The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club discussion
Reality-Based Chat. Speak!
Mark, I could not agree with you more. There is no justification for corporal punishment that I know of. Its like Global Warming, all the evidence points to one conclusion. People deny it, but they have no basis for their denial.My mother was a teacher, and she taught in all levels of public schools, from kindergarten through high school. She firmly opposed all forms of corporal punishment. She never hit me, or my brother.
My parents were divorced when I was 2 and my mother remarried when I was six. My stepfather decided that I needed discipline and he hit me - once - and it did not get me to do what he wanted me to do. He and I (and I was about 7) had a standoff that I won. He and my mother had a huge fight that I don't think they ever got over. I never forgot it, and it took me years to forgive him, long after my mother and he split up. He turned out much later to be a really nice guy and he was a great grandfather to my brother's kids.
However, the impact of that one hit destroyed our relationship.
My wife and I never used corporal punishment on our daughter and it is totally forbidden in her household now. That is the way it should be.
Violence is only justified, in my mind, in self-defense.
Dan wrote: "Mark, I could not agree with you more. There is no justification for corporal punishment that I know of. Its like Global Warming, all the evidence points to one conclusion. People deny it, but they..."Thank you for affirming this. Yes, there is no pretext for inflicting psychological and neurological damage on our children, perpetuating a multigenerational cycle of abuse that can only beget further violence.
Not apropos of that, however, and since I always think it's a bit improvident for an author to promote his own book on an unrelated thread, I'm going to spare Dan the onus. I've read A Light Not Of This World and given it five stars (from which you may infer that I strongly recommend it -- especially to devotees of political thrillers).
Mary wrote: "Finally, Darlene, I skimmed that article. Because of my background, I am always suspicious of suggestions that the past was better than the present. The so-called founding fathers, some of whom may have been my ancestors, had slaves. The fifties may have been more peaceful for whites, but I could not ride in the front of buses until the end of that decade, and my folks couldn't eat in restaurants or stay in hotels until the sixties. I don't really care how the schools were desegregated and how we got Roe vs. Wade as long as we made progress."The article had substantive analytical content, so I appreciate your referencing it, Darlene. Even had I not sensed the subtextual agenda of conjuring "rosy retrospection" in a crypto-conservative key, though, as Mary did, I would tend automatically to be suspicious of the (albeit often illuminating) offerings of "Foreign Affairs" -- a publication, for those not familiar with its provenance, of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of those happy triliteral entities of the power elite, like the TLC, who cheerfully bring you distillate evil incarnate -- and in this case, a truly überpowerful one, closely associated with Henry Kissinger, inter alea. The author of the article, Fukuyama, is an "erstwhile" Reagan neoconservative who has ostensibly disavowed that position, and taken a more "nuanced" approach -- and he (and other authors of the screeds in Foreign Affairs) are well worth tracking, if for no other reason than to get an intellectualized version of the Memes of Lupercale Future, but make no mistake: Foreign Affairs publishes nothing that isn't in service of the agenda of the CFR, and the CFR has no agenda that isn't indistinguishable from that of the Lords of Hell. But I'm sorry... I understate. :) More seriously Darlene, I'm really glad you did reference the Fukuyama article, not only for its content, but for the opportunity you gave me to introduce and execrate one of the truly evil institutions of policy-making within the NWO constellation of cults. Oh, and may I have forgotten to urge everyone to google the Bohemian Grove cult, as well? Their symbolic ritual child sacrifice ceremony is particularly endearing. Really, somebody should know what kind of psychopaths are running this world. And I do urge people to keep an eye on Foreign Relations, because it's a highly reliable "leading indicator."
Mark, you are right about CFR and Foreign Affairs as representing the "establishment" positions - and this establishment extends across both political parties. There is another outfit, much more recent, that has considerable influence in the moderate to liberal community, The Center for a New American Security. www.cnas.org. They have been influential on the Obama Administration and they represent sort of the "cutting edge" of new thinking of those who later will be the "establishment." They've published some fascinating and ground-breaking pieces. I drew some of my material for A Light Not of this World from articles they published about the Afghanistan War.
Dan wrote: "Mark, you are right about CFR and Foreign Affairs as representing the "establishment" positions - and this establishment extends across both political parties. There is another outfit, much more ..."
Dan, you're right that CFR is definitely cross-partisan in its membership and its influence. There's really no instrument of the power elite that isn't, and to some extent, that's why the party rivalry is, as has been stated here and elsewhere, in large part, "Kabuki drama." But the power elite isn't monolithic, and we're perforce constrained to support the ostensibly distinct elements who represent the less pernicious agenda -- in this instance, the Democrats, to whom CNAS are more closely alloyed. CNAS was founded by Clinton appointee Michèle Flournoy and subsequent Obama appointee Kurt M Campbell (himself regrettably associated with the "Aspen Institute/Aspen Strategy Group," the nexus of the aforementioned "Bohemian Grove" cult). It's impossible to avoid the addiction of members of the power elite on all sides of the equation to bizarre and sick rituals, though: it's part of how they maintain their identification and force continuing allegiances. Anyway, it's an "imperfect" (my temperate choice, here, for "pathological") world, and we either do nothing whatever, or we deal with the entities that exist. Unless flights of cherubim appear magically to create a large socialist presence in Congress -- say, another several hundred Bernie Sanderses -- there's no place for liberals to go but the Democratic Party. I know I contemn the CFR, but I'm only mildly familiar with the CNAS, and would be interested in your take, Dan, on the salient points of their differences in policy perspective (though they are interconnected -- everything is -- and naturally overlap to some extent).
I haven't really compared the two, but CNAS has published articles that exposed flaws in establishment strategies, especially in the military. They had a tremendous piece a few years ago that showed our intelligence system in Afghanistan was completely f***** up. It was embarrassing, to say the least, to the establishment powers.
These think tanks have grown in size and importance over the years. They usually are aligned with one party or the other, and many are headed by people who formerly held important positions in the government. Now when a party holds the Presidency, the think tanks supply personnel as well as policy research and support. Heritage had a 1,000 page book it gave to Reagan when he became President that contained virtually every policy initiative of his presidency.
When a party doesn't have the White House, these think tanks basically are like a "shadow cabinet." They supply their party with talking points on key issues and they have people ready to step into key positions.
Heritage developed virtually the entire Republican attack on Obamacare, ironically because they were authors of Romneycare in Massachusetts on which Obamacare was based.
It truly is tragic that Obama did not insist on getting Medicare into that program as an option.
Dan, Mark, and Krishna, I've said that Sean Hannity on Fox should be the poster child (or man) for why we shouldn't beat our children. During the discussion of the football player who left marks on his four-year-old son when he "disciplined" him, Sean defended the man (the only time I've seen him defend a black man) by showing how his father beat him when he was a child. He had a belt and was whacking away at his desk with a demented expression on his face. When I saw the clip, I said, "So that's what's wrong with him."The problem with people who are beaten as children is that they tend to become violent, if not in action, then in language and thought. Richard Wright was badly beaten by his mother, so he wrote violent books, including one in which the "hero" accidentally smothered one woman, cut off her head and burned her body, then raped another woman (his girlfriend) and beat her to death with a brick. And I used to joke about who I was going to slap or knock out if they didn't stop doing whatever they were doing. I still have violent fantasies about "slapping the taste out of the mouth" of whichever conservative (Cheney, Hannity, Boehner) is getting on my nerves at the moment.
If I were not well educated and didn't enjoy thinking, I would probably be engaging in elder abuse at this point in my life. Often adults who were beaten as dependent children return the favor when their parents are dependent on them. My mother has always been more combative than I am, and she still is, but I'm now physically much stronger. However, I can outthink her, so I'm better at controlling my emotions than she would be if she (a high school graduate) were dealing with her senile, combative mother.
Krishna, I wish being a top student would make us richer here. I'd be richer than Bush, the Kardashians, the Kennedys, Kobe Bryant, Beyoncé, Jay Z, and almost everyone else except the Clintons and the Obamas. And if being a top student made us rich in this capitalist country, parents wouldn't have to beat their children to make them study. Some parents would have to beat their children to make them stop studying. A couple of years ago, I was chatting on the telephone with a grand-niece whom I've never met. I asked her if she was on the honor roll, and she answered, "Oh, no, mam," as if I'd asked her if she took drugs or stole. Later, I saw pictures of her on facebook, competing in a beauty contest; she won third place. A few months later, she posted a video of herself singing. I think we know what her goals are. She wants to be the next Beyoncé or Jennifer Hudson, not a middle-class college professor.
Did anyone else hear the news that Governor Walker of Wisconsin isn't a college graduate? I haven't looked him up yet to find out his story. But I'm stunned by that information. If he were from the World War II generation, I wouldn't be so bothered, but this guy is younger than I am. I know that Austrian Arnold, who is two years older than I am, had a degree from some mail-order college, but at least he made the effort to look somewhat educated, and he's a special case--body builder, turned actor, turned governor. Would we really elect an uneducated man to be President in these complicated times?
I read Richard Wright's novels when I was a teenager and probably was the only white kid in my town to even know who he was. I still have a vivid memory of his character burning that body in the incinerator! He was a great writer.I think Walker is the most dangerous of all the Republican candidates, and I mean dangerous in the sense that he might get the nomination. And he might be the smartest of all the candidates despite his checkered college past. The guy seems to be able to survive anything. Like Reagan he is Mr. Teflon.
Not having a college degree will be an asset for him in the primaries, especially if we Democrats keep making an issue of it. The anti-intellectual know nothings in the Republican Party will make him their hero.
We need to find something that really hurts his chances. Not having a college degree isn't that thing.
Mary wrote: " Krishna, I wish being a top student would make us richer here. I'd be richer than Bush, the Kardashians, the Kennedys, Kobe Bryant, Beyoncé, Jay Z, and almost everyone else except the Clintons and the Obamas. And if being a top student made us rich in this capitalist country, parents wouldn't have to bea ..."Hi, Mary,
I'm hugely enthusiastic about your suggestion, and I think everybody's wealth should be a function of his or her level of education and performance on a test of general knowledge. :) Degrees earned vacuously by the progeny of plutocrats (from prestigious institutions) in virtue of their status as "legacies," absolutely would not count (might, in fact, be adduced to subtract points), so Bush's utterly meaningless Yale/Harvard credentials would be worthless. (I can only begin to imagine how he'd perform on a test of general knowledge. I wonder, is his children reading?) Also, contradistinctively, there ought to be an "educational-deprivation-in-consequence-of-socioeconomic-oppression" earned income credit.
Anyway, this would have the wondrous consequence that just the active participants in this group could buy out the Koch Brothers and the Waltons in a nanosecond. (They'd be living in boxes on the streets, anyway. And not Big Retail Boxes.) So... your inspiration based on Krishna's quite understandable lack of familiarity with American "socio-economic protocols" has my strongest endorsement, and I can't imagine any member of this group who would cavil much. :))
Mary, I believe I heard on Chris Hayes' show that Walker dropped out of college but nobody seemed to know why. I agree with Dan… I can definitely see his dropping out of college being an asset to him. As everyone has been talking about on this thread, there is definitely an anti-intellectual element in our country. They will package him as a 'working class' guy… just the 'everyman' and that will make him appealing!! I am reminded of the last presidential campaign when President Obama talked about making college more affordable and how all people needed to have more education than just a high school diploma. Rick Santorum (ex-Senator from my state, unfortunately) really made a big deal of it… sneering at the President for wanting people to continue their education! I know there is an element in my state who really LOVED what Santorum was saying!! I also read Richard Wright's novels in a 'Black-American Lit' class in college and "Native Son" has stayed with me all of these many years!! I agree with you… violence begets violence!! And I know what you were saying regarding the elder abuse….. children can also be maddening at times, especially when they become teenagers and feel they know far more than you will ever know!! :) But you're right… you stop and you think and you never lay your hands on anyone! I know what all of you were talking about.. being struck DOES forever change your relationship with the parent that hits you! I think you can never really trust that person again.
And Dan, I think you're right… Walker IS dangerous!! His lack of a college education is just ONE thing he has going for him. He has also decimated unions in Wisconsin and I think that will also be popular with the Republican base! Many people seem to blame the unions for a number of economic woes!!
"A degree is not an education, and the confusion on this point is perhaps the great weakness in American thinking about education.” -- John DeweyHaving had to contend with colleagues who seemed virtually innocent of human knowledge outside the narrow ambit of their areas of expertise (and often, even within those areas), I think both you and I know this, Mary, as much as it offends our sensibilities that someone like Scott Walker should be allowed to present himself as a candidate for the esteemed position of dog-catcher.
I haven't watched Walker enough (the effect on me of his actual speech is emetic) to be able to assess his inherent intelligence very accurately, but it's quite conceivable that he does have a high IQ -- and if only this could be ascertained, then it would certainly be desirable to broadcast the fact as widely as possible! His natural constituency would reject him with all the fervor of agitated antibodies.
Regrettably, though, I think the attractiveness that his appalling lack of educational credentials confers upon him in the eyes of the zombie, Hannity-worshiping hordes, may actually be justified by a matching level of ignorance and stupidity on his part. Certainly, his moral IQ approaches negative infinity, but this is likewise a plus in the view of the supermarket-stalking brain-eaters.
Does anyone who's been able to watch an interview with Scott Walker (without regurgitating or sustaining a cerebral aneurysm) have an impression? I have never counted reptile-brained political canniness as a form of intellect or erudition, so that doesn't count, but I'm actually curious as to whether he has two neurons to rub together in the realm of academic knowledge (or would be able to locate Europe on a map).
Hmmm.... I have checked, and Walker did a few years of college at Marquette before starting work at a certain corporation of which I have personal knowledge that they emphatically did not hire dummies (as of that time). Of course, this restriction might not have applied to Walker had he been "connected" in the usual way ("hey, Joe, please hire my idiot son").So the jury is still out, but it would certainly be interesting if anyone who'd had legitimate access to his records at Marquette and knew of his SAT's (but only if they were very high) let that be known. (SAT scores used often to appear on college transcripts.) Democrats could celebrate Walker as just the sort of "intellectually gifted" candidate we'd love to see. That would kill him.
Darlene wrote: " :) But you're right… you stop and you think and you never lay your hands on anyone! I know what all of you were talking about.. being struck DOES forever change your relationship with the parent that hits you! I think you can never really trust that person again. .."Being struck by a parent is an egregious form of betrayal. When you have been betrayed repeatedly by the people you ought to have been able to trust, then trust itself becomes impossible. (Trust me on this.)
Mark wrote: "Darlene wrote: " :) But you're right… you stop and you think and you never lay your hands on anyone! I know what all of you were talking about.. being struck DOES forever change your relationship w..."Mark, I couldn't agree with you more!!!
Krishna wrote: "I can understand one thing very clearly, that economy plays a very important role on everyone's life. Being a singer, or anything without academics is an uncertain thing. U cannot assure your secur..."Krishna, it's a relative matter, but this is increasingly not at all a "rich country," except for the top 1%, who have about 80-90% of the wealth. It would also be a "pipe dream" here (very unrealistic) for a young person to try to become a famous singer. Parents do not beat their children to stop them from studying. Mary meant that studying does not insure wealth here. If it did, children might want to study more. She was joking about parents "beating their children to stop them from studying." No one beats children to stop them from studying, and no one should ever beat anyone else. Especially not children.
We have had very bad experience with ignorant politicians. People who are very ignorant make terrible decisions.
Krishna wrote: "Mark, if u r saying that US is not a rich country, then I guess u haven't seen poor countries. Maybe top 1% r very rich, but the average income of common people r much more than ours. Moreover labo..."I am aware that there is great poverty in India. But you would be surprised to learn that the US has a much worse "Gini Index of Wealth Inequality" than your country. The country with the most equal distribution of wealth is Norway ( with an index of 6.1). Your country has an index of 8.6. The US has an index of 15.9, among the worst in the world (and literally the worst among so-called "first-tier" countries). Our index is approximately equal to those of Nepal and Rwanda. (See the chart here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...) I think you are assuming that, because wages are higher here, people are much more comfortable. The cost of living, however, is *hugely* higher, so the higher wages (for those people who have jobs) do not really compensate. It is extremely bad for labour to be "cheap" anywhere, because it causes tremendous suffering. But "cheap labour" is the thing billionaires most want, because it makes them even more obscenely rich. I do not doubt that there is great poverty and suffering in your country. And since I have not visited India, and I am not an expert, I cannot know exactly how bad it is. But I do know that there is great poverty and suffering in the US, as well. It may be less severe, but it exists -- and there is much greater economic inequality here than practically anywhere else in the world. Because the inequality is so vast here, there is no excuse for the poverty and suffering in the United States. It hurts 300 million people and only helps a few thousand. Primarily, a few dozen.
I think education is highly desirable, of course, and it may be one thing that alleviates poverty. But I do not think that children should ever be beaten under any circumstances, and I do not think that they would refuse to study if they were not.
But I think we have largely exhausted this topic. I understand your beliefs, and I respect your right to believe as you wish, but literally everyone else who has commented here is very profoundly and passionately opposed to corporal punishment.
Krishna wrote: "And 1 more thing I understood that what is happening in both the countries is wrong. And if this continues, then the future is not good."I think we are all in agreement about this, Krishna.
To illustrate some of what has happened with inequality of income and wealth in the U.S., I am copying here a post I did on www.soxprospects.com, a site devoted to the Boston Red Sox minor league system. I am a lifelong Red Sox fan, and an active participant on this site.One of the major drivers of income inequality in the U.S. is the massive increase that has occurred of salaries of corporate CEOs, athletic and movie stars, fund managers, etc. This is an illustration of what has happened in baseball compared to the averages in the U.S. overall.
I responded to an earlier post, a portion of which is at the beginning:
Mike Antonellis @seadogsradio 32m32 minutes ago
MLB's revenues have grown 321 percent since 1995…how crazy is that?
Say what you will about Selig but if he worked for the owners, they certainly have nothing to complain about.
This is my post:
Unlike salaries and wages in other jobs, which on average, taking inflation into account, have barely risen since 1980, baseball salaries have kept pace with the revenues of the owners.
The minimum major league baseball player wage in 1995 was $109,000 ($169,319 in 2014 dollars). Now it is a little above $500,000.
The national minimum wage for all workers in 1995 was $4.25 per hour ($6.60 in 2014 dollars), or $8,840 per year ($13,732 in 2014 dollars). Today it is $7.25, or $15,080.
The average baseball salary in 1995 was $1.07 million ($1.66 million in 2014 dollars). Today it is above $3.4 million.
The average household income in the U.S., in 1995, adjusting for inflation, was $50,978. In 2014 it was $51,017. It has not kept up with the growth of the economy. The Gross Domestic Product of the U.S., by comparison, was about $10 trillion in 1995 (in 2014 dollars) and was $17.4 trillion in 2014.
MLB has a strong union. Overall, union membership is less than half of what it was in 1980.
Yeah, I write about this stuff on a regular basis.
I was definitely joking about American parents having to beat their children to stop them from studying if being top students would make them wealthy, Krishna. My point is that most Americans are materialistic. In fact, I initially wanted an education so that I could make more money, but by the time I started college I already knew that teachers didn't make much money because I worked with teachers at my temporary federal government job during the summers of my high school years. They told me they were working to supplement their income. I just decided that I wanted to be a teacher and didn't need much money. Maybe because my favorite place to live when I was a child was with my "poor as Job's turkey" maternal grandmother, I'm not as materialistic as most of the people I know.Darlene and Dan, Wright is one of my favorite writers, and NATIVE SON is my favorite book (to read and teach) by him (although I also like his autobiography, BLACK BOY), but the first time I read the chopping-off-Mary's-head scene, I had to step outside Bigger's consciousness. I couldn't go there with him. That's one of the most disturbing scenes in American Literature, right up there with some of the gory scenes in Sinclair's THE JUNGLE, also set in Chicago.
I sound off so much on so many social media sites now that I'm not sure where I've said what, so I may be repeating myself here, but I believe Bill Cosby's problems with women (and he clearly has some) were caused by being beaten by his mother. I read the Mark Whitaker biography shortly before the scandal broke, and Whitaker discusses how much the comedian adored and respected his mother, but Bill regularly joked about how black mothers beat and verbally abuse their children. In fact, he claimed that's the way they show love. Maybe he doesn't even realize that he resents women because of the way his mother dominated him through violence, but a rich celebrity does not need to drug women in order to have extramarital affairs.
The black culture is more violent than most in America, partly because we are more religious ( that "spare the rod, spoil the child" nonsense) but mainly because we have been the victims of violence from slavery through the Jim Crow lynchings.
According to what I read, Walker left college his senior year, which means he might be better educated than many people (looking at you, George W. Bush) who completed college and graduate school. If he was a good student and thinker, almost four years of college would be enough. He might be more like Oprah, who dropped out even earlier, than Arnold. Still, I'm bothered by the fact that he is so anti-education. He went after the teachers' unions as governor.
Where's that young Joe Biden who can get the blue collar vote? If Walker is the Republican nominee, having an Ivy League-educated Democratic nominee will definitely be a problem.
Darlene, one of my problems being a caretaker for a senile very old person is that I never had children, so I'm learning new skills. I've decided that senile elderly people are a strange combination of toddler and teenager. They are clueless like toddlers and rebellious like teenagers. But at least my mother is also cute like a toddler, and I have a good sense of humor (sometimes lost in translation) as well as good critical thinking skills. What I don't have is much patience. But I'm working on it.
Dan wrote: "To The average household income in the U.S., in 1995, adjusting for inflation, was $50,978. In 2014 it was $51,017. It has not kept up with the growth of the economy. The Gross Domestic Product of the U.S., by comparison, was about $10 trillion in 1995 (in 2014 dollars) and was $17.4 trillion in 2014. ..."Since it seems to be everybody's intuitive perception that, excluding the really affluent, everybody is actually doing much worse than in 1995, I think it would be really interesting to have a comparison of the mean household income in 1995 (adjusted for inflation, though I suspect the adjustment factors used are grossly distorted, so those wouid have to be looked at) of the bottom 99%, or 95%, at that time, versus the average household income of the corresponding 99% or 95%, now. Obviously, the grotesquely bloated incomes of the top 1% would seriously distort the apparent mean, so the picture is probably immeasurably worse than it looks, if all the billionaires are included as representing "average households." A further adjustment that would need to be made would be to divide by the ratio of hours actually worked within the average household (currently) to hours actually worked in 1995, because to the extent that people are keeping up at all, it's probably because they're working two or three jobs versus one, and at much lower wages. Once those adjustments were made, I feel relatively confident that a more realistic picture (that the average non-überaffluent household working an equivalent number of hours) would be about half as well off, and would also be working much more onerous and unpleasant jobs. The cola used for SS recipients this year was about 1.5%. No one who pays rent or has ever been in a supermarket could remotely doubt that 15-20% might be a more realistic (conservative) figure. Thus I believe that if a realistic CPI were ever applied in computing those statistics, along with the other modifications I've suggested, the US would look more like the utter hell that it actually is -- for most of us -- even relative to 1995.
It's too bad Truth-out.org has not yet published my article on what trickle-down economics has done to America. I cannot put my charts onto Goodreads, but here is a summary of some data:Percentage Shares of Aggregate Income Received by Each Fifth and the top 5% of Households
Change from 1980 to 2013:
Lowest 20%: -1.0 percent
Second 20% -1.8 percent
Third 20% -2.4 percent
Fourth 20 percent: -1.7 percent
Top 20 percent + 6.9 percent
Top 5 percent +5.7 percent
Shares of total income in 2013:
Bottom 20 percent: 3.2 percent
Second 20 percent: 8.4 percent
Third 20 percent 14.4 percent
Fourth 20 percent: 23 percent
Fifth 20 percent 51 percent
Top 5 percent 22.2 percent
Shares of total income in 1980
Bottom 20 percent: 4.2 percent
Second 20 percent: 10.2 percent
Third 20 percent: 16.8 percent
Foruth 20 percent 24.7 percent
Top 20 percent 44.1 percent
Top 5 percent 16.5 percent
Mary wrote: "Darlene, one of my problems being a caretaker for a senile very old person is that I never had children, so I'm learning new skills. I've decided that senile elderly people are a strange combinati..."My late wife and I had to take care of her mother for a while when she was in her 80s and had Alztheimer's. She was not cute. She was aggressively hostile. It was like dealing with an insane, very muscular, and violent child. It was a nightmare. I am glad for you that you have the other kind, even though that still is very tough.
Mary wrote: "Darlene, one of my problems being a caretaker for a senile very old person is that I never had children, so I'm learning new skills. I've decided that senile elderly people are a strange combinati..."I am extremely sorry to hear this about your mother, Mary. Like you, I am without progeny, so I tend to worry about the other side of the equation, but I am reassured by my general moribundity that the physical plant will give out before the cognitive one does (and no, I've always been this manifestly politically cantankerous, so it's not the effect of age :)). Howsoever, your mother is incredibly fortunate to have you at this time, and having been compelled to "play Job" (per MacLeish) through your political struggles and the usual virulent academic ones, you have, I think, probably an infinite untapped capacity for "patience" -- as well as for "taking pains." I only wish you didn't have to "take pains" without the "s"... but I wish you well.
Dan wrote: "It's too bad Truth-out.org has not yet published my article on what trickle-down economics has done to America. I cannot put my charts onto Goodreads, but here is a summary of some data..."Very helpful statistical breakdown, Dan, and I hope truth-out will very rapidly publish your article. Please post the link when they do.
It occurs to me that, if the 4.2% earned by the bottom fifth is now down to 3.2%, then that's actually a loss of 24% (of their slice of the pie). The loss to the second lowest quintile would actually be 18% (1.8% out of 10.2%). It's actually much more draconian than the raw percentage of the total pie makes it seem. I'm impressed that you managed to obtain any statistics at all, since I don't imagine they're being wildly eagerly disseminated by government agencies, but are those government stats, or ones from a private organization? I'm guessing, too, that the massive gains of the upper 1% are being somewhat occulted by the fact that their "capital gains" are not being counted as income. Howsoever, even omitting that consideration, if the top 5% are up 5.7 out of 16.5, then that's actually a gain for them of 34.5%, relatively speaking.
According to the New York Post (all the mendacious right-wing excreta that's fit to line a bird-cage): " President Barack Obama speaks as if the US has something to apologize for, but it's still the beacon that the world looks to with admiration and envy."That's really interesting. I wonder if they've polled the English press who looked upon Scott Walker with derision and incredulity, or the populace of any country in Europe... or Canada, Australia or New Zealand, for that matter. My guess is that they look upon us as an object
of abhorrence and revulsion, to whatever extent they don't merely find us pathetic and hilarious (in a tragic way). I certainly do.
The statistics I used are from the Census Bureau. It is wonderful to have another set of eyes look at the same data. Your view has given me an idea for another graphic that will show the changes much more vividly.Emmanuel Saez of Berkeley, the country's leading authority on such things has great charts, some of which I use, showing the increasing shares by the top 10 and 1 and .1 and .01 percent, but I don't recall seeing one that shows the significant drop in shares of the other groups. I will do one.
Dan, my mother has threatened me a few times, but she hasn't become violent. If she does, she's out of here. Mark, except when dealing with my mother, I've become less patient with age. The less time I have left on earth the more annoyed I become when someone wastes my time or makes my time on earth less peaceful.Rudy G. is disturbing my peace right now. But he's such an easy target (Biden got him with his noun+verb+9/11 jab in 2008) that I'm already moving on. I guess he still thinks he's America's Mayor.
Dan wrote: "The statistics I used are from the Census Bureau. It is wonderful to have another set of eyes look at the same data. Your view has given me an idea for another graphic that will show the changes mu..."Thanks. I'm glad it helped, Dan. You might try this theoretical example, to show how the mode of statistical presentation of the Census Bureau is wildly misleading:
The Wild Inequity Corporation has two employees, with annual income as follows:
In 1980:
CEO: 20 BILLION DOLLARS
Assistant: $30,000 dollars
In 2013:
CEO: 22 BILLION DOLLARS
Assistant: $10,000 (his alternative is McDonalds)
Now, using the techniques of the Census bureau, we can say that the CEO's income has merely gone from 99.99985% of the total, to
99.999954%, an increase of a minuscule .0001% -- totally insignificant. Poor CEO.
On the other hand, the assistant's income has gone from .00015% to .000046%, a totally inconsequential decrease of only .000104%, hardly any loss at all! (Probably slacking off, too, to listen to any Republican!) Certainly, completely undeserving of our sympathy!
Yay, Census Bureau!
I am very tired of the fringe idiots of the Republican Party still getting so much media attention. Who cares what Rudy thinks? They don't hold public office. They aren't running for anything. Even the Republicans don't like Rudy. Sarah has become an embarrassment to all but the most ignorant and most deluded. I've stopped putting anything about them - and a number of the others - onto Facebook, or in anything I write. I don't think they have any importance now and they should not be getting the news coverage they get.
Mary wrote: "Dan, my mother has threatened me a few times, but she hasn't become violent. If she does, she's out of here. Mark, except when dealing with my mother, I've become less patient with age. The less..."I definitely understand your feeling, Mary. There ought to be some sort of formula for calculating annoyance, where you divide by your life expectancy, so that everything would be 4 times as annoying if you were 74 and could expect to live to 96, as if you were 13 and could expect to live to 101. (88/22) Or something like that, but I think I would like to take the cube of the ratio, so it would actually be 64 times as annoying! (I seem to be computing a lot of statistics today. :))
Being Job is even less fun than reading The Book, but in any case, as regards "America's Mayor," I wish someone would ask Obama whether he thinks that Rudy Giuliani really loves himself.
I think there's this interesting movement on the right, evidenced by Giuliani's comments and beginning perhaps with that book/documentary "Obama's America," that applies this notion of anti-colonialism to Obama as if it's a bad thing. Which seems weird to me because if there's anything that it seems everyone should agree on in the post-World War II era, it's that colonialism is bad. Anyone claiming the superiority of democracy should be against the imposition of a foreign power, right? I mean, didn't America start off as an anti-colonial revolt?I'm not sure whether this new tendency to use "anti-colonial" as a slur against liberals, or at least against certain liberal ideas, is fully thought through. Which I guess is not all that surprising, given its use by Rudy Giuliani, but it is amusing, nonetheless.
Neocons don't have a problem with colonialism. Remember, Cheney wanted us to stay in Iraq forever. So did McCain. Look at Jeb Bush's foreign policy advisers. A bunch of neocons, including some of the architects of the Iraq war.Multinationals already engage in economic colonialism. Some want to do it to us now - kill off our industry, use our natural resources, make us buy their cheap foreign-made goods and be so poor we don't have the energy to fight back.
Money Quote of the Week:Dan wrote: " Neocons don't have a problem with colonialism.... Some want to do it to us now - kill off our industry, use our natural resources, make us buy their cheap foreign-made goods and be so poor we don't have the energy to fight back.
(I might want to substitute "Nearly all of them" for "Some," but it's a minor cavil. This is what is happening to the country, and realistically, I see only minimal hope that we can in any way impede the downward spiral.")
Mark, paranoia is good; it's smart because we can't trust anyone with power even when they are supposedly on our side (looking at you, Obama). But hopelessness is bad, self-defeating. We must keep hope alive because we know that the left is right, and the right is wrong. We also know that the left (liberals) eventually wins. We survived the backlash to the civil rights movement and the feminist movement, didn't we? Reagan is just a statue, a name on buildings and streets, and every Republican's favorite President. Even the Republicans have given up on pushing that trickle-down nonsense. The fringe people are now the Republicans. Some Democrats haven't gotten the message yet, that their ideas are the popular ones, but they will figure it out eventually.The bad old days are behind us; we are never going back to slavery, Jim Crow, only white men voting and serving on juries, gay people having to hide their orientation to serve in the military, women not being able to get credit cards in their names and having to go to quacks in alleys to get rid of their unwanted babies.
Yes, this world is scary, but so was the world of our youth. Don't you remember ducking under the desk to prepare for the inevitable nuclear bomb? Don't you remember the assassinations of two Kennedys, a King, Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X? Don't you remember four young girls being killed in a church while they attended Sunday School. I remember having to swear that I was not a Communist when I worked for the federal government. And during my early years, I kept expecting the Communists to take over. Isn't that why my husband was killed in Vietnam before I met him (a sick joke, but I am entitled to make sick jokes about what has happened to the black men in this country)?
The climate is getting worse; crazy people are able to kill more people because weapons are more efficient. The racism has increased as a backlash to Obama's election. But I like this brave new world much better than I did the old one, and I think these neocons, Tea Party jerks, and all of the other conservative jerks are to quote Cheney "in the last throes." I hope I will outlive them. And I hope the Democrats won't blow the next election by running away from a very successful President and failing to show that they are the ones who love their country and love all of the people in their country. I hope they will explain what the real America is and what real Americans look like. I hope they will take our country forward, not back.
Mary wrote: "Mark, paranoia is good; it's smart because we can't trust anyone with power even when they are supposedly on our side (looking at you, Obama). But hopelessness is bad, self-defeating. We must keep hope alive because we know that the left is right, and the right is wrong.Mary - As you might suspect, I'm the last person in the world you'd ever need to convince of the utility of paranoia :), but you're right to remind me of the counterproductivity of hopelessness. I have really been wanting to superimpose that slogan of yours ("The left is right, and the right is wrong.") over the homepage banner (image of the world), incidentally, but I lack the requisite software on my tablet, and have been indolent about resuscitating my netbook. But I *do* promise to get 'round to it.. What I promise not to superimpose over the banner is Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate. :) :)
We also know that the left (liberals) eventually wins. We survived the backlash to the civil rights movement and the feminist movement, didn't we? Reagan is just a statue, a name on buildings and streets, and every Republican's favorite President. Even the Republicans have given up on pushing that trickle-down nonsense. The fringe people are now the Republicans. Some Democrats haven't gotten the message yet, that their ideas are the popular ones, but they will figure it out eventually.The bad old days are behind us; we are never going back to slavery, Jim Crow, only white men voting and serving on juries, gay people having to hide their orientation to serve in the military, women not being able to get credit cards in their names and having to go to quacks in alleys to get rid of their unwanted babies.
The Republicans are so far into the domain of "fringe," their politicians ought to be attached to the tops of surreys. But they still have their legions (and I use the word not unmindfully of biblical connotations) of zombie followers, impervious to change, reason, sanity, or the exhibition of dimple human decency. They're a minority, but they actually do want to go back to Jim Crow, coathanger abortions and all the rest. Since it's infeasible (howsoever desirable) to put them on a one-way spaceship to the planet of Troglodytia, I suppose the best we can do is to mock them relentlessly. :)
Don't you remember ducking under the desk to prepare for the inevitable nuclear bomb? Don't you remember the assassinations of two Kennedys, a King, Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X?
Only too well. Nor do I propose to forget any of it, I promise you. We really cannot allow the monstrous ideological progeny of that era to persist in their efforts to reinstate that toxic regime of attitudes and policies.
I remember having to swear that I was not a Communist when I worked for the federal government.
I always thought that was appalling. I refused to recite "the pledge" when in high school, and I'm not sure I could actually have sworn as you did with complete veracity. :) But these days, I'm actually only a socialist, and we've even got one of those in Congress, so I'm probably only about six standard deviations to the left of center. :) I really hate oaths. Dan, who has acknowledged his Quaker heritage, could probably tell you that, at least technically, Quakers are not allowed to take oaths -- though I'm certain that contemporary Quakers tend less universally to adhere to that prohibition.
Isn't that why my husband was killed in Vietnam before I met him (a sick joke, but I am entitled to make sick jokes about what has happened to the black men in this country)?
I think you are overwhelmingly entitled. If all some of us do in the face of our experiences with this country is to make "sick" jokes, then I think we are showing a measure of restraint that should qualify us for beatification...
I hope I will outlive them. And I hope the Democrats won't blow the next election by running away from a very successful President and failing to show that they are the ones who love their country and love all of the people in their country. I hope they will explain what the real America is and what real Americans look like. I hope they will take our country forward, not back.
And I sincerely appreciate your counterbalancing my occasional involuntary effusions of despair with a relentless message of hope. Because I do earnestly hope all the same things you do, and wouldn't ever say "the struggle naught availeth."
The jury remains out on Walker's intelligence, but I think this represents adequate certification of his status as evil incarnate (the most important eligibility requirement for the Republican nomination):http://www.salon.com/2015/02/24/scott...
Sufficiently evil, even for Texas!http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/r...
"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has erased U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s strong lead among Texas Republicans in the volatile and still-developing race for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. "
Walker does not deal very well with direct confrontation, such as what he will get in spades in a national campaign. He appears to be trying the Palin approach of simply not responding. That's not going to work any better for him than it did for her.This is his great weakness and it will prevent him from winning the Presidency, but it may not prevent him from winning the Republican nomination.
The Republicans have a real problem with their candidates. Most of them are wingnuts, or have other problems that make them really undesirable as national candidates.
Walker is a sitting governor who has managed to win three elections in four years. He has been a very successful governor to the extent that he has gotten a lot done of what he wanted to do. Much of it is horrible, but generally very pleasing to the Republican base that doesn't pay much attention to facts.
I think he could be derailed by a better Republican candidate such as Gov. Kasich, or Sen. Rob Portman, both of Ohio. Either could be a tough opponent of Hillary. Kasich had his own show on Fox for three years and was considered a possible running mate by Bob Dole, and also considered running for President in 2000. Portman is a Dartmouth College and University of Michigan Law School Graduate. He was Bush's Budget Director, which, of course, would make for some lively questions, but he is very sharp. I don't know why the powers in the Republican Party haven't gone after one of these - unless they are just waiting for the current clown car to self-destruct in the early Republican primaries.
I tend to think the Republican powers believe (and with not inconsiderable justification) they can steal the election no matter whom they nominate, so they're disinclined to start an internecine war with the clown-worshiping contingent of the party, which might account for why they haven't got behind Portman or Kasich, or some other, more plausible candidate. Perhaps they're not coulrophobic, and don't mind a clown president. They had no problem with the last one, but on the other hand, the current crop make GWB look like Winston Churchill. I actually believe they're likely to accommodate the Tea Party wackos, and put forth the most conspicuously evil and demented (but not overtly cretinous) candidate they possibly can (which would be Walker or Cruz). That might be good for the Democrats, under the questionable premise that the election won't be stolen. If the game isn't 100% fixed (in virtue of fraud and voter suppression), then we certainly want them to have the most obnoxious candidate possible; if it is, then we want the least spectacularly damaging one (which might be someone like Portman or Kasich).
I must apologize for the oxymoron, though. I think I said "least spectacularly damaging Republican." My bad.
Concerning Walker's "don't-ask-because-I-won't-answer" strategy, though, this a pretty good send-up from the WP:"But even when prompted with the facts, Walker — in Washington for the National Governors Association meeting — persisted, saying, “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” and, “I’ve never asked him that,” and, “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that.
"This is an intriguing standard. I’ve never had a conversation with Walker about whether he’s a cannibal, a eunuch, a sleeper cell for the Islamic State, a sufferer of irritable bowel syndrome or a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. By Walker’s logic, it would be fair for me to let stand the possibility that he just might be any of those — simply because I have no personal and direct refutation from him." :)
In reference to the preceding post, I might be willing to stipulate that Walker isn't a "sleeper cell" (though he certainly has droopy eyes, and might be narcoleptic), but I won't comment with respect to any of the other possibilities: none of which would actually surprise me.
While the Democrats haven't had fewer than 251 electoral votes (of the 270 needed to win) since 1988, the next election is going to be tricky.There are five states with a total of 84 electoral votes that now settle Presidential elections: Colorado, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. The victories by each party in the other states in the last election were by more than 5%.
And it is very hard to buy the election in those states. I think Obama won Virginia both times and North Carolina the first time because those states have large black populations, and they vote in about the same percentages as whites. Conservative Republicans have strong organizations in both states, stronger than the Democrats, and they may be challenging for the Democratic candidate next time.
The margin in Colorado is the Hispanic vote, which didn't turn out for the Democratic Senator who lost this past election.
Ohio and Florida are big states with lots of urban centers and rural markets. Ohio's political parties are well-established and elections there almost always are settled by whichever party gets a better turnout.
Florida is sort of a zoo. There is a lot of craziness in the state along with a lot of wealth and sophistication. It is about to pass New York as the third most populous state. It's really a toss-up in any election with turnout, like in Ohio, very crucial to success.
You can see why I put so much emphasis on Ohio and why a candidate on the national ticket of either party from Ohio might swing the entire election.
I think Walker will go the way of that early 2012 favorite, the (I think) Minnesota former governor (first name, Tim?) who Rachel Maddow used to mock by pretending to fall asleep when she mentioned his name. From what I can see, he's not very charismatic. And I think the Republicans like a little charisma with their intolerance and willful ignorance; that's why dull Romney had so much trouble beating clowns like Gingrich and Herman Cain in 2012. Of course, the Minnesota guy had another problem in 2012; he appeared to be sane. So did Huntsman, which is why he disappeared so quickly.I'm not sure how Walker is doing with the money men and establishment folks. According to what I'm reading and seeing, Jeb may be behind in the polls, but he's getting all of the money. The only reason a Bush versus Clinton back-to-the-past contest might be okay is that the Bush record is so much worse than the Clinton one. It's hard for me to believe that even the crazy Republicans would want another Bush in the White House after what the last one did.
The Republicans can't really steal the election if the Democrats win as convincingly as Obama did and as convincingly as they should. That's why we have to be the party of hope, success, and achievement. My "buddy" Obama sent out an e-mail today bragging about the increase in high school graduates and the rising math and reading scores. Now I know (as any experienced teacher does) that better test scores don't necessarily mean that students are smarter; it just means that they are better at taking tests. But the media generally doesn't convey that good news. Most of us think American students are doing worse.
Liberals have to counter the bad news bearers with the good news. We have to keep reminding everyone not only how much better things are than they were in the fifties and sixties, but especially how much better they are since Bush was in office. The reason the conservatives are going after Obama's patriotism is because they can't criticize him for how he's handled the economy, and he doesn't have a titillating stained-dress scandal to use against him the way they did against our last successful President. Instead of talking about how they are going to clean up the White House and bring honor back to the Presidency the way Bush did in 2000, they are going to pretend that they will bring love of country back into the White House, and if we message as well as they do, we will stop them by showing conservatives cheering when a South American city was chosen over a U.S. city to host a future Olympics. The competing U.S. city was, of course, Obama's current hometown--Chicago. Or we can show them admiring crazy Russian Putin while denigrating our President. Or we can show how Gore behaved when we were attacked on 9/11 and contrast his behavior to that of the Republicans after Benghazi.
The reason I have won every debate on google+ is not just because I am saner, wiser, better educated, and more sober than the conservatives sounding off on that site, but also because all of the facts are on my side. I don't expect to convert those crazy conservative googlers, although occasionally one will politely thank me for a spirited debate (most just call me names, and a few "block" me), but I hope a few liberals involved in campaigns are reading my posts and taking notes. If we can't win in 2016, hope might not die, but it will be on life support.
Dan wrote: "I am very tired of the fringe idiots of the Republican Party still getting so much media attention. Who cares what Rudy thinks? They don't hold public office. They aren't running for anything. Eve..."
Actually, I applaud the coverage. The less politically inclined among us aren't paying nearly as much attention to politics, and these clowns are performing a valuable public service in defining the Republican Party for the vast hoards of independents and "low information voters" who often decide elections. Sometimes I've even wondered whether Trump may be really an agent of the Democratic Party whose mission is to embarrass Republicans.
Beverly wrote: "Dan wrote: "I am very tired of the fringe idiots of the Republican Party still getting so much media attention. Who cares what Rudy thinks? They don't hold public office. They aren't running for an..."I would tend to endorse your theory about Trump, Beverly (if I thought Democratic strategists were sufficiently clever to have created a choleric, apoplectic idiot wearing an orange mop of some sort on his head, who loved to scream "you're fired"), but I don't actually think there is a Republican alive who is psychologically capable of experiencing embarrassment. (All the ones who were have fled the party.) :) Now, of course, I haven't thereby excluded zombie Republicans, but I rather suspect those are incapable of embarrassment, as well, else their general state of decomposition might inhibit them from attending party dinners.
Mary wrote: "I think Walker will go the way of that early 2012 favorite, the (I think) Minnesota former governor (first name, Tim?) who Rachel Maddow used to mock by pretending to fall asleep when she mentioned..."The reason you have won every debate on google+ is not only that you are saner, wiser and more erudite than conservatives, Mary, but I think also that your forensic adversaries may have been encumbered by the utter inability to cogitate (or to type without drooling on the keyboard) that normally accompanies RWDS. (Right-Wing Derangement Syndrome.) I know, I have been known to aim a howitzer at guppies in a barrel, myself, and it's certainly amusing, but in my preferred fantasy, you would be eviscerating actual Republican politicians instead of their piscatorial proxies -- which might require a full 0.0003% of your attention, as opposed to none whatever. :) I would love to see one of them constrained to answer actual questions from someone who wouldn't put up with their evasive BS, and their felt entitlement to slander Obama with impunity.
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I love this, Mary! I always think it is a good idea indiscriminately to alienate everybody! :) :) :) But I think this is also known as "nuance," something of which there's far too little left in the world. When thinking about the disparate childhood experiences of people who ultimately become academics (or academically-inclined professionals), I am always put in mind of Anna Karenina. To wax all parametrically parodical ('cause it's an extremely annoying propensity of mine), "every academically eccentric child is eccentric in his or her own way." Children oughtn't to be processed uniformly in the manner of cheese. (Besides, no one likes growing mouldy.) Over-monitoring would have been bad for Mary; the inadequacy of even a good high school by way of prep for a world-class university was bad for Dan; and attending school at all was bad for me... till I got to college. (In fact, it wasn't really ideal for me... till I got to teach college. :))
All that said, I think there's one thing that really does not admit of dispute (and Mary's anecdotes bear this out): Beating children is bad... for everyone.
But it goes beyond Mary's anecdotes, so I guess I'll address our good friend, Krishna, to whom education is really important:
I do understand, Krishna, that you believe that children need to be "beaten," and that probably, literally all the empirical data in the world will not change your mind; and I think you have the absolute right to believe whatever you want to, no matter what the scientific facts are, so I respect that completely. Nevertheless, I would not wish for you to be deprived of the ability to view scientific data, because you seem to be very interested in the importance of education.
It has been conclusively established by extensive psychological, neurological and sociological research that spanking of children not only adversely affects those children psychologically (and neurologically), but also leads to vastly increased levels of violence wherever this practice is tolerated. As a result, around the world, 30 countries have banned physical punishment of children in all settings, including the home. I could provide you with innumerable citations, but I encourage you to examine:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/sp...
http://www.academia.edu/181146/Is_It_...
http://centerforparentingeducation.or...
http://fermat.unh.edu/~mas2/CP31.pdf
and
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/23/health/...
(this last article from CNN contains many additional relevant links)
Plenty of corporal punishment is practiced in the United States, so I am not claiming that the US is different from or better than any other society in this respect, but the US is also a phenomenally violent society, and all the research indicates that violent treatment of children is one of the causes.
Just as a personal matter, because I'm a pacifist (though I do not believe anyone else should have to believe what I do), I find ALL forms of violence and physical aggression destructive. But that's strictly *my* belief. I reiterate that, if you believe that beating children is good and helpful, then you are entitled to hold that belief, even if it is overwhelmingly contradicted by science and by the research of pediatricians, psychologists, neurologists, and other medical and behavioral scientists. I would like for you to look at the scientific data and change your mind -- but you and I will otherwise just have to agree to disagree -- in a friendly way, I hope, because I like you and I appreciate your willingness to participate in international political discussions. That is brave of you, and not everyone your age would do that.