-mail. He shouldn't have asked for a response, but he did.  I won't bore you with the bulk of it, which was simply beating up  POTUS for following up and honoring the Bush status of forces agreement to pull out of Iraq. what follows is my response.

Dear Congressman Nugent,

        At the end of your weekly sitrep/ Obama  bashing e-mail, you asked readers to drop you a line if they  agree or disagree.

     When I see anyone,  member of Congress or otherwise  analogize  the situation in the Middle East to any other world situation the US has ever faced, I cringe. You stated "...And in the end, the Obama Administration failed to secure an enduring security presence as previous administrations had done in Cuba, Italy, Germany, Japan and Korea. 

        One assumes by "Cuba" you are referring to the post Spanish American War era, where we initiated a war then, actually slacked off and allowed Spain to withdraw even though it was clear they could have been humiliated further. We then went in and set up a military government in a country which was powerless to actually resist our efforts and saw the USA as liberators.  Not like the Mid East!

        Or perhaps you are referring to our efforts in Europe post WWII, where the real question was  what, and how much would the Soviets do to oppose our reconstruction of two nations brought to their knees, and we were seen by both Germans and Italians as "the good guys?" Not like the Mid East!

        Or perhaps you meant Japan, bombed into the stone age, and brought to their knees where we still allowed them to retain their Emperor as long as he agreed that he was no longer a God, but the mouthpiece for US policy. Not Like the Mid-East!

        Or perhaps you mean South Korea, where we were seen as saviors and protectors against the North Koreans and Chinese. We had never been at war with South Korea, and your party initially resisted President Truman's actions there until the rabid anti-Communists of the Far Right saw the China connection and feared Chinese expansion after the Chinese Communist revolution. Not like the Mid East.

     You then said,  "After World War II, we kept bases and troops in Europe. Today, we still have roughly 29,000 troops on the Korean peninsula. Those places have remained peaceful through their rebuilding and up to the present day. So much so, that the United States is rightfully considering scaling back troop levels there."

        Of course we kept troops there, but not to fight a religiously motivated and driven  army of suicide bombing "martyrs" without a nation. And certainly not to counter any internal threat in any of those nations. We kept troops in Japan and Korea because of the specter of  newly "Red" China.   We keep them in Korea now because of the madman to the North.  In none of these cases, is the concern an internal, religiously driven enemy who fights guerilla style.

     If you were sincere instead of Obama bashing, why not use the example of  Viet Nam? Is that because we declared victory and withdrew, just as Bush did in Iraq?  Of course we really didn't gave a hoot what happened to the people of  Viet Nam, or we would have allowed the free elections called for by the  Geneva conference , Viet Nam would have been unified under Ho, and today, guess what? They'd probably still be a nominally communist nation (like China) and we'd still be trading with them as we are now. Of course there would be 2 million more Vietnamese alive and 58,000 plus more Americans alive.

        So what's my point? Simply put: There has never in our nation's  history been any other situation like the current Middle East mess, with the possible exception of the Philippine insurrection, where in a surprising parallel, the US toppled a government, and then refused to allow the "liberated" people to rule themselves. That one caused around 220,000 Filipino deaths, and can be laid at the feet of William McKinley.

        The combination of massive failure by the Bush administration to incorporate former senior Iraqi military and police into the rebuilding process (as originally recommended by the first Bush appointed administrator, but undermined by Rumsfeld and Cheney, who engineered his removal ) essentially guaranteed what exists today - a sectarian warfare in which both sides blame the other and the USA for their ills. Not President Obama's watch, not his fault, and even worse, no real world solution.

      There is no "wise old man" who knows what to do in such a situation, and frankly, there never will be as long as religious fanaticism  exists in the world, but to even attempt  a comparison with the situations you name above, demonstrates a  lack of understanding of geopolitics, history and  realpolitik (to borrow Dr. Kissinger's word) that is staggering, although not completely unexpected  in a member of Congress.  

        

              Michael Dorman  MMCM(SS) USN ret

Economic Fact vs Fiction

The other day I posted a brief snippet from a fairly long scholarly article related to the fact that contrary to much Far Right rhetoric, ....well, read it for yourself below.  It triggered a response from a dear friend who shares some, but not all of my opinions on politics, the economy, etc. It led to an interesting discussion, so here it is: 

Me:

        "In the Obama era, the deficit has shrunk by $1 trillion. That’s “trillion,” with a “t.” As a percentage of the economy, the deficit is now down to just 2.5%, which is below the average of the past half-century, and down from 9.8% when the president took office. Suck it, Tea baggers!"

He:

       "The deficit may be lower, but what about the total overall debt since he has taken office? Or is that the Fed reserve to blame? Oh... The admin doesn't control the Fed? I know you'll have a good answer, but I don't think praising the reduction in deficit outweighs increasing the overall debt by tenfold."Italics are mine) "Also, we're always scared of inflation... Which current policy has caused deflation if anything.. I don't mind that honestly for a short period of time. But economics say printing money causes inflation.. The current admin has overseen TRILLIONS printed. Why has there not been inflation? Because GDP is SHIT. Sometimes I wonder about GDP and the importance, growth? Or the well being of people as a whole? But looking back, lack of GDP hurts the lower and middle class because it doesn't create jobs. Sorry, economically, the admin hasn't done a thing. In regards to injection of capital to the market, win. Market surge? Win. Help the lower to middle class? Fail. If the rich get richer b/c injection of capital, and it doesn't create new jobs, what was the point?

This is my battle between the left and the right. I honestly see premise of helping the little guy from the left, but will the left continue to push our overall debt along with act as justification for the rest of the world to print money, to the point where our financial system as a whole is broken because we've printed too much?

Me:

        Not the gist of what I posted. Obviously, the goal should be debt reduction, but you can't lower debt of you don't lower the deficit below zero eventually. My point is that with current Far Right, especially the Tea Party emphasis on lower taxes, there would be minimal if any reduction of the deficit. The article I took this short snippet from was an article which enumerated the reasons for deficit reduction, one of the primary ones of which was increased revenue collection.

        Every single Republican wannabee (except Ben Carson who increasingly apparently knows nothing about anything)  has a "tax cut" plan. All this is in spite of the fact that the "tax cuts on the wealthy' idea has NEVER worked here or in any other nation. The "trickle down" theory has been tested and failed so many times, that the only wonder is that  it survives anywhere.  An Australian politician recently accurately described it as "The rich pissing on the poor!"  The answer to that is that  people like the Koch brothers and Adelson  and the Walton heirs continue to spend billions to try to elect people who will keep the trickle down fallacy alive.

        In fact, in a recession recovery, the deficit this year is lower than any of the Reagan years and most of the Bush years. My point is that while the Far Right has crowed about deficit reduction, only Clinton and now Obama seem  close to  achieving  it. The Reagan deficits were accumulated even in the absence of war, unlike Bush 43's desert adventure.

        Regarding the Federal Reserve and your implied  assertions that the Administration somehow controls it... First of all, once nominated by the  POTUS, the Senate must confirm or reject the nominee. These nominations have historically been economists with impeccable credentials and from both parties.  Unlike members of Congress who have, in some cases, not even a college degree, these are actually qualified persons.   The chair serves a 7 year term, not contiguous to POTUS election cycle and the Board of governors are appointed to staggered 14 year terms, all of which makes it pretty damned tough (in spite of what bloviators  like Donald Trump say) for any POTUS to "control" the board, since they are either his predecessor's appointees or will be there after he or she  is gone.  

        Speaking of inflation, again there seems to be a disconnect  between what some believe and reality. Here's a list by year of the annual percentage of inflation. 2005 - 3.4%, 2007 -2.5%, 2009 - 2.7%, 2011 - 3.0%, 2012 - 1.7%, 2013 - 1.5%, 2014 - 0.8%.........tell me again how the current administration's policies are inflationary?

        The idea of "increasing the debt tenfold" is a grossly incorrect assertion.  Starting from the 2009 budget (actually Bush's last budget, the debt has increased from (round numbers) 12 to 16 trillion, an increase of 4 trillion (for the math challenged, that's an increase of 1/3, not 10). From the first Obama budget (2010) the debt has increased by 2 trillion. As a reference, during the Bush 43 years, (WITHOUT A RECESSION!) the debt increased from 6 trillion to 10 trillion (an increase of four trillion and an increase of 2/3!).  Including the 2009 budget (Bush's, but would probably have been as high in any administration due primarily to TARP) under the Bush 43 authority, the debt rose by actually almost double 6 trillion to 12 trillion! None of this is even remotely close to "tenfold."

        Re: "Injection of capital:"  It's easy to find articles by talking heads of the far right ca 2010-11 absolutely lambasting the current POTUS for continuing some of the economic efforts of the previous one.  As 2012-14 unfolded and unemployment did go down, and as the "bailed out" financial entities paid back all, or the vast percentages,  of the TARP money, those sources became strangely quiet. Why? Because the TRAP money wasn't a "gift: as they had claimed and unemployment had slowly crept back down.

        By the end of 2010, unemployment was actually lower than the Reagan years of 1982 and 83! Currently unemployment is hovering around the 5%-6%  mark. This obviously confounds the earlier claims regarding TARP. The "capital injection" stopped years ago, but the rhetoric lingers on, in spite of very low inflation. What has been well and truly overlooked is the lack of comparison made by the TARP nay-sayers to the Savings and Loan bailout, most of which was NEVER repaid! As a side note, Bush 43 brother, Neil Bush, who was a director of the infamous Silverado S&L which got $1.3 billion in bailout funds,  was twice found to have engaged in fraudulent practices and was fined $100,000. His fines were all paid by Republican supporters. Go figure, huh.?

Hold on to your guns, boys, he's coming!

The far rightists are at it again; this time it's carping about President Obama's (non-existent) "gun grabbing agenda." during his trip to Oregon in the wake of the recent horrific college campus shooting.  

Who the hell are these morons? I'll tell you who.  They are ordinary persons just as misguided and partisan as  the person, related to me distantly, who immediately following the 2008 election went out and bought a second assault rifle because "He'll take our guns!" How's that working out bunky? Still got 'em? I thought so. 

What is troubling is that people like this apparently have no capacity for learning from their mistakes and conceding their errors in judgment. When have we heard one single Republican talking head admit that The Affordable Care Act works? They just keep on riding the hate train. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, yet there they are. If President Obama thinks it's a good idea, oppose it because, he's well, you know, he's "tall."  

Any individual who claims that the President, any President can, of and by himself, do anything of the sort should lose their right to vote because they are ignorant of how the legislative process works! On a second level, consider that the far right has, in the past, criticized the president for NOT doing what he's doing in Oregon, i.e. showing concern and sympathy for those who have lost family members to violence, in person. It is a national disgrace that racism still plays such a huge role in the Far Right's relationship with a President who is brighter than Bush 41 and 43 combined, but happens to have a bit more melanin in his skin.   

And then we get the  (pick one) senseless, brainless, mindless, idiotic, imbecile, insane, lunatic, asinine, ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, preposterous, silly, inane, witless, half-baked, empty-headed, unintelligent, slow-witted, weak-minded natterings of Ben Carson re: "If the Jews in Germany had guns there might not have been a holocaust."  

I'd love to find the flaming arsehole who suggested that Carson might be a good candidate for any office higher than Water Commissioner and throw him in a cell with Kim Davis, who Carson most closely resembles in doctrine and intellect.   

trickle down - "Pissing on the poor"

To all you imbeciles considering any of the current crop of Republican wannabees. They and generations before them, have for over 80 years been endorsing what is commonly referred to as the "Trickle Down" theory of economics. They tout tax cuts on the wealthy as being economic stimuli which benefit everyone. This article (link below) details that every single would-be GOP candidate is still pushing "tax cuts as economic stimulus" even though they are a known and consistent failure!

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/gops-budget-busting-tax-breaks-could-define-2016-race

As this article (Below) summarizes and as history has shown EVERY TIME, it just doesn't work. It never has worked and never will.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/15/news/economy/trickle-down-theory-wrong-imf/index.html

An Australian politician once referred to it as "trickle down, my ass. It's the rich pissing on the poor!" The single issue which voters refer to time and time again is the economy, yet those working and middle class of the far right are blinded to the fact that their "leaders" consistently espouse a failed economic policy, which, unless they are brain dead, they know to be invalid. And yet they vote for them because some committed gay couple may marry, or someone may have a medically safe abortion, or espouse gun control, etc, etc.

Wake up to reality. "It's the economy, stupid!" as Bill Clinton once said. In this election, those who believe that social issues and foreign policy are even close to the economy in importance simply don’t realize how dire our economic and fiscal straits truly are. Though less physical in character than an Al Qaeda or ISIS attack or a nuclear-armed Iran, the threats facing our economy are as menacing to the continuity of our republic as any we’ve ever faced.

In fact, the threats to our economic standing extend to and endanger more than just jobs and living standards. They are capable of destroying our power, influence, and respect on the world stage. We must make fixing the economy the most important issue in governance, or complete economic, military, and social collapse is not beyond possibility. Harvard historian Niall Ferguson has written: “Imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises: sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, and the mounting cost of servicing a mountain of public debt.”

Our disastrous economic and fiscal situation jeopardizes America’s well-being in a way that no other issue does. Abortion is only one example of the distracting issues in this election–gay marriage is another. Though as important a social issue as any, the debate on gay marriage was aptly put into perspective by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels: “If we collapse fiscally and economically, it really won’t matter very much what legal status we conferred on gay cohabitation.”

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/15/news/economy/trickle-down-theory-wrong-imf/index.html

Sometimes a shirt is just a shirt

I was going to ignore the topic of this blog entry, but as happens sometimes, one particularly  ignorant person will make a statement so wrong that I just can't let it go.

        Today, it was this photo of Meryl Streep and the women in the cast of her soon to be released Emmeline  Pankhurst biopic, "Suffragette."  They were wearing tee shirts imprinted with a quote from Mrs. Pankhurst " “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave.” For those (a whole lot) of you who have never even heard the name, Mrs. Pankhurst and several of  her daughters used  civil disobedience  in their fight for the vote in England . She died in 1928, shortly before the Parliament passed a law granting equal suffrage to men and women in the UK. Like Susan B. Anthony, jailed (very briefly) in 1872 in Rochester, NY for trying to vote,  Mrs. Pankhurst spent time in jail. Unlike Ms. Anthony, Mrs. Pankhurst was not treated well. She went on hunger strikes and was force fed several times.

        Now that we actually know a little about the subject. let's address the kerfuffle over the tee shirts. Some have called the shirts, or more precisely, the quotes "unfortunate."  That is the gist of the milder comments I have seen in various media forums.  I am left to suppose that this reflects some belief that this quote, which has been de-contextualized by some seriously and spectacularly ignorant and under informed people, relates to slavery in the sense of the United States and Black servitude.  It does not.  Some have implied that "rebel" and "slave" are meant to relate to the Confederacy. They aren't. 

        By far the most ignorant and  ludicrous comment, however, came from a writer, African American, who actually said,"No white woman in all of history has ever been a slave!"  Really? I would answer with a bit of history and then close with an opinion which will probably piss off some, but you'll have to wait to find out.

         The modern word "slave"   comes from Old  French (sclave) which in turn took it from the Medieval Latin (sclavus)which took it from the  Byzantine Greek (σκλάβος,) which, in turn, comes from the ethnic classification, Slav, because in some early Medieval wars many Slavs were captured and enslaved (all Caucasians, of course!)  

       All that having been said, various forms of slavery existed before written history and in many cultures. Once institutionally recognized by most societies, but has now been outlawed in all countries, the last being Mauritania in 2007. Slavery in many forms continues today in such practices as debt bondage, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, human trafficking and forced marriage. Accordingly, there are still an estimated 20 million to 36 million slaves worldwide, so the statement is still relevant to millions of persons.

        Greeks owned slaves as did the Romans,  predominantly Caucasian also. Biblically, The Hebrews bought and sold slaves, even their own children into slavery (Semites, of course.)  In Medieval England, the majority of persons on landed estates were slaves, even to the extent of being at the landlord's call for sex. They were of course, Caucasian as well. Today, thousands of young  women, of all races are being held in the bondage of sex traffickers. So, the "White women have never been slaves" comment is simply, how shall I say? - Bullshit!   

        Let me say that I consider slavery or human bondage of any kind, race, gender, whatever, to be an abomination. It has been hugely divisive in our nation, which would have been better off had slavery never existed. I can think of no sane argument which can justify the ownership of one human being by another.  As an added aggravating factor, Black slavery in America was race based, and accompanied by the assumption of racial superiority of the master class. It is worthy of a side note here, that Nazi treatment of Jews was based on similar assumptions, and, on a percentage basis was far more deadly, as Jews weren't even valued as property 

        Now the rest. First, because I type poorly, I will use the term "Black" vice "African American" here, for the same reason I say "Indian" vice "Native American" and that is that the majority of both ethnic groups self  refer that way. All the truly angry comments, such as the "no white women, etc" come from Black female writers. It took me a while to reflect on all that factors into that, and I'm left with this: The one thing which some Black Americans seem to cling to as if it were a life raft, is the historical reality of slavery. It seems almost as if some wrap themselves in it as a sort of a fall back when bad things happen, even when such events may actually not be racial in nature.

 I have friends, Black and Caucasian,  who would be quick to say "everything is racial in nature."  I would call bullshit on that as I do on essentially every categorical statement that things are "always" anything. It is no more true that all white Americans are racist than it is to say the same of Blacks. The sad truth is that far too many of both groups harbor biases based on race. Would that it were not so. Hopefully as generations pass, it will become less so.

      In the mean time must we always seek to attach pejorative intent to everything in print? One need ask themselves, what are the real chances that Ms Streep intended to demean  any group? Moreover,  what are the chances that only one group in the world has ever held the franchise on either enslaving or being enslaved?  The historical reality is that both sexes of all the world's ethnic groups have almost assuredly been either slaves or masters at some point.  In the case of women, although more subtle today, some women of all the world's races are still in one form of slavery of another.

         Ask the 12 year old girls in  the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints if they really want to marry a 45 year old man.  Ask the 11 year old Thai girl if she enjoys being a child prostitute.  Ask the young Saudi girls if they would rather have  left their school building when it caught fire even though they were bare  armed and headed  - oh, never mind, they were allowed to burn alive. So maybe some times a tee shirt is just a tee shirt, and a quote in context is just about voting.