politicians

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Why Are We Angry?


Anger can be a useful tool in our lives. But for the past 6 years, it seems the level of anger in this country has risen to an unacceptable level. You need only look at a few politicians to find the source of much of this anger at it root. But what has happened in turn is that Americans are simply getting angrier at other things as well.

Have you ever gotten angry at another driver on the road? Of course, you have. But why? Ironically, when I am driving and my wife is with me, she is the one who get angry at inconsiderate drivers and not me. I find this hilarious, but it is also a problem. Why is it I do not get angry at these drivers? It is simple, I have accepted the fact that there are a lot of fools driving on our roads. What can I do about it? Where the other driver is concerned, nothing. Where I am concerned, take it in stride and accept it. By doing this, I do not get stressed.

The golden rule says: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I take that very seriously. And so, I do a lot of little things that I hope will in turn make the other person at least smile. One thing I do is, when I am at a checkout counter at a store, I always say to the checkout person, “have a wonderful day.” Sometimes they do not acknowledge but that is all right. And other times I see them smile and respond in kind. Another thing I do is, I have this stack of $2 bills. I will always give a waitress one of them as a part of her tip. Since the $2 bill is not seen very much, many of them are amused and therefor a little bit happier.

But the question remains, how much anger is needed in our lives. In a perfect life the answer is none. That means that if we think through the problem which has caused our anger, we need only think of a solution, or, barring that, we need ask ourselves why are we getting angry? The kind of anger I most frequently get is towards our elected officials who do not seem to have the needs of their constituency at the forefront. That anger lasts for less than a minute once I realize there is little I can do about it except vote, and/or, write that person a letter explaining that discontent.

It is said that humans are social creatures. If you accept that, and that is what science tells us is the truth, then we must act as if we are always at a friend’s party and keep smiling and saying happy thoughts. If we are being drawn into a contentious conversation, we can simple excuse ourselves from it and find a happier place.

The bottom line is, trying justify anger is like trying to keep the tide from coming in.

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Study: World has 9 years to avert [climate] calamity


First, I must give credit to the Boston Globe, November 12, 2022, p. A4, for that heading, it being, excepting the setoff word, climate, a direct copy of its subtitle to “War may have put climate goals out of reach.”

I found this article absolutely stunning until I read its contents and then did a bit of research. It amazes me the amount climate change deniers still in the world today. Even more, those in political power who take no, or little action towards changing their nation’s responsibility towards reducing our greenhouse gas epidemic. It must be noted that most scientists, probably an overwhelming number, are agreement over our impended doom from these emissions.

The chart below lists the greenhouses emission by each country’s total in descending order. Notice the United States, which claims to be doing so much, is in the number 2 position! This is entirely unacceptable. Number 3 India is an interesting case that along with its status on this chart, it also has the ignominious reputation of have amount the 10 most polluted cities in the world, mixed in are Pakistan and other 3rd world countries.

Conservative Americans are amount the first to deny global warning and liberals are shouting about it. But in truth, it is the liberals who are failing the most simply because most compromise on issues where holding your ground is called for.

For the United States, there needs to be a much more concerted effort to reduce CO2 emissions by about 80% and well before 2031, the deadline. The United States cannot be a world leader in this fight when it comes in 2nd in total emissions worldwide. But the above chart is only referencing CO2 pollution. The chart below is referencing Methane pollution for the purpose of this discussion. I have not been able, thus far, to find a country-by-country accounting for this sort of pollution. In the United States, however, two of the most prolific forms of this comes for natural gas leakage at drilling sites and their pipelines, and also from fracking where the search for oil always finds a collection of natural gas which is supposed to be burned off but that only adds to the CO2 pollution.

For at least 30 years now, Europeans have been taking the problem with pollution seriously. Many cities, excepting England, have taken the tack of making their inner cities less friendly to automobiles, and in some cases, banning them altogether. In place of automobiles, they have doubled down of rail transportation and well set out bicycle ways.

Such tactics in the United States would be met with heavy opposition and politicians bent on saving their political butts would bend to that opposition rather than doing the right thing.

Consider, there is no city in the United States that can properly handle 4 lanes of traffic entering its limits with any ease at all, leading to a 40-mile commute taking as much as 1.5 hours or more. All cities on the East Coast plus Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and a host of other cities cannot continue to maintain these roads and the problems that go with them for much longer.

Consider that the average length of a railroad coach is 67′ and that of an automobile almost 15′. Simple math tells us that even the 4 automobiles, were each carrying 3 individuals totaling 12 total is a far cry for the 60 to 100 passengers a single railroad car can carry. A rapid transit car can carry at least 50 people, light rail cars and buses the same. Highway maintenance on average, costs $14,500 per year. By shutting down one lane of a 4-lane highway in both directions for 25 miles saves $750k per year. Now, take the New Jersey turnpike which extends 41 miles from the Garden State parkway to Exit 7, Bordentown and is 8 lanes wide. Remove the 4 inner lanes in each direction, a total of 328 miles, and you have a total savings of $4.7 million a year. New Jersey has an exemplary commuter rail system as well-as an extensive bus system.

In probably every city their existing commuter rail, rapid transit, light rail and buses systems would have to be both modernized and expanded first. But this would give the public several years to plan on the eventual shut down of highway traffic lanes.

Such a bold step forward would cost in the 10s of trillions of dollars to properly implement. Couple that with all cities denying entry to their city center by private automobiles, another public screaming point, and inner-city pollution declines dramatically.

Right now, when it comes to public transportation, the United States is little more than a third-world country. Countries like Italy, Germany, Holland, France and a host of others, put the U.S. to shame in their approach to public transportation. Even China, the world’s greatest polluter, has a rail transportation superior to ours.

Why is this true. First, it America’s continuing love affair with the automobile, next, politicians of all stripes failing to inform the public of what should, by now, be painfully obvious, global warming is happening, and at an ever-increasing rate, just ask Floridians.

There is, however, one form of public transportation, which is one of the largest polluters in the U.S., the nation’s airlines! How do we reduce that? Simple, convince Americans to take AMTRAK on medium length journeys over air travel. This, of course, will require a heavy investment in AMTRAK but the rewards far outweigh the costs. Already, the Northeast Corridor of AMTRAK, from Boston to Washington DC, is heavily traveled by businessmen as well as private travelers. But routes such as Cleveland to Chicago, Atlanta to Miami, Dallas to Houston, Chicago to St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Detroit.

Americans, living near to large cities, must learn a new way of getting around or be culpable for getting the globe to “point of no return,” that point where warming accelerates at a rate no one can stop. Is that nine years hence? I do not know but it seems many scientists are thinking that way. Who are you going to believe, your next-door neighbor, you politicians, or the scientists?

I am only showing the pollution type below, that of “particulate matter” and in this case, that of plastics.

On final note on this. When I was taking a course in Astrophysics at Harvard University, my professor made a point of saying that anything which produces heat adds to global warming. That polluter is nuclear power and everything else which has the side effect of producing heat.

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Cancel Culture? Not so Fast!


Let me start my little diatribe by saying that the whole idea of “cancel culture” seems to be a misnomer, and in the worst possible way. First there is the changing of names of military bases and other institutions which sport the names of slave owners and others of disrepute. There are those among them who are quite deservedly being brought to task. There are people today, both Democrat and Republican, are taking a very narrow view of our ancestral leadership.

I start with a man who is know as a great patriot of our early nation. His name was Major General Henry Lee, or, Light Horse Harry Lee as he became known. Lee was an important figure in our country’s struggle for freedom during the Revolution. He later served as the governor of Virginia and a representative to Congress. Importantly, he was also the father of General Robert E. Lee.

I have a master’s degree from Harvard University where I studied U.S. History. A lot of time was spent in my studies in dealing with various reform movements, slavery and the Civil War. Now, there are a lot of people who want Fort Lee’s name changed. To what and why? The why is simple, he was a slave owner and prominent soldier for the Confederacy. But Lee was not an idealogue. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, President Lincoln spoke long and personally to Lee, offering him the position as Commander of the Armies of the Potomac. In today’s lingo, he who be one of the joint chiefs of staff. Lee and Lincoln were friends and Lincoln knew full well that Lee was a slave owner but still asked him to serve. Why? Because he was the best candidate, by a lot. Lee went home and spent many a sleepless night angonizing over what his answer should be. Lee graduated in 1829 from West Point second in his class. Conversely, U. S. Grant, class of 1839 at West Point, graduated 21 of 39 graduates. In the end, Lee chose the Confederacy only because of his desire to honor his home state of Virginia. Lee was never a politician, except as his military duties demanded, but the ultimate soldier. His devotion was to his men and the uniform he wore. Once he accepted his role as an officer from Virginia, he assumed his role as a military leader but never a political leader.

An example of a more modern time General who had the same issue was the German General Erwin Rommel. Rommel was the hero of World War One for the Germans and got swept up in the Nazi wave. Like Lee, Rommel knew only the Army and did not care at all for the politics involved. He was constantly at odds with the political hieracy, finally plotting to kill Hitler which brought about his own death.

Even later, many us, myself included, fought in the Vietnam War, a widely unpopular war. But as soldiers we knew our duty to the military and to follow all legal orders, We did that even though many of us, if not most, hid silent views of being against the war. I suspect, although this is not written anywhere, that General Lee harbored similar views. What to do? When the hostilities of the Civil War broke out, both sides thought the war would be a very short one. Neither side anticipated the future.

When the war was over, all officers and politicians of the Confederacy were barred from any further military or political service. This was their sentence, similar to one a court would hand down, for life. I suspect, had anyone asked, Lee would have abandoned slavery.

This brings me to General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Was Jackson really a slave owner or one who had an indentured servant. Jackson may be the most peculiar of all the famous southern generals. He was born in Virgina, now West Virginia. As the other generals, Jackson graduated from West Point in 1846. Jackson held a seven slaves, who are described in a paper written by Larry Spurgeon, Stonewall Jackson’s Slaves. One slave, Albert, begged Jackson to buy him and free him once his debt was paid. Another slave, Amy, was sold to Jackson so her owner could pay a debt. Amy became the cooks for the Jacksons. Other such accounts can be found and in every case of a male slave, Jackson insisted up their becoming well educated. And in the end, you find that each took a place in the Jackson house much like servants and not of slaves. And like so many of those in the north who in the mid-1700s held “slaves,” each were allowed to live in the main house, frequently the only house. Jackson steadfastly believed in both freeing all slaves and embracing state’s rights. That dichotomy is an anathema to most today but it is good to remember that he was a product of his times. Jackson’s only desire was to become a general in the army and be the ultimate soldier. He had absolutely no political inclinations. And like Lee, his allegiance to Virginia was unassailable and so he felt the obligation to join the Confederacy.

By today’s logic, we must also include George Washington, the father of our country, in that group. We must also included every President from Washington through Grant because all owned slaves! Washington, Jefferson, each owned over 600. Others who owned over 100 include Madison, Jackson and Taylor. Even U. S. Grant owned a slave.

Before we go off and start renaming any installation because of their relationship with slavery, and “worse,” to the confederacy, we necessarily must ask ourselves, “Where these men of their day?” To answer in any was but the positive is to deny the truth. In a cursory look at various fort names, only a few seem to arise to the level that whom they were named after were nafarious enough to warrant change; Fort Gordon, GA, Fort Bragg, NC, and Fort A. P. Hill, VA. Both Washington and Jefferson were aggregious in their slaveholdings. Should we tear down the Washington Monument and the Jefferson memorial? Should every “Washington Street” in our country be renamed? I think not! The era of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were quite different from those of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but each must be given fair consideration as men of their times. Today, we do not see things in the same light as any of the aforementioned men. It would be foolish to thing otherwiase. It is necessary to treat each very evenhandedly.

As sort of an addendum, which I find most distasteful, but which Sen. Cruz is hell-bent about, is this idea that “liberals” are trying to rid us of a Dr. Seus on the premise that he was either racially or gender biased. They do not nor does anyone else. It serves no purpose to create such scenarious other than to promote self-interest and to appeal to those who allow that person to think for them

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What is the Future For Our Children, Our Grandchildren?


What we do right now will necessarily affect our children and our grandchildren with how we treat our planet.

Amaericans seem to have difficulty believing what our nation’s scientist tell us. Sadly, I believe it is our politicians who, for their own personal enrichment, tell us their truth when the science behind it does not line up with the actual truth. For too long it has been “us” against “them,” Democrats vs. Repulicans. It would be too easy to blame Republican’s for our present state as they have most recently poo-poo’d what scientists told us about Covid-19. In truth, Democrats are equally to blame. Republicans, notorious for resisting change, made themselves the target of Democrats but Democrats spoke as if they were well-versed in the science behind COVID-19. They were not. But what I found truly headscratching were two Replublicans, both of whom hold medical degrees, backing Trump when he declared early on that the virus would quickly go away. As public sevants, they are given the public trust to do what is best for their constituency even when it goes against what others in their party resist. The two senators, McConnell and Paul, knew the truth but backed what was politically expedient. This is abhorrent to what our Constitution demands. There are two our physicians in the senate who were largely silent, Cassidy and Barrasso. Each to an oath, “first do no harm,” for which they conveniently forgot and in turn hurt not just their constituents, but our entire nation. And our House of Representatives there are 13 physicians. Where were they during the outbreak?

And now we come to climate change. I want to first qualify by saying that I worked at MIT for a number of years where I was hand-in-hand with some of our nation’s most brilliant minds. Those people, and others at our nation’s leading research facilities, have no political agenda. Their’s is the search for the truth in science. They necessarily are pragmatist. These people frequently are pubished in journals that are revied by their peers and to misspeak brings rebuke.

For two decades now those best and brightest have been warning about the harm we are doing to our planet. But scientist can only report on their findings. They can, of themselves, bring some change, but it is up to the politicians of the world to bring about true change. And their is one thing true in all nations, most scientists act the same in their quest for the truth: they do not bend to politically motivated pressures. That was easy to see last year when Dr. Faucci cringed at so many of Donald Trump’s pronouncements. But were you to go to Russia or China, you will find that the scientists in those countries have little interest in politics.

It is absolutely necessary, right now, for all Americans to weigh the ideas of scientist much more heavily than those of politicans. Here in the United States most our our politicians are lawyers. And most lawyers seldem move from the law degree to advanced degrees in science. Even so, each time we elect one of them to the house or senate, it is in them that we are giving public trust that they will do what is best for everyone and not just for their political base.

I spent most of my working life in science but now retired I have taken to teaching our children and grandchildren. I frequent remind them that what they do right now affects what they will do in the years and decades to come. Ergo, what I polticians decide right now absolutely affects generations of Americans down the road. It is up to each one of us to pressure them to do “the next right thing” and not the next politically motivated thing. They must be pragmatists and not fold to the desires of one small portion of their constuency. They must think both locally and nationally. In the end, their decisions affect all Americans. It is on this point that I believe the members of both parties fail.

The best example of a political appointee doing what is in the best interest of our nation was when George H. W. Bush put David Souter on the US SJC. In Souter, Bush believed he was putting a good conservative on the bench. But what happened was that Souter always took the high road, putting politics aside, and being a pure pragmatists. We need our politicans to act thusly. Our children, our grandchildren are deserving of the very best we can do but sadly, right now, that is seldom the case. This being true, it is ultimately up to each one of us to think of our children and grandchildren when we elect those who represent us. We must make them show that they are fully capable of doing what is in the best interest of our nation. Time is fast running out. Save our planet, not our political ideas.

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The Great Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 — Part 1


What follows is the true story of labor unrest in the city of Lawrence Massachusetts in 1912.  In the history of the United States, before or since, this is the largest strike to effect any single city.  But out of it came many of the long overdue changes needed for working men and women.  The improbability of success for this strike was extremely high and that it would last 62 days was unheard-of.  If on January 1 1912 you had asked anyone could a strike not only go on for 62 days but end in success, you would have been roundly laughed at.  It was considered impossible, even by labor leaders.  But this strike got the attention of the nation, and possibly even more importantly, it got the Republican President of the United States, William Howard Taft, a friend to management, to summon a house committee to investigate the strike while it was in progress!

To tell this story in one sitting is too much.  I am breaking it up into many parts and will endeavor to keep both detail and interest high.  The protagonist in this story, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), won the day but lost in the long run while the antagonist, the American Federation of Labor, lost the day but won in the long run.   And the mill owners, well, they won even in losing as is often the case even today.

 

Lawrence Massachusetts was born from portions of two other towns, Methuen and Andover. It had been proposed that a showcase manufacturing city be built on the banks of the Merrimack River. Each town gave up a little over 3 square miles of land towards that dream. As a consequence, one more new town was created as Andover split in 1853 into two parts, Andover and North Andover, each having its own government.

The financing came from a group of Boston Bankers who had observed the huge success Lawrence’s sister city, Lowell, had been just 20 years prior. Its mills were large and bustling and bringing a tidy profit to owners and shareholders alike.

By 1900 Lawrence was Lowell’s equal in the manufacture of textiles. And to insure a constant power source, the founders of Lawrence had built a dam on the Merrimack river from which two canals were built to bring water to the new mills. The water was needed for the large steam turbines that powered each of the mills.

It was around 1900 when the make-up of the two cities diverged a bit. Lawrence became a magnet city for large numbers of America’s new immigrant groups, Italians and Poles making up the bulk. But there were also Armenians, Russians, and Syrians. The Italian immigrants are a curious anomaly for Lawrence. While both Lawrence and Lowell were attracting large number of these new immigrants, the vast majority of Italians chose Lawrence over Lowell. I have not been able to discover a reason for this except that it is known that William Wood, president and owner of the American Woolen Company, a conglomerate of over a dozen mills, sent men to Italy where posters were put up claiming that any who wished to emigrate to America would share in its riches. Wood vociferously denied this because to have done so would have broken American law. But there was no shortage of immigrants who claimed to have come to Lawrence because of his posters.

This group of immigrants, starting around 1900, are known as the “new immigrants.” The “old immigrants” included the Irish, Germans, Welch, Belgians, and French Canadians. They had held all the positions in Lawrence mills until 1900. Wood at the time was building two new mills, the Ayer Mill and the Wood Mill. The latter is the largest single mill enclosure ever built in America. But the labor pool available to fill these new mills was quite short hence Wood’s decision to entice new immigrants.

Wood really did not need to entice the Italians; they would have come anyway. The European economy of the early 20th Century was very weak. In southeastern Europe, the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey, the old Ottoman Empire was beginning to crumble but it was not going quietly. It was during this period the Turks declared war on Armenia and set about to obliterate it with one of the worst genocides ever.

In Eastern Europe the Russian Empire was also beginning to fall apart. The Czar had set about ridding Russia of its Jews by a series of Pogroms. The ploy was to unceremoniously push the Jews from where they had been living westward with the idea that they would tire of being constantly uprooted and leave the continent entirely. And to a small degree that worked.

Until 1907 Russia ruled over half of Poland. It was there that Russia pushed many of its Jews. But it also imposed its tyranny on the native Poles by requiring military service from its young men. This, of course, did not sit well with the Polish people and rather than fight the mighty czar, many chose to leave for the New World.

By 1912, Lawrence’s population was close to 90,000, an incredible number considering the city was barely 60 years old. The major of its population was either new immigrant or first generation immigrant. Because of this it gained the nickname “immigrant city.” But unlike other cities that attracted large numbers of immigrants, New York and Chicago, Lawrence was not divided into ethnic neighborhoods. For example, the first block moving away from the large Everett Mill had a large number of Italians and Poles with a few Syrians, French and English mixed in. This is not to say Lawrence had no ethnic neighborhoods, it did. The Germans settled an area known as Prospect Hill. The French and Irish had neighborhoods in South Lawrence. But considering Lawrence had claim to at least 15 large ethnic groups, those exceptions are the outliers.

Social unrest in Lawrence started, at the latest, in 1910. It was, however, part of a greater unrest going on in all of Massachusetts. The average mill worker in 1910 was required to work a 58-hour week, 10 hours a day Monday through Friday and 8 on Saturday. It is important to note that this was true for both skilled and unskilled labor. It was the skilled labor that petitioned for, and was granted, a shorter work week when the Massachusetts legislature passed a law reducing the work week to 56 hours which took effect in 1910. In 1911 it changed that law and reduced the work week to 54 hours starting January 1, 1912. It is that point this story begins.

Prior to 1912 unions nationwide were weak even though a number, but mostly the coal miners, conducted large scale strikes. But strikes seldom ended in a win for the working man. Mill and mine owners alike used the tack of hiring new workers to replace the striking workers. Such moves sometimes resulted in riots as in the Pullman Strike and the Johnstown strike. Lesser strikes were frequent in the western coal fields of Wyoming and Colorado but out of them came a man who would greatly influence the Lawrence strike of 1912. He was known as William “Big Bill” Haywood and he represented first the Western Miners Union and later the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The latter was ill-received by Americans because of its socialist doctrine and its affiliation with known anarchists and other “trouble makers,” as they were called.

Extremely poor working conditions in the textile and garment industry was well-documented. Just a year earlier in New York City, March 1911, a disaster known as the Triangle Shirtwaist fire caused the death of 146 garment workers, mostly women, many who jumped to their death or were burned alive. The factory owner did not want the women sneaking out so he had ordered exit doors chained and locked during normal working hours. Their escape routes blocked, the women had to rely on a small and slow elevator. The fire horrified New Yorkers and reforms were called for, some were even enacted, but state legislatures in those days held little empathy for the average mill worker. The reason being a simple one, their election often times relied upon the largess of the mill owners.

In June of 1911, and possibly foretelling a strike, a member of the I.W.W., probably Joseph Ettor, came to Lawrence with the expressed job of recruiting workers into the IWW. Ettor would play a prominent role later on in the strike. The only other union in Lawrence at the time was the Textile Workers Union, a branch of the larger American Federation of Labor (AFL). The TWU membership was entirely made up of skilled labor as was in keeping with AFL doctrine of the day. But the majority of mill workers fell into the category of unskilled labor. Conversely, the IWW had no such restriction and welcomed all comers, skilled and unskilled, into what it called “one big tent.” But to be a union member you had to pay dues and therein lay the problem for the IWW. The group it most ardently wished to represent could not even afford the meager one dollar dues as the worker was already living on starvation wages where pennies were counted. The total membership of the IWW prior to, during, and after the strike never exceeded 900. There were close to 35,000 mill operatives in Lawrence at the time.

January 11, 1912, a Thursday, the residents of Lawrence awoke to a bone chilling 10-degree morning. For many breakfasted consisted of molasses spread over bread. With the exception of the Arlington Mill, all of Lawrence’s mills were clustered along the Merrimack river and an easy walk for the operatives who filled them. Notwithstanding the literal chill in the air, there was also a great deal of tension. On that day the first pay envelopes of the new year were passed out and with them the operatives would find out if their wages had been cut because of the new 56-hour rule. No one knew for certain what would happen if the wages were reduced. Strike committees had been set up but no plan of action had been put forth.

The mill owners felt confident that the operatives would not strike simply because they knew the operatives were already living on the edge and could ill-afford to lose any income and put their welfare in jeopardy. But they also felt that if the mill operatives did strike they, the owners, could simply wait them out. This tack had been quite successful in well over 75% of all previous strikes in Massachusetts going back years. Mill owners refused to meet with strikers and hear their demands and usually within a week the workers returned to their position having won nothing. This is where the owners got their confidence.

What the mill owners of Lawrence failed to recognize on that fateful day in January was just how desperate the condition of their operatives was. It is well documented that a full third of all new immigrants who came to Lawrence to work the mills found the poverty of their native land more inviting than the poverty of Lawrence and therefor they returned home. For those who could not go back there was a feeling of “nothing to lose” by going on strike.

Sometime around 11AM in the giant Everett Mill the paymaster walked through the various departments handing out pay envelopes. When he reached one particular room, a Polish woman whose name is lost to history, shouted out “short pay! Short pay!” She promptly left her position and engaged others to do the same. They did. The moved from the third floor, to the second, to the first, gaining followers as they went. They marched out onto the street, Union Street, turned left and headed down towards the other mills, the first being the Duck Mill on their right and the Kunhardt mill on their left.

As they reached the mills numbers of the new strikers stormed through the entrances to these mills and called to their fellows to follow them into strike. They proclaimed that the worst had happened and their action was necessary.

Next they crossed the Merrimack River to the Ayer Mill on their right and the giant Wood Mill on their left where they repeated their actions and gained supporters. At the same time, a splint group from the original had turned right, just before the Duck Mill and marched down Canal Street to the Pemberton, Washington and Pacific Mills. By day’s end thousands of mill operatives were on strike. This was an unforeseen eventuality by the mill owners.

 

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Dealing With ISIS


The terrorist attack on Paris is despicable, to say the least. The group that calls itself ISIS claims responsibility. Those are all the facts, there are no more. Politician in this country, and probably all others, debate what sort of response should be taken. The responses I have heard from politicians in this country have been anywhere from measured to outrageous.

The good thing about this country is we get to say whatever we believe and the government cannot restrict that. That works well until you enter the national and international arena. Once you find yourself on the national stage this wise response is always the measured response. Many of the Republican presidential candidates have made the decision that the best and only response the U.S. can make to terrorist attacks is by sending in the army. Such remarks are not only ill-considered but irresponsible.

Governor Christie has said he would send in the troops. Trump, Rubio and Bush have said as much. It is this kind of thinking that gets the United States into trouble over and over.

The military of the United States, and of any country, is an extension of that country’s political system. The two prime reasons for having a military is first to defend your country against those who attack you and second, to take the battle to those countries which present a real and present danger to your well-being. A secondary reason is going to an ally’s aid and defense.

That ISIS presents a real and present danger in the world is unarguable. ISIS, however, it not presently claimed by any country in particular nor has any country come out in support of ISIS. It is my belief that there is not a country in the middle-east, North Africa, southeastern Europe, the Balkans and probably all of central Asia which does not have a contingent of ISIS living within its borders. This makes attacking ISIS problematic, at the least, because of where it exists. For example, ISIS probably exists substantially in Lebanon and Lebanon borders Syria. Right now, neither of those countries have invited the U.S. inside its borders.

Former President Bush used the pretense of weapons of mass destruction the attack Iraq. We now know for fact that we were fed half-truths and absolute lies when the real motivation was to remove Saddam Hussein from power. I only mention that to pre-empt the idea of entering Syria to eradicate ISIS, and oh by the way, we remove Assad from power.

Right now the only nation that has an iron clad reason to attack ISIS with troops on the ground is France, and so far they have shown no desire to do such. Why? Because they probably realize that their chances of successfully destroying the entire central leadership of ISIS with infantry is minimal at best. And even if France were to decide to use ground troops, I think anything beyond existing NATO agreements and UN agreements is unwise. And anything beyond logistical support would be going too far. And that logistical support would exist only in Iraq in the Middle East.

The greatest threat ISIS is to the world now is mostly peace of mind. It is obvious that Europe has got to figure out a way, quickly, to secure its borders. The U.S. is already doubling down on its security, really the only thing we can do. The next right step the leadership of the world has to figure out is how to contain ISIS. For all the Middle Eastern countries this means they will have to use a combination of civil policing and military actions within their borders. For the U.S. this means we are going to have to secure the borders of both Afghanistan and Iraq. That may require additional infantry troops. Neither country is strong enough by itself to provide for its own security against the likes of ISIS.

The United States has a lot of experience in attempting to deal with an unseen enemy such as ISIS. That enemy was called the Viet Cong and the war, of course, was Vietnam. We failed miserably trying to root out the Vietcong with conventional military. ISIS is no different.

The bottom line is simple: we are already stronger than ISIS, we just need to be smarter than them to defeat them.

 

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Where Has America Gone?


I went to graduate school to study U.S. History. I have always wondered how we, as a country, have gotten to where we are. I still wonder that but at least now I have a good working knowledge of the forces which brought us to this day. I have a deep appreciation of George Santayana’s words: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

I, like so many Americans today, look upon our Congress as the most dysfunctional body imaginable. The present Congress in its dysfunctionality is not, in my opinion the worst ever. That honor, if you will, belongs to the various Congresses which presided during our Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Both major parties where so horribly splintered it is amazing they ever agreed upon anything. It was only a few years earlier, 1856, when Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on the senate floor, literally with his cane, beating him so badly he required medical attention. Brooks was ostensibly defending the honor of Sen. Andrew Butler whom Sumner had earlier called an “imbecile.” For his actions Brooks was fined $300.

It is of note that members of Congress in the 19th century were seldom millionaires although most were from well-to-do families. They were elected because they espoused the desires of their constituency and, as in the case of Brooks, were willing to literally fight for those desires. Brooks was incensed over the personal verbal attack abolitionist Sumner made on Butler by saying, “Senator Butler has chosen a mistress. I mean the harlot, slavery.”  These men were obviously and heatedly devoted to those causes important to their state.  Sadly, I do not believe such can be said for any member of Congress today.

Every American has 3 representatives in Congress, two senators and a representative.  But if someone were to ask me what any of those three people has done for my state, Massachusetts, lately, I quite honestly could not say a thing.  I simply do not know even though I do my best to remain informed.

At its inception the United States could easily have broken apart into 13 separate countries.  After all, each state had long before adopted its own constitution, set up its own form of democratic elections, and put together a fully and independently functional state government.  But by 1783 the colonies had come to realize the value of coalescing into a single and strong central government.  Still, they were bitterly divided upon what that government would look like and how each state could maintain a reasonable level of autonomy within the structure of a federal government.  To that end they decided on an election process which provided for the possibility of a complete turnover of the federal government at 6 year intervals.

That process was designed prior to political action committees, huge and rich corporations, and even, yes, political parties.  Thomas Jefferson believed that their need only be a single party made up of the “wise and well-born.”  But Jefferson actually oversaw that exact change when he departed from the Federalist party line, with which he greatly disagreed, and stated the Democratic Republicans.  He realized that Virginia’s needs were frequently at odds with those of Massachusetts or New York.  The original fight over state autonomy versus federal regulation continued until 1868 and the adoption of the 14th Amendment which, in part, bars states from enacting laws contrary to federal law.  At that time states fought jealously to preserve the general good and well-being of the residents of their state.  They did this through those elected to Congress.

At the beginning of the 20th Century politicians who were called “Populists” saw well-moneyed interests exerting control of the US Government to the detriment of the individual citizen.  Industrialists like Vanderbilt had lobbied and secured eminent domain so they could gain control of otherwise privately owned property.  Rockefeller who was able to gain monopolistic control of the fledgling oil industry, Carnegie the same in the steel industry and other “tycoons” of the day.  Congress enacted anti-trust laws, monopoly laws and in 1934 the Securities and Exchange Commission.  It took well over 30 years but Congress properly recognized that corporate America had systematically diluted the power of the individual American for its own use.

From 1900 until 1980 Congress and the President did an excellent job of insuring that the rights of the individual American were not trampled on by a few powerful interests.  But when Ronald Reagan became President the executive and legislative elements of our government began undoing all the work of the previous 80 years.  Reagan used sleight of hand by breaking up the communications monopoly AT&T had created while his real agenda was something entirely different.  Reagan started the charge against the average working man when he successfully oversaw busting the air traffic controllers union.  It was an entirely unnecessary action as the power of the president has always allowed for his ending a strike when he believed the national interest and the national defense were at issue.  Previous presidents had used this power to end lengthy coal miners’ strikes for example.  But none ever considered breaking up a union as this would have been viewed as un-American.  He effectively declared open season on America’s unions even though the power of all unions was lessening and the frequency of strikes decreasing.

He then took aim at the federal regulatory process, in particular financial interests.  He declared that such institutions were too heavily regulated and unnecessarily regulated, that they were self-regulating by their very nature and in their own interest.  This gives rise to the question of why the stock market crash on 1987 happened.  Is it possible that the sudden deregulation had gone contrary to the public good?  Congress ostensibly righted that ship by putting in place laws which would limit or stop stock trading should the market give signs of being in a free-fall.  But the deregulation continued.

Since 1980 control of the Congress has switched between the Republicans and Democrats many times.  But they have increasingly shown an inability to come to a consensus of compelling domestic and foreign issues, not the least of which is the regulation of the giant conglomerates existing in the United States today.  While America’s infrastructure deteriorates at an alarming speed, Congress is having a food fight over taxes, entitlements, and defense.

No state and nor individual, conservative or liberal, is benefiting from the actions of today’s Congress.  If individual members of Congress were truly interested in the welfare of their constituents, they would be figuring out how many multiple trillions of dollars it will take to bring our infrastructure back to where it should be rather than allowing it to continue where it where it is.  Such an investment would of course greatly benefit corporate America but unfortunately they are totally devoted to their own selfish interests.  Every year corporate America spends literally billions of dollars lobbing Congress to do their bidding while trampling on the rights of private Americans.  For example, the energy industry has long touted how “clean” burning natural gas is while failing to reveal that in reality from its mining to its burning natural gas actually hurts the environment more than coal!  But who has more money to spend on lobbying, environmentalists or the energy industry?  The energy industry has done such a great job of championing their cause that they have been able to get local environmentalists to do their bidding, vis-à-vis closing coal burning electric generating plants.  It would be fine if they actually maintained the 3% pollution rate they claim rather than the 16% reality.

Starting around 2006 and continuing for the next 5 years the foreclosure rate in American sky-rocked mostly because of a mostly unregulated banking industry which allowed sub-prime loans to people who had little idea of the agreement they had entered into.  Worse, these very same large financial institutions were making bets on the success or failure of marginal investments.  It came to light that these institutions were cooking the books, so to speak, to justify what they did.  First came Enron, then Morgan Stanley, then Shearson, and so on.  A few failed but most were propped up thanks to the federal government, “too big to fail” was the war cry.  Why did it happen?  Deficient regulation and oversight.

Sadly, while all this was happening, Congress was kowtowing to the moneyed interests which got them elected while to some extent, if not completely, ignoring the welfare of the individual American.  Democrats and Republicans had obfuscated their duty to the individual American rather than anger the PACs which got them elected.

At this point I should come up with a solution.  Sadly, I do not have one short of saying America needs to toss out everyone who now populate Congress and put in new people.  That is not going to happen but something akin to it needs to happen.  Today’s members seem to feed on being antagonism and lack either the will or ability to come to any sort of an understanding with their adversary, they seem to believe that maintaining an adversarial relationship is the recipe for political success.  They use that very negative adversarial and contentious mood to invigorate those who voted them into office.  They sell it as acting in their constituents’ best interest when nothing could be further from the truth.  Members of Congress keep their attention focused on the next election and how they will get re-elected while subordinating the needs of those they represent.  Congress has become adept at selling Americans a ticket to hell and having those same Americans out beating the bushes for directions.

I fear for the future of my children and grandchildren, it seems very bleak right now.  I fear the America my ancestors fought and died for has been purchased by corporate America and that future governance is being decided in America’s boardrooms rather than America’s living rooms.  America is in desperate need of a revolution, a revolution that will empower them and put them back in control of their future.

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Holding Politicians Accountable


Within our Federal Government there exists two sets of rules: one set is for civil servants while the other is for politicians and political appointees.  Within the former are a set of very strict standard which must be adhered to.  This group includes the members of our military which has an even more strict set of rules than those for civil servants.  The latter, however, seem to have no particular set of rules save that one indicated in the Constitution, “high crimes and misdemeanors.”  So very vague is that rule that only two presidents and a rather small handful of others have ever been held to it, and none successfully.

The members of our military are held to what is called the Military Code of Conduct, a set of 131 rules to which the must adhere, some of which seemingly contradict the Constitution itself, but which when challenged in the US Supreme Judicial Court have never been found lacking or at fault.  Civil servants are required to undergo an annual code of ethics training course which is given, generally, by a lawyer from that department’s office of ethics.  One portion of those ethics quite clearly set out a standard that states unequivocally any semblance “of a conflict of interest” will not be tolerated.  In any given year, hundreds of federal employees are tried in a court of law for violations of this code, and that is a good thing.  It is meant not only to enforce the law, but to give the public confidence in how federal employees conduct themselves.  To show the strictness of such rules, one states that no federal employee may accept any gift of greater value than $25 which includes meals, educational opportunities, etc.  The lone exception is if such gift is open to the public in general and that anyone, upon application, can avail themselves of such gift.

Now comes our political appointees.  In particular I want to bring about the person of General David Patraeus.  He graduated from West Point in 1972 and got an advanced degree from Princeton University.  He served a particularly distinguished career which elevated him to four stars, the greatest rank any military person can aspire.  Then in 2011 he was appointed to head the CIA.  In every respect he is an American hero who rose the well-earned heights.  It all came crashing down when it was revealed he had had a dalliance with Paula Broadwell.  The shame in all that is not that he had the affair, but that he was forced to resign.  If such dalliances meant an end to political careers the wreckage of such during our history would have easily end the career of half our presidents and probably equal numbers of Congress.  So corrupt was the administration of warren G. Harding that is has long be speculated had he not died first he would definitely have been one President who would have been removed from office by Congress.  If you want to know more about this, look up what is called “the teapot dome scandal.”

Most, if not all, of our US Senators are millionaires and are either so far removed from the middle-class, if they had ever been a part of it, to remember what it is like to be a part of it.  None came from poverty.  The same can be said for much of the House of Representatives.  That might not be so bad if not for the fact that they seldom represent the will of their constituency.  For them, quid pro quo is the only business they understand.  Simply put, that means those who contribute the most to their reelection get the greatest part of their attention and can count on their vote going their way.

They say it is impolite to speak ill of the dead, but to make a point I feel I must.  Sen. Edward Kennedy represented Massachusetts from the early 1960s until his death.  He was a decidedly unethical and devious man.  He was absolutely at fault in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, July 18, 1969.  He was obviously not run from office, as he probably should have been, but was given a 2-month suspended jail sentence for “leaving the scene.”   Even though I have always been a registered Democrat, I never once voted for the man as I felt him incapable of honesty.  When he ran unopposed, I wrote in my own name on the ballot.  I also requested assistance from his office with a problem I was have one time.  After visiting there I never got so much as a polite “we cannot help you” response from them.  But then, that is what unprincipled self-important people do.

Today, Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, is acting in much the same way.  He claims he wants Wall Street reform and stricter regulations on financial institutions.  He says he wants to kill the 15% tax of earned interest that only the very wealthy enjoy.  That means, the top rate paid on all earned interest, by millionaires in particular, is 15%.  An average person who got lucky and won a million dollars would pay close to a 35% rate on that income while the millionaire will be assessed only 15% on his multiple of millions earned in interest.

Members of congress are regularly wined and dined at very expensive restaurants, given expensive gifts, given free memberships in exclusive clubs, and so forth.  It is hard to imagine that these members of congress will concern themselves quite so much with their constituents who sent them to congress to do their bidding than with those who spend lavishly on them.

I think politicians should be held to many of the same rules that civil servants are held to.  I also think campaign finance laws should be written to prohibit contributions to any single person or party except from individual voters, and that such amounts would also be limited.  The only way we will ever get Congress to listen to the will of the people is to limit the ability of the will of the PAC, the corporation, or any non-individual to be minimized.

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Whatever Happened to the American Dream?


The simple answer is ‘it is alive and well.”  But the form it takes varies greatly.  That form is, of course, defined by whoever has that dream.  But like so much of what I write, this subject needs a little history behind it.

The first people to have a dream that America could possibly answer were English merchants, followed by the group of separatists we now call the Pilgrims.  They were followed by the Puritans.  Each of these first three groups had their own separate and specialized version of the new American dream.  The English merchants saw huge economic possibilities in the New World.  The Pilgrim came purely for religious freedom, and the Puritans for a combination of both, religion and  business.  All three groups realized the American dream, some quickly, some a little more slowly.

Through 1945 at least, the idea of freedom of some sort, religious, business, personal, was the single most attractive part of the American dream.  Even when immigrants were sold a bill of goods, as the Italians and Poles who were recruited at the beginning to the 20th century to work American factories with the promise of riches, many had come to escape the persecution of the Tsar, military impressment, and starvation that the Italian immigrant had known.  They were huddled into ethnic masses, ghettos, in America’s cities, and while the original immigrants found it difficult to escape the squalor they found themselves in, most quickly came to realize that the potential for their children far outweighed whatever shortcomings they had endured.

But the end of World War 2 saw the return of over 2 million soldiers to the American economy.  The federal government, remembering the economic travails of World War One vets, decided to give veterans a way to buy their own homes through the Veterans Administration which gave rise to the VA Home Loan.  World War One vets had felt abandoned and when the depression hit, they formed what was called “Hooverville” right next to the capitol building.  They were a constant reminder the president and congress of the unfilled promises made them following WWI.

Enter a man named William Jaird Levitt.  In the late 1920s he developed an idea of selling a large tract of affordable housing to upper middle class Americans on Long Island.  The idea, while successful, was derailed by the depression.  During WWII he won a large contract to build housing for the navy.  But when the federal government came up with the idea of government guaranteed loans, Levitt cashed in by creating an entire town on Long Island, Levitttown.  Small tract houses were advertised to the veteran as a way to realize the American dream, at least as defined by Levitt.  Levitt invited ex-servicemen to visit his model house and see how they could cash in on the new American dream, a house, a car, a wife, and two kids.  That advertising ploy was hugely successful, so much so, that some years later Levitt repeated his idea in Pennsylvania.  But now, burned into the American psyche, was this new version of the American dream and it has survived to this day.

In 1922 Congress passed an immigration law, the first of its sort, the limited the number of immigrants who could enter the U.S.  The law, hugely racist, was passed using 1900 immigration figures as the basis of who could enter the U.S. and in what numbers.  In 1900 the largest portion of immigrants came from northern Europe.

On April 30, 1975, the American embassy in Saigon Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese communists.  Americans saw on their television hundreds of Vietnamese, friends of America they were called, being airlifted off the top of the American embassy.  Shortly after that hundreds of Vietnamese who feared for their lives took to boats to escape their native land.  They became known as the “boat people.”  Most of those refugees were welcomed to America in no small part because of American guilt over what had occurred in their homeland.  The point here is, first, America made an exception to the immigration law, and second, but more importantly, these Vietnamese had an American dream in their minds that did not include a house, a car, and two kids.  Their dream was a throwback to the original settlers of English North America and the immigrants who came through the early part of the 20th Century.

Today’s politicians are selling the American public the idea that the American dream includes a right to a job, a right to very low taxes, and a right to feel entitled.  Those three things are a gross exaggeration of reality.  At the beginning of the 20th century poor immigrants desired one thing and one thing only, a chance.  They did not feel entitled to anything.  I think Americans today believe the American dream should be given to them and not worked for.

The American dream is alive and well, it is just not the one being sold by the politicians.  It is not up to the government to find you a job.  It is up to you.  It is not up to the government to lower the unemployment rate, it is up to business.  You are not entitled to a car, a house, or anything else save a chance equal to that of anyone else.  The American dream is the chance to lead a happy and successful life according to your own definition of what that looks like, and nothing more.

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The Truth About Political Debates


There was a time, long ago, when candidates were forced to go to open air venues to have their debates in public places so people could take their measure.  In the early 20th century, a man named James Michael Curley burst upon Massachusetts politics.  At the time, 1910, he was simply trying to become a U.S. Representative for the 10th district, a seat no Democrat in anyone’s memory had ever held, and no one expected that to change.  But the 10th district had a heavy Irish population and other new immigrant groups.  Curley was a charismatic Irishman who had grown up poor but had worked in the wards under the bosses of the day.  He was an excellent speaker, never at a loss for words.  Curley was anything but a household name but at those debates he skillfully used his opponents own words against him.  He could turn a phrase and get his audience to identify with him.

The Brahmins of Boston, the well-entrenced Republican establishment, were outraged.  In  a later election when Curley ran for mayor of Boston, he said that on his first day of office he would turn the Boston Common into a parking lot.  Of course this was only a slap at the landed gentry who still failed to recognize the trials of the working class.

But it was not until 1960 and the Kennedy – Nixon debate, sometimes referred to as “the checkers debate,” that politics embraced television, and it has been downhill ever since.  Political parties write the speeches, figure out how to portray political positions, and dictate how any given answer needs to be given.  These are not debates at all but well-scripted advertisement.

I have a pretty good sense of who Barack Obama is and who Mitt Romney is, having lived in Massachusetts during his governorship.  I also have a pretty good idea of who Scott Brown is but, sadly, I do not have much of an idea who Elizabeth Warren is.  Something that is very important to me, family, seems to have been avoided by Warren making me very suspicious of her, and pushing me, a Democrat, into the position of likely voting for her Republican opponent.

It was during their last so-called debate that I came to this decision.  I found both of them to be rather disingenuous.  Each seemed to be responding to questions with very well-scripted answers that seldom properly responded to the question on the floor.  Frequently each simply side-stepped the question and said whatever they felt was important rather than simply answer the question at hand.  But this is our present state of politics at the national level.

It is my firm belief that when these politicians speak we are not hearing what they really think but rather what their handlers, those nameless people behind the scenes, want us to hear and nothing more.  The question on every American’s mind when they hear a politician in one of these so-called debates say something that appears to exactly reflect their views, ask yourself if they are simply playing up to you and in reality have another agenda entirely.  I suspect, regardless of party affiliation, the latter is closer to the truth than the former.  We need to go back to the days when two guys would stand on a stage, say their peace without anyone prompting them as to what is proper and what is not.