Pathetic Parties

We need only look at the payroll tax (Social Security) reduction political theater to see how intellectually and ethically bankrupt the two parties are:

First, the Democrats:  This reduction, which hurt the already hurting Social Security situation, was supposed to be a temporary, economically stimulating measure to put immediately spendable money into the hands of middle and lower class wage earners.  While perhaps not a gimmick in the aggregate, for most people it was gimmicky in their personal situations: per paycheck for most people, it didn’t amount to much (and not least because of the low average wages of most Americans these days).  But the Democrats play loose with figures and play games with appearances.  They trot out people/examples of the difference “$40 every two weeks” would make, and gloss over the fact that most of those that amount of money would make a difference to are NOT getting those amounts in tax reduction (they don’t make the “assumed” $50,000 wage).  They don’t make that amount of money because that is the top end of HOUSEHOLD average income—47% of individuals make less than $27,000 a year.  And now the Democrats, because they want to use it as a cudgel against the Republicans, have been portraying the reduction’s scheduled expiration as a tax HIKE by the Republicans (who did, admittedly, largely oppose it), something that looks bad for the party of no tax increases.   Lost in all this is any real concern for the supposed dear-child of the Democrats: Social Security’s financial viability.  Where is the responsible talk about RESTORING the funding level (which is, really, all the expiration of this temporary measure is)?  And how about Dems admitting that more “priming of the adrenaline pump” for the economy is not working all that well?  Not least because both Democratic and Republican administrations have been using that pump in good times and in bad.  The body is failing.  No concern for that.  Political games and political advantage are more important.

Now, the Republicans: The payroll tax reduction did not much interest them either personally (because they’re not on that system) or with their prime constituents (who get most of their money from dividends and capital gains).  And so they (along with their fuhrer, Grover Norquist) showed their hypocrisy by not only failing to oppose its expiration (which could be portrayed as favoring a tax increase, albeit a tax increase on people they mostly have abandoned), but actively working to kill the reduction .  Loud and insistent they (and Norquist) were when the Bush tax cuts were about to expire—loud and insistent that such a thing would amount to a grievous TAX INCREASE.  And so they held hostage at the time unemployment benefits and other things so that the Democrats and Obama would cave to their demands about the Bush tax cuts (which they did).  Then doing similar hostage holding things this time (apparently at the prompting of TEA party members of the House who are being hypocritical as well) about the payroll tax reduction.  Using a false smokescreen of SAYING they wanted to talk about a year long extension, not 2 months, when it was obvious to all players they had no interest in actually extending things for a year.  And also trying to couple it to a demand about the Keystone XL pipeline, an entirely separate matter (anything important enough to vote on should be voted on separately or never brought up—this is a particularly grievous problem in American politics).  Republicans showed their hypocrisy on this tax reduction largely by their silence: because it affects regular people, not largely them or theirs.  Showing that it’s not even ideology: they only really care about tax cuts for the wealthy.

Are they equally to blame?  Probably not.  The Republicans have been a great deal more twisted in their petty politics and servitude to the 1%.  But are the Democrats a viable alternative, independent of the 1%?  No.  It seems only a sustained, country-wide third party to radically remake over the system can change these ways.  A party that can’t be co-opted by one or both of the other parties.

Raq'd Ourselves

Saturday saw the last significant combat troops leave Iraq, bringing to a dithering and anti-climactic end major American ground involvement in Iraq. I won’t bring up how much we resemble the Roman wastage and pointlessness of nearly 2000 years ago. I’ll stick to more recent events.

As Chuck Hagel said in his Sept 11 column this year (about 9/11), we dramatically overreacted, overreached, and became so intellectually and morally lazy as to be easily manipulated by those with inordinately selfish agendas. We committed to foreign and domestic involvements far beyond our capacity to finance them, let alone whether they could have been successful policy (they almost certainly could not have been).

And now, trillions of dollars (which we didn’t have and had to largely borrow) and many thousands of scarred or lost lives later, we leave, with many Iraqis’ good riddance.

Can’t blame them. We f’d up their country’s economy and infrastructure, shoved them aside, inspired terrorism, and made possible heavy Iranian influence.

Because when it comes to foreign policy, we’re selfish, immature, morons. Others have told the story of how the trumped up march to war seems, now that we are a bit clearer, like corrupt madness emplaced by those who would in another era be called war criminals. Some others have chronicled how we blew the occupation, the transition, the sovereignty. Still others have told how financially corrupt we were, how much we enriched the companies of the national security apparatus, that at times their wealth enrichment seemed to be the ONLY real objective of our invasion.

Because, nope, there weren’t weapons of mass destruction. Our intelligence agencies may or may not have known that, but since they didn’t allow the regional experts to speak to power (and those powers would have ignored them even if they had), we overlooked the blatantly obvious: Saddam Hussein and Iraq had/have a historical arch-enemy—the Persians/Iranians. Saddam was wily and clever—too clever for his own good, it turns out, especially where it concerned arrogant, cowboy American neo-conservatives—in making the world think he had those weapons. But he needed the world to think that, not because of phantasmal “threats” to Israel, the US, and the West, but because he needed that regional power to the east to think that.

And we got rid of both the belief and the force behind that belief (and no, I shed no tears for SH or any of the murderous dictators of history). And what do we fear as too powerful now? Iran, of course.

Charles Krauthammer’s analysis of Iraq is primitive, parochial-partisan, and far off the mark: no one “lost” Iraq, as it was never “ours” to win. The Obama administration, for all its problems, did not “blow” it. A foreign occupying force had been there long enough, under arrogant and infuriating (to the Iraqis) circumstances. It was time to go. That’s why NATO, which had a far smaller and far more successful and Iraqi-respected mission there, also had to leave: the Iraqis had had enough of the West wanting special privileges—for their troops and their countries in general. Thank the heavens for the situation in Iraq that Al-Qaeda was such a bunch of murderous fanatics there. The Iraqi people found a semblance of common cause, and not only many former insurgents, but the civilian population also, turned on the terrorists. THAT’S the primary reason that the effectiveness of the terrorists there has been much reduced. A terrorism, btw, that did not exist prior to our invasion (Saddam had no connection to 9/11 or Al-Qaeda).

We seem unable to get it in our short-term, infantile foreign affairs skulls that petty modern dictators come and go with pathetic regularity. Human mortality ensures that they don’t last even when they can last a good while, and the descendants/successors of such dictators are usually either partially inept, or unable to deal with the forces that the tyranny of their predecessors have brought into volatility. If the desire for freedom is one of the strongest urges, why would we think such authoritarian systems would be long-term viable? John Adams once warned us not to “go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” That goes a hundred-fold for petty ones.

In Lancelot’s words, “we have lost our way, Arthur.”

Such are the ways of hegemons. Obsessed with both the arrogance of their power, and their insatiable “need” for “security,” they spend themselves erecting shoddy, transitory structures on foreign lands. Structures doomed to collapse and fail because of faulty foundations—that the hegemons themselves have ensured are undermined.

Sure, the Iraqis have a big mess in front of them. Not only do they have to deal with the messes we left them (and the corruption we helped along—and it didn’t need much), but the possibility of sectarian warfare always looms, and they have to deal with their historical arch-enemy from a position of semi-supplicant weakness. Our hope is that they will eventually sort it out, and that the up and coming generations do not hold America responsible for too much. Then relations with the (historically) fairly secular Iraqis can begin at something near “normal.”

As for ourselves, to turn around a Churchill phrase: Once again, so much was expended, and so much risked, for so little. And so much damage done to others—and especially to ourselves. We are notably weaker because of this conflict we initiated. America will be done in if it keeps having historical amnesia and keeps involving itself in wars that serve neither true national interest nor the true interests of the international community.

This people and this culture are inherently complicit in this failure to ask insightful questions and demand hard answers. Lack of interest in history and politics keeps giving these results. We were the ones who were only too willing to march to war, to not think through to the end, to not ask enough questions, to utterly and arrogantly NOT seek to truly understand the actions of international actors.

Guess whose ass REALLY got kicked?

Channeling Eisenhower

The Framers’ reading of Roman history was correct, and their marked fear of, and guarding against, militarism was justified. If they were around today, they would remark that the limitations they put in place were not strong enough, and that Rome was being repeated. They knew that having large standing armed forces is a danger to both economy and democracy/the republic. It causes threats to be inflated or invented; it colors both perceptions and options in regards to international affairs; it breeds wars of aggression; it produces enemies from those who might be neutral or even friendly; it tempts its unwarranted use by policymakers; it obscures true self-defense and true national interest; it promotes and enriches selfish, corrupt, and connected individuals and organizations; it feeds, infuses, and justifies itself; it breeds non-producers and penalizes and weakens the producers, to the utter detriment of economic and social health; it drains vitally needed resources from the infrastructural and social needs of the society; it separates the population from the responsibility and involvement and meaningfully felt consequences of military actions taken; out of arrogant power, it fosters conflict instead of cooperation; as the social and economy society decays around it, it becomes the proficient and respected force that people look to for some sort of salvation, leading to further increase in its power; and its members, and especially its leaders, come gradually to both lose respect for civilian decision makers (and their authority), and to insert themselves further and further into the processes of politics.

America needs to shake off the obscuring hegemonic dust from its eyes, dust that is as old as WW2, and realize that it MUST both envision and make happen—soon—a much smaller standing military. Rather than structure itself for some nebulous “war on terrorism,” while simultaneously structuring for some big WW2/Cold War pan-conflict, and all the large forces that postulates, it needs to go in the opposite direction. It needs a very small, highly proficient force of special operations and related troops that can address the asymmetrical warfare likely, and leave to the National Guard (the militia; remember, those folks the Framers spoke of in the Constitution?) having cadres of specialized instructors and officers who can plan and provide for the possibility of needing to mobilize large numbers when true threats to the defense of the US and its true interests arise.

This would break the military-industrial complex, will lose some established expertise, and comes with it some risk. But the risk to continuing on our present course is no risk at all—it is certain self-decay and self-destruction.

Utterly Clueless Males, Wake Up to What the Women In Your Life AREN'T Saying!

Ladies, you can read this one for the nodding, but this is directed primarily toward men (although teenage and adult female children can pay attention too). Ladies, you can even ask the males in your life if they’d read something written by a man that is important to you, and then show it to them. And if any of them still have a problem with it afterwards, they’re probably either selfish piggish morons or it has hit SO close to home they can’t quite assimilate it yet.

Men, here’s the holiday fantasy she doesn’t tell you: She’s busy in the kitchen in her apron, and members of her family, instead of being completely self-absorbed, instead come through from time to time and notice that she’s busy making some delicate, time sensitive, dish. Seeing this, they go to the sink and start washing a dish or two, or offer to take out the trash, or even take the giant turkey out of the oven since it seems to weigh an extra hundred pounds or so after it's steaming hot.

Cut. Woman shakes her head of that fantasy and goes back to working hard on the holiday meal.

Take Two: She’s busy in the kitchen and the family (and maybe even some extended family) sit down at the island to keep her company and say "Here, let me chop that onion for you."

Cut. Woman huffs away that fantasy, swallows some resentment, and goes back to working.

Take Three: Her husband comes in and says "I've cleaned off the porch because I noticed it needed it. I also cleaned the bathroom and ran the vacuum since you are so busy in here. How do you still look so beautiful when you are working so hard?"

Cut. The choking bile in her throat now drives that fantasy clean away.

The fantasy movie in her head can’t compete with the reality show. She’ll slave away for two days, 14 hour ones. No one offers to help her do anything, despite everyone supposedly knowing that shared work not only goes faster, but goes better and with far less resentment. After all the no help, the passive aggressive housewife in her is more than ready to go shopping and buy herself something(s). Maybe Black Friday has an additional cause after all…

Recognize yourselves yet, fellas? If you don’t, you’re probably lying to yourself. I know I have been guilty in the past of the above. We men seem to have a disconnected circuit about that endlessly repeated scene. What is obvious, PAINFULLY, maddeningly, agonizingly obvious to her, is a mind scatoma to you, my fellow male. Sure, we can offer up explanations—we are finally relaxing from too much outside work, or are exhibiting our own exhaustion, or it’s a habit from our own upbringing, or we were being unintentionally thoughtless or lazy, or that we might admit we are being selfish, etc. But all that doesn't matter a great deal, and sounds like weak sauce excuses anyway. The point is that this needs correction! We men need to get on the stick (or, as my dad would say, "get your head out of your ass, boy!"). Time for we males to smell the overwhelming coffee aroma!

Do you know that females often discuss that they are the ones who keep the holiday traditions alive, and that in this day and age of so much stress on them, all that boils in the bitterness cauldron? As if we needed to add anything else to problems between women and their husbands and families. For meals are not the only thing they feel most of the burden about: the tree, the decorations, presents wrapping (even for ones not from them!), the holiday lights, cleaning up the associated messes, etc.

You know why they don’t speak up to us? Because we usually respond with anger in some fashion, or dismiss them as bitchy, PMS, hormonal, mental, or about to have a nervous breakdown because no, NO way can their resentment be about what they say it is. So they go quiet and just do most all of it themselves, but it only adds more to that giant kettle of bitterness. Especially when they remember that anything we DO happen to do, we have to point it out endlessly to her and everybody, as if we need a medal for our usually minimalist effort (or at least minimalist compared to how much she’s been doing). And then one day we are “surprised” when it boils over into real trouble.

Hazel Henderson once came to my house and sat down and explained to me over coffee that there is SO much work that women do that is VERY vital, yet doesn’t reflect in the crude and incomplete measurements of “goods and services of the Gross National Product.” In fact, if women didn’t do so much of this unpaid work, the society could not function. That little talk was eye-opening for me.

Maledom: Next holiday meal, be man enough to help. WITHOUT bitching like you were having to offer up a kidney. You might find the food even tastes better. Perceiving, appreciating, and working together have a way of doing that...

The View From Occupy

I went to an Occupy movement this weekend. I can’t speak for the movements in other places, but the people I saw were not primarily the homeless (who are sometimes discarded mental patients or troubled veterans—a whole other issue—in addition to the millions displaced by corporate neo-feudalism) or the supposed “weirdos” that the corporatized media seems to try to find to “represent” the movement. What I found were pretty articulate citizens—of all ages—with social consciences disturbed to a point of protest. They are upset and want change in a system they see as sick and corrupted to its core. Their immediate goal is not anything specific or short-term (and so not potentially easily twistable or bought off, and in any case, it’s not as if our forefathers drew up a Constitution before they started protesting the British). Their general goal is to first raise awareness, to get the majority that are in denial or delusion to wake up to the reality of the common plight of the 99%. Sure, they have all sorts of various things they want to see: community gardens and filling unused space with food growing; health care that does not focus on pills, surgery, or chemical cell killing; more of communities and mutual support and less of stressful individualism; placing relationships ahead of other things in life; more social justice and less consumerism and materialism; universal right of non-violent assembly; rescinding laws that are restricting the middle class in so many things; re-implementation of Glass-Steagall; more regulators of Wall Street; repeal of Citizens United; returning corporations to mere business entities with little or no legal exclusions or influence over politics; stopping endless outsourcing and bringing back jobs to America instead, etc., just to name a few that I wrote down. And they consider Democrats PART of the problem. They are also aware of how they are perceived. A middle-aged fellow was holding up a sign that said “Took a bath, got a job, still pissed”—an obviously reply to the right-wing talk radio jab.

With middle class wages stagnant or falling for so long, and with jobs outlook so bleak, they want people to see that more of the past 30-40 years is only going to drag us into the abyss. If tax cuts for the rich are the path to prosperity, why hasn’t it happened? Because “tax cuts bring prosperity” is an ideological mantra, a continuous brainwashing barrage that our very own eyes and experiences show us is not true—actually worse than that, it has had the opposite effect. The Occupy protesters just want us to disconnect from the dysfunctionality of it all.

Yes, yes, I know, it's more complicated than just that. One piece at a time.

Bagged Out

If your prospective girlfriend (this could apply toward boyfriends too increasingly!) has more mental/emotional baggage than she has hands, you’re about to be burdened. Don’t think your charm and attention are going to get rid of that baggage, either (and certainly not fast). Some other guy may have loaded up some of the contents of those bags, but there’s usually reasons that have little to do with dating males (and that dating males can’t fix).

Don’t get your baseball cap’s shadow in your eyes and the fog in your thinking, either. If she says she isn’t high maintenance, or clingy, or mental…she probably is at least one of those.

MSN solicited comments from men about what scoots them away from commitment, or even from continuing a new relationship. Here’s a sample:

"You got a bunch of luggage from previous relationships you want me to help you unpack."

"If you're more interested in being involved with other people’s lives instead of living your own."

"If you don't like when I'm hanging with my friends."

Time and again we see repeated the problems of jealousy, insecurity, control, manipulation, drama, shallowness, etc.

We males aren’t exactly bright bulbs, though. We see the probs and somehow rationalize them away (in direct proportion to the physical attractiveness of the female—a bet against the odds, given that the chances and severity of aforementioned probs go up with the greater attractiveness level). Would make a great bar shirt: “Hormones and biology: Bringing the genders together (for one night at least) despite their alien natures for hundreds of thousands of years.” LOL

Not all is dysfunctional. We’ll be discussing (but not in linear or sequential fashion!) what the genders get right (or right enough, often enough) in future posts.

Is It Shame?

Yes, another pause. :)

A recent poll indicated that 63% of those making a million or more dollars a year are in favor of increasing their taxes to stabilize government financing and help the country. Does that mean shame is having an effect? I don’t know.

Peter Peterson, the Nebraska billionaire, says that BOTH spending reductions and tax increases should be on the table (must be something about Nebraska—Buffet’s from there too—that gives people common sense). Tom Coburn, Repub Senator from OK, said something like the same thing, although he later qualified his statement a bit.

Peterson: “I believe the well-off like me can afford to shoulder higher taxes and reduced benefits. We have a duty to give back to the country that helped us achieve the American Dream, by passing on a healthy economy which ensures that all Americans have the resources and opportunities to pursue their own success.”

In Peterson’s case, he said these things BEFORE all the hoopla of the Occupy movements.

MAYBE it’s a start. Way too early to tell.

Return to the Genders

I rarely have a “writer’s block” problem. Mostly I have the need to “block out” problem. Block out the time and block out all the many subjects and information that crowd around and hit the clamor button for attention.

It’s a good problem to have. :)

I won’t put off to another week resuming the discussion on genders. Even though there is SO MUCH to say on SO MANY OTHER subjects! :)

This week’s topic is on the world’s, or at least the mortals who inhabit that world’s, or at least the American part of that world’s (There! Enough qualifiers? Lol) most precious commodity: time.

How many relationships are short-circuited because of that?

A friend of mine is really interested in a girl, and she seems really interested in him. Yet their work schedules (she works 2 jobs; he works one long one) are nearly polar opposite. He confided in me yesterday that he is so bummed out and tired of being alone when he doesn’t have to be and doesn’t want to be, that he will probably throw in the towel on the relationship. It’s worthless drivel to say, “find other jobs,” when the market isn’t serving up many, or sometimes any.

Time claims another budding relationship.

Sure, the couple should “find a way,” or “if it was really THE relationship, they would work it out.” Easy to say for those who have a relationship. Go back to being 25 and single, or even 35, 45, or 55, and try to carry out your words. Not nearly as remediable as heady words might make it sound.

Our society is over—overscheduled, overexploited, overdone. And that doesn’t even count another over—the overindulgence in so much, from games, to sports, to entertainment, to shopping, to virtual relationships, etc., all of which sap time and energy on things other than real relationships.

Native Americans have said for many hundreds of years that this culture values nearly everything else ahead of relationships.

It shows.

“What you spend your time, treasure, and talent on, there your heart will be,” goes the modern version of an old saying.

If that’s the case, our hearts are up the butt of materialism, slavishness, pettiness, shallowness, and ego. And that can’t be good—for relationships or society.

Boo...Hoo

Before you think this has caca to do with Halloween because of the title and the date, think again.

This is about the emasculation of America.

Women can’t find many real men anymore. And women are to blame for that.

Case in point: A high school coach in Tennessee chewed out his players for having no teamwork and thinking only of their highly indulged selves. One of the little twits decided to audio-record the chewing in progress, proving the coach’s point. The recording then made its way into the public discussion—read, League of Coddling Mommas and their lick-boot lackeys, the Disassociation of Dominated Men—and then the fire and hellstorm raged.

You can guess the rest. The coach was forced to resign.

I listened to the recording on YouTube. That coach was venting the rage and frustration of many—men in particular—with the excessively individualistic culture and female-dominated boundaries for discussion. Another soldier on the frontier of our civilization as the hordes of dissolution pour over the borders. Another soldier lost.

Women have little or no business in the locker rooms of men. Why? Because they don’t have much of a clue about what it takes to be formed into a man. That’s why we have fewer and fewer real men.

Hell, I've had a lot worse ass chewings than the one that coach gave, and for things far less deserved than what he was dishing. We have wimpified our boys into pansies. Coddled, individualized, indulged, little mommas-boys, PANSIES!

What women don’t often realize is how much backlash and resentment they build up in the culture by reactions like the one they had to the coach.

In seeking to make a kinder and gentler Johnny, the methods employed—and the reactions to events—could have just the opposite effect in the end.

Women, are you paying attention? You DO have a place, a very important place, in the formation of your sons, especially in the pre-adolescent years. But not in making them MEN.

And you don’t have to be Robert Bly to realize that.

Neros and More Neros

NOTE TO READERS: THIS POST HAS BEEN SLIGHTLY REVISED BY ME FOR BETTER CLARIFICATION

A bit more pausing (although interestingly enough, gender issues have arisen over on P&H—check it out!).

Republicans dug in their heels dogmatically against—completely rejecting--Obama’s jobs bill. Obama fired back, saying the Republicans took away jobs from firefighters, police, and teachers.

Both sides could hardly be more misleading—or with assumptions more off base.

The basics:

$50B for transportation infrastructure—highway, rail, transit, and aviation.
$54B for unemployment benefits and job training/retraining.
$35B for local governments to either hire, but mostly retain, police, firefighters, and teachers who would otherwise be let go or never hired.
$30B for school construction.
$2-10B misc, including for an investment bank to attract investment in infrastructure
Total: Approx $175-183B

Fairly modest as far as government expenditures go, especially compared to the Wall Street bailouts.

But there’s also tax cuts as part of this package:

Extend and expand the percentage of lowering payroll taxes, for both individuals and the businesses that pay the match, meaning a break for both of over 3% off. Businesses that hire more people or grant raises get a further break.
Tax breaks (credits) for hiring unemployed and veterans.
Tax breaks for writing off equipment faster.
Total estimated cost in lost revenue: $272B

And a tax increase on 392,000 households (approximately the top .1% of Americans) of 5.6% on (wage AND investment) income over $1M a year, beginning in 2013 (how convenient, AFTER an election). The first $1M earned in a year would not be subject to this surcharge.
Total estimated additional revenue over 10 years: $453B
(In Obama’s defense, this revenue enhancing originally consisted of ending government subsidies for the oil and gas companies, and limiting tax deductions for people making over $250K/yr, but the Senate changed it for their own reasons, many of them selfish of course)

The plan’s flawed. How flawed? Well, some fairly deeply, some only a little, some not much at all. And some is actually (or could be) good.

But that’s without stepping back, and we need to step back. The big picture is there is not enough of that—the big picture. These are temporary measures that don’t build much health for the long run. The infrastructure stuff, while good, is mostly about attempting to partially redress marked deficiencies in the repair of our infrastructure, but without taking a 4.0 look at what infrastructure we really need and what we need to steer toward. Again, status quo preservation.

Job retraining is a half-tired saw. Many retrained on the last stimulus bill, and the (largely) abandonment of the American worker by Corporate America/World meant there was still often no jobs—including in the very things the companies said they were looking for.

Getting fired up about the emotional police, firefighters, and teachers is us not looking at reality: if you don’t fix the longer range funding problem, what the hell is one year going to do except kick the can down the road until after the election? So of course, this one looks like a political ploy by Obama.

School construction could be a good thing, but facilities rarely make or break real education. Undoubtedly most are “needed,” especially given the chronic underfunding at the state and local levels (similar to the police, firefighters, and teachers above) but this emotional issue seems designed for political purpose by Obama and Dems.

Payroll tax relief for individuals and businesses: mostly cosmetic. It’s not that there isn’t significant money released back in the aggregate, but for most people it won’t be enough to turn the tide in individual budgets, although it might induce a little frivolous spending boost for a while before the election. For businesses, big ones especially, it might be a nice boost to the bottom line. For overall positive economic effect, this tax cut is mostly a gimmick—and a costly one. I will agree that the sad state of affairs this economy and individuals find themselves in leave few appealing options--especially if the purpose is to stimulate demand, stimulate consumption. But that lost revenue is needed by an already loomingly faltering program, let alone its effect on general revenue. Any accumulation of such moneys usually does more when collected together than when frittered out in individual small driblets—despite shrill Rightist nonsense about it “ALWAYS being better for the individual to have every cent of his or her money rather than the government.”

Tax breaks are poor prompters of good long-term or enduring decisions, and they cost the loss of much needed revenue. Both Obama/Dems AND the Repubs are secretly in love with these though (even though the breaks are usually a poor choice for the economy and the country as a whole). Even the noble goal of hiring the unemployed and veterans does not override this poor tool. These credits are another example of the kind of foolish and wasteful (and enduring!) government heavy-handed meddling.

What you don’t see in this is long-term investment in REAL measures to spur a better future: wean us off fossil-fuel (especially foreign) dependence, or to make real infrastructure investments, or, especially, to incent and even compel corporations to bring back jobs to America.

So the bill’s at best mediocre, and at worst a political dog shaded for short-term political benefit (and largely to benefit Obama/Dems a great deal more than Republicans). Its timing and urgency NOW is also suspect.

But Republicans didn’t oppose it for sensible or logical reasons. They didn’t point out its flaws and suggest better alternatives like what I discuss above. No, they opposed it for ideological reasons (opposing ANY tax increases or alterations of existing tax breaks), for spite, for selfishness, for political maneuvers to make Obama fail (regardless if the country goes further down in the process). Instead of calling out Obama—or more accurately, the Democrats in general, because it got altered by Senate Democrats—they offered nothing. Nothing but obstruction: adamant voting against in the Senate; refusal to even consider the measure or craft an alternative in the House.

More service to their uber-rich masters, more tax breaks for the already thoroughly filthy rich. And then have the gall to say that they did it to spare “the job creators.”

Both parties fiddle in visionless petty selfishness while the country continues its suicidal slide from great power status.

James Madison Rolls Over In His Grave

More pausing...

The witless Left keeps being flabbergasted as to the Right’s irrationality. What foolish and shrill ineptitude to be so diverted. The Republicans, with few dissenters, are willing vassals and allies of their corporate and uber-rich masters. The Democrats are the occasionally reluctant henchmen, but henchmen nonetheless. Where’s compromise that TRULY benefits the middle class going to come from that? The pseudo-liberal class (there’s really no functioning liberal class as a whole anymore) would probably do better for its occasional delaying actions against corporate power to become belligerent and defiant.

James Madison, who envisioned political compromise as the norm that would keep our democracy safe because no one group could get too much power, would likely be depressed at today’s spectacle.

Well maybe not completely at the Democrats, who are still sleep-walking that rational government is going to be possible with the current crowd. But Madison WOULD be about the Republicans, unless something changes, for he would find them even more intractable and self-centered than the Federalists of his own time. As Charles Babington of the AP reported on July 4, 2011, Grover Norquist for almost three decades “has been driving the Republican Party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time,” as well as opposing repealing ANY tax breaks (even temporary ones or ones that don’t make any sense anymore), credits, and favors for billionaires and corporations. By dint of money backing and relentless one-mindedness, he has brought Republicans into line, to where they will knowingly hurt the economy to help themselves and their corporate masters.

In 2003, Norquist, who has been the lightning rod of the Republican Party, said that if a Democrat becomes President, “we will make it so that a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat.” That has certainly occurred. Even though every bipartisan budget deal in the last 3 decades has had both spending cuts and revenue increases, and even though Obama’s had it on a 2 for 1 ratio ($2 in cuts for every $1 in increased revenue), the Republicans were willing to tank the economy rather than have ANY tax increase or tax break repeal of ANY kind. Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, says it’s a Republican strategy to “drive America to the brink of fiscal ruin and then argue that the only way out is to cut spending for the powerless.: And so “the burden of paying for our society shifts disproportionately to the middle class and working poor.” This after the Republican party for 8 years paid for two wars and a costly prescription drug benefit (that benefitted drug companies most of all) with borrowed money, because the government had been drastically underfunded by tax cuts for the rich.

As Jim Hightower has put it, the only way someone would pay heed to the Koch brothers’ “Save-the-Poor-Billionaires crusade” would be if that person was in denial or delusion about the above.

Both parties are complicit in the disintegration of our civilization, and I have little to no faith or confidence in prospects for those parties, but I agree with disgusted Republicans David Stockman and Mike Lofgren that their party not only deserves the lion’s share of the blame, but their party’s present stances are unconscionably ruinous—and perhaps traitorous.

If these “Occupy” protests can grow enough, and maybe resume in the spring, maybe they can force the creation of wholly different thoughts about economics, single-member districts, cooperation, participation, work, etc.

Because the present paradigms are unsustainable and self-destructive.

The Neo-Hippies Are Working For You

We pause in our examination of the genders to address current events.

We hear in the corporate media, as it features the Congressional and other mouthpieces for the corporatocracy and the dismissive upper class, talk about how “these mobs occupying Wall Street and other places” are “scaring the job creators” (who have been, where the last 10 years?) and trying to start “class warfare.”

Wrong. Class warfare has already started. The Lower (Formerly, Working) Class has already been mostly dominated and subdued. Here’s news for you Middle-Class America: The upper class and the most powerful corporations* have launched war on you. Their goal is to make you distracted, confused, powerless serfs and slaves.

It started with subtle, dulling, sedative, gradual, disguised economic gassing of first the lower classes, then the middle class. Then the assaults began.

Some of those woke up when the wounds became so deep it brought them out of their Matrix’d-like induced illusions.

These awakened are called “radicals,” or “aimless, generality-spouting, socialist fools,” so that the mostly still half-asleep will not be tempted to join them. Americans have traditionally stood pat on what appears to be the middle ground, so that they could go back to their apolitical and ahistorical lives. But those lives seem less and less possible, and less and less realistic, more a shared illusion and shared delusion.

The hour is late, the specifics desired either unformulated or unagreed upon. A marked lack of political sophistication, a lack of political science/government/economics acumen, combined with willful ignorance of history, have come back in droves of ghostings to haunt the awakening. Time, weather, and the active forces of corporate and upper class opposition can do much to dissipate this so far feeble gnat and its minor bothering of the real power structure. But perhaps the gnats can breed fast enough to be felt. As Hedges would say (see P&H), the illusions, and the distractions of the spectacle culture, might keep the crowds from duplicating what has transpired elsewhere—or what transpired in the dissatisfied’s own history of a quarter-millenia ago...

That may be the tragedy you don’t recover from, Middle America.

Silence and passivity are our enemies. Sheer logic won’t do, Middle Class America; you better get mad. The slave train is pulling from the station. Stop it, change it, dismantle it—or you’ll be on it.

*There are dissenters from this among both the upper class and among corporations. They are, unfortunately, the minority. Just like there were the good and caring minority among the aristocracy and other rich before the French Revolution, there are the good and caring now. And just like then, they are unwilling, or, more the case, unable (given the intractability and arrogant separation of their fellows) to persuade their group to chart a less selfish course.

No Longer THE Pill (Dysfunction of the Genders, the Continuing Saga)

We are a pill popping nation.

There’s so much to that statement, and it could be expounded on for many, many facets, but I will focus on one, in keeping with the theme of the last several weeks.

How’s your relationship with your significant other’s pharmacy?

What exactly is he (and especially, she) on? What is it doing to health? To mood? To mentality? To rationality (or irrationality)?

A population that reaches for a pill to “solve” something, but usually never “solves” it, is a nation not dealing in reality between the genders. What is real where drugs are involved? How does one know where the drugs stop and the person’s “real” self begins? Who or what are you having a relationship with? How do all those drugs interact?

The marked rise in bipolarity, social disorders, hormonal swings, and general “odd” behavior (often no longer recognized by many!): what part do all these pills, many of which are no doubt contraindicative, play?

As if we needed any MORE stress and dysfunction between the genders.

Estrogen Estrogen Everywhere

The Housewife asked about all the estrogen-causing things in the environment. Here’s a beginning list. The things contributing to this problem really are legion. Hormonal disruptors have become rampant, and it is the imbalance that causes the problems.

The evidence for the physical contributors is just beginning to come in, and has only begun to be studied:

In foods themselves, like dairy products (that we consume far too much of—milk, ice cream, cheeses, etc.). This could be heavy enough of itself, but now the foods themselves are often crammed with estrogen-spurring things as well. And many of our grains, like genetically modified wheat, barley, corn, etc., and the amount of those we consume, appear to be another big source. Another is soy. While funny commentators like to poke fun at soy for supposedly contributing to reduced phallus size, the relevant issue is its testosterone suppressing and estrogen building properties. Japanese housewives have known about this one for years. Some commentators say that soy is a significant contributor to the dysfunction often common between the sexes in Japan. Soy’s “opposite,” meat, otherwise a testosterone enhancer, is often reversed by what we have done to the meat in our modern, mass production. And many foods, if eaten in too high a concentration, contain enough natural substances that mimic estrogen that the body is thrown out of balance. And all the not very natural (or decidedly unnatural) things we ingest often have estrogen-fomenting properties: MSG and other food additives, trans fatty acids, high fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, concentrated caffeine, etc. Many of these effects appear to surface in the long-term, not the short-term.

In our water, which is often polluted with chemical/drug (including contraceptives, which are largely estrogen) traces from all the things we’ve thrown away that make it to our drinking water sources, we find more of this process. To this is added the ubiquitous effects of a petro-chemical society, whose products and by-products (including plastics, pesticides/herbicides people put on their lawns, not just commercially, and of course the liquid fossil fuels and their vapors and residues) often produce estrogen-advancing and testosterone-suppressing effects. Personal care products and cosmetics, paints, solvents, detergents, perfumes, air fresheners. It’s a drowning soup. The Romans may have had their lead, but we’ve got a lot more than that! Other things also contribute to decline in testosterone and rise in estrogen: continual stress, obesity, etc.

Could all this testosterone-suppressing be at least partial causative of the American decline in instances of aggressive male behavior, and the similar decline in male crime statistics, especially violent crimes?

The decline in testosterone levels in American males across all ages is well documented. A 2007 study took a shorter (20 year period) of examination, and showed nearly a 20% drop. An older, and continuing study (over 40 years so far), shows a steady decline. One result: erectile dysfunction, even in younger males, is on an (no pun intended) alarming rise.

One anthropologist has even remarked that modern men are the sorriest examples of male-dom that human society has ever produced.

Btw, all this estrogen advancing also often appears to have negative effects on females as well: menstrual difficulties, extreme hormonal problems, mammary difficulties and disorders of all types (and maybe cancer), fertility difficulties, etc. etc.

It DOES matter what we do to ourselves and our environment. It always has. Our refusing to believe it didn’t make it not so.

The Over-Feminizing of Males and Maleness

Prior to the last half of the last century, did American men need to get in touch with their feminine side? Probably. Certainly there was a long legacy of excessive yang energy, of unexamined aggression and arrogance, minimized cooperation, and other things too prevalent in Western civilization for hundreds of years.

Not so much anymore, socially for sure. At least for average males who are NOT wealthy.

It’s not just that the pendulum has swung too far: it’s brought with it an amnesiatic estrogen-laced mist. It’s bad enough all the estrogen producing and testosterone suppressing things in the environment, food and water, etc. But the cultural imposition only magnifies it to a thoroughly unreasonable extent. Case in point, as recently chronicled by Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Teri Polo's character in ABC's "Man Up!" tells her husband after he complains that they 'need more hazelnut creamer’ and frets about how to communicate manhood to their 13-year-old son:

‘I'm sorry, honey, but your grandfather fought in World War II, your father fought in Vietnam, but you play video games and use pomegranate body wash.’"

Ouch. Touche. Inditement. Robert Bly and others in the back to men movement would only amplify this condemnation were they to speak at this point.

Even male comedians reinforce this social feminine dominance. Married men are routinely depicted as surrendering their wills to their wives on nearly everything. And that argument for change is pointless (and argument with the woman, futile).

Who the HELL said that was okay? Sure, we don’t need to return to a time of overwhelming male dominance. But we don’t need female dominance either. How about establishing some real balance, real social equality? And we sure don’t need this emasculatingly ABSURD idea that women can dictate to men what is PERMISSABLE, especially in the realm of maleness. “My wife/girlfriend LETS me do X. My wife/girlfriend won’t let me do THAT. My wife/girlfriend won’t let our son do X. My wife/girlfriend says it’s only okay to do Y.” On and on, ad nauseum. And so many men, an apparent majority, acquiesce, and start to lose their zest for life, to live someone else’s idea of their life, and not their own.

Having women DEFINE what is male is a bad idea. Emasculated men going along with it is even worse. The good points of nurturing and love we should keep—our children are probably better off for it. The excessive “rescue and protection” aspect that gets its spur from femaledom should be junked.

All that’s just a few minor things for starters. This is BIG.

This Day

We pause in our examination of the genders.

The historian in me finds it amusing to hear the words “never forget” and “forever” spoken about this day. Humans, with their pitifully brief life spans and even shorter memories, are so desperate to hold onto meaning, but it is elusive, and their mortality makes most all things momentary in time. Each generation fashions its own importance. The relatively distant past (and our fast paced culture makes “relatively” more appropriate than ever) recedes away, with us unwilling or unable to hang onto it (or, more accurately, it is drowned out by the avalanche of the new, or even essentially erased like a hard drive writing new material over the old).

We will forget the things we need to remember, and remember what we should maybe forget. And so keep making the same mistakes. Again. And again. And again…

It is possible for this pattern to be changed to a great degree, but so far, no indication! :)

Monks and Punks (Dysfunction of the Genders, Part 4)

I have some friends who call it (as Wesley Snipes did), their “monk stage.” That is, they are so turned off and disgusted by the same bad experience repeated with yet another [usually pretty—hmm, perhaps a pattern? :)] female, that they just stop dating for a while. Gender dysfunction. Others contribute to the problem by reacting in an understandable, but regrettable, fashion: they undertake a counteroffensive, and in the process, often change themselves for the worst. That is, they do to females what was done to them by females: lying, manipulation, cruelty, utter selfishness, etc. One of the problems with this, of course, is that blanket application is made, and no allowances made for the individual. In too many instances, they end up screwing things up with a female who is an exception to the pattern they have previously encountered. Gender dysfunction!

But as I said, sometimes it is important merely to remove yourself from the toxic relationship(s) in your life. After all, it is difficult, perhaps near-impossible, to attract good energy and good things into your life when evil, or at least negative energy, is impacting it constantly.

Sometimes that realization takes quite a while to sink into our love-delusioned skulls. Once it has, though, the realization is liberating! Now here, featured for the fourth straight week, is Theory of a Deadman, with “Drag Me to Hell” from their 2011 “The Truth Is…” CD:

“Remember those good times we had
I thought you were my friend
What I felt to be a dream
Just a nightmare in the end
I trusted you, you trusted me
Nothing could go wrong
Until I finally figured out
You were evil all along

What I gave to see you gone
I never felt this way before
I'd love to have seen that face you make
When I walked out the door

'Cause God can't save you from all your sins
You threw your life away, you let the devil in
Now I can't save you, I know you too well
Like everyone and everything you dragged, you dragged me to hell

Dragged me
Dragged me
Dragged me

Trapped inside these prison walls
With no way to escape
What I felt to be my life
Was just a big mistake
I thought of you, I thought it through
Everything was clear
The only way from this cage
Was for you to disappear

What it was to see you gone
I'm sure you've heard this all before
I'd love to have seen that face you make
When I walked out the door

'Cause God can't save you from all your sins
You threw your life away, you let the devil in
Oh I can't save you, I know you too well
Like everyone and everything, you dragged me, you dragged me to hell

Dragged me
Dragged me
Dragged me
You dragged me to hell

I hope you had fun
Now that we're done
It's over this time
I'm on to your lies
Get it through your head
Our love is dead
I don't think about you
No, I don't think about you anymore

'Cause God can't save you from all your sins
You threw your life away, you let the devil in
No, I can't save you, I know you too well
Like everyone and everything, you dragged me, you dragged me to hell

Dragged me
Dragged me
Dragged me
You dragged me to hell”

Pathological Lying (Dysfunction of the Genders, Part 3)

Once, men had a dominance in the lies category. Whether for bravado, or political-economic-social competition, or for effecting their romantic or sexual player status, or any of a host of reasons, men lied on average more than women.

It appears that this is no longer the case, maybe WAY no longer the case.
This doesn’t mean that men don’t still lie plenty. They do, and for a lot of the same reasons. But women, for whatever reasons (physical, environmental, social, cultural, etc.), as has been explained in multiple social and psychological studies, have taken on many characteristics of previous male-dominated behavior.

In short, women often lie. Attractive females lie more. Young, attractive females lie even more. Young, single (regardless of boyfriend status), attractive females appear to lie the most.

What used to be the wiles and manipulation of the so-called “weaker” sex have ran off the rails in this new social-cultural environment. Often freed from any blanket status of being “weaker,” the methods historically used to compensate (and which became highly developed) have now been turned loose in full force on a male population that is less assertive, less confident, less socially domineering (far less so, except for the upper classes) than before. This would have colossal effects even WITHOUT the physical/hormonal factors that appear to be at higher—sometimes much higher—levels in women.

Which leads to the male refrain, a combination of bewilderment, shock, anger, frustration, and despair: “Why so many lies? Why the lies that don’t even serve a purpose? Why so much manipulation, deception, and deflection? Why so EVIL?” I have had numerous attractive girls who are/were friends (girlfriend and otherwise) admit to me that they lie to and manipulate the men in their life (and often have more than one!), and some even laugh at the cruelty of it. One told me that even if she’s caught, she never admits anything, and continues with denial and stupid or even nonsensical stories and deflection (“no matter how retarded”) until the man in the matter just gives up in frustration. She says (and is no doubt right), that “unlike a woman, the man will forget about or not care about the specifics in two weeks anyway.” Daunting social psychology!

Ah, you have been wondering, ok Prof, but where’s the song lyrics? :) Okay, in a bit of frustration wrapped up In a whimsical song about tables turning, comes, once again, the band that has been featured here for the previous two weeks. Here’s the title song from their “The Truth Is..” CD:

“You lie about you, and you lie about me
You lie about your ex's and the STDs,
You grew up rich in the Florida Keys
You lie about everything

You lie about a baby being on the way
You’re lyin’ to yourself if you think I’d stay
It's just a big game I don't wanna play
You lie about everything

You think you'll get everything you want
But you ain't gonna get it from me

The truth is...
It was all pretend
All along I've been sleeping with your best friend
The truth is...
I really hate your face
You were never all that hot in the first place
Bad in bed you suck at givin' head
You've gone and got me thinking I'd be better off dead
The truth is...
You're fuckin' useless

The truth is...
I lied about everything

You lie to your folks, say everything's fine
What you don't know, rent's 2 months behind
Tell all your friends that we have a great time
You lie about everything

You lie when you said your tits are real
They're about as fake as the way we feel
You're so full of shit that I cannot deal
'Cause you lie about everything

I don't think we stand a chance
Watcha said you can't take back

The truth is...
It was all pretend
All along I've been sleeping with your best friend
The truth is...
I really hate your face
You were never all that hot in the first place
Bad in bed, you suck at givin' head
You've gone and got me thinking I'd be better off dead
The truth is...
You're fuckin' useless

The truth is...
I lied about everything

You lied about you and I lied about me
Now that you know I'm finally free
One last thing I'll say that's true
I lied when I said "I'm in love with you"

The truth is...
It was all pretend
All along I've been sleeping with your best friend
The truth is...
I really hate your face
You were never all that hot in the first place
Your ass is fat and you ain't that smart
Every time you talk you got me falling apart
The truth is...
You're fuckin' useless

The truth is...
I lied about everything
(I lied about everything)
(I lied I lied I lied I lied I lied )

[That was good]”

Once again, all you ladies with good sense, compassion, honesty, loyalty, character, etc. (you know, all those things females SAY they want from men): Look at how wide open the field is for you since your sisters in the larger societal sorority are often not exhibiting those qualities! :)

Girls Don't Want A Gentleman (or a Gentle Man)

“Truth is, the girls hating on this song are in denial. They know this is true, but they can't get over themselves to realize it. This comment is coming from a girl, by the way, and as for you who are too petty to admit it, this song IS about you :) Leave your ex's and one night stands alone. You were just a hit it and quit it. Move on, or get to the kitchen. (bring the hate mail, twats)”
From the YouTube forum for the song “Gentleman”

We continue with an additional examination from the male point of view, again via song lyrics. Now, while the band partially writes with a bit of tongue in cheek (especially because they often have a female co-writer), the song and its lyrics resonate because they hit a recurrent chord: nice guys finish last. Let’s let the lyrics do the talking. All the preambles from the previous post apply and will not be repeated here. From Theory of a Deadman’s 2011 CD “The Truth Is…” comes “Gentleman.” (Btw, one could substitute “bastard,” “asshole,” and a number of others for “loser” in the lyrics and it would fit just as well or maybe even better)

“I'll let the door, hit you right in the face
And when the check comes, I'll make you pay
Don't have a car; guess you're picking me up
And in the backseat, we'll be falling in love
My only job is, to lie on this couch
And while you're workin’, I'll be hanging out
Now don't get mad 'cause, you knew from the start
I was an asshole who would never go far

'Cause when you're really good to girls
Give them your entire world
They end up walking away
They don't want a stand up guy
They'd rather have you cheat and lie
And do something they hate

Girls don't want a gentleman
They say they do but in the end
Girls don't want a gentleman
They want a loser like me
Girls don't want a gentleman
If you want to get to them
Girls don't want a gentleman
They want a loser like me

Your parents cry
When you bring me around
They raised you up
Just so I could take you down
There goes your life
Right before their eyes
I'll have you barefoot, pregnant, going out of your mind

'Cause when you're really good to girls
Give them your entire world
They end up walking away
They don't want a stand up guy
They'd rather have you cheat and lie
And do something they hate

Girls don't want a gentleman
They say they do but in the end
Girls don't want a gentleman
They want a loser like me
Girls don't want a gentleman
If you want to get to them
Girls don't want a gentleman
They want a loser like me

I used to be a nice guy
But that don't get you anywhere
So now I’m just a piece of shit
idiot who’s too stupid to care

When you give a girl respect
Treat her like she is the best
You're nothing to her
She'd rather have you playing games
Piss her off and make her wait
If you want it to work

Girls don't want a gentleman
They say they do but in the end
Girls don't want a gentleman
They want a loser like me
Girls don't want a gentleman
And if you want to get to them
Girls don't want a gentleman
They want a loser like me

They want a loser like me
They want a loser like me
They want a loser like me”

This is not news to males. Fellas nod in confirmation when they see a “hot” girl who is with some “loser.” If one of the fellas does happen to land a relationship with an attractive female, he is in a bit of dilemma. If he treats her the way he wants to treat her, there’s a high chance of things ending (and often badly). If he is selfish, drama-producing, rude, etc. (and so, subsequently, “interesting” and different from all the “usual” guys who tell her she’s beautiful, etc.), she’ll be hooked in all likelihood (at least for a while).

Perhaps this is related to the P&H discussion about illusion and delusion more than I thought. :)

But much of this is also related to certain psychology. With men always interested in attractive females, those females are looking for something “different,” for men with traits that “stand out.” Brazen bad boys do.

There are complex biological and psychological components at work: A female is often subliminally disposed toward a bad boy. Why? Procreation, for one. Rarely consciously formulated, this drive of the biological realm means a bad boy is more attractive at the pheromone level (for ovulating women, particularly). That he often seems charismatic and magnetic to boot only reinforces this. In the woman’s biological subconscious, it is better to procreate with someone who has stronger genes and would be better at rescuing/protecting a female from the outside world. She senses at a sub-level that his genes are best for producing a strong child, and given the enormous investment women make in child-production (let alone rearing) in comparison to the man, she subconsciously wants to give it her best genetic shot. But even where procreation is not a factor, there is often attraction. As relationship specialist Michael Fitzgerald tells us, it’s the “untamed masculinity, independence, and confidence” of bad boys that are attractive. There is also the thrill of a wild and unpredictable adventure rather than the “hum-drum, cookie cutter” experiences of “regular” dating (dinner, movies, etc.). The bad boy is also assertive (lots of guys are passive or shy), and so the female gets the feeling of being strongly pursued rather than timidly asked. And all this attraction is assuming there is not a cycle/history of abuse in play, or self-esteem issues, etc., many of which would only accentuate this attraction. If the father was absent during the female’s childhood, there may be additional intensifying issues (unresolved insecurity, feelings of being unloved by the most important male figure, etc.) as well.

Younger, attractive women tend to exhibit more behavior of being attracted to bad boys, possibly because 1) they don’t hear ticking biological clocks and can engage in more exploratory, temporary behavior, and 2) because their youthful good looks mean they know they could “have most any man I want.” Women also often think they are going to “fix” or “tame” the bad boy (yet even if they could, they probably wouldn’t want him afterwards). Interestingly enough, a large number of women often do not go as far as to marry or attempt to make a long-term commitment to a bad boy (although enough women do, obviously).

As for all you females out there who consider yourselves “average” or “moderately attractive,” men hopefully realize that much of the above may not apply as heavily to you. Use your sanity then to best advantage! :)

Dysfunction of the Genders, Part 1

In a marked departure from the usual (and perhaps staid?) political/historical/environmental/social commentary fare often seen here, I am presenting this multi-part presentation on social psyche of the genders, especially the 20-40 somethings (with a bit more emphasis on the younger part of that spread). For those of you with weak constitutions or delicate sensibilities, buck up, as I won’t be sparing things just because they could be considered crude, lewd, or derogatory.

That caveat said, I really like the CD that this is taken from (perhaps that says a great deal about the mental and emotional activity, etc. of this prof!). Not just because of the song-slinging easy jingling, but because the songs illustrate in quite raw form how at least part of the male side views things. Perhaps a reader could suggest some counterpart female views to post…

So onto the first of many lyrics postings and analyzing (presented here for educational purposes only, so as not to infringe on the rights of the band and their publishers/producers, although I'm assuming since I own the CD, like the CD, and am giving it publicity, they won't mind):

From Theory of a Deadman’s 2011 CD “The Truth Is…,” comes this song. The lyrics give the title away right off…

“The bitch came back the very next day
Oh, the bitch came back, I thought she was a goner
But, the bitch came back, she couldn't stay away
Don't you know the bitch came back?

I like her so much better when she's down on her knees
Cause when she's in my face that's when I'm starting to see
That all my friends were right in thinking that we'd be wrong
But she's so fuckin' stupid she'd be singing along

The trouble with girls is they're all the same
Forget the diamonds and pearls; they just want a ring
Before you know it, you're like a dog on a leash
Well you can try and change the world, but you won't change me

The bitch came back the very next day
Oh, the bitch came back, I thought she was a goner
But, the bitch came back, she couldn't stay away
Don't you know the bitch came back?

There she goes again just always breaking my balls
No matter what I do somehow it's always my fault
She says I must be cheating cause I turned off my phone
But that's the only f’in' way she'll leave me alone

The trouble with girls is that it’s never enough
They love to complain and they never shut up
They like to tell you the way it ought to be
Go on and tell the world but just don't tell me

The bitch came back the very next day
Oh, the bitch came back, I thought she was a goner
But, the bitch came back, she couldn't stay away
Don't you know the bitch came back?

It ain't a joke when I say I wanna throw you out
(I really mean it, I really mean it)
Well look who's laughing now!

The bitch, came, the bitch came back
The bitch, came, the bitch came back
The bitch, came, the bitch came back
She just couldn't stay away

The bitch came back the very next day
Oh, the bitch came back, I thought she was a goner
But the bitch came back; she won't stay the f*ck away”

Aside from the (demeaning?) language, these lyrics illustrate quite directly how many 20-40 something men feel, at least in my own monitoring from travels, circles of friends and acquaintances, and internet sifting. Look at some of the themes men are rebelling against: control; manipulation; incessant verbosity; and accusation, just to name some. There is also the first hint of another theme that will be coming up soon: men feel they can’t treat women too nicely, or perhaps even that the women don’t deserve it, and in any case if they treat them too nicely because they want the woman around, she’ll leave, but if they treat her like, well, the b-word above, they won’t be able to get rid of her! :)

Yes, yes, I know there are SOME, hopefully, MANY American male-female relationships that don’t fit anything like these patterns described. Good for them. Are they the exception or the rule? Interesting ponder!

Flat Liners

As someone has said, how would you like to be making $200,000 a year today after 25 years on the job? Well, if you started with the pay of an average worker 25 years ago that's what you'd be making today--if you got the same kind of raises that CEOs of American companies got for the past 25 years!

Are we really to believe that those CEOs “value-added contributions, expertise, and decisions” are so grandly in excess of ours that this is how it should be? With 75% of America today making $50,000 or less (often far less), it doesn’t take a finance major to figure out the above calculations (or to know that something is off), and that wages have been stagnant or falling for the average worker.

Dysfunction Junction

Mike Lofgren, David Stockman. A few true conservatives, solid Republicans, have become disgusted with their party, and have owned up to the mistakes made by that party and its adherents. Stockman I have talked of before. Lofgren, the long-serving Republican analyst on the Senate Budget Committee, says that most of the national debt has been piled up by Republicans, and now they have the monstrously selfish gall to not want to own up to it, let alone pay for it, and are willing to bring the country down in the process. He saw the train wreck coming from the Republican intransigence about getting tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. Because when the Republicans made it a necessary condition prior to any agreement on raising the debt ceiling, when they knew very well that to do so would mean a detailed law could not be crafted in time for the Aug 2nd deadline, Lofgren, who just retired, saw it as a looming disaster and wrote op-ed pieces about it.

Only the fact that the markets have now begun to accept and factor some of the marked dysfunction in the US political-fiscal process, have things been relatively calm from what they could be.

Pet Projection

The number of people with pets seems to be on the increase. Some of it may be economic, as children are delayed, etc. But some of it seems to this observer to be because pets increase in importance due to the fact that in this society we are disconnected from each other, and yet at the same time have a drawing human need to feel connected with something or someone, to feel less alone. Yes, people love their pets, and yes, many families have pets, but these do not seem to negate the trend.

We Are Not Regenerating

As the readers of the P&H joint blog know, I returned from a two week vacation relatively recently, the first in too many years (a long story for a prof). Sure, I got bits of time in those years—a few days here, a few days there—but not a vacation, and I certainly don’t count “working vacations” (if work is involved, it’s not a real vacation). Frederick Taylor, for all his probable damage to the soul of work (or, in his defense, at least the perversion of his techniques by others), did determine that 14 days/2 weeks off (he is generally credited with scientifically establishing the basis for the 2-week American vacation) was necessary to return a modern, industrial-age worker to the same effectiveness and efficiency he had when he began to work.

But this frenetic American culture, and one tied in electronically at nearly all times, doesn’t get that. People “can’t afford” to be gone from the workplace that long—think of the work that will pile up, not to mention the emails, etc., as well as the workplace politics that will work against in the absence, plus, if you can be gone that long, they will think they can do without you, and they will—permanently. So people end up getting away in driblets of 3-7 days at most. It isn’t enough. If 7 or even 10 days had been enough, Taylor would have determined it, for he didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for workers.

And so we don’t rest and recuperate, and we don’t regenerate. We plow forward in semi-panicky exhaustion, and we burn our adrenal systems out (even a small amount of stress effectively continual will do enormous damage, and we usually have far more than a small amount), let alone the damage we do to the rest of our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and relational health.

And all this doesn’t even include the stress outside the workplace. We need the time off. ALL of it. In a row. But we don’t get it. Some of this we do to ourselves. Much of the rest, the culture does to us. And part of that culture is the exploitative nature of work—exploitative commoditized-labor companies and organizations that is the reality in far too many instances.

My Finnish friends were right—American workplace culture is not sustainable to the human spirit, and killing quality of real life around the world, because with globalization, everyone has to compete.

Watching

Will our political process get itself together before default? Stay tuned!

3D

I saw “The Green Lantern” in 3D recently. While its humano-centric, over-the-top theatrics got some critics’ attention, I was thinking of something not about the movie itself at all. I was thinking about my fellow movie goers, most of whom were young, and some who were even lively. How much does entertainment of all types, but especially electronic entertainment, divert, distract, and/or de-plug its partakers? How much are they inoculated against reality and anesthetized against its effects by entertainment? Are people, and especially many of the young adults, in modes of desperation, despair, or denial? Is entertainment mostly just innocent marketing of what we want, or are there elements of purposeful, perhaps even sinister, manipulation for desired effect? Given that I enjoy entertainment immensely, these are anxious thoughts to ponder…

Another Endless Theme

“It is the doom of men…that…they…forget.” Merlin, in ‘Excalibur”

The Flailing Sick Giant With No Memory

We live in a culture that continually emits the undercurrent thought that history is not important. That culture, and the society and country that house it, suffer so because of that lack of valuing, and worse, suffer in ignorance and arrogance, losing so much as so much spins away.

“A country losing touch with its own history is like an old man losing his glasses, a distressing sight, at once vulnerable, unsure, and easily disoriented.” George Walden

Calling All Cassandras

I was thinking of the frustration of those out there who understand, who are not fooled by the vaporous channeling of the media, or “leaders,” or “experts.” Who see complication, and deeper truths, not polarized absurd simplistic parochialism.

Sympaticos brothers and sisters, sympaticos.

“The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing”
-Herodotus

“It’s not easy you know…to know too much. Lacrimae mundi, the tears of the world.” Merlin, in “Excalibur”

Symbol Ick

America on Sunday took down the human symbol of its enemies.

Something lost in its jubilation is respect for the intelligence and abilities of its enemies.

That is a mistake.

This human symbol evaded the concentrated efforts of the supposed superpower for 10 years (actually longer, but at top of the list for the last 10 years certainly). Evaded a superpower with truly impressive electronic, satellite photographic, and other highly advanced spying techniques.

America, your enemies understand your weaknesses far better than you realize. You, in arrogance, dismiss their intelligence and abilities too much. Even if you don’t want to try to understand them and why they feel the way they feel (which will require you to understand yourself), you should at least respect that their planners aren’t backward or illiterate. They are educated, trained (we should know, we trained a lot of them directly or indirectly), and incredibly dedicated. It might help, for our sake, to know why.

Otherwise, “kicking ass” will be meaningless in anything but the short-term.

Corp(se)

Ever seen the documentary "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power"? It's about 7 years old now, but still very relevant, and the book it is based on is excellent. Since the Supreme Court insists that we treat the corporation as a person when it suits them, this documentary shows us well how, when examined from a behavioral point of view, corporations are often sociopathic or even psychopathic.

An interesting side note is that last year’s comedy, “The Other Guys,” had a few masked jokes in it, yes, but the really interesting part came in the end credits. They gave all these statistics about how Wall Street, corporations, etc. have done criminal damage to the U.S.

Ah, that sort of hiding truth in comedy would warm the hearts of Aristophanes and Plautus. :)

Poor Nation's Standard Almanac

Standard & Poor (S&P), who showed it was way too cozy with Wall Street in the near financial meltdown of just a few years ago, today said the Emperor might be becoming a bit nakey: Within 2 years, it remarked, the situation could deteriorate to the point where the US government bonds, etc. would be lowered in their quality rating from their present highest rating to something else. S&P said the outlook has gone from “stable,” to “negative,” and their detailed remarks show NO faith that the US fiscal process will show sanity or sustainability. Meaning, no sufficiently hard decisions will be made, and the problem kicked down Unsustainable Street for a little while longer, until the day of reckoning really arrives.

Bells Will Be Wringing

So much rot, decay, weakness, excess, and illusion, it may take a Depression to wring it out, assuming it can be wrung out. If we can’t wring it out, even more severe calamities may await (Revolution? Foreign Control? Occupation? Continual and Cascading Ecological Disasters? Military Dictatorship? Neo-Feudalism?).

The young aren’t going to save things in their present state of illusion, delusion, escapism, and denial. Case in point: many of them did not know (or care) there was any government budget problem, let alone have an idea of what it is all about.

And why are people so easily twisted into ignorance or believing their prejudices? Because they value things other than being informed. They may know everything about their favorite sports teams or celebrities, for example, but little about their government, and often what they little they think they know is wrong. So they are easily manipulated pawns for those who carefully (and often anonymously) plant disinformation and misinformation to emotionally inflame them.

Often this manipulation comes in the guise of “we’re all in the same boat” sentiments of what is really false solidarity. I was warned about this long ago:

“The rich had their money, Jimmie. They didn’t suffer in the Depression. Don’t let all this talk about ‘everyone was poor and in it together’ fool you. I was there.”

My grandfather and his son were so much smarter than I ever thought.

The Lipstuck Pig

Why do the Chinese keep buying our government (debt) bonds if our fiscal process is obviously dysfunctional and debt sustainability not grounded in reality at all? In a way, for China, the US is too big to fail. They don’t want to lose their free ride in benefitting from an international system where they don't have to do anything militarily to support it (and very little economically), and can just let the Americans do most all that. They also have their export market that benefits them disproportionally, and a currency they are allowed to undervalue by 40%.

But there is additionally the probability that they have done a cost-benefit analysis. Sure, they know we’re not a very good credit risk, but the money they spend on the bonds is more than balanced by all they get (listed above), and in the meantime, they’ll get some interest. They are just going to bleed this pig for as long as possible, and investing in bonds in the meantime is a trade off.

They strategize very well.

Posterity

How many people do we know, maybe even ourselves, feel things like, “Well, I got out while the getting was good. I don’t know how it will be or how those still there will handle things. They won’t have it as good as I did, and their retirement won’t be as good.” Most people don’t say it, few even think it consciously. But that’s what they do. They leave the place, and the society, worse off. They didn’t make a positive difference, and only contributed to the problem. Sure, they probably got beat up and tired and understandably just wanted to get away from it all, but they are shirking their responsibility to the next generations.

People are not leaving things better; they aren’t even leaving it as good. And yet somehow they think that the weakened and depleted system will still support them in their retirement years? Maybe for a while, but it’s illusion and delusion; it can’t last.

Descendants will wonder at us and our intelligence/wisdom (or deficiency thereof), and maybe despise us, at how we knowingly refused to face up to reality, to face up to our responsibilities, to the utter messes we left them.

And So It Goes

And now the plutocrats shade the discussion, fan the anger, and shape the direction. Instead of the abandoned and near-abandoned private sector lower and middle class workers (see last post) finding some solidarity with their public sector brethren, the tried and true strategy of divide and conquer manifests, for those private sector workers are carted out to express their disgust with the “outrageously generous” benefits of the public sector.

Those benefits are sometimes overly generous or poorly funded and in need of adjustment or at least increased funding from the participants, but the discussion rarely stops there. It goes on to why should they have those pensions and benefits at all, “because we in the private sector don’t, all we have are 401k’s that we can barely afford to contribute anything to, and what little we do has gone down in value because of the stock market, and health insurance is outrageous, and we don’t get many holidays, and we don’t get more than 2 weeks vacation and can’t afford to be away from work that long anyway or to do much even if we could.”

Watch as the discussion morphs from better participant funding, delayed or somewhat reduced benefits, etc., to doing away with the benefits nearly entirely. At that point, the transformation will then be complete, and plutocrats will have achieved the victory they have sought.

Public sector benefits are poorly, and often unsustainably, funded. For several reasons. One is that many poor or even corrupt investment decisions have been made, and moneys squandered or lost, and the general legalized larceny of Wall Street has only exacerbated the problem several fold. A second is that a generally weakened or even anemic private sector of the lower and middle classes (the producers) have little to contribute—real wages have gone down for over 40 years. A third is the near-complete lack of public responsibility and facing reality from both elected officials and their constituents. But a fourth is that those with wealth, the very top 1% (and often even just .1%) have not only not paid their share, they have driven wealth upward to themselves by various mechanisms and then incredibly decided to then pay even less. They have effectively helped to defund government.

But you will hear little of all that. You will only hear intra-class vitriol as private sector workers, many of whom are in a state of exhausted desperation, scream at their public sector brothers and sisters. Scream that things are unsustainable, which is true. Scream that they can’t afford to fund things anymore, which is also true. But essentially scream as well that if they are miserable, everyone else on their level should be too.

And the plutocrats laugh on their way to victory and inverted totalitarianism.

Response Ability

Most of the relevant analysis on this has been done: Ezra Klein’s piece (and update) in the Washington Post, Paul Krugman’s recent piece in the New York Times, and Susan Estrich’s from Creator’s Syndicate, and I would refer readers to those for the more complete analyses (although Krugman’s I have a few nits to pick about).

Our often shallow culture, and its often shallow media, paint simplistically matters that are often complex. Certainly the ideological trumpeters (two writers from the Washington Post come to mind; they’re great minds, but pick and choose their “facts”) often cannot be relied upon to give us much more than things to look into to find out the fuller story. They often certainly don’t see any larger patterns except those they have construed or constructed. I hope that my training as political scientist, historian, accountant, financial analyst, logistician, and military officer have given me a wide enough perspective, but the limitations of the human condition undoubtedly create flaws in my own perception too.

Let’s begin this blog piece with the statements that Wisconsin’s (and by implication all states’ and even the feds’) public-sector workers (including teachers) are making more than private-sector workers: More than the “average” employed private-sector person? Yes. More than employed fellow professionals with equal education and training? Usually no, and often less.

Traditionally, working in government was a recognized trade-off: you earned less than the private sector, but your job was a bit more secure (less competition in the strict sense), your pension and benefits more consistent and floored, you got more time off (holidays in particular), and the work was usually not as all-consuming or arduous as it often was in the private sector, and general working conditions adequate and tolerable.

Over time, several forces, but two main ones, changed that. The first was that the hyper-competitive, hyper-capitalism became exploitative, and the private sector’s middle and working classes, in every “downturn,” had their salaries and benefits cut in “cost-saving” measures, and many jobs and places of work were eliminated entirely or shipped overseas. This, combined with other changes, drove wealth upward, and decoupled that class, which was having itself do very well, from the others who more and more weren’t (and more and more of them). Once common pensions and benefits were “sacrificed” for the “good of the company” (often really only the good of the stockholders, the major stockholders, although some smaller companies really did need the breathing space to survive) and permanently (despite promises that things were only for the short-term). The well paid upper levels, already getting generous stock options and other bonuses, also could easily afford to maximize the voluntary savings plans (lobbied for by Wall Street) that replaced the pensions, while the steadily ratcheted down lower level workers couldn’t afford enough, even when they could resist the consumptive allure of a consumption society (and a consumption-mania in everything—houses, cars, gadgets, etc.—often pushed by the same Corporate America that had changed the consumer’s workplace).

Take enough “crises,” ‘shocks,” “downturns,” and recessions, and the private sector became transformed. Now, not all of this was twisted; certainly, as the rest of the world fully recovered from WW2, recovered from economically foolish ideologies, and also took advantage of higher-tech possibilities and market congruence, there was going to be strong competition and some adjustments. But little like the manner or extent that occurred.

Regardless, the private-sector now had, in the main, an entirely new baseline, and pensions and benefits weren’t significantly, except for a few privileged places (mostly companies of the Consortium industries), in the picture, and wages and salaries had been driven low.

In the public sector, the drive to pay more to attract talent had been going on for quite a while, although the teaching profession had largely been left out of this. Our political system tends to induce short-term behavior with escapable consequences for the instigators, and our unwillingness to deal in reality or to endure self-inflicted, but necessary, pain meant that the public sector often got into unsustainable mode about benefits and budgets in general. The public-sector, sometimes from our excessive expectations of what we wanted from it, but certainly from political sweetenings and maneuverings as well, got a bit bloated (and often a lot bloated) in numbers and benefits. At the same time it became very attractive for many private sector workers, who, looking at their bleak salaries, benefits, and prospects, flocked to the public sector. This was an unuttered cry that something was deeply wrong with the private sector, but few noticed.

Fewer still noticed how utterly unsustainable everything about this was: Large numbers of formerly economically productive people were consigned to effective serfdom or even just abandoned entirely; everything about the system (economics, politics, law, international agreements) was slanted to drive wealth upward to the truly wealthy while allowing them to escape more and more taxation and responsibility or fraternity; and the public sector became highly attractive in comparison (and often even the last hope for those who had no decent options left anymore). And so now the clouds swirled in for the perfect storm of unsustainable insanity: many economic producers had been entirely removed from the system, and many of the remaining had been economically weakened, while those who had benefitted abstained from helping; and the economic non-producers (governments by definition) were increased and bloated precisely when there were fewer producers, and those who had the money (many not really “producers”) keeping more and more of that money as time went on. Continuous and unsustainable wholescale borrowing (the transfer of wealth and power to those who make better decisions), fostered the illusion of escapable consequences and perpetuation for awhile, but the loud thunder can already be heard now by all but the deaf.

Yet these larger and more relevant matters are lost in ideological warfare, while the true power centers get what they want: the steady enfeebling of the people’s creatures—their local, state, and federal governments—because those power centers know those governments are the only recognizable latent threats to them.

Back to the specifics in Wisconsin: Pension and health care cost increases for employees have already essentially been agreed to, with the unions virtually agreeing to what the governor proposed in those instances to help with the budget. Now, did many of them do so only after collective bargaining was threatened? Yes, and they deserve criticism for their selfish parochialism. But it was no mere threat. This “crisis,” part of which has been manufactured, is being used to remove the last remnants that can potentially resist (although unions cannot threaten them) the power centers (who provided enormous amounts of money in the election). Sure, the extent of the proposed removal of collective bargaining has been exaggerated or misreported (benefits bargaining would be removed, but wages bargaining might be left, although probably not bargaining for anything more than cost of inflation, and what is included in that cost of inflation, is, well, not in the influence of the wage bargainers). All manner of wedges would be also be driven into union membership across the board, but particularly in public union membership (private union membership in the nation has been driven so low that it is largely only concentrated in the trades now; not much “backbone” left in the middle class). Some of these wedges even look on the face of them to be pretty reasonable, but behind this apparent rationality lurks deep ideological and economic warfare designed to chip away at a palisade (unions) defending against unfettered power. As anyone (probably retired by now) who has worked in union and non-union places, particularly manufacturing, can tell you, while unions are sometimes contentious, petty, or maddening organizations, they do provide a recourse to supervisors who get out of hand or take a personal disliking to you, and to management and owner-stockholders who start to see you as necessary evils, see you as organic units to get the most work from while paying the least amount to, and having the fewest of you as well.

The idea that the voters elected Walker to do “what he said,” implying that he said much of anything substantial about the unions—is fallacious, a carefully planted smokescreen. In fact, some of his campaign ads featured union members, in a sort of “let’s get together and bridge our differences” portrayal. Academics have canvassed his campaign ads, his campaign website, his debates, and his public speeches, and found little of substance on the matter, and certainly nothing that could be said to be “the focus.” What little there was dealt with pension and health care funding, and that’s already been agreed to, so he’s already done what the voters elected him to do, hasn’t he? As for the rest of what Walker did promise and what he has done, I refer you to the pieces mentioned in the first paragraph, but collective bargaining was not in the list of what he got elected to do something about.

As for elected officials leaving the state to disrupt quorum, again, it is highly unlikely it was about the pension and health percentages; the assault on collective bargaining probably terrorized them into some action, similar to when legislators in Texas fled the state when illegal gerrymandering was being ram-rodded through. This gets into issues of minority protections vs. majority rule, and those are VERY complicated, and related to another topic of how we expect far too much out of a system that is by its design (if it is working properly) so power-fractured as to hinder accomplishment, not foster it.

The problems of Wisconsin are not all that different from most other states: the cost drivers of pressures on state budgets are largely Medicaid, prisons, and general aid to local schools (funded in a large manner by directly marked personal property taxes) and governments, and then and only then salaries and benefits. But all of them are going up, for various reasons, and bottom line reality is that government is not a producer, it is a consumer. Higher education, by the way, because it is, unlike local education, a quasi-governmental hybrid partially funded by the users, by contributors, and by the state, often gets cut to make up the shortfall, another robbing of the future to satisfy the present (a practice we Americans are now infamous for nationwide). And the pressures become intense because corporations and the ultra-wealthy largely abstain from effective funding. Unsustainable decisions on both the funding and spending pieces of the budget equation thus make for perpetual crises that don’t happen in a vacuum. All of the above are why many or even all sides can be “right” in some way or ways.

And there is waste in government, and much that can be cut, but the specifics are never easy, and if you take the large drivers—Medicaid, prisons, aid to local schools and governments—off the table, you don’t have enough leeway to fix the problem. Americans need a real hard look at their choices of what they NEED government to do, and an equally hard look at realistically funding that from all appropriate sources. Government must not become too big, and yet also must not become too weak, but more than anything, we need to make it sustainable.

There is a general pattern of national anti-union press promoted by the power centers. The auto companies were reputed to have “gone under” because of the unions, and any academic who looks into the matter will tell you that is mostly false, that bad (often arrogant, stupid, and selfish) management, and failure to meet competition, were the driving forces, and union desires at best only a contributor.

Stepping back from all this loud noise, the litmus question is, as nearly always: has doing what is proposed in the past made the majority of us better off? Even if academic journals like the Journal of Labor Research didn’t indicate it, our own awareness would show us that labor’s loss of power has lopsided the economic equation and most are not better off, and many are worse off, far worse.

Issues should not be conflated. Teachers didn’t cause the budget shortfall, and even the measures agreed to won’t make the majority of it back. And really, if we want to put unions on the spot, have them come up with their own detailed plan to deal with projected deficits, and compare to what’s already been proposed. Isn’t that one of the basic principles of resolution?