Shutdown

I'm always amazed when Democrats are perceived to have won government shutdown battles of the past. And they've won all of them if my memory is correct, at least in the sense that Republicans have never gotten their way by shutting down the government by refusing to fund its operation.

Of course, no one really wins when the government shuts down. Everyone loses, but primarily federal employees who lose their source of income, which means they lose the ability to feed, clothe and house their families. Other big losers are the millions that directly depend on services provided by the federal government in order to survive, and all the rest of us who depend on the safety of the food we eat, the medicine we take, and the air we breathe.

The problem for Democrats in the shutdown battles is that they care about the suffering of all these people and Republicans don't. A simplistic statement, I know, but true nevertheless. Oh, an individual Republican will care if they know a person who suffers because a federal program ceases to operate, but in addition to not caring about anyone they don't know personally, Republicans possess the ability to rationalize away facts they find unpleasant. So, for them, any suffering endured by them, their friends or family, is the fault of Democrats, even if clearly the fault of Republicans.

Democrats lack this ability to twist reality into the form they wish it to be, and are at an even  greater disadvantage by caring about the millions of fellow Americans who suffer during a shutdown. The primal impulse for Democrats is to alleviate suffering if they can, while Republicans, recognizing and scorning this Democratic characteristic, are only too happy to use it against them.

In a hostage situation, which is how Republicans view shutdowns, the negotiating party at the greatest disadvantage is the one that cares about the hostages the most. Democrats suffer along with the victims; Republicans gloat at their suffering.

Given this Democratic disadvantage, it's a wonder that Republicans don't get their way every time there is a shutdown. The only reason they don't is that their objectives are always odious to a majority of Americans, such as taking away affordable health care, or building a thirty foot wall along the southern border.

It is a measure of just how corrupt and venal the Republican party is that they cannot get their way during shutdowns given the huge negotiating advantage they have. So, while things look bleak, I guess there's that.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

The Problem with Tariffs

Placing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum is just as dumb as all the other Republican ideas, economic and everything else. You'd think they would stumble on a good idea once in awhile by accident, but it never happens.

The way the world grows wealthier through global trade is that poorer countries mine their  natural resources like coal, iron ore, and bauxite, or purchase them from other poor countries, and use their unskilled labor to produce steel and aluminum to sell to richer countries which use their skilled labor and industrial technology to turn the aluminum and steel into value-added products like cars and appliances which they sell to their fellow countrymen and export to the citizens of poor countries which have money to buy the products made in rich countries because they have jobs mining minerals and making steel and aluminum.

So, eventually poor countries become rich and their work force becomes educated and their technology advances, and they begin to make cars and appliances, but because their younger work force will work for cheaper wages, their cars and appliances are cheaper, so the richer countries move on to making even more value-added products like airplanes, spacecraft, robots, electromagnetic trains, and products not yet invented.

This is the way global capitalism works until one of the wealthy countries screws things up the way America is doing now under the leadership of Republicans.

Instead of improving our infrastructure, supporting research that will create technological advances, and investing in workforce training and education, Republicans are siphoning off trillions of national income to make the wealthy wealthier. And to further exacerbate the damage, they have decided to support, by placing tariffs on imports, dangerous, polluting, low- tech,  low-wage jobs in mineral extraction and aluminum and steel making - jobs that the American economy moved on from decades ago. 

It makes no sense until you look at it through the lens of Republican economic policy, which places no value on America moving forward into new realms of high tech, high-wage jobs in new, exciting, clean industries of the future. Instead, old, dirty, dangerous jobs of the past will do just fine, as long as the natural order is preserved and the rich get richer as the poor get poorer.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

Republican Tax "Reform" 2018

I put Reform in quotation marks in the title, because that word has a different meaning to Republicans than to the rest of us. To them, tax reform consists of cutting taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals. Oh, they will throw in a few minor cuts to the middle class as a bribe, but they evidently think middle class voters can be bought cheaply, since the sources I read reported that approximately 85% of the benefits of the"reform" go to the wealthy, none goes to the poor, and the paltry amount that goes to the middle class disappears in ten years.

Now, I'm not completely sure these numbers are accurate, but I accept they are, since they conform with my observations of Republican fiscal policy over the years. In fact, transferring as much wealth as possible from 99% of Americans to the top 1%, pretty much sums up Republican public policy in total. Everything else is ancillary to that.

No one should be curious as to why the incoming Bush Jr. administration took no action on the warnings of a major terrorist attack that had been relayed to them by the outgoing Clinton administration. They were concentrating on their policy priority: tax cuts for the wealthy. If you remember, prior to the 2000 election, Bush was trying to buy the election by saying that since the economy was doing so well, the country could afford a tax cut for everyone. Of course, what he really meant was a big tax cut for the wealthy and a much smaller one for the middle class, but, hey, those are just details. We're supposed to hear "tax cut" and leave it at that. But then, when the economy slowed down soon after taking office, the Bush Jr. administration had to switch gears and justify a tax cut for the wealthy which was needed in order to rejuvenate  the economy. Changing gears so quickly regarding such an important issue left no time for such non-revenue-producing matters as national security.

In order to sell tax cuts to those who benefit from them little or not at all, which is 99%of the population, Republicans, over the years, have created myths which they promulgate widely and often. Each of these myths has been shown to be demonstrably false, but Republicans never let an inconsequential thing like the truth stand in the way of getting richer.

Myth 1: Tax Cuts for the Rich Pay for Themselves. It's a lie. Always has been a lie, always will be a lie. But claiming that cutting taxes for the rich actually generates more overall tax revenue is so appealing to Republicans that they can't resist it, so they keep repeating it over and over, evidently with the belief that if they really and truly believe it, someday it will magically come true.

Myth 2: Tax Cuts for the Rich Jumpstart the Economy. The opposite is actually true. Tax cuts for the poor and middle class ignite the economy, because most of it is spent on things they need, and a little on things they want. The rich already have everything they need and most of what they want, so tax cuts for them just make them richer.

Myth 3: Tax Cuts for the Rich Create Jobs.  When Republicans are forced to admit the obvious, that their tax cuts are for the benefit of the rich, they respond by claiming that everyone else benefits because the rich are "job creators". This makes no more sense than any of the other conservative economic principles. Corporations and rich individuals don't create jobs when they are handed more money; jobs are created by demand. When poor and middle class families have money, they buy goods and services. In response, existing businesses expand and new businesses are created.

The reality is that the American economy needed no tax cut stimulus after Trump took office. It was already humming along nicely, thanks to Democratic efforts after the Republicans almost managed to wreck the entire world economy in 2008. Now would have been the time to run a surplus and start to pay down our national debt. But the only reality Republicans recognize is the need for the rich to get richer, even if that means everyone else must get poorer.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

The Obama Portraits

Here is one way to look at the portraits of Barack and Michelle: If you are only familiar with classical music, then jazz is going to sound mighty strange. But if you listen to classical and jazz treatments of the same song, you begin to discern the similarities and the differences, and can appreciate that both are valid interpretations of the same reality.

Let's say that the portrait paintings that most of us have seen in museums, in galleries, in historic homes, in courthouses and state capitols, are classical in nature; that is, to the greatest extent that the artist is capable, they are realistic interpretations of the likeness of the subject of the painting, and their quality is judged on how readily the subject can be identified.

A jazz interpretation, however, while similar in essence, might be very different in execution. When  people say "It doesn't look like Michelle," they are referring to the lack of classical familiarity. What about a jazz interpretation, though, as when a jazz musician riffs on a familiar musical theme? Does this portrait communicate something about its subject on a different level than physical likeness? Can you see a truer likeness of Michelle in this painting than in a portrait that looks like a photograph, in the same way that Van Gogh's self-portrait looked very little like him, and at the same time, very much like him? Does the painting make you say, "Now that is Michelle," even more than a photograph of Michelle would?

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

Bill Clinton

In light of recent news about prominent men being accused of sexual assault and abuse, I think back to the Bill Clinton days. Then, as now, Republicans were dishonest and hypocritical. Now, they criticize any man on the left outed as being an abuser and remain silent on the same behavior from the right. When forced to comment on one of their own, they typically choose to withhold judgement until all the facts are in, secure in knowing that there could never be enough facts presented to force them give an honest assessment.

Back then, it was the same. I remember the day I heard the name Monica Lewinski,White House intern, and what Bill was accused of. Even though I was a committed Democrat and a Clinton admirer, my first thought was that he should resign the presidency. And I believe many others who voted for him thought the same.

But over succeeding months, that changed as Republicans used a special prosecutor and an investigation into a real estate deal in Arkansas to move toward impeaching him for lying about his encounters with Ms. Lewinski. If they had been honest, and made the case that his actions with her, and the other women that came forward, disqualified him to lead the nation, I, and a lot of other Democrats would have agreed with them and he might have been forced to leave office. But they weren't honest of course, and they tried to convince the country that they were moral champions of decency and to impeach him for lying about his affair was the righteous thing to do. Only Republicans bought that charade and he remained in office for a full second term.

Whether his behavior with Ms. Lewinski or any of the other women could be classified as assault or abuse I don't know, since there wasn't much of an honest investigation by legal authorities or legitimate media into the incidents. But from what I know, Trump's activities with women were a lot more heinous than Bill's. Republicans did then what they're doing now: covering up their own misdeeds and trying to criminalize the same actions by their opponents. I'm not sure if not having the capacity to recognize your own hypocrisy is a prerequisite of becoming a Republican, or if that ability is lost over time, but it is a constant with them.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

Tipping Point

I believe in the concept of tipping points: those points on a continuum of change where conditions cease to change gradually and suddenly change dramatically and irrevocably. Like will happen in the not-so-distant future to the climate of the earth when all the ice has melted and the plants and the oceans have ameliorated warming to the maximum extent they can, and the earth's ecosystem gives up and warming ceases to be gradual and the temperature skyrockets and most animal life, including humanity, is baked, drowned, starved, and suffocated into extinction. At least once the tipping point is reached, it will be over quickly. Quick, unfortunately, being relative on this scale. The end will seem agonizingly slow to those unfortunate enough to be alive and forced to suffer the consequences of the incredible stupidity of conservatives.

I've lived among conservatives all my life. They've been my relatives and my friends, both high school and college-educated, white and blue collar. My friendship with them has been the kind borne of participating in shared activities: being on a softball team; part of a regular golf foursome; going on rafting trips. During these times it was relatively easy to deflect their unconscious, unthinking conservatism. I would often say things in response to them like: No, I don't think school was harder when we were kids; or, I don't believe in giving money to lazy people, either, but I do believe in helping people that need it; or, Government isn't a business and can't be run like one; and the old standard, Just because it's cool here doesn't mean it's that way everywhere in the world.

Through the years I watched my conservative friends and relatives grow more extreme in their views to the point they were obviously voting against not only their own self-interest, but against the best interests of their own children. I couldn't comprehend their votes for Bush Junior, but at least he was on the continuum of people who were at least conceivable as president, albeit way over on the extreme end of incompetency. And I could never understand why anyone would want an incompetent president, even one you could enjoy having a beer with.

It was during the Obama years that they began to be intolerable. They somewhat tempered their comments when I was around, but, inevitably, after a few beers, the racist comments and the smart phone apps that transformed Michelle into a monkey came out. It was during this time that I stopped going on golf trips with them, and to the fourth of July party that had been a tradition among us for more than twenty years.

But it was their support and votes for Trump that was the tipping point for me.  Voting for someone for president who was not even on the continuum of eligibility for the office was such an insult to this country that it was unforgivable. To vote for a man who was the opposite of everything that was necessary for a president to be revealed them as not valuing anything that decent people must value.

It's indescribably sad to realize that 63 million Americans voted for Trump. Even sadder to realize that all of them are lost to the fight to make America a more just, equitable, progressive, healthier, sustainable society. It's tempting to believe that some of them can be made to see how wrong they were, but it's wasted effort. Some actions can't be taken back, and some decisions can't be forgiven. Sixty-three million Americans willingly left this country and crossed the border into a land of darkness and ignorance. They will never come back from there, and we can't bring them back.

There are no morals more relative than conservative morals, and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.

A Liberal's Wishes for James Comey

James Comey. What is there to say about the man that hasn’t already been said. I hated him with a white-hot passion after his attention-seeking, self-promoting criticism of Hillary helped Trump become president. I don’t claim that he alone is responsible for her loss, but like in civil trials when percentages of fault are assigned to various parties, he bears, beyond a reasonable doubt, some percentage of the responsibility for Trump. And while there is no way to quantify that number, even if it is small, a small percentage of a tragedy the magnitude of the Trump presidency means Comey is responsible for causing enormous, perhaps fatal, damage to the country that could have led the world out of the journey to destruction that it has now been set upon.

Comey should have been fired for what he did to Hillary and to all of us. But to hear Trump use it, initially at least, as justification for firing him when he appeared to be getting serious about exposing Trump’s indebtedness  to Russia, was doubly galling.

My wish is that Comey loves his country and his family and realizes the enormity of the harm he has caused, and at three in the morning he awakens feeling more than “mildly nauseous” at what he has done, but rather with the same moaning, sweating, despair that so many of us feel at the realization that the hope that our children might have the same quality of life that we had has been swept away.

I remember late on election night saying goodbye to my son who had recently graduated college and who was heading off to the city to his start his adult life, and the panicked look on his face as he said, “She’s going to win isn’t she?” When he was a child, I would have reassured him that everything was going to be all right.  But that night, there was no comfort I could offer. I wish that Comey is haunted by the faces of the billions of children whose lives he has helped destroy. I wish that he has a soul and that it is in torment. It’s not cruelty in my opinion, just justice.

In 2016 the world teetered on a razor-edged tipping point. In one direction was a long uphill slog toward slowing the rate of manmade global warming, reducing income inequality, promoting social justice, and preventing corporations from making debt slaves of our children. In the other direction was a downhill slide into the abyss of moral, social, and, ultimately, physical destruction. Pushing us in this direction were Republicans, and their corporate and media allies with their virtually unlimited wealth. Trying their best to overcome the strength of these powerful forces were people of good will, but limited resources.

Even with such a disadvantage, the battle was, for a time, a stalemate, and it looked as if the forces of greed, ignorance, and bigotry might be overcome, but at the most crucial point, Comey added his weight to the side of the deplorables and the battle was lost. Was he the deciding factor? Impossible to say. But what decent human being would have chosen that side?

Now we hear self-recrimination from the left that the Trumpsters should have been listened to, that their concerns should have been acknowledged, and that they must be brought over to our side before the next election. As someone who lives in Trump country, I’m here to tell you it’s not happening. Not unless we do like Trump and Fox News do, and lie to them continuously, telling them that all their problems are brought on by liberals, minorities, and immigrants; global warming is a hoax; tax cuts for the rich benefit the poor; and when elected we will immediately make all their problems disappear. Of course we can’t do that, and that is the only way to win them over.  

I’m not sure that people living outside Trump country really understand the extent to which the Trumpsters have become citizens of the alternate country of the right, a country that abides by a different set of moral values than we do. Like the Civil War confederates they adore so much, they regard a Federal government controlled by anyone but themselves as illegitimate and to overthrow it by any means as the patriotic thing to do.

Just as the confederates tried to enlist England and France as allies, today’s Trumpsters view accepting Russian assistance to defeat Democrats as a perfectly acceptable strategy. Liberals, minorities, immigrants, these are the real threats to America, and any individual or country willing to fight them is a friend.  The majority of Trumpsters would vote for Putin over a Democrat.  Just as has occurred in many elections around the world, they would vote for someone who would end all elections and replace democracy with dictatorship if convinced the candidate was one of them.

Trumpsters are lost to reason, to rationality. Like cult members, they will willingly sacrifice themselves and their children if told to do so by the cult leader. So the next election will be as close as the last one. We will have to marshal all our forces to defeat them and fight Republican efforts at voter suppression. And still it may not be enough. Again, the winner will be decided by a margin as thin as a razor’s edge.  All we can do is be prepared, tell the truth, expose Republican lies, encourage minorities and young people turn out, and hope no turncoats like Comey defect to the other side.