Sanctuary Cities

The idea of cities serving as sanctuaries actually goes back quite a ways.

Town Air makes you free is an old saying related to feudalism.

In feudal times, only people in the cities tended to be free and not serfs, able to live and die without obligation to a lord.

Of course further, the cities tended to be built around Cathedrals or churches which further provided sanctuary to fugitives.

Now in our current system, cities maintain a certain unique place.  They are in the State and the Country but in most cases have very different views politically than their surroundings.

Of course this varies city by city but we do generally see most cities being centers of progressive ideas since they are exposed to a wide range of ideas and situations.

This often puts them a bit our of step with the people who run the State Governments.

Now without going into details of how a lot of the political landscape has been manipulated to favor certain parties, the cities tend to remain much more accepting then the areas around them.

A certain number of cities have effectively said they will not enforce certain immigration laws arbitrarily.  Of course the laws become largely unenforceable without the assistance of local law enforcement so once again the cities are providing a relatively safe area for certain populations in danger of arrest and expulsion.

Power arises from the people and flows up, not the other way around.  Before our revolution there was a king who had a divine right to rule, but we didn't accept that here and threw him out.

Lets keep all those who think power is granted to the people.  The people have the power in the first place and can use it as they see fit.

If they are willing to let other people live in peace and be good neighbors, they can.

Its an American thing.

Where Our nose Begins

There is a quote about freedom that states the freedom to swing your arm stops where my nose begins.

I think most of us accept this as comon sense but of course lots of things impact others in a less clear way.

Consider agriculture.

With a few exceptions, modern agriculture is based on the use of ever more sophisticated seeds and weed killers to keep production high and cheap.

The image of the family farmer tending his modest acreage is iconic but generally not very realistic.

We have vast acres dedicated to single crops in wide swaths leading to a number of challenges, not at all related to most peoples image of farmers.

They need to plant modified seeds that are patented or copywrited by a company like Monsanto.  They then need to protect those plants by using sophisticated pesticides which in many cases are designed to be used on plants genetically modified to resist them.

This of course leads to a dependency where most farmers are becoming more and more dependent on science to raise crops.

Now I'm not one who opposes genetically modified crops in general, but I'm not sure this dependency is going to end well.

There is an issue this year in the soybean harvest based on a new pesticide resistant soybean and the pesticide it is resistant to.  The pesticide seems to have migrated to other fields.

Of course this devastates the other crops and trees.

Now the EPA is supposed to regulate these issues but it has always been pretty reliant on the industries it regulates for data.  As we see a new push to reduce regulations and get products to market we are likely to see more and more mistakes happen.

Of course the FDA is going the same way, and in that case the nose is one us, not the soybeans.

Water, Water Everywhere

Pretty much an apt description right now for Houston and likely for the future of a lot of low lying areas if we don't decide to do something about rising sea levels.

Let me ask a simple question.  Even if you don't believe that spewing trillions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere impacts the climate, can it be a good thing?

The only argument for it is that if we make companies clean up their emissions or require cars to reduce emission it will make us non-competitive with the rest of the world.

The fallacy there is that the rest of the world has agreed to do something about it and we have backed out of the deal.

Now, if you actually believe stuff the president says, I guess you are convinced that all the facts and data that are so widely available are fake and provided by someone with a desire to harm this country.

Of course that does require you to believe that all the American scientists are in fact traitors who serve some evil purpose, probably why they stayed in school in the first place.

There is a popular fantasy TV show that has as some of its main characters manipulative sinister characters who will do anything for power.

Now the only difference between that and real life is that we get to see the lying and manipulation so we know who they are.

In real life, they usually don't show us the behind the scenes look to help us.  Of course some of it is coming out in the current Russian investigations but where that leads is yet to be determined.

Its not really complex though, just follow the money.

If a business wants to make more money they donate to the right people, help them get elected and the regulations get lifted.

Simple enough?

Yes they have to breathe the same air as the rest of us and live on the same planet but being wealthy affords plenty of opportunity to keep your feet dry as the water rises.

Unless of course you are on the French Riviera at the time.

Dirty Little Secret

Disasters have been with us since we have existed, Of course in primitive time we generally were fully at the mercy of the elements, having no real ability to predict these events.

We now do get advance warnings on some disasters, but of course others aren't as considerate.

I've been in areas that have been hit by natural disasters and have had loss of power, shortages of gasoline and groceries, but I've never really been a victim, probably just due to luck.

My belongings have never been washed away, my houses have never suffered significant damage and no one close to me has been badly hurt or killed.

As much as I'd like to take credit for any of this, and maybe we did take some common sense precautions, it is clearly a matter of luck that I've been relatively unscathed.

Now we are watching the scenes from Houston and the human tragedy involved and have to wonder if there isn't some lesson to be learned from recent events.

A number of years ago I was in Galveston and took a tour of the hurricane preventive measures they took after a devastating hurricane in 1900. I was there around 1994 and they had not has a similar hurricane in the years between.

We've always had fairly big hurricanes every couple of years but it is pretty clear that we now seem to have bigger and bigger ones that do much more damage than previously, and those were pretty bad.

What you have stopped hearing is weathermen/women describing the latest hurricane as the storm of the century, because they know worse ones will be coming.

Its sort of a dirty little secret that everyone knows but some want to deny that climate change is raising water levels and water temperatures guaranteeing stronger storms and more damage.

Now any one weather event is not a trend but we have plenty of trend data and statistics demonstrating the facts.

It is dirty, but it isn't really a secret.

Simple Truths

Some of the things that our president s useful for is to see how much a lot of things are misunderstood.  Of course he continues to spread that misinformation which he generally picked up from fake news sites so it isn't all good.

Take clean coal.  He announced the other day that a new mine was opening up in Pennsylvania, that would produce clean coal a process he described as taking out the coal and cleaning it.

Well there you go, how simple it is and not sure why anyone opposes washing some coal.

Of course that's not what is meant by clean coal, what is meant is reducing the pollution created when you burn it and that is generally too expensive to happen and be competitive.  I'm not sure anyone would oppose burning coal if it wasn't one of the biggest polluters on the planet, but the cost to clean it is too high. The following link takes you to a discussion of the issue.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/01/investing/coal-mine-trump-paris-speech/index.html

Now take our trade deals.  The president condemns them pretty universally but the numbers show that a lot of people in America did quite well.  What did happen to some extent is as the biggest and wealthiest country in the world, we buy more than anyone else.

Now we are always going to attract imports, trade deal or not so what is more the issue is did the trade deal guarantee our ability to export products competitively.

Economic statistics are really boring and we are talking about a wide range of items but our agricultural and service areas generally benefited the most.

To some extent our manufacturing suffered some but the extent is not as clear since the cost of production in these countries with or without free trade is still generally lower.  So eliminating tariffs might reduce prices of imported components resulting in cheaper prices or larger profits but having those tariffs doesn't guarantee a boon in US manufacturing jobs unless the output is competitive.

The link below discusses NAFTA.

http://www.naftanow.org/myths/default_en.asp

Finally he dismisses climate change as some kind of hoax, started by the Chinese to keep us from staying ahead, I guess.  Of course all the statistics and data are part of the fake news although in this case even the fox news people have to acknowledge the changes, just arguing they are natural and not man induced.

Now it is a big planet and for those hunting and gathering in small tribes doubt they have much impact on the climate.  However we have a lot of people on this planet now and all of us use carbon to some extent releasing it back into the atmosphere.

Not really something you can argue about and since the stuff we are burning was captured carbon, unless we recapture it somehow it is going to have an impact.

Just simple truth.

Simple Thoughts

I'd like those fine people who like to march with Nazi emblems to explain that.

One of the things that seems fair is to say there are two sides to something.  Well when one side is based on hate and bigotry, it is there but its not equal.

I will say that when I think back on my experience with conservatives over my lifetime we have gone from people like the Buckley brothers who knew how to read and talk intelligently to people like Steve Banon who, well he made some money.

The President is at war with the leaders of the Republican party and of course all Democrats.  For those in favor of less Government you might get it.

Of course Democrats are fighting among themselves a bit with more discussion about strategies for the next election than actual policies.

The way to win is to spell out a better path forward.

The way to win is to represent the best of America, not the worst.

The way to win is to ensure freedom for all Americans to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

These are our founding principles and they are still valid.

If you ignore the current President, as ridiculous as he is, it will drive him crazy.

Promote a better future with clear and logical policies.

Those who are mired in hate or bigotry aren't going to come along and we don't want them.

Getting into the gutter with the current president brings you down to his level.

Stand up, be proud, be clear.

Trust the light to banish the dark.

Its how you act that matters in the end.

A Better America

The idea that America has been in some sort of decline is simply not true.  America has been changing and to some extent our post World War 2 privileged status is long since gone, but at no point has America been stronger or in fact more prosperous on the whole.

One thing has happened is that the growth in wealth has been uneven.

This has fueled a certain amount of anger among those who used to have a better share of the wealth, in general non college educated men.

They held a lot of good paying jobs in manufacturing particularly which actually required little more than showing up and doing fairly simple tasks.

Robots are cheaper, don't need benefits and don't show up or stay home because they got drunk.

Now the robots improve the bottom line and that wealth goes to the owners and executives.

So for that group of Americans things look worse, but the only solution is for them to get new skills that are needed, and since it wouldn't be in the same numbers as when unskilled workers were on an assembly line, most of them aren't going to do it.

Even worse, they've been led to believe that the people responsible for their problems aren't the factory owners and executives (although in fairness it is just business) but trade deals, immigrants, the Government, liberals and environmentalists.

So they don't like those people, although clearly none of them were actually responsible to any great extent, it was technology.

Now we aren't going to reverse technology, if we did our companies would be non-competitive but we can improve life for Americans in ways that keep making America better.

These are the progressive goals, a cleaner environment, health care for all, education for all, combat climate change, treat ALL people fairly, and allow individual freedom as long as it doesn't infringe on someone else's freedom.

What job you qualify for or can hold is up to you but whatever it is, you should have air to breathe.

Lets make America better and better.

Monuments

Having a monument is something people do.

It can provide a focal point in a public place, it gives the birds a place to hang out and they may be somewhat instructive about the past.

Now they don't come to life and do anything when we're not looking and what monuments people have in their town are pretty much their own business.

Now, of course it might also serve as a tourist attraction or a thing which draws negative attention, but unless its a Federal monument whoever has jurisdiction can decide to put one up or take one down.

Now growing up I was a pretty big Civil War buff and to a large extent the Southern Generals had a lot more flair than the Northern ones.

Grant was sort of a bulldog who was willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers, although he was victorious.

Sherman's march to the sea was pretty brutal.

Sheridan had some flair as I remember but the Southern guys came across as heroes who fought against big odds and almost won.

Robert E. Lee was a noble General who while sacrificing Pickett's division at Gettysburg won a lot of victories against superior forces.

Stonewall was bold and decisive until he was killed accidentally by his own men.

However, they were traitors to the United States and any lesson about them should be about how you shouldn't lead a rebellion against the country you were born in, at least in most cases.

We treated them pretty graciously after the war if they survived and they got somewhat repatriated, but having a monument to one of them seems a bit like celebrating Benedict Arnold.  I think there is a monument to the pre-traitor Arnold in New York but not sure it says it is him.

If the people who live there wanted to take it down, its where they live after all.

They get to do it.

Undocumented Immigrants

I to acknowledge that biased media has managed to create issues out of basically nothing and now have them considered major issues.

The one that is probably the most unimportant is illegal immigration.

Now there are and have always been a fair number of people coming into this country especially in recent years from Mexico,  They came to do various types of work and some were here seasonally and some stayed.

Many of those who stayed had families, raised children and effectively became a normal American, although technically not in the country legally.

Now they were generally no better or no worse than the other people around them so some had problems with the law and their children had their own issues.

Of course a lot of this was dependent on where they lived and how much money they made, like everyone else in America, and being Latino probably offered other possible issues but overall it was simply people living in America doing what they could and sometime being bad.

Of course there were always some people who objected to this, but then the media and Fox news in particular changed the discourse.

I don't watch Fox news because outside of the entertainment value what they put out is highly biased and generally inaccurate.  I feel similarly about MSNBC but it doesn't seem nearly as bad.  However Fox took what used to be a staple of some late night radio shows and turned it into a TV station, righteous outrage.

Of course the stuff they were outraged about was often not real, like a story about some school not displaying the American flag became a nationwide attack on the constitution.  However, the emphasis on entertainment got an audience and then the audience got fed lies.

It worked.  We have a lot of misinformation in this country about issues.

So the undocumented immigrants became a major issue on Fox because they wanted to make us all speak Spanish, they didn't have papers and they stole jobs from Americans and introduce drugs and crime to our innocent native born people.

None of that has any validity but our President believes it as do millions of people who have effectively no real contact with an illegal immigrant, except maybe the ones that do some work for them.

Now, they are a fairly large group of people so they have their good, bad and ugly members but like most first generation immigrants they tend to act more industriously then their neighbors.

This demonization is really just the stuff of fiction, with minor anecdotes blown out of proportion by the real fake media.

The real issue is how easily it turns out many of us can be manipulated by what is essentially propaganda.

Pretty sad really.
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They Can't all be Crazy

So an elected representative from Idaho thinks its plausible that Obama and the Democrats staged a Nazi rally in Charlottesville to bring down Trump.

This fits into the world inhabited by many of these people who listen to conspiracy theories without questioning them.

His comment that it is plausible fails the test of sanity since any theory can be fabricated in a way that can't be disproven.

Its equally as easy to say its plausible that it was really invisible Aliens that we can't detect. and therefore can't prove it didn't happen that way.

Its pretty clear how the rally in Charlottesville got stated and organized but that has never stopped these crazy theories before.

People still believe the we never went to the Moon or that Sandy Hook is a hoax.

One of the reasons our President thinks real news is fake news is because it contradicts the fake news he listens to with his fellow crazies.

I think the issue that needs to be addressed even though it seems ridiculous is how to get people to actually stop being so easily convinced that they live in a topsy turvy world.

Up is actually up folks.

Now there were always some looneys watching this sort of stuff and you use to see sensational headlines on "newspapers" at the checkout counter.

I've read some of these and you know they are funny but I'm not sure they're meant to be.

I sometimes think that the illegal Aliens these folks are worried about most came here in invisible spaceships and control things.

Where are those Men in Black when you need them.

Eclipse as Punishment

I just read an article that talks about a Southern Minister who says God told him the eclipse was our punishment for electing President Obama.

http://bizstandardnews.com/2017/08/19/bakker-eclipse-is-gods-punishment-for-obama-years/

Odd concept that God would punish us by effectively dimming the sun for a couple of hours.

Guess its in the same sort of realm as saying no texting for two hours as a punishment.

The texting would probably be worse actually.

Now if you even accept the concept that God would be concerned about who we elect, it seems like he could have punished us a lot faster.

I mean in Sodom and Gomorrah they barely had time to get out of the city and one of them couldn't resist a quick salty look.

Now speaking of that, looking at the eclipse is dangerous so maybe that's the punishment.

Putting some eye black under your eyes to cut down the glare isn't adequate protection.

Now looking at the eclipse isn't actually more dangerous than looking at the sun, but the danger is that as the sun gets blocked, you can look at it.

Even with eclipse glasses you can't look at it very long without risk.

I guess well have to see where most of the newly blind people end up to see who god is really punishing.

Oddly, at least in the East the path of totality mostly passes through states that didn't go for Obama or Hillary in the last few elections.

So what is this punishment about again?

Exposure to Sunlight

Some things can only come out when its dark.

I'm not talking about Vampires, but the Vampire myth is likely related to the fact that the dark is a perilous place for humans in the wild.

We are creatures of the day and our evolution has strongly influenced us to prefer the lit to the unlit things in this world.

There is a whole catalogue of things that hide from the sun that we find revulsive.

Turn over a rock and see the various creatures scurry for cover is generally something that we find repulsive, yet we are much more accepting of butterflies and bugs that inhabit the world in the day time.

Now of course our language reflects our love of light and rejection of the dark side.

Generally the nighttime is the place where our worst instincts go on display, where conspirators and haters and racists get together and express their dark thoughts

So when we see the spewers of hate come out during the day it is disturbing.  You think something has made them do this.  Their rock was disturbed.

Of course there have been times in our history, too many, where the hateful people emerged and seized control.  Of course they had to put on a better face for a while, but their dark side always emerged in the end.

Fascists, Nazis, Stalinists etc. were able to disrupt their countries and the world and exact a terrible cost.

You would think that there would be a lesson learned there.  That we would know that haters simply hate and when they try to convince you they are with you, understand its only for now, they don't care about you and are willing to sacrifice you, your children, your wealth and property in pursuit of their hateful ways.

When they walk in public and wave their flags, you would think spotting them would be easy.

I guess not for everyone.

Some must have stared into the sun and can no longer detect the darkness.

Or they are one of them in their heart.

Free Cookies

One of the things people say is that Trumps agenda is in trouble.

The first problem with that is that his agenda is about the vaguest thing I've ever seen.

I guess it could be summarized as repeal Obamacare and replace it with something great, cut taxes but spend more on the military and infrastructure, get rid of regulations that hinder business but protect workers and the environment and negotiate better trade deals and stop undocumented immigrants by building a wall on our southern border.

I might be missing something, especially any details as to how any of this is supposed to work.

Now we know the first one is in serious trouble because you can't gut the current law and create something great magically.

Now he may be able to give his buddies a tax break and may even be able to spend money, but its not going to help the deficit, which I left out of the above even though he says he will wipe it out.  He has experience in wiping out his business deficits by declaring bankruptcy so he may be surprised that he can't do that.

The regulations he is gutting protect workers and the environment and address climate change which he doesn't believe in.  Of course saving business some money is supposed to help them prosper and hire more people but of course the hiring part is a supply and demand thing and I very much doubt we are going to see significant reduced prices because of these actions, just more injuries and asthma.

Oddly he thinks mercury in vaccines is bad but releasing it into the air is just fine.

So far he backed out of the pacific deal which opened up a lot of trading opportunities for China.  He is trying to update NAFTA so I'll see how that goes, but from what I've read he threw our a list of demands which no one thinks is close to possible and which might actually be counter productive.  However, lets see what happens.

While there has been a decrease in people apprehended while crossing the southern border, it might have a number of causes, the data is inconclusive.  Under the prior administration there were a fairly large number of people who effectively turned themselves in when they got across because they wanted to pursue refugee status.  I suspect this is way down.  Whether the ones who didn't want to be caught before has decreased significantly is something no one really knows.

Now this agenda is supposed to make America great again.  That was never clearly defined, like someone running for school president who promises free cookies in the cafeteria.  Of course the free cookies don't materialize because the student has to deal with the adults who run the school.

Lesson learned maybe?

Terror as a Tactic

If you defend a terrorist, you are a terrorist.

If you are part of a group, even if you have good intentions, but one or more members of your group engages in terrorism, you either condemn them or you are one of them.

You can't be an innocent bystander when the acts are deadly and hateful.

Now being willing to denounce people you don't like as terrorists but defending people you do like is morally reprehensible.

Now, if you are a terrorist, you actually occupy a less hypocritical position than those who do nothing.

Terrorism, aimed at innocent people is seldom effective.  I suppose the atomic bombing of cities did work and some might not consider that terrorism, but certainly many of the dead had committed no offense except being born Japanese.

In fact the terror in the two world wars sort of undermines the western moral outrage, any tactic that would lead to victory was acceptable, carpet bombing, poison gas, random missiles.

It didn't work, what did work was bombing industrial and military targets, to at least some extent.

I realize that those wars were fought to stop tyranny, at least from our perspective, but they were filled with terrorist acts by both sides.

None of them ended either war, except the atomic bomb one, which is a terrible lesson to say the least.

We will remain strong against both domestic and foreign terrorism, we always have and I expect we always will.

However we have a president who espouses sinking to the same moral plane as our enemies.

Lets not.

Our hearts go out to Barcelona and to Charlottesville.

Hate in America

Someone who doesn't think he's a racist made an extremely racist remark in a comment recently and doesn't even realize how racist it was.

His comment was along the lines of how its OK for black people to riot when one of them gets shot but everyone makes a big deal about white people protesting in Charlotte.

He also argued how black people only supported Obama because he was black and Obama spread a black agenda and divided the country.

Now one could point out how wrong all of this is on its face but sadly it wouldn't be listened to.  The equating of seeing unarmed black men getting gunned down because a young white police officer perceived a non-existent threat with a clearly racist demonstration trying to impose outsiders views on an American community is so hate and racist tinged that he isn't going to accept how racist he actually is, it just seems normal to him.

Which is the underlying problem.

I grew up in the same world more or less as this person and was to some extent exposed to the same "truths".

These truths included things about those people and how they were demanding so much so soon and these things take time.

However these were, well lies.

Those people were people, in all respects entitled to all the same rights and privileges that everyone else had.  Demanding those rights is basic human justice, not some favor bestowed upon them, we don't have the right to bestow it and we don't have the right to deny it.

However, these "truths" were instilled in so many white Americans that they are there, and similar to say certain unpracticed religious beliefs can come up in certain circumstances.

The racism is there, just underneath the surface.

Trump has scratched that surface and he is still scratching at it.

The hate is starting to show.

Can You Racist Now/

Freedom of speech is a sacred right in this country and it doesn't really matter what beliefs you want to express.

Most people have self censored themselves over the years, not spewing some of the hateful things they actually believe.  This has been attributed to political correctness but more aptly to a sense of social correctness.

If you were at a function and publicly expressed your racist attitudes it was likely that many of the people there would publicly condemn you, even some who might actually share your beliefs.

Now with a president who is encouraging racism and hate we are seeing more public displays of this racism, which some have tried to argue has disappeared in America and turned into reverse racism.

Of course the idea of reverse racism is simply not demonstrable by any statistical method but people have decided that finding a few anecdotal example is enough to prove it exists.

With a racist president and racist Attorney General we are likely to attack affirmative action efforts in institutions.

After all we don't want any rich privileged children to be discriminated against.

The good news is that the actual racists are becoming easier to spot.  I don't want to call someone a racist if they aren't, so this self declaring stuff is helpful.

The question of course is how many secret racists are there?

It might be more than you would think, at least to some degree.

When you find yourself thinking that a group of people are at all inferior because of the circumstances of their birth, you qualify.

Stand up and identify yourself!

True Colors

We are starting to see the real nature of Trump supporters emerge into the sunlight.

Its pretty ugly, but we always knew they were there.

At least like roaches they used to scurry away when exposed to light, but now they stay and thumb their noses at us.

Of course they feel the president is with them and to some extent he is.

He sent them alt-right code all through his campaign and those of you who refused to hear it have to own it now.

Now I want to be clear that in comparison to the fascists who rose to power in the 1930s our man is a weak link.  He may however be paving a path for someone with much more ambition and guile.

He also doesn't have control of his own party the way the other fascists did.

I don't see a path for him to redeem himself, but one might exist.

There seem to be enough people out there who feel that something drastic is needed to fix what they feel are the problems with America.

Of course the thing that needs to be fixed is them.

If you developed skills and paid attention the odds are you are doing OK.

I get a kick out of these rugged individualists who want the Government to fix their own failure to evolve.

They don't even believe in evolution.

This Land Is Our Land

When this song was written it was really addressed to the people of the United States who were in the throes of a depression that might have made them feel like they had no stake in the present or the future.

The country is of the people by the people and for the people.

All the people.

Some might have taken the attitude that their neighbors aren't real Americans.

They are, we all are.

We may have character defects, we may have different views than you, we may look different than you.

We are all Americans.

It doesn't mater where we came from or what religion we practice, or if we don't practice religion at all.

We are all Americans

It doesn't matter where we live, or how much we make or how we dress or wear our hair.

We are all Americans.

There are plenty of issues that may divide us and we may hold views that seem repugnant to you or practice sexual preferences that you don't understand.

We are all Americans.

No one person or group is more American than any other, and it doesn't matter if we say a pledge or salute a flag.

We are all Americans.

Even those of you who listen to hate mongers and fill your hearts with hate for your fellow Americans are part of us.

We are all Americans.

You might say you love the country, you may hate its policies, you may trust the Government you may think they are ruining the country and the world.

We are all Americans.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From the California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

Read more: Woody Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Hate in America

If you are not as successful as you thought you would be, if you feel that you have been held down by the progressive forces in America and that if not for them you would be living the life of Reilly, you are wrong.

You are where you are because you lacked either the ability, ambition or persistence to do better.

except for a few very wealthy people, nothing has ever been handed to anyone in America.

Things have been stolen, exploited or appropriated but even those folks had to work for what they got.

In any group of Americans you want to categorize, a certain percentage succeed and a certain percentage don't.

White people generally have had the easiest road to success.

Not because they have more talent or work ethic, because they had lower hurdles to pass, but they still had to pass them.

Now, I don't know if the statistics actually exist but I suspect that the success for white people has been driven by the immigrants who came here and instilled a desire to succeed in their children.

Their are a lot of people, Bill Clinton used to call them bubba, but you may call them good old boys, who were pretty content with doing so-so in school, drinking beer, shooting guns, having sex and watching football with some good bar b cue.

To live that lifestyle they had to do some work and they expected to get paid pretty well for what they did.  Now they could generally put in a decent days work, when they weren't goofing off, but they did what they were told mostly and had to be watched if you wanted performance.

This way of life is a bit challenged as some of the jobs they used to expect to get went away and what's left  requires a skill set they generally never bothered to acquire.

Now the other groups have their own issues and I don't want to get into stereotypes here but there has been virtually no discrimination against white people in this country, ever.

Now in a few instances, some minority candidates may have been selected instead of an equally qualified white person but that's not discrimination, unless they weren't actually qualified.

Now resenting people who worked hard, got into school, got a decent job and are leading a better life than you are is hate.  Hate isn't going to get you anything, except maybe a prison sentence.  Work harder, get some skills and lead your best life.

Think about it while you drink your next beer.  Your life does matter as does everyone's, but that was never in question, except maybe to you since you wasted it.

Foreign Affairs?

Well no nuclear explosions overnight, count your blessings.

This is a situation most guy and some gals have had to face growing up, someone has called you out and you can fight, and possibly get hurt badly, or chicken out and be branded.

I always fought and I survived.  I used to get a lot of practice fighting my brother so it seemed pretty normal to me.

I understand the problem other boys had and I also knew that the best way to win a fight was to hurt your opponent painfully.

Now why talk about schoolyard or playground fighting, because that's what our international situation has become.

The difference is that based on the size of our military, we are almost definitely the bully.  Now that doesn't mean the other kid didn't call us name or otherwise instigate us.

However, when you are so much bigger than the other guy, beating him up isn't going to garner much respect.  Of course you might give him a quick punch in the arm to shut him up and hope he gets the lesson.

If you know he will react to that by flailing about wildly forcing you to take him down you may need to consider that.

Its a tricky situation that generally requires some tact.

Something currently in short supply.

Now we are threatening Venezuela. Just because the news covers something, it doesn't mean its our problem.  There are many, many countries in the world run badly and you can't send troops into all of them.

I seem to remember someone making that very point not too long ago.

The Looneys

First, its pretty obvious that the North Korean dictator is only interested in his personal survival and safety and as long as that is not in real jeopardy he isn't going to back down.

He's also been generally shown to make more threats than he can deliver and has in fact delivered none outside his own country except of course for the tests which haven't been aimed at anyone per se.

Now letting someone like this have nuclear weapons is a pretty scary thought but unfortunately he already seems to have some.

Now clearly we could blow North Korea back to the stone age, they are pretty close already, but of course that would result in some sort of desperation attack against someone, South Korea, Japan or Guam (Guam would actually do the least actual damage) and the environmental consequences would be something we would all have to live with.  Of course if restricted to conventional forces, somehow, it would be costly in lives and equipment but at least not nuclear.

Now our guy isn't much better.  He also has resorted to threats and the whole thing sort of looks like two schoolboys arguing over whose father could beat the other ones up.

We have a lot more nuclear options but nuking North Korea would be damaging to everything the United States used to stand for.

I'm not sure we stand as a beacon of democracy and freedom anymore, and that's sad.  It was easy to be proud to be an American even if you didn't agree with everything we did.  Now we seem to be suppressing voters, expelling innocent people, trying to strip people of health care and colluding with foreign powers for personal gain.

And that just a small part of the new America.

Inefficient Fixes

I continue to maintain that most Americans actually agree on most things.  There are vocal minorities that end up having an undue influence on our system because of the party and primary systems we have.

The solution would be to increase participation in both the primaries and the general election so that the actual will of the people was reflected.

If you feel that these anemic turnouts do somehow reflect the actual will of the people, having more people vote is just going to confirm that.

Of course, the general trend has been to suppress certain voters because they might not support certain policies.  As long as they are citizens, they should be heard.

I think we need to have a much simpler system where people can actually vote conveniently.  On-line voting is a good contender as well as mailed in ballots.  Citizen verification can be via individual codes provided to registered citizens.

The people who think there is voter fraud should be happy with a system where each verified citizen gets one vote.  It would reduce any of that mostly non-existent fraud.

Democracy means rule by the people (the demos) and if you believe in it you need to well, believe in it.

What we have now is not really a democracy.  Not sure what it is, but if people aren't voting or having their voice heard, its not a democracy.

There are other changes that would help the process, say a simpler way to set up districts after a census.  However getting more people to vote would at least reveal the true will of the people.

Whatever it might be.

Our Inefficient System

When I start to write these blogs I usually start with one idea but while writing end up with something else.  It is part of the theme that I use these to figure out what's going on in the world around me.

The logic of our current situation is difficult to say the least.  The politicians seem to have become totally focused on preserving their jobs with no consideration as to why they are there in the first place.

Even worse, after an election the first year is the only time that major legislation really has a chance, especially if it is controversial as by the second year they are already in campaign mode, if they ever left it.

It seems like they have very little time to do anything important and very few incentives to take a risk.

Assuming that the people in the congress are at least of average intelligence and education I find it hard to believe that we don't have a great majority who are concerned about the same things the public is.

Take issues like health care, the environment, our security and crime issues, I imagine that in private thy all mostly agree about the issues and maybe even the solutions.

However, the parties end up being responsive to relatively small groups that have undo influence in funding and primary voting leading to absurd positions concerning scientific reality, as well as the world in general.

To a large extent the two party system is at fault since the nominees are the only ones normally with a chance at getting elected and to be a nominee you have to jump through the right hoops.

We need to demand a change, but what should that be?  I'll address this further in future blogs.

Do Nothing President?

Its impossible to predict what would have happened if the election results were different.  As unhinged as the new president seems, he hasn't done anything that fundamentally different than the previous administration.

Of course some of his followers would dispute that but in the economic world we haven't changed taxes, we did eliminate a few regulations and he's tried to talk companies into keeping jobs here.

Now what he may have done is create a certain sense that business is going to get better treatment, and to some extent that could lead to a better economy as they expand and create some new jobs.

Job growth has however been basically the same before and after the election, so unless the expectation was for it to plummet it is hard to see an impact.

Also the stock market has been going up, but it was already going up.

So the impact really hard to determine.

It almost seems like except for entertainment value, he has no real impact anywhere.

He tried to cow some senators to vote for a do nothing health bill that would have allowed the House to get into negotiations, but it almost impossible to imagine how anything would come out that conference that could pass in the Senate.

Now concerning tax reform, something that was another big agenda item, it has been postponed and is likely going to be pushed into 2018.  Of course what the tax reform will do is difficult to say and I'm not sure anyone knows.

If you want to spend more money on National Defense, Infrastructure and not touch programs like Social Security or Medicare, you dun into a debt problem that the conservative right won't accept.  meanwhile gutting all the discretionary programs is unpopular with almost everybody since everybody has constituents that use some of those programs.

However you might feel about the national debt, it is there and it costs us a lot of money in interest, which could skyrocket if interest rates go up much.

Somehow the deficit has to be reduced or eliminated to get it under control.

Reducing business taxes and taxes on the wealthy while spending more isn't going to work.  This is supply side economics that thinks that if you tax less, more will be produced since its profitable which actually ends up as increased taxes.  Its never worked to any great extent in the past, but of course supply siders argue it wasn't fully implemented.

Of course if you try it and it doesn't work, we have a lot more debt and need a lot more taxes.

We rolling those dice?

Miners or Owners

One of the things that was prominent in the recent campaign was certain promised to bring back coal mining jobs.

Now one thing that has developed in coal mining is the typical eastern deep mines versus the more western strip mining.  The difference is fairly significant since the first requires a large number of miners to work underground harvesting the coal while the strip mining use much more machinery to strip the coal and load it into other machines.

The first one obviously creates more jobs, the second one is cheaper, less jobs but better for owners.

Now the coal in the West is often on Government owned land and there has been an ongoing issue with mining it concerning Government royalties and environmental impact as well a impact on Native Americans, some who want royalties and some who want the lands preserved.

Strip mining is not an environmentally friendly practice, it basically denudes large areas and may introduce chemical into the ground water.

Finally there is only so much demand for coal and it is shrinking.  So you aren't going to produce an unlimited amount of it, only as much as you can sell.  If you get it out of the West, you shut down a mine in the East.  Of course cheaper coal is good for the export market since after all, coal isn't dependent very much on where it comes from although there are varying grades and types.

The prior administration was doing environmental studies and also trying to enforce a law from the 1920s concerning Government royalties.  The NY Times has an excellent article on this which I recommend.

Opening up the Government lands is good for mine owners but not as good for coal miners.

You need less of them and they are not the ones in the traditional coal mining states like West Virginia, they are machine operators in the West.

Now of course the policies of the new administration are supposedly pro coal, but really they are pro mine owner more than anything.  Certain people will make more money but it won't result in more jobs based on the shift, most likely less jobs as mines in the East get more non-competitive in a shrinking market.

Further because many of the countries still using coal are in the Paris Agreement and planning to reduce its use, the time to profit is now, rape the land, sell the coal and I guess smoke a cigar.

Its all business.

Nothing Personal

There are people who make things happen and people who have things happen to them.

The second group is the larger of the two and I think it has to be that way.

Now this has worked fairly well as leaders would arise to lead tribes and clans deciding on the best course of action.

Now of course it requires that the leaders share the same issues as the followers, and of course when we were in tribes, clans and into the modern age, it was generally true.

Now there were exceptions as kings and nobles occupied a different world than their subjects did but even so they had the same general global interests since they were still mutually dependent.

Even the early industrial revolution saw the industrialists and the workers generally concerned with many of the same issues, as the interdependence was strong.

Of course as communications and stock companies became the norm, the people who owned the company were no longer necessarily connected to the locality, or the people.

In fact the workers became just another asset to be used or discarded when no longer useful.

So while the local workers built a life and a tradition around the local business, the owners became more and more removed and dispassionate.

This of course led to businesses moving to either other parts of the country or the world.

The good life that was created was a costly one and it required good wages.  This made the area uncompetitive with cheaper parts of the country or the world leaving the workers unemployed and unable to find jobs that paid as well.

The adjustment that has to happen, and it might never happen in certain areas, is that they need to adjust and train for the future jobs.

You can see certain areas that have become revitalized, Pittsburgh is a decent example while others are not recovering.

Economic reality can be cruel and it always has some victims.

It might not be personal, but to the victims it sure seems personal.

Successful Policies

The Trump administration seems to have stumbled upon a number of areas where they are showing some signs of success and are publicizing it as much as possible to offset the other negatives.

Now one of these involves illegal immigration and whether what is happening is successful or not is a matter of perspective.  By expanding deportations to productive family members and creating a sense of potential trouble we are managing to send more undocumented people back to their countries of origin and have either reduced or forced new tactics on illegals entering.

This was done without a great beautiful wall, which is unlikely to ever be built in the way discussed and since the number of illegals entering the country is calculated off of how many we catch trying, that reduction could be real or a change in entering tactics.  I admit I don't know and this sells well to his supporters so its his main success so far.

The other things he touts are the continuing growth in jobs and the success against ISIS, both of which are real (although he attacked the Government numbers he now brags about during the campaign).

This is the 82nd month in a row of job growth and the jobs being created are the same ones as in the other 81 months basically.  This successful policy comes out to the prior administration and by not changing very much we continue to have success.  Its not coal mining or assembly line manufacturing, its health and service jobs and his base is in the same exact situation as before, but creating jobs is good for the country and the only question is if he can screw it up.

The next area relates to our success against ISIS and once again the tide turned there during the previous administration.  He is saying that since he became President the amount of territory under ISIS control has shrunk more than under his predecessor and this is true since once a population center falls they abandon large chunks of desert as they retreat to the next population center.

However ISIS continues to collapse and that's a good thing, it just was already collapsing and what is new is how much Russian influence will remain in Syria and the region after its over.

Quite a bit it seems.

So the secret of success is to do as little as possible and tweet about your wonderful successes while golfing in various parts of the country.

I can live with that.

Creating Jobs

Jobs report for July is very much like the jobs reports we have been getting for the last few years, which is of course good since the Obama recovery continues.

Now that is a good thing and the fact that it continues is fine.

What was criticized as tepid is now praised as great but the rhetoric is sort of meaningless.

Now it wasn't manufacturing jobs, with service type jobs, hospitality, business services and health care being the main movers.

Hourly wages are fairly flat because the jobs being created are on the lower end of the scale and not creating much pressure to increase wages.

Its not worth arguing about what is fueling the economy, the issue is what can derail it.

The way this recovery has gone is that growth, while below historical norms, was generally sustainable.  The economy has and is shifting from a manufacturing base to a service base with high tech and automation leading the way.

People talk about trickle down as if business leaders will create high paying jobs because they have more money.  They create jobs to make more money, not to spend it.  The real trickle down is when the people who have money spend it.

Clearly buying things creates jobs, in creating the thing being bought.  Those jobs can drive the economy but you have to think about what they are spending their money on.

For day to day items and even many luxury item there are caps.  If I make $10,000 almost 100% of it goes on real items, like food, clothing, housing etc.  As I make more money the percentage decreases, even if the item I buy get more expensive.  So what about the money I don't spend on real things?

Well it gets invested or saved.

This is a form of consumption but the jobs it creates are financial services and banking.

However, one broker can invest millions of your dollars creating just one high paid job.  Of course there are some jobs associated with executing the trades but the number of jobs created that way are negligible.

Buying groceries impacts a whole lot more people, farmers, packagers, truckers, retailers.

So giving more money to wealthy people is only going to create a small number of jobs.

Now the money invested could theoretically fuel start up companies or help large companies expand, but of course the markets are already awash in capital so what that money does is create demand for existing market instrument, driving up their prices.

Of course at some point the money will move out of stocks and into something else driving down prices.

All of this is fine, and some people make a lot of money because of it, but the ex blue collar workers in the old manufacturing states aren't getting much out of it.

Just math really. But as they get older and sicker, it creates health care jobs, so there you go.

Why Always All or Nothing?

The concept of a representative democracy is that the people's views get represented by the people they elect who then work with all the other representatives to formulate laws.

Now in the first half of the 19th century we saw this system fall apart over the issue of slavery and it led t the civil war.

Now that might be too simplistic really, but it is fundamentally true, as the Southern States worried about having policy dictated to them by the Northern States with larger populations.

Now I wasn't alive in those days and of course information flowed much differently but it seems like we are fundamentally in a similar situation.

Now of course our Government set up checks and balances to try to make sure that everyone's interests were protected to some extent and we see them working but the very fact that they are working is adding to the divisiveness.

The recent rather dramatic health care vote shows the majority party trying to make a major change using a process that bypassed the normal 60 vote requirement but still coming up short.

Now the only way to fix our healthcare system, which does have certain problems, would be for the Government to work together, but that might be impossible in today's environment.

Both parties, although it seems more prominent in the Republican party have become controlled by zealots who refuse to compromise.

Of course, since they still don't represent a majority, they can't force their position of everyone else, as much as they might want to.

In the world I inhabit, admittedly part time now, we are always talking about win-win solutions.

The idea is to find a solution or a settlement that gives both sides what is really important to them while realizing that the 100% solution is not possible.  When that fails the only recourse is a long and expensive legal battle.

Of course maybe we have too many lawyers in the Government who are used to arguing win-lose situations.

This win-lose mentality is why so little gets done and what does get done is immediately attacked by the other side.

Something needs to change.

Just Jokes!

The latest trend in the ongoing comedy show we see in Washington is that now they admit that a lot of what they say are just jokes.

This is after a statement gets unwelcome attention of course.

Feel free to rough up people under arrest.  No that's a joke.

The Mooch's obscene comments, just a joke.

The White House is a real dump.

Everything on FOX.

Of course they haven't admitted to some of their biggest jokes yet.

Revive coal.

Bring back manufacturing jobs.

Build a big wall.

Negotiate better trade deals.

Improve health insurance.

Make America Great again.

Of course its just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, anyone roughed up because of the joke probably gets it.

Conspiracies!

I read and get emails about how the "Government" or someone is telling us lies to control our lives.

Now, I honestly cant prove that this isn't true, I just don't know why they would.

Take one popular theory, they know about extra-terrestrials but are afraid to panic the public.

Really?  First if they are preventing dangerous aliens from destroying the planet, kudos, but what would be the point after all these years of keeping it a secret?  Also, with the way things leak how could they?

I gather some people believe that we are allowing mass numbers of immigrants (different aliens) into the country and getting them to vote.  Once again, why?

Some Americans believe that other Americans are trying to destroy the America they love.  Really?

The odd thing is that to my knowledge this sort of started as a big communist plot to undermine America.  Of course what is ironic is that many of the people who believe in these conspiracies don't believe the real news that Russia tried to hack our election.

Its really no longer about communism, it now only about conspiracy.  They are taking away our guns, we will have to practice Sharia Law, they don't want to fly the flag, they don't want to say under God anymore Global Warming is a hoax and so on.

Many of the people who buy into this do so because its repeated on both TV and Radio and of course its all over the Internet.

Its pretty ironic that they have so much faith in big establishments that they think someone is doing this.  My experience is that the odds of anybody being able to do any of these things in secret is very unlikely, even if they had a motive to do so.

Take guns.  Some people are publicly in favor of gun control.  Not really a conspiracy, just a political position.  However, since those efforts aren't enough to rile up people much, there is a whole "hidden" agenda that is publicly talked about on certain media and the Internet.  Not much of a secret or even an agenda.

Now take globalization.  Apparently the globalists don't like Americans very much and are dedicated to ruining the lives of hard working people.  They do this by doing their jobs cheaper overseas and the Government has agreed to let this happen because they want us out of work and on drugs when they take our guns.

Guess the people knocking down the door will be aliens, maybe from another planet.

Then they can enslave you and make you work at menial jobs for low pay.

Without all those guns, not much we can do about it.  At least the jobs will come back.