Public Servants of...

While many local leaders close pools, libraries, police and fire stations, they often build multimillion dollar new clubhouses on golf courses.  Who they really serve might be a bit obvious. 

Thoreau Explanation

"These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them according to his ability, by his words and by his life."

Henry David Thoreau, "Reading," in the book Walden

Getting To Know "Them"

I say to those who rail against the “deadbeats” and “takers” and “moochers” and “dependency-heads”: How many do you PERSONALLY know?  And how well do you know them?  Do you know their story? 

Because it’s easy to be against something in the abstract.  Be specific.  And about more than just a few glaring cases.  One can’t single out a few and imply a mass problem, while ignoring the scraping many who want dignity and the chance for a livable wage in exchange for their hard work.

We rarely get to know those who we condemn.

Things Change And They Don't

One highly important subject you didn’t hear much about this campaign season, and effectively squat during the four mainstream debates: Climate Change.

Scientists and environmentalists say we are fighting over deck chair places on the Titanic, instead of figuring a way to get to some lifeboats or fashion things to help us, and maybe, just MAYBE, plug the hole and avert catastrophe.

And yet we say nothing when the candidates don’t even discuss the subject.

There’s a reason that the quote above remains week in and week out.

From The Square Deal to New Deal to Fair Deal to No Deal or Raw Deal

A fairly big lack of political enthusiasm hangs over America at a time when its politics have rarely been more important.

In the (race? crawl? slugfest?) for the top dog spot, one man is somewhat narcissistic, insecure and in need of affirmation, self-trumpeting, overly pragmatic, and excessively afraid of being perceived as weak and ineffectual (as a certain one of his predecessors was labeled).  The other is a vacuous man who wants his past hidden, who doesn’t want to run on specifics, but only vague promises that leave the electorate nothing to evaluate, but whose proclivities favor more of the criminally disastrous rich-serving policies that have brought us ruin and extended deep recession.

We are “shocked”, “offended” and “threatened” by marginal or transitory things, and make THOSE things important while our real threats go unnoticed or uncared about.

When one examines history, one finds that when a culture is not mass offended—neither among the masses nor among the elites—by the things which are true threats to the body politic, the society, and the civilization, then decay and downfall have begun.  When that culture is instead diverted by spectacle or a series of mostly meaningless “scandals” or momentary buzzings, then the decay has accelerated.

When future historians look back at us, they will see turning points.  For example, witness the country—and its elites—who were near uniformly shocked and revolted by what Nixon did (including illegal wiretapping and other spying).  Thirty years later, witness little shock and almost no revolt at illegal wiretapping, indefinite detention, torture, etc.  Then, to cement for us how much power has shifted and how little we seem to care, we at most faintly whimpered when a Vice-President (Cheney) declared the Vice-President “not a part of government” and so not accountable to the people, nor to its investigators when they want copies of emails and other documents and communications.

It is a scene played out in sickening similarity to the long decay of the Roman Republic.  One does not have to wait until the end of the Republic in witnessing the demise of its defenders (including the quite imperfect Cicero).  It was a long and steady decline, with one thing after another occurring that in previous times would have called forth both the people and its elites to set to rights.  A people’s character can change over time, and it is often not for the better, especially when the country becomes richer and more powerful.  The Roman Republic’s long decline of a century and a half, from the Second Punic War to when Julius and Octavian finally effectively finished it off, was marked by character decay in the patrician class certainly, but in the plebeian class as well.

And they too had their Pogos who spoke out yet not enough listened, cared, or acted.

Doubling Down On Yet Another Dose Of Double Bull

“Double taxation” is mostly a straw-man argument.  Lots of people and situations are double or triple taxed:  Income taxes, payroll taxes, and sales taxes.  Every time you pay your repairman, or well, practically ANYBODY, you do so with money you have already paid taxes on.  And that repairman will pay taxes on the money you give him or her, and so on.

So capital gains and corporate taxes are not the big deal of disparate treatment they’re made out to be by the right-wing, although the flow of capital and investment PERHAPS needs consideration. 

Lower capital gains don’t create jobs here either.  We’ve had them for many years and few livable wage jobs have been created by it.  They mostly just enrich the rich further, while the secretaries who serve the rich pay a higher rate on an incredibly smaller income.

We have to quit being manipulated by these deflective, deceptive lines of bull.  History is going to record us as self-destructants willingly conned into acting against our interests and for the interests of those doing the conning.  The people of the future will say those words: “How could they let that happen to themselves?”

Unless we start questioning more and accepting less.

The No-Coddle Zone

In my undergrad days, we all complained about the amount of work that teachers gave us, how out of touch they were, how they didn’t coordinate the amount of work or the timing with other teachers, how uncaring they were whether we had any quality of life, etc.

And the faculty, rightly so, mostly ignored us.

Because all students complain.  It’s not that there doesn’t need to be real transformation in “higher” education; there DEFINITELY does.  But elevating the student to coddled prima donna status is not the needed reform.

Why was society smarter back then?