How Can It Be?

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, I began to wonder, how can it be most everyone seems to think the 2012 election is going to be very close, probably won by only a scant one or two percent of the vote?

Is my grasp on reality so tenuous that I am missing something entirely? I grant you that President Obama can be seen as vulnerable on the economy, and perhaps on a few other things as well. However, it seems to me fairly clear that (l) he is going to have the vast majority of the Black vote, (2) he is going to have a comfortable majority of the Hispanic vote, (3) after the Republican onslaught on Planned Parenthood and women’s health, as well as a woman’s right to choose, I cannot believe he will not be the recipient of a majority of the women’s vote, (4) with the Republican threat to do away with or privatize social security, as well as Medicare, I can only assume he will get a majority of the elderly vote, (5) somewhere I saw something to the effect that he is now doing better with White male voters, and (6) it appears that his “base” is still with him. If all this is so, and it seems to me from everything I read and hear, just who is it that is going to vote Republican? It might well be the case that young people have turned off to Obama and may waste their votes on Ron Paul, but surely the younger vote is not enough to elect anyone.

When it comes to issues and the record I can’t see where Republicans are going to have much to claim either. They can’t really denigrate Obama when it comes to national security or defense, he did get Osama bin Laden, Ghadafi, and etc. And he also did get us out of Iraq on (Bush’s) schedule. While he did not succeed in closing Guantanamo that was mainly because of Republican opposition. When it comes to jobs and why Obama has not created them, it is very clear that it has been Republican obstructionism that has stood in the way of every attempt to create jobs. While Republicans rail against “Obamacare” it is indisputable that he did bring about some much needed reforms with a program so far from socialism as to render that criticism pretty harmless. He also ended DADT, passed (I believe) and equal pay bill, and has a number of other accomplishment s to his credit, all in the face of overwhelming opposition from Republicans. Obama has not walked on water or moved mountains or single-handedly solved our many serious problems, but all in all he has done pretty well. The Republican criticism seem to have little basis in fact and represent mainly their personal dislike of Obama (a Black President), and, it seems to me an element of wishful thinking.

I believe Obama can be rightly criticized when it comes to civil rights, and his failure to prosecute the Bush/Cheney war crimes, his hawkish foreign policy, and also his questionable support of the Banking industry, but these are criticisisms far more likely to come from the left than the right. He has not been a completely uncritical supporter of Israel, much to the dismay of the believers in Armageddon, but he has continued to insist on our support of that (criminal) nation.

I should think Obama’s greatest asset going into the 2012 election is the dismal level of opposition he will face. If any of the current Republican candidates manages to win the nomination he/she will be a relative lightweight, a second or third rater with baggage hard to lose. I cannot see any of them mounting a serious challenge, not even Romney, whom they seem to believe has the best chance. Romney will probably eventually emerge as the Republican candidate but he will have suffered such withering criticism from his own party he will be seriously crippled, and he is already crippled enough in that some 20% of Republicans have apparently already said they would never vote for him (because they believe Mormonism is a cult).

Anyway, as I think all of the above is more or less the case, I cannot imagine why the 2012 election should be as close as everyone seems to predict. In spite of my beliefs about this, in spite of my belief that most or all of the above is true, in spite of what seems to me to be the obvious, in spite of what I might personally believe should be a landslide victory for Obama, somehow, mysteriously, even magically it seems to me, the election will still manage to be very close, and my beliefs about the reality of the facts and situation will simply vanish in a whiff of apathy, disinterest, and ignorance. It’s the American way!

Do I believe Obama should be re-elected? Yes and no. Will I vote for him (in the absence of a viable third party candidate), of course. I cannot fathom why anyone who is not a member of the 1% would vote for a Republican under any circumstances. But, alas, they will. One bright spot perhaps, I don’t think anyone will vote because they want to drink a beer with Willard.

If voters don't have a stomach for me, they can get one of those blow-dried guys.

Ross Perot

The Catholic Candidate

So much for the separation of Church and State, we now seem to have reached an unprecedented situation in which we now have an actual Catholic candidate running for President. I don’t mean to suggest the Catholic Church itself is running a candidate, only that a candidate is running on a platform that represents the Church’s position on most things. I don’t know what else you could describe what Rick Santorum is doing other than that.

Religion is supposed to be irrelevant when it comes to running for public office in the United States, and generally speaking, it has been. You may recall when the Catholic John Kennedy ran for office he made it clear he was not running as a Catholic but, rather, as an American, and he would not take direction from the Church. We believed him and by and large he did what he said he would do. He did not run on an anti-abortion platform, or against Gay marriage, or even against contraception. Willard Romney, a Mormon, is not suggesting we should all engage in polygamy or wear sacred underwear. Religious beliefs are not supposed to influence public policy (the degree to which they may have is basically unknown). It is also true that so far we have not had a Jewish or a Muslim President although technically that would be entirely feasible. Technically, someone’s religious beliefs should be considered completely irrelevant, although interestingly enough, it is highly doubtful an avowed Atheist could be elected President in the foreseeable future. To be a serious candidate for President you must at least pretend to be a “believer” of some kind and at least occasionally attend a church.

In the case of Rick Santorum we have a truly unprecedented case, a candidate who has apparently thrown “all caution to the wind” and is running on a obvious platform of Catholic beliefs. You are aware, I am sure, that Santorum is absolutely opposed to abortion, even to the point of suggesting that doctors who perform abortions should be criminally prosecuted. He is also completely opposed to Gay marriage, and believes existing Gay marriages should not be recognized. He would repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell decision that allows Gays to serve openly in the military. Although he hasn’t said it (as far as I know) he must also be opposed to the repeal of anti-sodomy laws. If these obviously Catholic strictures are not enough, he is also opposed to contraception, to birth control itself! He believes, as does his Church, that marriage should be only between a man and a woman and should involve having children, presumably as many as possible. He has not tried to hide these beliefs but, indeed, promotes them as part of his quest for the Presidency. Given this as true, how can you claim that a candidate’s religious beliefs are not relevant to his politics? Santorum wishes to impose Catholic morality on all the rest of us, no matter what our beliefs and practices may be, and makes no pretense of anything else. He seems to be truly obsessed with the regulation of other people’s sexual behavior, arguing that contraception, for example, is merely license for apparently unbridled sex (or something like that). He seems to have no knowledge of the full range of human sexual behavior, nor does he seem to have any idea of marriage customs around the world and in history. Although I don’t think he has said so, I suspect he believes the “missionary position” is the only acceptable position for sex. I wonder if he believes anti-sodomy laws ought to be relaxed for Church members, if he believes adultery is a mortal sin for which one should be put in the “stocks” and branded for life with a big “A,” and oral sex is an abomination, invented by Hugh Hefner as part of a socialistic takeover of the United States. These are, of course, embarrassing questions he is not likely to be asked (at least in public), one can only wonder just how far his Catholic Puritanism goes (no beastiality, by the way). Santorum does not claim to represent the Church, nor does the Church claim him as their candidate (they are not supposed to have candidates, of course), but there is little doubt that he represents exclusively the views of the Catholic Church when it comes to marriage, abortion, and birth control, and thus he is basically running on a Catholic platform.

Santorum has not as yet been thoroughly vetted, but now that he has been raised to a higher echelon in the campaign he no doubt will be. I don’t know what this will reveal but it is known that he was an eager “Earmarker,” and that he even voted for the famous Bridge to Nowhere. I doubt the Church is as eager to bomb Iran as he is, and he has some kind of baggage relating to the John Ensign scandal. Who knows what else will turn up, but don’t expect to ever see him as President.

I said, when asked, that I thought Santorum would win the Iowa caucus (because he was the only one nutty enough to mesh with Iowa voters). I thought until this morning it would be the only correct political prediction I had made in some fifty years of predictions. Curses! Thwarted again! But I won’t give up.

The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.

Robert Jackson

Busy Work

Finally, tomorrow will bring an end to the much ballyhooed Iowa caucuses. Hooray. But does anyone really care what happens in Iowa tomorrow, and if so, why? We have heard virtually nothing else on television and radio for weeks, different poll results day after day, different leaders from day to day, different predictions from day to day, all of which are basically meaningless. It just doesn’t matter who is picked in Iowa. Iowa is so far out of the mainstream of American politics what happens in Iowa basically stays in Iowa. I have predicted a win by Rick Santorum on the grounds that he is the only one nutty enough to fit in well with Iowa caucus-goers. But it doesn’t matter who wins as the winner in Iowa will prove nothing. If the candidate who wins in Iowa actually goes on to win the Presidency it will be little more than a fluke, an accident, an event so rare as to be completely unpredictable. All this attention to Iowa for the past few weeks has been nothing but busywork. Thank heavens it will at least be over. Of course all the attention to this Iowa nonsense has helped to keep us from hearing other things that might actually be important, like the pending war with Iran, the objections to the pipeline, the Occupy movement, Israeli war crimes, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, etc., etc., etc. To describe what we get from our MSM as “news” is simply laughable, something between fairy tales and speaking in tongues.


I notice in an add from The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, you know, the one that shows pictures of sad looking dogs and cats, usually in cages, sometimes obviously abused, and so on, they ask for an $18 a month donation to save them from their misery. The ad is a real tearjerkers and quite effective, and does call attention to a serious problem, especially for pet lovers. When I saw this ad the other day it was followed a short time later by a similar ad showing hungry and neglected children, again with pictures that make you want to cry and reach out to help. Curiously, however, it only takes $15 a month to help children. I don’t suppose this truly represents our priorities but it does seem to me rather strange. Of course for only $8 a month you can help save the tigers. I’m certain that from time to time there are similar ads to save the gorillas, polar bears, chimpanzees, orangutans, wild horses, elephants, rhinos, hippos, and on and on. I am sympathetic to the plight of all creatures but these ads represent to me the abject failure of the human species to manage the world we are supposed to have dominion over. We seem to have interpreted our gift of dominion as a license to kill and destroy all other creatures as fast as possible (about the only thing we seem to have more or less succeeded in doing).

On the subject of animals, I see that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have requested a memorial in Illinois for some cattle that were accidentally killed on the highway. What a marvelous idea! I think we should also create memorials for the hundreds of thousands of deer, elk, moose, coyotes, squirrels, and other animals destroyed by our automobiles every year. Creating and erecting such memorials would certainly create a lot of jobs and might even remind us of our mindless attention to the needs of other creatures. This is a problem I find of particular interest as my daughter-in-law, driving my Honda Element, hit and killed a Moose on New Year’s Eve, a fine way to ring in the New Year! Of course it wasn’t her fault as the huge creature unexpectedly jumped right out in front of her. Happily neither she nor my son were injured. Anyway, to continue, I find it strange that you never hear PETA complaining much about rodeos. Perhaps they do but I never see it mentioned and certainly there is enough mistreatment involved in those revered western events. While I am sympathetic to the plight of animals (and human children) I confess I find PETA a bit extreme. I think vegetarianism is so contrary to the normal human diet as to be unthinkable, but at the same time I believe we should honor all the marvelous animals we consume and treat them as well as possible (under the circumstances). I note that people who live as hunter-gatherers often have elaborate rituals to thank the species they depend on and insure their continued fertility and well-being. Somehow I don’t think supermarket aisles would be suitable venues for such rituals. I’m also not at all certain that many of the younger generation realize that the steaks, chops, and roasts they buy packaged at the market actually came from animals, preferring to perhaps believe the “Butcher Fairy” made and brought them. I personally find it difficult to believe that calamari steaks come from squid, suspecting they may have some association with truck tire patches. Anyway, as they say in Melanesian Pidgin, “b’long ol.”

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead- not sick, not wounded - dead.

Woody Allen

Pipeline Capitalism

I know very little about the proposed Keystone Pipeline project, and perhaps even less about political economy. But of course this does not prevent me from commenting on it as I do understand it. It seems to me a perfect illustration my understanding of the operation of capitalism.

First, as I think I understand things, there are basically only two ways to generate profit (capital in the form of money): the exploitation of labor (human behavior) and the exploitation of land (the environment).

As far as the pipeline itself goes, there are huge corporations who, having discovered resources in Alberta than can be exploited, wish to build a gigantic pipeline to bring those resources eventually all the way from Alberta, through Montana, Nebraska, and other states, to ports in the Southern United States, where they can be sold to consumers both in the United States and Overseas. If this gigantic project is approved, Corporations that deal primarily in oil will get bids from various contractors to build this pipeline. They, in turn, will hire laborers of various kinds to perform the actual work (labor), careful to hire the least amount of labor necessary and pay the least amount they can in order to assure their profits, thus exploiting labor to increase their profits (capital in the form of money). When the pipeline is completed most of this labor will be dismissed as no longer necessary and a relatively small number of workers will be required to maintain and repair the line.

Similarly, the project depends upon using methods and techniques that must, in the nature of the case, be environmentally destructive, at least in two different ways: the “fracking” (or other methods) involved in actually procuring the commodity, and the inevitable damage resulting from the building of the pipeline itself over environmentally sensitive areas. Thus the earth and its resources will be permanently damaged by the pursuit of this particular commodity (oil). This can be, and no doubt will be, described and promoted as providing a commodity the public both needs and wants. But in fact the primary motivation will be to convert land and labor into profit (capital) for the corporations involved by providing a product to a public too stupid to realize they will have lost forever some of the resources of the earth and wasted much of the labor of our citizens. That is, rather than convert to a system of renewable resources that does not involve such irreparable destruction, and attempting to provide more permanent and favorable positions for labor, we will continue along the same disastrous course of waste and destruction we always have, unable to break our addiction to oil, a dirty and not renewable resource.

Now, speaking more abstractly, and following the insights of Karl Marx, probably our most brilliant and insightful political and economic philosopher, “capital” most fundamentally represents dead labor. That is to say, one of the main ways to make a profit (in the form of money capital) is by the exploitation of labor, and once that labor has been expended and used, it is, for all intents and purposes, used, finished, dead. I don’t know if Marx said the same thing about land or not, but the same thing is true of the exploitation of land, once the land and its various resources are used and converted into profit, that land is essentially dead, at least in respect to that particular resource. And so, upon the completion of a project like this proposed pipeline, profit has been achieved by the exploitation of labor and land, now both dead. Capitalism has now achieved another “success” at the cost of both labor and land (environment).

But wait, don’t turn that dial, there is more. Not content to sit idly on the capital they have acquired through dead labor and land, that very same capital will be turned over to what might well be called “Priests of Finance” who know how to manipulate it in ways that will produce even more capital. Thus using dead labor and land, it is possible to acquire more capital (also originally produced by dead labor and land), by the simple fact of moving it around in ways that produce absolutely nothing but more profit for those who manipulate it. This is, I suppose the veritable apex of exploitation, that no doubt explains why these “Priests,” with the help of suitably bribed Congresspersons, can themselves acquire more capital in a single season than anyone else in a lifetime, and without actually having engaged in what might rightly be described as “productive work.” Similarly, those who possess capital can increase it by essentially doing nothing but investing it and sitting back to clip coupons and bank dividends. Thus we have developed over time a political/economic system that makes Alice in Wonderland look reasonably sane by comparison.

Marx was, I believe, a genius, but even he was not infallible. He failed to realize that Communism was doomed to fail because it was incompatible with human nature, but he did apparently realize that Capitalism, without adequate regulations and restrictions, would eventually fail for precisely the opposite reason. Unregulated capitalism is nothing more than a license for greed, and that seems to have emerged as our most important product.

It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. but business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.

Eric Hoffer

Gallimaufry

Note: As tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve there will be no blog until next year. So Happy New Year!

Well, first there is the rumor, claim, or belief, or whatever it is, that for the coming election President Obama will pick Hillary Clinton for Vice President and make Joe Biden Secretary of State. Robert Reich, who I have a lot of respect for has recently suggested this, but claims to have no inside information. Actually this rumor has been around for some time and is not an original idea of Reich’s. From the standpoint of the Democratic Party this makes a lot of sense. Obama and Clinton are apparently now considered the two most popular people in the country so this would be a dream ticket. If all goes well it would also make Clinton a sure candidate for President in 2016 with a great chance to become the first Woman President of the United States. As Biden has supposedly long dreamed of being Secretary of State, presumably he would be amenable to such an arrangement. Of course there is no evidence at the moment this is anything but wishful thinking on the part of a few who might like to see such a development. Hillary has already said she would not run again for President (but would the lure of becoming the first female President be too much of a temptation). As far as I know Obama has never mentioned this as a possibility, and it could be the case that Biden would not really like to be switched. I believe an Obama/Clinton administration would be far better for the Middle Class and the Poor than any conceivable Republican administration, but both Obama and Clinton are far too hawkish for me and also highly questionable on civil liberties (of course one can’t have everything). What we really need is Ron Paul’s foreign and drug policies (only, and without Paul himself), coupled with Bernie Sanders’ domestic policies. Sanders/Kucinich would be an ideal combination with Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson as high level cabinet members (fat chance anything like that would happen in our developing neo-fascist nation). Obviously I don’t know for sure what Obama will do. I was pretty sure on the Republican side it was going to be the Rich Guy and New Jersey “Fats,” but now I have some doubts. If Romney is forced to pick an Evangelical as a running mate, Fats would be out. On the other hand I can’t really imagine a Mormon/Evangelical ticket as I think that would be a too obvious warning of bad things to come. So I confess I have no idea what Romney will do after he is picked as the candidate that almost no one wants.

Then there is Leon (the Pathetic) Panetta, our current Secretary of Defense, a position I am beginning to believe for which he may not be well suited. First, he blurted out the unfortunate truth that a war with Iran would be disastrous, which has infuriated the Israelis and no doubt our neo-con hawks that seem to be obsessed with illegally and unconstitutionally attacking that country as we did Iraq. Although he spoke what has to be the truth, he should have known better. But a much more amusing gaffe (if such things can be considered amusing) was his recent claim that any cut in the Defense Budget would spell “doomsday” for the United States. This is an even more shocking claim than Herman Cain’s statement to Barbara Walters that he would like to be Secretary of Defense, that drew from the normally unshakable interviewer, her completely disbelieving, “WHAT!” Panetta would have us believe that a country that spends more on “defense” than all the rest of the world combined, that has a Pentagon and Military that can literally lose billions of dollars without even knowing what happened to them, that spends huge sums on military hardware that is known to be obsolete or unnecessary, and that siphons off a truly enormous percentage of our annual budget for an obscene military/industrial/political scam that converts taxpayer dollars into profits for corporations and the wealthy, cannot have its budget cut without spelling doomsday? This is such a transparently ridiculous claim I doubt even the hawks can believe it without actually laughing out loud. “Good ol’ Leon, he’s lookin’ out for us right fine.”

Let us not forget the astute Rick Santorum who actually said you could avoid unemployment (and poverty too, I guess) by doing just two simple things: complete High School and get married. I’m certain the millions of unemployed High School graduates and the millions of unemployed married men must be pondering this sage advice. I guess this is the kind of thinking that helps you surge in the Iowa polls. Not to be outdone for absurdity, Willard Mitt Romney has asserted that President Obama, raised by a single mother and his grandparents, doesn’t understand the plight of the Middle Class, whereas, by implication at least, he, Romney, born into wealth and sitting on a quarter of a billion dollar fortune, does. He has also assured us that he prays every day and goes to church every Sunday. The kindly old doctor Paul doesn’t understand why his awful racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic newsletters should be important to anyone, after all, he says, he didn’t write them (and claims apparently to have not even read them). I haven’t heard if he disavows the support of one of his supporters who believes Gays should be executed. Michele Bachmann is once again touting what a fine gun the AR 15 is, and what a fine shot she is (doesn’t seem to be helping her much). Newton Leroy Gingrich said if he won the nomination he might pick Sarah Palin as his running mate or for a cabinet position. He also said he can’t do “modern politics.”He seems to have that right. Rick Perry, the Texas embarrassment, according to Santorum, has flunked Anti-sodomy 101. When asked about Gay marriage he replied, “I love the sinner, hate the sin,” not very helpful.

You gotta admit, they’re an interesting bunch, each and every one, but not very Presidential.

A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

Aristotle

What's Wrong with Us?

What I mean by “us” at the moment is the human species. After writing about the massacre at Mountain Meadows last night I began to think about a question that has occupied me for some time. There seems to be a fatal flaw in our makeup that I simply cannot really understand. It has to do with our propensity for intra-species violence, a type of behavior that seems to be lacking in any other species.

It is true, of course, that other species occasionally kill one another, usually in fights over territory or for survival, but there is nothing in the animal kingdom that comes anywhere close to our seemingly endless violence against other members of our own species. I find this rather mysterious. There is little doubt that biologically we are animals, mammals, primates, and hominids. Being mammals we share certain characteristics with all other mammals, being primates we also share many traits, as we do also with other hominids. Generally speaking there is nothing that sets us apart from other creatures. However much it may have damaged our egos, Darwin made it clear we are animals and as such part of a much larger biological universe. Some have attempted to set us (humans) apart from all other animals in certain ways, the use of tools, the control of fire, the possession of language, the ability to reason and so on. But research over the years, particularly in the last fifty or hundred years, has indicated these attributes do not truly set us aside completely from other animals. One of the most important claims for our uniqueness has been the claim of the possession of “souls,” but even this is somewhat doubtful as perhaps animals have souls as well. Besides, if you do not believe in the existence souls in the first place, this is not helpful. Biologically we remain at base, animals.

Strangely, at least it seems very strange to me, the one thing that seems to separate us from other animals has to do with our behavior. We often describe human acts as being “animal-like” or “beastly,” “wolfish,” or the like, and sometimes perhaps these are apt descriptions, but behaviorally we far transcend such comparisons. Nowhere, as far as I know, do we find animals committing genocide, for example, nowhere do animals attack and kill members of their own species in large numbers and only rarely kill each other at all. Certainly they do not torture and humiliate each other as we are wont to do. Animals kill each other for food, but they rarely cannibalize each other (although rarely in certain circumstances they do). They do not hunt heads, burn each other at the stake, cut off hands and feet and allow other creatures to bleed to death, hang them by their feet or thumbs, waterboard them, or keep them in solitary confinement. Nor do they kill hundreds and pile their skulls up as a warning to others, pillage their possessions, rape, burn their dwellings, destroy their crops, whip, brand, or otherwise disfigure them. Nor do they capture and employ slaves. Obviously there is nothing like this in the animal kingdom. But if you read the literature on colonialism you will find these kinds of behaviors commonplace. Such horrible things were done by every colonial power at some time, in Asia, Africa, Australia, Central and South America, Siberia, North America, in short, everywhere Western-Europeans expanded and captured lands and resources. It is a history so terrible we try to ignore it as much as possible. Such terrible deeds were not performed only by Western-Europeans, it is obvious that others were just as bad or worse, think of Ghengis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, some African kingdoms, Attila the Hun, and others. This intra-species violence is by no means just something that happened in ancient history. Think of the Holocaust, the Armenians, American Indians, Tasmanians, and others. And such violence still occurs daily in the form of wars and revolutions. Man’s inhumanity to man is something I find impossible to explain, especially as it has been and continues to be true apparently from the very beginning until the present. Humans seem to be little better at controlling their violent impulses now than before, evolution seems to have had little impact on our flawed human nature.

In most animal species there appear to be instinctive mechanisms that either prevent violence or at least stop it before it becomes fatal. Animals fight over mates and territory but the victors usually stop when their opponent bares his throat, assumes a subordinate position, or runs away. If a challenger is defeated he simply withdraws without being humiliated or otherwise punished. Perhaps that is where our problem lies, being without instincts we have no such built-in controls. Instead of instincts we have cultures, learned ways of behaving transmitted to us extra-genetically, but our cultural controls not only sometimes fail, they often even encourage our hateful behavior towards others. Animals are programmed to do as they must, humans are culturally programmed to do as they choose, and for whatever reason they often choose to do evil things. There is no evil in nature; evil is, I believe, entirely a human phenomena. We seem completely unable to prevent or overcome it. It’s as if the Great Mystery crafted a smoothly functioning ecological system where there was no waste, no environmental degradation, and no evil, and then, as some kind of cosmic joke added humans. Some joke.

“Huamani’s skepticism was substantial. He knew that men are a joke of the gods, sent to mortify the animals.”

Abel Posse (in The Dogs of Paradise)

Massacre - book

Massacre at Mountain Meadows, Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Jr., Glen M. Leonard (Oxford University Press, 2008)

This is a book written by three Mormons in an attempt to explain the circumstances that led up to and allowed the terrible wagon train massacre of September 11, 1857 to occur. They do not attempt to justify it, but to try to explain how it happened. They acknowledge the many other attempts that have been made to explain this remarkably aberrant incident in Mormon history, some trying to justify it and others condemning it, and strive to remain as objective as possible. Ronald W. Walker is a retired Professor of History who has specialized in LDS history. Richard E. Turley, Jr. is Assistant Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Glen M. Leonard is the former Director of the LDS Museum of Church History and Art. Together they have done what I believe is quite a remarkable job of researching this tragic event, including providing lists of those believed to have perished, as well as those who were presumably involved in the massacre. This is information primarily intended for those with a more serious interest in the subject than non-Mormons. I believe they have tried to remain as objective as possible, but at the same time there is a built-in kind of bias in that they are all Mormons, by far the most useful information available inevitably comes from Mormon accounts of what happened rather than accounts of non-Mormons or outsiders. There is some information that was apparently gleaned from the accounts of the Indians who were involved, and little else.

I had heard of this massacre, of course, but I knew nothing about it. I also knew very little of the history of the Mormons. After reading this detailed account I have concluded this was perhaps the single most cowardly, deceitful, premeditated, unnecessary, and violent atrocity ever perpetrated on a small group of perfectly innocent people.

The attack was conceived and planned by a small number of Mormon leaders who were in charge of various militias that had been organized and trained for what Brigham Young believed was an inevitable war that was coming with the government of the United States. The original plan was to stage a surprise attack on this particular wagon train, to be carried out early in the morning, and to kill all of the approximately 150 emigrants, two-thirds of which were women and children (can you believe this). They recruited a number of the nearby Indians to participate and planned to blame the incident exclusively on them. No Mormons were supposed to be known to be involved. Indians were apparently offered some of the cattle, horses, and other loot that was anticipated. They were also told that when the Government troops arrived they would kill the Indians as well as the Mormons.

The initial ambush did not succeed as planned, apparently because someone fired prematurely. Although a few emigrants were killed, the others managed to arrange their wagons in a circle and dig themselves in for protection, a fierce resistance the attackers had not anticipated. As Mormons had been involved and had been seen they now feared that news would manage to leak out and they would potentially be punished for the attack. They decided, in a private meeting, it would be necessary to kill all the survivors, except for the youngest children who would not be able to testify as to what happened. They stationed the Indians hidden in the surrounding brush, approached the survivors with a false flag of truce (can you believe this), and convinced them they would try to save them from further harm. Although there was some suspicion on the part of the survivors they had little choice but to accept the offer. They agreed to put their guns and whatever other items they wanted to save in two wagons, along with the smallest children, that would lead the procession. Following the wagons on foot were the men and behind them the women. When they reached a certain spot they were attacked and killed, all but seventeen of the smallest children. Many were shot, others had their throats cut, and it was a terrible scene of blood and gore. The Mormons attempted to bury the victims in shallow graves but wolves and coyotes unearthed some and consumed them. In fact, different parties passing by that way were burying bones for months afterwards.

So how is it possible that Mormons could have done such a terrible thing? What led up to this horror? The authors suggest a number of factors were at play. First, there was the resentment about what had been done to the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois. There was also the fear they had of the impending arrival of Government troops they had vowed to resist. And there were the harsh words and threats they had endured by members of the wagon train when they attempted to buy much needed supplies and were refused. It was rumored that one or more of the emigrants had boasted of killing Joseph Smith previously, and threatened to return from California and kill Mormons. Somehow, according to the authors, all of this combined and grew out of proportion to the point where the emigrants associated these particular emigrants with the coming Government troops, became more and more enraged at the threats, and decided they needed to kill the emigrants before they could return and attack them. The authors suggest there may also have been an economic motive involved as this particular wagon train was believed to be wealthier than most, in cattle, horses, and even money. And finally they point to the general turbulence of the times when violence was commonplace and people often took the law into their own hands. They also very briefly mention studies of mob psychology.

This may well prove to be the best explanation possible for this tragic event as by now the various accounts have been garbled, interpreted and re-interpreted, until it is impossible to know the truth. For what it is worth, I do not personally find their explanations entirely convincing. First, it seems to me if they were truly fearful of the imminent arrival of Government troops, murdering a wagon-train filled with innocent people would have been the last thing they should have done. As far as the threats from the emigrants go, the Mormons had already heard many such threats before, and it is highly unlikely they could have believed that emigrants wanting to go to California in search of new lives would have felt strongly enough about being refused supplies they would have returned to kill them. The boast of having been involved in the killing of Joseph Smith they had also heard before from others. Trying to blame what happened exclusively on the Indians, when they had enlisted them to do it, also seems like a foolish thing to have done. The Mormons were on friendly terms with the local Indians and wanted them to fight with them against the Government, so blaming them for a massacre would have brought about a massive Government reaction against them and would probably have not endeared them to those who urged them to kill. What had happened to the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois was past history, there may well have been resentment, by why would this take the form of murdering innocents? My innate cynicism leads me to believe the economic motive may have been much more important than anything else. The Mormons, especially those living in the area, were not doing well, they were relatively impoverished even compared to Mormons in other parts of Utah. The perpetrators certainly looted everything they could get their hands on, including even the bloodstained bullet-riddled clothing. But remember, I know nothing of the episode other than what I read in this book and mine is a very questionable opinion.

Massacre at Mountain Meadows basically ends at the end of the massacre and then skips to a final chapter where John D. Lee, probably the most important of the perpetrators, twenty years later, is returned to Mountain Meadows and executed by a firing squad. There is no account of what happened during that past twenty years. This is because a second volume is intended to deal with the subsequent investigation and punishment.

So what does this tell us about Mormons, especially contemporary Mormons. Well, it tells us exactly what the genocide of the American Indians tells us about contemporary Americans, what the Stalin purges tell us about contemporary Russians, what the Holocaust tells us about modern day Germans, what the Armenian genocide tell us about modern day Turks, in short, nothing, other than the fact that the history of the human species is fraught with such atrocities. As Aleksandra Solzhenitsyn has said, “The battleline between good and evil runs through the head of every man,” which seems to be an unfortunate truth now as it has always been.

Black Cloud over Christmas

Well, I had what I can only describe as a marvelous Christmas. A fine tree we cut ourselves, decorations, presents under the tree, my son and his wife here on Christmas Day for the opening of presents, nice gifts to all, the complete American traditional holiday. Christmas Eve my wife cooked a wonderful Italian-inspired Duck Ragout with a locally organically raised Duck, on Christmas Day we feasted on a huge locally organically grown chicken (we waited too long to get a suitable turkey), with dressing, our own mashed potatoes and parsnips, beans and carrots, and, of course, cranberry sauce. It was all quite fine and of course I enjoyed it…except for the black cloud that hung over my head the entire time.

I simply could not get out of my head thoughts about the thousands of homeless children and the millions of people either unemployed or balanced precariously on the poverty line, thoughts that seemed to just hang there in the air refusing to go away, thoughts that led to further thoughts about my helplessness and the unfairness of it all. I wondered if all those with their millions and billions were having similar thoughts but quickly realized probably not. I personally find this rather infuriating. I find it equally infuriating that people are sleeping on the streets, in their cars, and going hungry in my country, a country I used to be so proud of which to be a member, people without health insurance, dumpster diving for food, without little hope for a better future. And it makes me angry to be asked to contribute to the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, the Firemen, the Policemen, to medical research, and so on. This angers me not because I am cheap or uncaring, but because I do not believe it should be up to me to help take care of problems that should not exist in the first place. What, after all, is government for, if not to look after its citizens? And why do we pay taxes if it is not to care for our needs? Where is it either written or decreed, for example, that we need roads, bridges, and dams, but we do not need food, housing, or health? Of course our tax dollars now are siphoned off for unnecessary “wars,” made artificially necessary to feed the military/industrial/political scam that converts taxpayer dollars into profits for corporations and the wealthy.

This is where I seriously part company with Republicans who seem to believe taking care of our fellow citizens is not the business of government, who seem to believe that national defense is basically all that matters (but then use national defense as an excuse to line the pockets of those involved in the military/industrial/political system at the expense of everyone else). In most human societies of the past, and some even now, one of the main purposes of “government,” no matter how “primitive,” is to see to it that its members are protected from hunger and famine as well as attacks from others. Even in New Guinea where I worked, about as “primitive” a society as you can find, no one went hungry, there were no orphans, old people were cared for, and people were concerned about their friends and relatives. During periods of drought they called on their trading partners to help them and received such help, something they in turn helped with when the circumstances were reversed. In so-called Peasant Societies much the same thing was/is true, there is a sense of community, the idea that they live together in society for the purpose of their common welfare. The idea that some few would cling to the available wealth was repugnant to them, and if someone were too greedy they were ostracized, if not actually killed. Sharing was one of the most important virtues.

Here in the so-called “modern world” things are quite different. The sense of community has vanished, people no longer live on intimate face-to-face terms with relatives and friends, often they do not even know their neighbors. These former bonds have been replaced with what are essentially legal contracts to buy and sell with no other obligations involved. If you believe, as some do, that government has no business replacing these bonds that were lost by acting in the best interests of their citizens it means people are now left completely on their own. If they cannot find a job they should, according to Bachmann, not eat (presumably be left to starve). If they cannot afford health insurance they should just die, according to Ron Paul. If they are poor they are fair game for the moneylenders. If they have no funds they should go without an education. No decent human society devalues their citizens like this, indeed, it is in the best interest of society to feed, clothe, educate, and provide adequate housing and health care for their citizens if they wish to continue as a viable group. From a cultural point of view it is suicidal to abandon children to poverty and despair. Who, after all, is going to provide for you when necessary in the future, when the last few billionaires shrivel up and die?

I find it laughable when I hear people say, “Why should the successful be punished, if they worked hard and managed to get ahead?” The fact is, in a capitalistic society like this one being successful is not a matter of hard work, it’s a matter of having money in the first place. If you have money you can be completely brain dead and still be successful. To equate success with having lots of money is little more than believing there is no limit on greed, and alas, that seems to be what we have come to.

Why do I think like this? It’s my mother’s fault (bless her) for always reminding me of the starving Chinese and the starving Armenians. Even as a small child I knew what a Chinaman was, but I didn’t have any idea what an Armenian was. I’m not sure my mother knew what an Armenian was, but she knew they were starving and that bothered her terribly. Also, by now, having lived in a variety of human societies, from “savages” to “folk,” rural and urban, and also being somewhat familiar with the extensive literature on sick societies, I believe I know what a “sick society” looks like. This one I live in now is truly sick and there seems to be nothing I can do about it.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Krishnamurti

Happy Holidays

This is the true silly season, what with everyone out buying their annual supply of Chinese junk, the dreary music crowding your ears everywhere you go, and millions living in poverty and misery.I sincerely hope things will get better for those who desperately need it to get better. In the meanwhile please try to survive and continue to do the best you can. I love you all (well, most of you anyway).

Happy Holidays! Do not panic. Never give up.

                                                                          Morialekafa

Unpleasant Truths

Do I know what is true and what is not? Of course not. Are there things I believe are true, or at least probably true? Yes. You may not agree. For example, it seems to be accepted as true that Governor Perry is a reasonable candidate to become President of the United States, but is just not adept at debating and is unfortunately subject to gaffes. I do not believe it is true he is a reasonable candidate for President, it is true he is not good at debating and he does make gaffes, but the real truth is, I think, he’s basically stupid. I often take care to distinguish between ignorance and stupidity, in Perry’s case I believe the unfortunate truth is, he is both ignorant and stupid. This is, of course, merely my opinion, based on my observations of him to date. Stupid is as stupid does, and he does a lot of stupid.

Then there is the case of Newton Leroy Gingrich, self-proclaimed intellectual, idea man, egomaniacal savior of the world, and quite possibly one of the greatest con men in all history. The truth is, I believe, Newt Gingrich is simply a pompous windbag, a pretentious fake intellectual, and at best a kind of half-assed historian, who has somehow managed to get people to believe he is something he is not. I suppose you could count this as an achievement in its own right, but I don’t believe it makes him a credible candidate for President. He perhaps cannot be said to be actually stupid, but his false presentation of self is catching up with him. His defense seems to be to say, “If you can’t say something nice about me, don’t say anything at all.”

Rick Santorum is a somewhat more difficult case. I’m not certain whether he is really stupid or not. He is, first of all, apparently obsessed with other people’s sex lives, is terribly homophobic, that leads me to believe he is it at least pretty ignorant about human sexual behavior. What makes me suspect he may be stupid is his latest tirade about income inequality. He says he is all for income inequality, because some people work harder than others, have more ideas, and therefore deserve more than others. He also accuses President Obama of wanting everyone to have the same income. Now it is true that some people work harder than others, and if income was actually related only to hard work he might have a point. But as this is not the case his argument is simply beside the point. If he doesn’t realize this he is stupid. If he believes Obama is a socialist who wants everyone to have the same income he is either ignorant or stupid or both. The unpleasant truth is that people who make lots of money are those who already have lots of money and basically don’t have to work at all. Strange as it may be, money breeds. Is Santorum too stupid to know this?

The case of Michele Bachmann is almost too complicated to deal with, at least on an outpatient basis. It is difficult to fathom if she is really as stupid as she appears to be or is just blurting out whatever pops into her head at the moment without giving it any thought. She has said so many stupid things it is hard to keep track of them all. The one thing she has recently said leads me to believe she really is just plain stupid. She announced that Iran is building a nuclear bomb (for which there is no proof), something that many people seem to believe, but she then goes on to say they are going to use it to destroy Israel and also use it against the United States. If she just made this up to please the Tea Party, okay, but if she really believes this, she is truly stupid (or perhaps delusional).

I don’t believe Ron Paul is stupid, but some of his ideas are stupid. The idea that we could return to the gold standard, for example, is really a pretty stupid idea. On the other hand, his ideas about Foreign Aid and intervention are, I think, not stupid at all, just plain unrealistic. But what is truly stupid are his ideas about trying to live and exist in the modern world with essentially no government, or at least a very minimal government. While it may be true we managed to survive back in the days of minimal government, what with shooting and killing each other basically at will, being fiercely independent and jumping claims, stealing horses and cattle, and hanging those who angered our particular mob, I doubt such a system would work very well these days. I bet we couldn’t even find a corral in which to stage a decent gunfight.

As far as Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Herman Cain are concerned, their very idea they could be President is stupid. As most of the Republican candidates also appear to not believe in evolution, global warming, environmental protections, and apparently science in general, they are, in my opinion, too stupid and therefore unfit for high office. Furthermore, the thought of any of them with their finger on the nuclear trigger, waiting to hear from god, is more than I can bear.

As if there were safety in stupidity alone.

Henry David Thoreau

Subversives

Definition of subversion:

the act of subverting : the state of being subverted; especially : a systematic attempt to overthrow or undermine a government or political system by persons working secretly from within.

I would like very much to label the Tea Party members of the House of Representatives in particular, and Republicans in general, as subversives, which I believe they are. They have been clearly out to subvert the government of the United States, represented by our President Barack Obama, at apparently any cost to the nation or its citizens. But according to the above definition I guess I cannot so label them because they have not been working “secretly from within.” In fact, they have blatantly been working publicly ever since Obama was elected President and Rush Limbaugh, unacknowledged leader of the Republican Party, announced he wanted him to fail. This was followed by Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, announcing that their (the Republicans) number one priority would be to see to it that Obama would be a one term President. Not only did they make these claims, they have faithfully done everything within their power to make it come true, opposing virtually everything Obama has attempted to do, even in cases where they themselves had first suggested it should be done. It is clear they have resisted all of the attempts by Obama to create jobs and improve conditions for our citizens for no reason other than the fact that Obama has wanted them. If this is not subversive I don’t know what is. I suppose that technically, because they have not done it secretly from within, you might say it is not subversive, but it seems to me that is basically mincing words.

There are other definitions of subversion as well. But they almost invariably define the act as having to involve physical or violent means, planning to overthrow the government by force. So here again, what the Republicans have done over the past three years is, strictly speaking, not subversion (although there have been random threats against the President, suggestions that he should be assassinated and so on). As these do not seem to be organized or necessarily involve the Republican Party as such, they, too, don’t count as subversion by the party. I’m pretty sure there must be laws against subversives, but they would never be applied to this situation. This Department of Justice (and Administration) has proven to be useless when it comes to prosecuting war criminals or fraudulent bankers. In any case they would no doubt say they haven’t done anything illegal. I guess subversion in the pursuit of politics is no vice.

There is clearly a bit of a problem here when it comes to behavior and language. Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, once said of their plans to bring down Obama, “Isn’t that always the case, the party out of power always tries to defeat the incumbent,” or words to that effect. As there is a bit of truth to this it might seem reasonable. However, I think you would have to suggest that while it is true, it has never before implied the party out of power would, in effect, simply stop governing for three years. There is no precedent for such a move on the part of a political party. The idea, at least as I would understand it, is that both parties have to be involved in conducting the nation’s business, looking after the welfare of the citizens as well as the welfare of the nation. You don’t just refuse to participate in government while trying to unseat the incumbent, at least as far as I know or can remember. This is genuinely subversive and makes a mockery of government.

There seems to be an example of this kind of subversion going on at the moment. The House of Representatives is apparently reneging on an understanding they had with the Senate, by refusing to agree to the compromise worked out in the Senate between Democrats and Republicans having to do with extending the payroll tax cuts. Someone pointed out that the Senate would not have gone home if they had known the House was not going to approve their bill. This makes sense to me. It makes me believe that Boehner had assured them the House would go along, but then when he was confronted by the Tea Party wing he had to renege. Knowing that if he brought it up for a House vote it would pass, and knowing the Tea Party did not want it to pass, he came up with the rather preposterous claim that he had not known it was only for two months, and that was not satisfactory for the House. This of course is utter nonsense and is nothing but an attempt to force the Senate to return to Washington to consider further the matter they had already settled on a bipartisan basis. It is a bluff to try to force President Obama into ordering the Senate back in session for a completely unnecessary reconciliation session. Reid and Obama have refused to do so, leaving the House Republicans in an extremely awkward situation. If they don’t back down and pass the bill, as of January first 160,000,000 million ordinary working Americans will see their taxes increase substantially. As Republicans are always opposed to any increase in taxes they will have egg all over their faces (or blueberry juice, according to the Reverend Al Sharpton). Boehner was apparently in favor of passing this bill and is being prevented by the Tea Party members of the House. You almost have to feel sorry for him. But Rachel Maddow suggested very early that Boehner may not be up to the job, and it seems to me that might well be the case. So what is likely to happen? Will the more traditional Republicans allow the Tea Party to lead them all to almost certain defeat in the coming elections? Will they cave in and finally pass the bill, however embarrassing it may be? Will they succeed in once more blaming Obama? Will Obama cave once more? Isn’t politics fun? Watch our country dissolve into a failed helpless giant begging in the streets while international corporations continue to slop their obscenely wealthy hogs.

Mighty hard to tell the people you love you’re a failure.

Laura Moncur

The Bear - book

The Bear History of a Fallen King, Michel Pastoureau (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London, 2011) translated from the French by George Holoch.

I found this an interesting book for several reasons. It is only marginally about real flesh and blood bears. It is a subject historians do not ordinarily spend much time pursuing (the history of animals), and it deals with periods of time about which I know very little. Similarly, it might as well have been sub-titled Bears versus the Catholic Church, something I would never have thought of at all until I read this book. The author is a cultural historian specializing, I believe, in the Middle Ages.

I knew, of course, there was a long history of the association of bears with humans. I had read A. Irving Hallowell’s work on Bear Ceremonialism in the Americas, and I was also aware of the importance of the bear among the Ainu, the ancient people of Japan. This work deals primarily with bears as they appear in European folklore, myths, ceremonies, the iconography and hagiography of the Middle Ages and somewhat before. It is obviously exceedingly well researched, the author clearly has command of the relevant materials, and it is a fine job.

Reduced to the bare essentials, bears, prior to about the year 1000, were thought of as closely related to humans, and were considered to be the king of the animals, as such they featured in rituals that more often than not had a religious connotation. They were the largest and fiercest animals on the European continent. They were also quite humanlike in their behavior as they could stand on their hind legs, use their paws much like hands, be taught to dance and do other tricks, they were omnivores, and in general resembled humans more than any other creatures. More importantly, in the folklore and myths of the time they were (erroneously) believed to engage in ventral/ventral copulation like humans and to lust after young women. There were many stories about bears capturing young women, taking them off to their dens and raping them, thus producing offspring that were part human, part animal. It was also believed that women were sexually attracted to them, partly because hair was believed to be sexually attractive to women. Bears, in short, had a mythical god-like aura and were venerated in different ways.

With the rise of Christianity, Catholicism, this came to pose a serious problem for the Church which could not tolerate animals, especially bears, to be compared with humans and worshipped. Thus the Church began a movement to not only eliminate bears by encouraging them to be deliberately killed, but also to insure they could not have a place in any way equal to humans. Bears that had been for centuries considered kings were now portrayed as inferior to humans. There were many stories of how bears had been dominated by Saints and had come to serve them in different capacities, as companions, beasts of burden, and helpers of various kinds, always because of the superiority of Saints that made it possible for them to overcome and make bears do their bidding. At the same time the Church was working constantly to get people to abandon their various forms of bear worship and trying to destroy any idea that bears were like humans. Bears were common in the menageries kept by Kings and came to lose their mystique and reputation.

After many years of this, and beginning about the year 1000, the lion slowly became considered the king of beasts. Where the bear had been featured on family crests, flags, banners, seals, and so on, they were slowly replaced with images of lions. Where formerly a man was ideally to prove his manhood by besting a clever and vicious bear in hand-to-hand combat, this theme disappeared and bears came to be seen as rather slow, dumb, obese, awkward creatures, that were no match for humans at all. Bears were demeaned, turned into entertainers, dancing, and doing tricks for people, greedily consuming sweets given to them, and acting as all around entertainers. Their position in the animal kingdom fell below that of stags, boars, eagles, and most other creatures.

And so it was that after hundreds of years the Church managed to replace the bear as king with the lion (that did not have the same human features as bears and were foreign to Europe as well). The destruction of the bear as quasi-human was very successful and bears even to this day are thought of as clowns rather than as kings. The bear mystique was always much stronger in Northern Europe than in the South, apparently because there were more bears in the North and they were much larger than those in the South (apparently these smaller bears were found as far south as Tunisia).

Pastoureau suggests the bear may have achieved a measure of revenge with the creation of the Teddy Bear, now beloved by children everywhere. As you may know this creation came about after an incident in which Teddy Roosevelt, an avid hunter, refused to shoot a tethered bear, saying that had he done so he would not have been able to look his children in the eyes. A family that had as their business making stuffed animals made a bear, asked the White House if they could call it a Teddy Bear, received permission, and the result, as you know, has been a monumental success.

There is, of course, much more to The Bear than I have been able to cover here. If you are interested in folk tales, hagiography, iconography, and the literature of the Middle Ages, you will find this book of more than merely passing interest.

Obsolescence

I think we can pretty much agree our political system is dysfunctional to the extreme at this moment in time. Many people seem to agree that one of the worst problems is the amount of money being poured into the elections, particularly after the absurd politicized Supreme Court decision that corporations are people and should be allowed to contribute as much money as possible. This means, among other things, the system is now corrupted beyond belief, and the fate of our elections rests in the hands of the corporations that can either buy them outright or inhibit anyone from dissenting by threatening to spend big money to defeat them. I grant this is an extremely important problem and needs desperately to be corrected. But as correcting it involves a constitutional amendment it cannot be corrected for a long time, if ever. This is, in my opinion, only one of the problems of obsolescence that seems to be in play.

Even if the money was taken out of the system, and even if it worked as a democratic system (which it doesn’t), it would still be dysfunctional because it is obsolete. Our democratic society, or Republic, if you will, was designed for a time that has long passed. It was all well and good at the time to pick leaders who seemed to be the best choices possible (mostly wealthy landowners). In those halcyon days most of the leaders were of about the same socio-economic level, and more importantly, knew much the same about the condition of the country both internally and internationally. You could vote for a Jefferson or a Madison knowing they knew as much or more about what was happening as anyone available. Not only that, things moved very slowly, there was always time to make necessary corrections, communication was primitive, and in the worst cases things had often sorted themselves out by the time anything could be done about it. Both domestic and international problems were well known by those “in the know,” and politics was much simpler then. But if the goal of “government” is to insure the well-being of the citizenry, and also to deal with international relations, things are very different in the modern world, fantastically more complicated, and thousands of times more difficult. The idea that one White landowner was much the same as another simply does not apply any longer. The requirements of office are much more demanding. That, I think, is where much of the problem lies. One candidate is no longer much the same as another, and none of the candidates are truly knowledgeable or suitable enough for the important offices they aspire to. We elect candidates who almost universally are not truly qualified. We do not have a large cadre of individuals with sufficient knowledge of either domestic or international affairs from which to select our leaders.

This can be seen clearly in the current crop of Republican candidates, but it is true of all candidates in general. I do not mean to be unkind but individuals like Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Donald Trump are quite plain and simply not qualified for the Presidency. In fact, I would argue none of the candidates are qualified. Romney thinks he is qualified because he was a successful businessman, but is that really enough to be President? Running a large and complex nation is not the same as running a business. George W. Bush was certainly not qualified, even though he was a Governor of Texas, nor is Rick Perry qualified. This is because Governors, like Presidents, are not elected on the basis of their qualifications but, rather, on political grounds, who has the most money or at least access to the most money, and so on. In fact Governors as well as many others, can be just plain ignorant if not basically stupid.

Interestingly enough, in the United States there are no prerequisites for holding important offices, none. This is why you can have candidates like Herman Cain who basically don’t believe you have to know anything at all to be President, just be a “leader.” But a leader who knows virtually nothing cannot truly lead, at least not successfully. George W. Bush is a recent case in point. Nor do I believe being a lawyer is in and of itself a sufficient qualification for the Presidency, although knowledge of Constitutional law should help. This lack of expertise runs throughout the system. Presidents need to have the best advice available, but those in positions to advise are often no more knowledgeable than the President himself, such advisors can be chosen for very questionable reasons. Our Senators and House members are similarly elected for strange reasons and often know virtually nothing about what they should know in order to successfully decide on vital national and public issues. Many of them are lawyers, others are wealthy enough to get elected no matter how little they know, some are businessmen, and others are even exterminators or comedians. They may well be decent people, and even well-intentioned, but they simply do not command the knowledge they need to make reasonable and thoughtful decisions; witness, for example, those who oppose action on global warming or other environmental problems, or those who blindly follow their religious beliefs when it comes to Israel, or those who oppose stem cell research, and so on. This is not always merely just a difference of opinion, it is often a difference of opinion based on ignorance.

We do not take “governing” seriously. If we did we would not cling to this obsolete practice of electing people on the basis of whether or not we might like to have a beer with them, nor would we be so cavalier when it comes to examining their qualifications. You have to be examined to have a driver’s license, to own a gun, to become a plumber or an electrician, even a hairdresser, but you do not have to have any qualifications whatsoever to be the most powerful person in the world, with a nuclear arsenal and the most powerful military on earth at your disposal. I submit this is a ridiculous way to run a country. If we want to have a decent, intelligent, and smoothly functioning government, one that will look after our national interests in the best possible way, we should have a large cadre of people well trained for that purpose, perhaps a National University for those who aspire to enter government service at any level. They should be well versed in history, political economy, geography, management, science (at least to some minimal level), as well as ethics and government. They should know where to look for advice and be confident their advisors actually know their business. In the advanced years of their training they should be given internships and become familiar with the ongoing problems of the moment, international relations, domestic problems, and so on. Those who distinguish themselves should be able to move up in the system, run for office, and ultimately be able to make thoughtful, conscientious decisions about public welfare and international problems.

Yeah, I know, pie in the sky. This can never happen until: (1) money becomes unimportant in elections, and (2) we must get serious about the governance of our country. If we wish to continue as a nation and compete on an international scale we must get our house in order, educate our children, and speed up the decision-making process. This is not the 18th century anymore.

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything is more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.

Eric Hoffer

Morally Reprehensible

I hate to say it, and I am not at all pleased about it, but I am finally forced to admit that I believe it is true, our country, the United States of America, is a morally reprehensible nation. I do not mean that only certain elements in it are morally reprehensible (although some are probably more so than others), I mean it is morally reprehensible from top to bottom, from corner to corner, from state to state, county to city, town to hamlet. Not only that, I believe our moral status in the world is not only reprehensible, it is irresponsible and indefensible as well.

We proudly claim to be the wealthiest, most powerful nation on earth, the wonderful “Beacon on the hill,” the land of opportunity, the model of democracy, the land of the free and the home of the brave. How do you reconcile such claims with the facts that one of every five of our children is living in poverty, one in every forty-five are homeless, and roughly one half of our population is living either in poverty or on the edge of poverty? We have children testifying they have been homeless all or most of their lives, do not have enough to eat, cannot see a doctor or a dentist, live in their cars or on the street, and have no hope for the future. Many of them realize their parents are doing the best they can, they work, but the best they can is not good enough because their wages are too low to provide an adequate living. This is true now, right now, right here in this country we profess to be so great. This is shameful, disgusting, reprehensible, immoral, and virtually unprecedented among the more industrialized, supposedly “civilized” nations on earth. And while we have the power to do something about it, we don’t, and haven’t for a long time.

I do not believe Republicans are uniquely responsible for the condition we currently find ourselves in, but at the moment they do constitute the single most important reason nothing is being done to alleviate the poverty and misery that now infects our country, taken over by a plague of greedy locusts consuming everything in sight. A small group of Republicans in the House of Representatives has managed to block every effort to improve the conditions of our lives. They have not themselves offered a single jobs bill, and they have opposed every effort on the part of President Obama and the democrats to create jobs. They are opposed to unemployment insurance, universal health care, a minimum wage, Social Security, and even a reduction in taxes for the Middle class where it is desperately needed. They oppose any effort to improve the lot of the Middle class and the poor while at the same time insisting that taxes cannot be raised even minimally on the wealthiest people in the country. And they repeatedly use blackmail to get their way, threatening to shut down the country if they cannot have their pounds of flesh. They are unmoved by the testimony of homeless children, impervious to the facts of poverty, and oblivious to the obligations of the offices they hold. They are beyond any doubt beyond shame, beyond guilt, beyond reason, and past all dishonor. They are morally reprehensible, human parasites feeding on the public trust, betraying their oaths of office, trashing the ideals upon which our nation was founded, and promoting completely unnecessary misery for millions.

Some of them profess ideological reasons for their sadistic behavior, but it is an ideology of greed, of the jungle, a primitive form of social Darwinism that decent people abandoned long ago. It is an ideology that basically denies the social foundations of human societies in favor of a “dog eat dog” system that pits individuals against each other in mad attempts to get more, more, more, always more. It is a belief in a form of unregulated capitalism that inevitably results in most of the collective wealth ending up in the hands of a few and the enslavement of the many. The basic idea of sharing, common to virtually all previously known human groups (that we refer to as “primitive”), has no place in such a system, morality becomes a foreign concept fit only for “socialists,” “communists,” and “suckers.”

Our country is not only morally reprehensible when it comes to domestic affairs, it is equally reprehensible when it comes to international affairs. Would you believe a candidate for the Presidency of the United States was roundly condemned for suggesting we should not bomb a sovereign country simply because we believe they might someday be a threat to us? Would you believe that one candidate actually said Iran was not only building a nuclear bomb (for which there is no evidence), but as soon as they had one they would use it to attack Israel and the United States, claims so idiotic they should have been uttered by someone already in a straightjacket. With one exception every Republican candidate has indicated they are not only willing but actually eager to start a war with Iran, ideas not only morally reprehensible but also completely irresponsible, totally thoughtless, and unworthy of anyone professing to seek the Presidency.

Congress consists of one third, more or less, scoundrels; two thirds, more or less, idiots; and three thirds, more or less, poltroons.

H. L. Mencken

Interesting, at Least

However ridiculous the United States political process has become, and it does seem to me to have become ridiculous beyond belief, you have to admit it is interesting, in a kind of sick, nauseating kind of way. Consider the current situation: On the one hand you have Willard “Mitt” Romney, the candidate the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party can’t stand and refuses to support; on the other hand you have Newton Leroy Gingrich, the other leading candidate that the more conservative wing of the Republican Party (as it sort of still exists) cannot stand. The only other candidate in the lead at the moment is now exposed as a racist kind of Pa Kettle who would turn the clock back to the 19th century (maybe even the 18th). No one believes he has even a ghost of a chance of ever becoming President and the other two leading candidates are described merely as “average.”

This would seem to virtually guarantee that President Obama would be re-elected for a second term as even Republicans are dissatisfied with the slate of candidates they have. But once again, attempting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Obama’s recent boneheaded decisions may well give these Republican dolts a chance. Obama, for whatever reason, decided to block women’s desires to have easy access to the so-called abortion pill. This has enraged women throughout the country and they are bitter about it. More importantly, he has now decided not to veto the Military Authorization Bill (or whatever it is called), which will give him and the military unprecedented powers to arrest, incarcerate, and presumably keep forever (or until the end of the terrorist threat, whichever comes first) even American citizens considered to either be or aid terrorists. They will be able to do this in the U.S. (for the first time) and merely on the grounds of suspicion, with no requirement for a trial. In other words, you could be arrested and locked up forever with no right to Habeas Corpus merely on the whim of whoever is President. Fascism has now arrived just in time for Christmas. Needless to say neither of these Presidential acts is pleasing to the Progressive base, nor should they be pleasing to anyone with a brain larger than a walnut.

President Obama seems to have an enormous amount of luck when it comes to his political career. He was elected to the Senate easily because he was running against one of the looniest of candidates for office ever, Alan Keyes, who did not even live in the state at the time. As I recall this was because his original opponent had to drop out of the race at the last minute. Now Obama’s luck may hold, not because he might not deserve defeat, but because his opponent, if he or she is one of the current Republican candidates, will be so dreadful Obama will be seen as the only conceivable choice. Romney probably would have the best chance, but he’s a Mormon (which shouldn’t matter but will), an almost pathological flip-flopper, and has neither personality, charisma, or connection to the ordinary voting public. Gingrich is regarded by those who know him as basically hopeless as a leader, egomaniacal, and a “walking hand grenade,” not exactly qualities likely to help him get either the nomination or elected to the office. And both Romney and Gingrich, along with the others still in the campaign, are apparently eager to start another war (with Iran) as soon as possible. Their appreciation of international relations seems to be on a par with Herman Cain’s statement to Barbara Walters that he would like to be Secretary of Defense.

It is interesting that they seem to have no understanding whatsoever about the Iranians. They keep repeating how it is that Iran is a “danger” to the U.S. and, indeed, the entire world. Iran should not be allowed to have a nuclear bomb (that presumably they would immediately drop on either Israel or the United States), and we must at all costs follow the dictates of Israel whatever the consequences. This is beyond even bizarre. First, there is no evidence Iran is developing a bomb; second, they would clearly not use it if they did have one; third, Iran has not attacked anyone for more than 200 years; fourth, these accusations are the most nonsensical since those against Iraq; fifth, the Iranians have offered to negotiate with the U.S. on numerous occasions only to be consistently rebuffed. This warmongering over Iran is absolute hogwash. The only threat is that Iran obviously might like to have some influence in their own neighborhood which would be a threat to U.S. and European hegemony in the region. But imagine that, a country might want to have some influence with what goes on with their neighbors and don’t see why a nation 8000 miles away should take precedence. Some are saying war with Iran is inevitable. We had certainly better hope not and those who are promoting one should be considered as likely candidates for the men in the white suits with nets, looking for crazies.

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.

Eugene McCarthy

Consuming the Children

You will recall Jonathan Swift’s modest proposal that the Irish could solve the problem of child poverty by eating their children, a proposal I revisited not long ago (Morialekafa 8-27-11). With one child in every 5 currently living in poverty, and one in every 45 homeless, we obviously did not follow Swift’s sarcastic suggestion. But there are other ways of consuming the children other than literally eating their flesh. Here in the United States we have been pioneering these methods for years.

Let me begin with what (hopefully) may be the beginning of the end of this rather absurd pioneering, the trillion dollars our young people currently owe as a result of having to borrow money to attend Colleges and Universities. You see, instead of GIVING our young people an education, or at least making it affordable, as most decent advanced countries do, we hit upon the scheme of charging them large tuition fees, making it necessary for them to borrow substantially from banks and others, or not be able to attend or graduate. Then, having squeezed every bit of money we could from them (and their parents) we release them into a situation where there are no jobs, thus relegating them to the scrap yards of the unemployed (and quite probably to the scrap yards of history as well). A decent education is not only good for our young people as individuals, it is even more important for the continuation and success of our culture, but not, of course, if it interferes with profits.

Consuming our children in this way did not begin with the relatively recent phenomenon of large student loans, it actually began many years ago with our educational system in general. It has been true since the beginning of our country that a successful democracy demands a well informed (and by implication, at least) a well educated citizenry. But a well informed, well educated citizenry is basically a threat to the powers that be, those in control of government, if they wish to remain in control. Thus it is in the best interest of the governing class (if their desire is merely to stay in power) to minimize education and information. This is unfortunately what has happened here in the U.S. of A., where serving in the public interest has been all but forgotten in the desire to serve the corporate masters and thus stay in office. To this end (unstated, unconfessed, even in some cases perhaps unintentionally) our educational system at all levels has been grossly underfunded and neglected for years. Teachers have been terribly underpaid, classes have been enlarged to accommodate more students for less money, school buildings and equipment have been allowed to deteriorate, and education in general has been underappreciated. In the lower grades many children come so hungry they can’t learn (and have to be fed). Our schools, especially our Middle and High Schools have been converted into little more than holding pens for our children, keeping them off the streets and labor market, infantilizing them, and providing them with little in the way of genuine educational opportunities. Many High schools are so bad large numbers of students drop out and never graduate (as many as 50% in some places) thus dooming them to wasted lives of poverty and hopelessness. Most of them who do somehow manage to graduate do not go on to school either because they cannot afford it or are so disenchanted with education they do not wish to, and many who do go on never finish. The ones that do finish, if they are fortunate, may find jobs, but often far below their abilities. The slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” doesn’t resonate in a culture that routinely wastes millions of minds year after year.

Not only is this true, the educational institutions at all levels have consistently declined in recent years. Our Colleges and Universities have been converted mostly into professional schools where one goes to presumably become able to get a job (or find a husband). There is no love of learning as such, no “intellectual osmosis with ‘great-souled’ minds,” and even fewer and fewer direct contacts between Professors and students. It is cheaper to use teaching assistants and part-time teachers than pay for the best. This terrible situation has even been exacerbated in recent years by the rise of more and more private universities, their goal being to make a profit rather than providing the best educations. Grades have been inflated (what difference does it make), requirements have been reduced, courses have been cheapened, those who do make it through have learned less and less. The money goes to the administration and the athletic programs while the Colleges of Arts and Sciences suffer.

This situation is virtually suicidal for any nation that wants to continue to exist and flourish. But now that nations are becoming more and more irrelevant while huge international corporations become dominant, some of them with economies larger than most countries, consuming our children becomes less and less of a problem. They can hire the talent they need from other countries that have not yet abandoned education, talent they did not even have to pay the educational costs for, and talent that is willing and eager to work for less money. If the nation and the children suffer, so what, profits are assured, the masses of unemployed workers will either starve or, in more enlightened places, be given some form of welfare to barely and begrudgingly keep them alive, but with no medical insurance and no hope for the future. People are becoming resigned to the realization their children’s lives and opportunities will be less than those they themselves enjoyed. Thus it is that we don’t eat our children, we merely chew them up and spit them out, without even realizing the nutritional value we might have gained from actually eating them.

America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.

Evan Esar

Christmas

Yes, I fear it is that time of year, the annual celebration of excess and little restraint. I’m not crazy about Christmas, it’s okay, but very confused. I’m not a Scrooge, just a kind of semi-Scrooge. I don’t object to giving presents, provided I can order them on the Internet and never have to engage in ordinary shopping, a procedure I regard as close to a season in hell. After many years of marriage we have a system worked out that takes most of the problems out of shopping. My wife gives me a list of what she wants, I order it, and that’s that. At my age I only get two kinds of presents, socks and underwear and an occasional book. That is as it should be. Of course this takes away some of the mystery and all of the anticipation, but it’s worth it.

Of course there remains the problem of the Christmas tree. Buying a tree destroys my wife’s romantic view of how Christmas is supposed to be. Thus we have to find a cut a tree out in the “wild.” This is a bit easier said than done as really nice Christmas-type trees don’t exist in the wild except rarely. So every year at about this time we scour our six acres for a suitable tree, she in her knee length boots, me carrying the trusty “Swede saw” (it’s just not worth it to bother with the chain saw). Luckily this year there is almost no snow on the ground so the going was relatively easy. Unfortunately, most of the trees that grow on Sandhill are Ponderosa pines, not at all suitable for the purpose. But there are a few other evergreens and we usually find a tree that is satisfactory if far from perfect. But then the tree has to be put up in a stand of some sort that will keep it erect. This requires one person to hold the tree upright while the other crawls on their belly to tighten the screws. Although my wife insists on a wild tree she also has the strange idea that it ought to be perfectly symmetrical and stand perfectly upright. As this is an impossibility, it requires a long time and considerable effort to make it look exactly right (which it never really does). Eventually we reach a compromise and then the decorations have to go on the tree. Of course by now we have so many decorations this is very time-consuming, especially with the five cats who insist on “helping.” I saw a cartoon the other day that I wish I could reproduce for you, but I’ll just have to describe it as it is relevant to this problem: Two cats are sitting in a bar drinking. One explains to the other, “Every year they do this. They bring in a tree and they hang all sorts of bright dangling ornaments on it. But they freak out if I even go near it. That’s why I drink.” Anyway, you see the problem, especially if you have cats.

Then there is the problem of theology. Christmas, we are told, celebrates the birth of Christ, but for the vast majority of Americans I am quite certain this is not what they are celebrating. First of all, Christmas trees are a carryover from some more Pagan ceremony of the past. Second, I have never known anyone who seriously considered the birth of Christ while participating in this excess of commercialism without restraint. It is true that some people put out a plastic creche, but many more just string lights and decorations. These have little or no meaning to most people other than just another form of conspicuous consumption (he who has the most decorations and lights wins). Furthermore, I suspect many younger people have no idea what a manger is, and how many people know what frankincense and myrrh are, or even care? Given the performance of our Government in recent years I doubt they know even what a Wise Man is. It is true that as an Atheist I obviously do not celebrate the birth of Christ, but frankly, none of the religious people I have ever known pretended they were actually celebrating the birth of Christ. Christmas has obviously become a basically secular holiday, promoted by merchants who make a large percentage of their sales during this holiday season. The whole thing has become a farce.

For me, one of the worst features of Christmas is the dreadful music, Christmas carols. It is bad enough one has to hear them over and over for weeks but the lyrics are mostly either insipid or bizarre. “Round yon virgin, mother and child,” “Angels bending near the earth,” “And heaven and nature sing,” and so on. Actually, the lyrics to the original Christmas carols, although religious in nature and sometimes a bit strange, are far better than what passes for Christmas carols nowadays: “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” ”All I want for Christmas is my 2 Front Teeth,” “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,” “Santa Baby,” and others even more dreadful. These newer “carols” seem to outnumber the traditional ones by far, but how on earth can they be reconciled with a celebration of the birth of Christ?” We have made a mockery of what was supposed to be a serious and meaningful celebration. We no longer praise the Lord, we praise the sales, the layaways, the bargains, while we buy junk imported from China for our children and items we don’t need or want for each other. Christmas has become an orgy of nonsense, a massive fraud, a time of gluttony, a period that represents our daily lives, only blown up by a thousandfold. And yet, paradoxically, there is still that little something about Christmas, a little spark that causes us to embrace it year after year in spite of everything else.

Even as an Atheist I regret what has happened to this holiday. I wish it was more serious and less nonsensical. As it no longer truly focuses on the birth of Christ, perhaps it could be renamed and broadened into a holiday that could be celebrated by all people simultaneously, people with true visions of the sugarplums of peace and good will to all, a period of reflection and thoughts of brotherhood and liberty and happiness and of a small world on a small planet where everyone works together for the benefit of all the wonderful creatures and plants that exist on it. Sigh!

In any case, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, be of good cheer!

Death, Slavery, and Maximizing Unhappiness

• Death, Slavery, and the Maximization of Unhappiness: I take this to be the current Republican Party’s Credo, their Bill of Non-rights, superseding the original statement in the Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. While I am sure they will deny this, it seems obvious to me that both their words and acts of the last few years indicate it is a perfectly adequate description of what seems to be their agenda.

They have been and still are opposed to universal health care (unless you are wealthy enough to afford it). This means that many, many people will die sooner than necessary and inevitably in unnecessary pain as they lack proper health care. They support the Health Care Insurance business that basically makes their profits on the misery and death of their clients. You will no doubt recall some of their famous statements on this question. Ron Paul, for example, explaining that if you don’t have health care it’s your own fault and you should just be left to die. There was applause. Then there was that Nevada Republican Bimbo who suggested if you were sick you should see if your Doctor would take a chicken for his fee (lots of people have chickens these days). When it comes to death more broadly conceived, remember how they cheered when it was announced how many people had been executed by Rick Perry as Governor of Texas. And don’t forget they are opposed to regulations having to do with clean air and water, pharmaceuticals, workplace safety, and virtually anything that might protect people from environmental dangers, including global warming. And, of course, they are generally in favor of permanent war, sending our young people around the world to die for oil and other industries. The death of others, especially non-Westerners, seems not to bother them in the least. I remind you of Alan Grayson’s terse description of the Republican health care plan: “If you get sick, die quickly.”

As far as slavery goes, it now exists in a somewhat different form than it did in days of yore. Nowadays we have “wage slavery” and other forms of slavery as well. Republicans are opposed to a minimum wage, insisting the market should determine wages, and thus laying the foundation for wages so low as to keep people virtually enslaved to the low-paying job they are lucky to have, as there are masses of people with no jobs to replace them if they leave or get so uppity as to suggest anything as terrible as forming a union. If you don’t have a job they do not want you to have unemployment insurance. One of them famously said, “If you don’t work you shouldn’t eat.”They want you to have to accept the most demeaning jobs ever for the lowest wages ever. Most ordinary working people are also slaves to the banks because of usurious credit card rates. These high rates are basically the functional equivalent of slavery as once you fall into their debt they make it as difficult as possible to get out of it. Credit cards exist for the purpose of making profits for the “Masters,” just as slaves on the Plantations did. The only difference is they are not allowed to beat or rape you whenever they feel like it. When you are forced to work for what are basically slave wages it is difficult to stay out of debt, and once you’re in debt you’re in their clutches and have to struggle mightily to ever prosper. I am speaking here of ordinary credit card debt, they also have so-called “Payday Lenders” who at times manage to get as much as 300% interest. Republicans resist changing the laws to prevent this, just as they resist changes to the Credit Card industry in general and Bank regulations as well.

It should be obvious that all of the above contributes to the maximization of unhappiness. But there is more. They are opposed to Gay marriages, thus making probably as much as 10% of the population unhappy. They are opposed to women having a choice when it comes to their own bodies, thus forcing them to have children they cannot afford and possibly do not want to care for. This means that not only the mothers are made unhappy but their unwanted children are doomed probably to a lifetime of unhappiness as well. They don’t support subsidized child care thus making it as difficult as possible for poor women to work and buy food for themselves and their children. Similarly, when it comes to immigrants, they oppose citizenship for children born here and see no problem with splitting up families in order to enforce the law, the same laws their benefactors break to attract cheap labor in the first place. They are also attempting to create onerous laws making it more difficult to vote, especially for older and younger voters, and minorities as well. I cannot imagine this makes their lives any happier. They also oppose any restrictions on gun ownership, apparently believing it makes everyone happy to be able to carry their guns to school, church, and even into bars. I doubt this makes most people happy. They seem to seek out ways to make people unhappy, it’s like they fear that some Middle Class or Poor person, somewhere, somehow, someway, might actually have a moment of happiness. They even want people to abstain from sex, trying to ban contraception, birth control and even Planned Parenthood, and demanding “abstinence only “advice to teenagers (which seems to make them have even more sex). They insist that drugs be criminalized, filling up our jails with non-violent pot smokers (and lots of minorities), making anyone happy? You can be certain if there is anything designed to make the Middle Class and the Poor more unhappy than they already are, Republicans will be in favor of it. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness be damned. Their solution to all our problems: more of the same.

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.

Lord William Beveridge