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Friday, December 20, 2024

Guns and Money

H E A D L I N E    N E W S!

 

John Kenneth Galbraith, in his book The Age of Uncertainty, listed explanations commonly given for why, in an era of abundance (the 20th century), there should continue to be poverty in the world. “...[S]o many different and conflicting answers … given with so much confidence and such nonchalance,” he noted. In the list he compiled were: lack of energy and ambition; race or religion; lack of natural resources; faulty economic system; inadequate education, technical, scientific, administrative talent; consequences of past colonial exploitation, racial discrimination, and national humiliation. Galbraith’s answer is:

 

There is no one answer—obviously. It is because so many explanations have a little truth that so many are offered [my emphasis added]. But one cause of poverty is pervasive. That is the relationship, past or present, between land and people. Understand that, and we understand the most general single cause of deprivation. 

 

The “land question” has long been studied, as has population, but neither has yet been solved. That, however, is not my topic today. 


I have been thinking about another knotty problem, another question to which “many explanations,” each with “a little truth,” have been offered, and that is the question, the problem, the fact of gun violence in America. I won’t go over old ground and list all the various explanations Americans espouse for school shootings and other shootings of multiple people in public places, often strangers to the shooter. Instead I want to propose a parallel to Galbraith's claim. 

 

Might there not be an underlying relationship beneath and behind the epidemic of mass shootings in America? What can it be other than guns and money? All the other explanations play their little parts, but only because the basic relationship exists in the first place. At least, that’s what I’m thinking and what I’m asking others to consider.

 

There are a lot of stories we can tell ourselves and each other. We do it all the time. Some stories help us solve problems, while others—the unquestioned myths--insure that the problems will remain enshrined in our national culture.

 


Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Random Remarks: Michener’s “Young Colonels”

 

The old man


James Michener, in This Noble Land: My Vision for America, warned against what he called “the young colonels,” writing that what is often called a "revolt of the generals" (a military overthrow of democracy) is more often a rebellion led by younger men who take radical action, “fearing that time is being lost.” Michener thought that revolutions in Algeria, Liberia, and Haiti all had this flavor and considered Hitler the “archetype” of the young military rebels he was describing. 

 

I was curious then about the ages of our own Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin, of course, was an “old man” of the American Revolution, but on July 4, 1776, Ages of the Founding Fathers on July 4, 1776, James Monroe was only eighteen years old! Aaron Burr was twenty, Alexander Hamilton twenty-one, and James Madison a venerable quarter-century

 

The 1770s, however, were not the 1960s, and the young men put a lot of trust in Thomas Jefferson (age 33) and John Adams, Paul Revere, and George Washington (all in their 40s). Firebrand Patrick Henry was also a mature 40 years old, John Hancock nearly that age. 


Michener did not mention Americans among the impatient "young colonels" in his brief survey. And of course our Founding Fathers were not part of a standing army.


The young ones


Friday, November 15, 2024

The Explanation Is Simple

Traditionally and historically, an American president's Cabinet was a group of advisors to the president. No one has experience in every facet of governance, and everyone at times needs advice from someone with specific knowledge -- or simply a different perspective. That was the role of the Cabinet. Until 2017.

Now once again, half the public, many elected officials, a number of past and present ranking military officers, and reporters from all over the country and the world gasp at each new appointment made by the president-elect. Why? He is also a former president, so you have seen this act play out before. What don't you understand?

A man who does not want advice and does not see that he needs any is not looking for advisors. This man, as we have seen before, wants flunkies. Toadies. Yes-men and -women. Anyone not ready to nod like a bobblehead wouldn't last a week in his Cabinet, and anyone seriously qualified is, ipso facto, disqualified from the get-go.

Really, what else did you expect?

Sunday, October 20, 2024

He Took a Stand

Moment of decision


October 18 was the birthday of French philosopher Henri Bergson. Born in 1859, Bergson presented his French doctoral thesis (two were required then, one in French, a second in either Latin or Greek) on “The Immediate Givens of Consciousness,” in English usually titled “Time and Free Will, to the examining faculty in 1889. The question he addressed was that of determination vs. free will: When we come to a fork in life’s road, are we free to choose which path to follow, or has our path forward been predetermined before we reach what looks like a point of decision? Bergson’s answer was that a "path" ahead in time does not exist. The fork does not exist. The future does not exist. We only create our path and our direction forward by going forward. Moreover, although we are definitely creatures of habit and perform countless habitual actions every day without thinking about them at all, we always have a measure of possible freedom, and when we act out of that freedom it is the expression of our whole life up to that moment.

 

Bergson died on January 3, 1941, of bronchitis. But it is what he did before he died that matters, not the manner of his death. Refusing the occupying Nazis’ offer of exemption from their race laws against Jews (inspired by American race laws against Blacks), just as he had already refused “honors” they wanted to bestow on him, Bergson stood in line to be given the yellow star indicating his heritage. He didn’t have to do it. He could have let himself be bought off. But he took a stand. 

 

What good does it do for one person to make a stand? Wasn’t his a futile gesture? His wearing of the yellow star did not save anyone from the gas chambers, and he himself did not even live to see Paris liberated.

 

I say, he died a free man, a man of integrity – perhaps with a broken heart, but not with a broken spirit. 


What kind of future do you hope to create? What legacy do you want to leave behind? 

 

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

I Am Not a Billionaire

Not in the 1%. I work for a living.

I am not a billionaire but a member of a group called “the working elderly.” I have run my own business for 31 years to make a living. It is not a hobby.

 

If I were a billionaire -- and cared for nothing but my investment portfolio -- the big tax cuts I would get under another Trump presidency would probably offset the inflationary increase in the cost of living brought about by his plan for across-the-board tariffs, mass deportations, and curbs on the Federal Reserve. Even conservative economists predict that American households can expect their living expenses to increase by $2,000 to $3,000 a year if Trump is elected again and puts his ill-conceived policies in place. 

 

Can you afford a $3,000 increase in your living expenses? Yes, of course, if you are a billionaire.

Saturday, September 21, 2024

If You Must Tell Lies –

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⬇️


The other day I went down a rabbit hole, as people say these days, chasing the ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” That’s the wording I remember from Sunday school days, the explanation we were given simply that lying was wrong. 

 

Newer translations online give the Biblical text as “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” and while some internet sites read the commandment as forbidding any false statement, others, even religious ones, claim that the commandment is not about lying in general but only requires that we refrain from giving false testimony about another. I’ll leave it to you to go down your own rabbit hole(s), if you find the prospect inviting.

 

For the moment, however, for the sake of discussion, let us accept the narrower interpretation. I have personal misgivings about allowing even “harmless” falsehoods, as in ordinary situations, dishonesty does nothing good for relationships, but for now, let that go and agree – for the sake of argument or discussion -- that I can lie about my age with impunity, and you can lie about your natural hair color, but we are all forbidden by the commandment to speak falsehoods against our neighbors. 

 

The next obvious question becomes, Who is to count as my neighbor? Only someone who lives in my immediate neighborhood? Someone I know? Someone I like?

 

The Jewish people are told in Leviticus to remember always that they were once slaves in Egypt and should therefore treat “the stranger among you” as one born in their land, a neighbor, while anyone who claims to be Christian and a follower of Jesus should recall the parable of the Good Samaritan and its message that even our enemies are our neighbors and should be loved as we love ourselves. 

 

Telling harmful lies about another person is slander, defamation of character, and constitutes grounds for lawsuit, whether the words are spoken on the witness stand or in the street. (On the witness stand, it is also perjury.) And when such lies – about entire groups of people -- are spoken publicly and widely disseminated, putting the slandered at risk for their very lives, how can a candidate for any public office, how can any public person whatsoever, claim justification for such lies because, for instance, lies about Haitian immigrants in this country legally “brought attention to the legitimate issue of illegal migration”? No!  

 

No! The Republican candidate for vice president claims to be a Catholic and has borne false witness against his neighbors. He also possesses a degree in law and is guilty of slander. This is not a matter of taking something out of context, as the context is public and broad, and his attempted justification has been publicly given. Going to confession does not undo the harm he has caused. He is unfit for any public office at any level. 

 

Moral of my story: If you must lie, lie about your age, your weight, your hair color – in short, lie about yourself, not someone else, and keep your lies trivial, please, IF YOU MUST LIE AT ALL. -- But really, is it necessary? Is it good for you? Do your words and actions align with what you claim are your beliefs? At issue is what is called character.

Saturday, September 7, 2024

Who are these so-called “socialists,” anyway?

🍎🍗🥦🍞🌽

 

Or call them “Communists,” as Republican candidates often do. This year’s Republican candidate for the office of President of the United States is fond of throwing around the lie that his opponent is a “Communist,” a lie born early in the last century and has been dragged out over and over again by politicians who seek to win by inducing fear. 

 

There are also idealogues who want either no government at all or government only for military purposes. To them, anything more is socialism. 

 

But enough with the generalizations. Let’s get down to something specific and look at it more closely.

 

Food stamps. No actual “stamps” are involved (there were stamps from 1939 to 1943), but that name for the benefit persists, so I’ll use it. I was curious about the people Reagan years ago called “welfare mothers” and who they are today, so I looked into it. Data found by the Pew Research Center (full article here for you) is eye-opening. Take a look. 

 

The majority of recipients of SNAP benefits are overwhelmingly white (62.7%) and were born in the United States (a whopping 87.8%). There are almost as many two-parent families receiving benefits (43.9%) as single-parent families with only a mother in the household (45.5%). As for the age of primary recipients, 44.5% of recipients fall into the 25 – 64-year-old age range. (Pew gives 25-44 and 45-64 separately. I have collapsed them.) The full history of the government program can be found here. Today over 12% of the American population receives this benefit. 

 

There is no way to determine the political affiliations of recipients, but I vividly recall one of my students years ago at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, a self-proclaimed libertarian, who “did not believe” in government programs but acknowledged that her family relied on them. I did not then and do not now understand that. To me, what you do shows what you believe. If you believe in voting, for example, you vote. If you don’t vote, you don’t believe in it.

 

An important and often overlooked feature of food assistance in the United States is that it was inaugurated not only to alleviate hunger but also, essentially and perhaps primarily, to help farmers and business owners. Read about that hereThe largest-ever expansion of government food assistance programs took place under a Republican administration for the benefit of American business. Communists? I don't think so.

 

Don’t fall for fake stories. And please don’t fall for name-calling and old, tired lies.