Tag Archives: debt ceiling

Foreign Policy, Governance, Representation, Trump

REAL GOVERNANCE

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Despite his New York crudeness and bragadocio, Donald Trump has begun a service to the foundational ideas and premises of America, and thereby to every American.  He, himself, and every one of his most loyal compatriots, is oblivious to the magnitude of that service.  What has he done?

His presidency has operated, as most have done, at a public level, variously reported in praise and condemnation, broadcast and published – the level at which modern politics are negotiated and fulfilled.  Beneath that, he operates within the secret, classified levels that are presented to each president as though to initiate him to the centers of real governance, hidden from public view for reasons of “national security,” wink.  This secrecy conveys a patine of power and influence to which he has been inaugurated, shared by very few.  It is heady stuff, becoming a member of the world’s most august and arcane fellowship.  The continuity of the secrets, of the secretive machinations, of the vital, world-controlling decisions that only he can make, of the “nuclear launch codes,” and of the distilled intelligence few others will see, is really out of his hands.  It is shared with every president as part of the fable of democratic, civilian control not only of the vast domestic bureaucracies, but of even the military-industrial complex.  But, it is a fable.

Here and there brief windows open between the public and private presidencies and much heat is generated, politically, some of the citizenry become agitated, editorials are written, commenters supply commentary, and even Congress expresses its dudgeon, both high and low.  The portion of the public made restive by the once “secret” revelations is assuaged by palatable political lies and life goes on.  Very few lives are affected.  Elections, however, can be effected because of them.  Still, not much changes over time.

Beneath the “secret” level of (mostly military and international) governance, there is the amorphous, faceless, simultaneously unorganized yet unified, unelected and permanent, administrative state.  This vast majority of our “governors” have virtually no connection to any president or even presidency.  Each new “head” of the administration is largely uninvolved with this level.  It was in place – two millions strong – long before his election to the “most powerful office on Earth’ and it will remain in place long after he has “left his mark” upon America.

And now, Trump.  Trump got elected by defeating the penultimate deep statist, Hillary.  Hillary is a political deep statist; the permanent deep statists are, however biased, mainly interested in their individual interest areas, perhaps thanks to some college degree, and in their economic security, excellent benefits and virtual tenure.  Political  deep statists are more likely to adhere to either the socialist world view – and power – and to the eternal struggle to impose it upon the United States, or to simple, tawdry, utterly corrupt and corruptible personal financial aggrandizement.  This is where Hillary Clinton has spent nearly five decades and America has finally had enough of her.  Trump is clearly on a path quite divergent from the Clintons’.

Trump doesn’t much care about political correctness.  He doesn’t care much about whom he offends, even when he intends to offend them.  Most are offended because that is their “shtick:” finding offense everywhere and garnering immediate social media support that will bring the weak-willed to their sniveling, apologetic knees within the hour.  Otherwise decent, even productive and useful people, are made weak and malleable by the “woke” offense industry.  Soon, people like Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke are apologizing for being white.  This doesn’t work with Trump, one of the reasons his supporters stick with him.

Because he doesn’t suffer fools, Trump has engendered impressive levels of hatred here and there within the deep state.  He has a pro-America agenda, which is to say, an agenda that hews slightly more closely to the presumptions of liberty that were part and parcel of her founding.  He wants domestic policy to reflect individual responsibility and even-handed law enforcement, for example.  This is not the policy of the deep state, crafted in tens of thousands of regulations whereby virtually everyone may be persecuted or prosecuted for broken “laws” created by those unelected regulators.  Regulators hate Trump, even though he hasn’t struck all that deeply into their regulatory empire.  It is hateful enough that he undid some of the “great regulator, Obama’s” glorious flood of executive orders.

The deep, deep state, State Department department hates him because he wants America’s treaties and foreign relations, trade and otherwise, to work FOR the United States and no longer against us.  Most presidents make diplomatic noises while the State Department’s deep statists (largely globalist socialists) do what they “know” is best for the world; Trump intends to reverse much of that and make it pro-American.  They will undermine his policies wherever possible, like in Ukraine.  He has no interest in helping George Soros.

The EPA minions surely detest him because he wants land use to include humans.  It may sound silly, but many EPA regulators literally prefer squirrels and other four-or-more legged denizens of Earth over almost any two-legged ones… except for them, of course, and the other climate-change thinkers who, they dream, will wind up taking care of the planet far better than most humans have been, and in deserved comfort – few, if any, America-first conservatives included.

Interior has little use for Trump.  The careerists at Interior cannot imagine any wide-open spaces that are not restricted to bears, wolves and armadillos.  Humans don’t belong in those habitats, just lizards and beavers and so forth.  Any humans already mistakenly thinking they “own” a plot in those open lands can be eased – or forced – out of the “habitat,” and eventually housed in a 300 square foot dormitory space powered by solar panels, vegetables growing on the roof, drinking recycled water.  Only by being as uncomfortable as possible could humans – non-ruling humans – ever balance the ways we’ve despoiled all the “habitats.”  Trump isn’t into that view of the future.

It is impossible to evaluate the motivations of 2 Million federal workers.  The majority are lifers, eventually to retire from their federal jobs.  Each has his or her own motivations, personal “profits,” philosophies and biases.  No single description can apply to 5 people, let alone to a million or more, but given their similarities of employment, there are obviously some motivations, satisfactions, that they share.

Primary of these is a general approval of government, defined as interlocking bureaucracies within which, and among which, are performed the “real” work of government.  Federal government personnel are generally in favor of federal government: perfectly logical.  Next, each long-time employee is generally favorable toward his or her own agency or office.  Each perceives his or her work as valuable, if not vital.  Each, then, is likely to be resistant to any diminution of his or her agency or mission.  The managers in each agency are, more than just stability, desirous of growth – growth of mission and growth of personnel numbers.  Growth equals importance, promotion, better pay.  Built into the 15 executive departments of the Cabinet, are so many agencies that no firm count of them exists!

There are 200 at least, but there may be over 400.  These, alone, provide a substantial force for permanence and growth – a force that politicians cannot find the courage to temper.  Four hundred or so would seem to be a manageable, or at least a take-controllable number.  But it is merely the blueprint.  Within them all are PROGRAMS, programs and more programs.  Congress creates them.  For every one there is an advocacy group that at some time identified a problem that a federal agency/program was not addressing specifically.  The good intention of every advocate is probably real.  Problems exist.  Solutions are often obvious, but rarely easy to effect.  So, politicians are scratched at their most itchy spot: re-election.  Soon a bill is filed to great publicity, that will finally, after years of Republican inaction, solve this or that terrible problem.

Mainly out of ignorance for some, and out of innate anti-liberty socialist beliefs for the rest, problems, no matter how small or how caused, are federalized.  That the federal administrative state is possibly the least effective way on earth to solve problems, only describes the cynicism of politicians who put every problem in the federal lap or on the federal breast.  That they do so while the federal budget is $22 Trillion in debt – and more – only describes their utter mendacity and failure, over many terms, to uphold one of the most basic covenants the federal government makes with its citizens.  For shame.

Trump, unfortunately, has yet to express a willingness to change federal budgeting.

Still, whether it is because of, or in spite of himself, Trump has caused to be exposed the infidelities of globalists and socialists who prefer a continuing, costly, international policeman role for the U. S.  Several have been ejected and more soon will be.   But even if all of the untrustworthy DOJ, DOD, CIA and NSA apparatchiks were cleaned out… all of them… the liberty-corroding machinations of the molasses-heads just a bit deeper entrenched in the hundreds of agencies and thousands of programs (did you know there are over 1,000 federal programs “addressing” poverty?), will plod along, inflicting regulations with the force of law, able to strip citizens of their constitutional rights, among other things.  It is insidious, yet not corrupt, actually – it’s a way of stultifying, nightmarish administrative life.  Blame for it rests on 50 Congresses and a dozen presidents.  And on us.

Conservatives like to think that they are upholding the Constitution when they oppose communists, socialists, liberals and other Democrats.  They tout principles and vote to increase the debt ceiling like lemmings.  They are hated roundly for this, by the “woke” socialists who are not only not awake, but are barely aware of either the Sun or the Son.  God help anyone who threatens to cut the budget; only enemies of the Republic would conspire to allow the “government” to “shut down.”  It never does.

Culture, Economics, Governance, Representation, Taxation

Innocence, Debauchery, and the American Dream

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America suffers in the 21st century not from a loss of innocence, but from a loss of discrimination… a loss of judgment. Mankind has never lacked for debauchery nor for ways to debauch nearly every civilized function, from work, construction and development to education, medicine, churches and religion. Everything “we” have discovered or invented, we seem to have figured out how to besmirch and cheapen… like government.

Government, at least since Saul fell on his sword and bequeathed kingship to David, however inadvertently, has been occasionally a good invention, often completely inimical to human growth and perfection. Okay, okay, humans are perfected only in the rarest of circumstances, but, still, government is mostly inimical. In the long sweep of history, despite themselves, governments have brought a semblance of order, enabled scientific advances, established widespread education – some of it good – and provided measures of safety and peace within which individuals can seek happiness, or perfection, or both.
The last we call constitutional republicanism which stands out among the dozens of forms of tyranny still in use. Nevertheless, despite its promise, this form of self-governance has not been immune to the diabolical inventiveness of the forces of debauchery, of which there is space enough to discuss only a few.

Money is big in the debauchery field, as it is in the politician field, making it frequently difficult to discern between them. There never is enough money in the politician field, particularly where it intersects with socialist whims. Money, money, money means taxes, taxes, taxes and from time to time the working people object to taxation and politicians, who have the clarity of vision denied to workers, can perceive – if not create – hordes of dependents for whom that tax money is so sorely needed. That some dependents are billionaires is of little importance in the grand scheme of dependency. You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.

So if taxation can’t be trusted to produce money fast enough, it becomes increasingly crucial that ways to expand the income of government be devised and, politicians having been elected and installed for their unique efficiencies, recognize that there is no point to re-inventing the wheel, as it were, in the matters of government income, so turn to the financial successes of debauchery for new ideas. Humans have left no stone unturned in the search for ways to cheat others out of their hard-earned money and one of the neatest tricks is the infamous “Ponzi Scheme.” It is easily explained:

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud where clients are promised
a large profit at little to no risk. Companies that engage in a Ponzi
scheme focus all of their energy into attracting new clients to make
investments. This new income is used to pay original investors their
returns, marked as a profit from a legitimate transaction. Ponzi
schemes rely on a constant flow of new investments to continue to
provide returns to older investors. When this flow runs out,
the… scheme… falls… apart. [From “Investopedia”]

When the government, itself – who convicted Ponzi for fraud in 1920 – follows Ponzi’s formula, it takes a longer view and fewer dollars from each “investor,” and calls it “Social Security.” No slouches in the debauchery of public trust, politicians are able to compel workers to “invest” by force of police power, and then restrict the “returns” to only so many dollars per month and only after leaving the “investment” fallow for decades. That way the originators of the fraud will have passed on before the scope of the trick is figured out by the “investors.” “Invested” funds are then used to get future “investors” to vote for future perpetrators.

Prudence would suggest that “investors” should contemplate the consequences of having personally (actually) invested 15% of their pay over their entire working career. Upon retirement they would have had a huge financial asset and they wouldn’t be dependent on government to dribble back their own money! Of course, empowering citizens to live WITHOUT government is as anti-socialist as it could be and virtually never allowed even lip-service.

We need to give politicians the power to make life, health and death decisions for us.

Social Security really took off after World War II, as payrolls grew and pay rates along with them. The river of money was “re-invested” in all sorts of vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures that any sane and humane investor would endorse… had he or she known of them. After 1968 especially, the number of non-citizens who arrived on our shores seeking the “American Dream” exploded, and the means to support their “disabled, disadvantaged” selves derived from the “lockbox” of Social Security cash. Naturally, thanks to Ted Kennedy’s (the lyin’ of the Senate) legislation (Hart-Cellar Act), the colors and origins of immigrants are more important than the needs of the United States, and their relatives became more important than immigrants who can actually contribute to the strength of the nation. Many had/have no marketable skills or are “disabled” and “qualify” for SSDI or SSI support derived from – you guessed it – the “investments” of those canny worker-investors who are so proud of their own district’s Representative and state’s two Senators… oh, yes.

Unexpectedly, the Social “Security” lockbox tends to empty more quickly than promised. More money is needed! What to do? What to do without “raising taxes,” of course? There must be a form of debauchery… uhmm, we mean, outright mendacity and fraud… well, not that, of course, but some kind of “wool” that can be pulled over enough people’s eyes… naw, that’s just an old political joke, ha – ha – ha. There must be a form of courageous legislative governance that can find “new” revenue to meet the nation’s vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures. Aha! Loans!

Fortunately, globalist bankers had finally convinced Congress to approve the creation of a means to provide constant DEBT to the federal government. Now, if you’re one of those worker-investors we were talking about, you’re asking yourself: “Who in Hell would want a supply of debt?” (And you’d be right, but it’s a different topic.) “Everyone wants to get OUT of debt,” you’d say to yourself, being right a second time, “and anyone trying to get more debt should have his head examined!” (Or, his ledgers… again, right!)

Growing governments while controlling countries is a long-term plan. The international socialists have been at it for a long, long time. The “income” tax was instituted by amendment in 1913. This provided a large enough river of funds to enable the government to “help” itself and more and more people. Interestingly and, it certainly must be coincidentally, the Federal Reserve Act – a 20-year project of the largest banks – was passed at the end of… well, ha!… 1913! Both long-term efforts needed a global statist like Woodrow Wilson to be president in order to come to fruition.

The only way to quietly undermine the nationalism and freedom of the United States was to plant the seeds of debt and a private bank that controls the nation’s money supply is the best tool to do so. The “Fed,” as it’s called, makes economic policy as it sees fit. The “governors” don’t take advice from elected representatives, most of whom are happy to not be responsible for too awfully much. Whenever the Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifies in Congress it’s to tell Congress how things are going to be and not to ask the people’s representatives how things should be. The “Fed” is about as “federal” as Federal Express.

So what about how a central bank can control a nation’s economy? Why would any Congress vote for that? Well for the first 20 years or so the new “Fed” was practicing frog boiling, and the financial waters were just pleasantly warm… until the crash of 1929 and the attempts by, first, Hoover, and then by Roosevelt, to force an end to DE-flation and unemployment by running deficits and pushing the private economy to adapt to federal pressure. The federal government could borrow in the face of the human problems that bad economics had wrought.

Adopting the programs initiated by Hoover, FDR managed to keep the U. S., and much of the world, in depression until the Second World War broke out. Prior to the emergency legislation passed during the “Banking Holiday” of 1933, the 12 “Fed” Districts made policy on their own, enabling some to do severe damage in parts of the country while recovery was stumbling forward in others. Naturally, the preferred answers to the crisis were always based in more central control, essentially the story and the outcome of the “Great Depression.”

Until the Federal Reserve was created the U.S., like most industrial nations, was on “the gold standard.” United States Dollars represented a number of grains of 90% pure gold. That is, an ounce of “.9 fine” gold “cost” $20.67 and had since 1900. Never failing to take advantage of a crisis, 1930’s era leftists – FDR and the “brain trust” – used the banking and international gold crises to obtain emergency legislation making private ownership of gold coins, metal or bullion illegal! That is, everyone had to turn in his or her gold in exchange for $35.00 worth of U. S. “dollars” (actually, Federal reserve notes) that were now backed by so many grains of silver or by 60% as many grains of gold than prior to the seizure. It was pretty slick.

The federal government had acquired tons of gold for, in effect, next to nothing, but gold was now valued at $35 an ounce of .9 fine purity. Suddenly the government had a lot of money to spend in its attempts to correct the severe deflation and unemployment afflicting the U. S. and other industrialized nations. Most of it helped but did not solve the fundamental problems in the economy; it took a big war to do that.

We have got to give the federal government total control over our life, health and death decisions.

Where there is a name for schemes like Social Security (“Ponzi”), there isn’t a moniker for what happened to America between the two world wars, except, perhaps, “Progressivism,” not to be confused with “Progress.”

In a Constitutional Republic, “Progress” is measured first by how large a fraction of the population DOESN’T DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT for basic needs like housing, food, clothing, employment and health care. It’s also measured by the quality of citizenship, the honesty of jurisprudence, of police agencies and individuals, the clarity and even-handed enforceability of laws, the honesty of education and the level of cultural agreement by and amongst the vast majority of its citizenry.

The worst chicanery of all is the structure of the federal budget, which is barely a budget at all since it is about 75% “entitlements.” Congress has NEVER cut the budget, has never cut an “entitlement,” has never gotten rid of an “executive” department, has never paid down the national debt, at least in the past 60-odd years, has not failed to borrow from our great-great grandchildren for a like period, and has never audited the “Federal” Reserve. That’s because it’s.., well…, too busy. They are so busy on our behalf of course, and so tired from “fighting” for the middle class and “working” families who are non-working families to a significant degree, fighting to “improve education” and “leveling playing fields,” that there is barely enough time to begin to explain why what rational people think should be done simply can’t be done, unless they write a check for the campaign.

Mostly, they are too busy raising money for re-election, which is the number-one mission after a couple of years in office, and helping their real constituency: the congressmen and women and senators who sit nearby, because THEY can help in the fight for re-election more than any other group in the country.

We elect them, you and I, because their counterparts in the other party – pick one – are such scurrilous bastards and bitches that we have to keep “our” representative or senator in there so that we can continue the fight to “take back our country.” And a check for the campaign is not only vital, right at the moment you tear open your mailer, but may be multiplied up to FIVE times if your check is received by midnight 4 or 5 days hence.

Save yourself and the “campaign” even more, maximizing the value of your support, by using a (bank) interest-bearing credit-card to make your nation-saving donation!

Leftists are loathe to argue principles but they love to set the terms of public discussion. To effect that control they have to change the meaning of words… like “democracy,” for example. Where ”democracy” once meant a system of civic governance where the majority ruled – right or wrong – it now means “when Democrats rule… right or wrong.” So, when non-Democrats are in power, having been elected by a majority of votes, they are “threatening democracy.”

The United States is not organized as a “democracy.” It is a Constitutional Republic with democratically elected representatives and, interestingly, democratically elected executives, part of an extraordinarily well-designed system of dividing powers and constituencies to which each must answer. But power is vested in representatives of the citizenry who, the original theory is, are knowledgeable, honest and willing to sacrifice for their fellow citizens. That last is where the system breaks down. There no longer is any sacrifice! Right under our noses “our” representatives have turned the tables on us and we didn’t smell the odor!

Being an elected official, legislator or appointed officer in any of our states’ governments, the federal government, certainly, most cities and in virtually every public school system on up through state colleges and universities, is a very sweet deal – far more lucrative and secure than any “private” sector position, and with better benefits, more holidays and many “perks.” The “public servants” in today’s equation are you and me: taxpayers… and we don’t get free healthcare when WE retire.

“Representing” ignorant taxpayers is the best job many reps and senators will ever have: high pay, big benefits and almost no responsibility beyond re-election. Americans, themselves, should have it so good.

And, finally, for this chapter, the biggest scheme of all: that “debt” we looked at earlier. A “ponzi” scheme would seem a bad enough swindle for elected representatives to foist upon their “constituents,” but the worst is far, far greater, and so slick that Republicans are regularly denigrated for attempting to slow it – not STOP it, slow it – by just a few billions from time to time. Somehow, Democrats tell us, not going further and further into debt to pay the INTEREST-only on earlier debt, is tantamount to treason and threatens to “ruin the credit rating of the United States of America!” God save the Queen!

If you are seeking a way to judge the veracity, competence, integrity, legitimacy or sensibleness of ANY federal Congress-person, just consider the CURRENT national debt. You do know that it’s closing in on $21 TRILLION dollars, yes?

You do realize that it threatens our very economic existence? That it represents how far beyond our national means we have lived for the past 60 years? That it exemplifies the utter inability of our elected representatives (so far) to manage the budget for which they ARE responsible… and for which job they have earnestly sought our votes?

Do you recognize that unlike wars and other existential threats, since the “Great Society” kicked in, in 1968, every social discomfort has been labeled a “crisis,” confirmed by rigged congressional testimony, making raising the so-called “debt ceiling” every year an act of “courage” and of patriotism. Those 21 Trillion dollars are the proof that socialism will destroy our freedom. It is taking a long time because of the exceptional work ethics of Americans, but our economic destruction is a safe prediction, given that the history of the last 6 decades of representative government in our (ostensible) 2-party system is one of utter economic debauchery.

But then, there’s always Broward County.

Governance, Immigration, Representation, Trump

Citizen Unsettledness

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If you’re anything like me… and I know I am, you try hard every day to see something happening globally, or nationally or, possibly just in your local town or city, that’s good or soon to be so. Yet, try as we might we can’t avoid a certain unsettledness. For every bright spot in the daily news stream there seem to be 5 areas that are risky, messy, worrisome or approaching dangerous crises. Common to most of these is the fact that every level of government suffers from two truths: 1) Government employees are paid exorbitantly in comparison to average taxpayers; and, 2) governments are running out of money.

In spite of the creation of the so-called, “Federal” Reserve Bank, which is neither federal nor a reserve, and in spite of Congress’ unlimited ability to borrow money, the U. S. government (which grants and loans “money” to virtually EVERY state and municipal government, law-enforcement agency and school district) continuously obligates itself to levels of spending that exceed all revenues AND the deficit it borrowed to fill during the previous year. Both political parties have proven feckless in their stated desires to achieve a “balanced” budget. What they have proven to be adept at is convincing enough voters that only the mendacity and inherent (pick all that apply: racism, hatefulness, homophobia, misogyny, Christian fundamentalism, ethnocentrism, open-borderism, sanctuary policies, liberalism, conservatism, fascism, socialism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Russian collusion, lookism, weightism, white privilege or xenophobia) of the opposing party is standing in the way of a well-regulated, egalitarian Shangri-la: A place where everyone, including the ignorant, the illegal, the unskilled and the drug-addled are happy, well-fed and well-respected… and perhaps better-smelling.

A simple increase in the “debt ceiling,” the “ceiling” aspect of which is a bigger lie than medical marijuana, is all that’s needed to protect democracy and guarantee the rights of every known victim group. It’s all unsettling.

To add to our concerns and feelings of helplessness, just as the continuing news of gang rapes and drug-related murders dims in our cerebral cortices, some clown shoots up a school somewhere and the fundaments of Constitutional republicanism are brought into question, non-stop, for about 120 hours. It gives a person worries. More kids die playing school sports every year than die from being shot at school, but that fact doesn’t seem to help… not that it should, really. Both are problems, but conservatism and, in particular, the unusual Mr. Trump, can’t be blamed for sports deaths. And there’s always the NRA. The perpetrator should shoulder most of the blame but he (virtually always “he”) is quickly exposed as a victim of something society or the unusual Mr. Trump and every Trump voter has done to him.

The abject failures of people in positions of authority, law-enforcement and so forth, are never the fault of anyone in particular and readily ascribed to a “lack of resources.”

Many of us, more women than men I’m convinced, deflect every opportunity to discuss political-economic issues because …”there’s nothing we can do about it.” A somewhat larger “many” refuses to discuss politics at all, because politicians all lie and even when the person who seems better gets elected, nothing changes then, either. What’s the point?

The casual observer is, naturally, unsettled.

The miraculous ability of elected (and appointed) officials to become quite well-off, if not wealthy, while sacrificing as “public servants” only adds to the general feeling among everyone else that things are upside-down in America, in the sense that “things” don’t make “sense.” Recently a number of (Massachusetts) State Police officials beat a hasty retreat to “retirement” before the various crimes they may (very likely) have committed while “serving” the public as enforcers of the law, were formally charged to them. Interestingly, as they retired they were gifted with huge (read: obscene) payouts in the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars, CASH, for “sick” days they never needed and for “vacation” days they never took. The records of such non-takings and non-needings are never questioned.

It is a fascinating coincidence that a disproportionate number of people whose “contracts” with their State agency include the unique option to “cash in” sick days not needed, are among the healthiest state employees on record. Compare them to employees of, say, the MBTA in Massachusetts, whose union “contracts” include not only exorbitant pay rates but a generous number of “sick days” without the cash-in options, who are found to be among the least healthy. Very highly paid bureaucrats are employed to hire the two groups of workers and one would think that some of the ultra-healthy might accidentally be placed with the MBTA, but, not evidently. For work-a-day tax-payers it is… unsettling.

Locally in the Merrimack Valley we are learning that the unfortunate city known as the Town of Methuen whose immediate past mayor left office much beloved, has realized that in that mayor’s last years in office, in concert with an elected City Council, contracts with their police were signed that raised pay scales this year to $400,000 or so for CAPTAINS, and grants the once-embattled CHIEF an $86,000 raise, bringing his pay to $300,000 country. Just think of the pensions. Can they cash in sick days?

Finally, it’s unsettling how many elected and sworn officials spend more effort and time “representing” illegal entrants: border-jumpers, in effect. Even judges are infected with greater concern for non-citizen defendants, freely releasing them to commit additional crimes inside the United States in contrast to citizens who, had they committed the same crimes that engendered the court appearance, would be incarcerated. Fortunately said “judges” have lifetime appointments, else they’d be kicked out post haste or, perhaps, kicked period. Imagine. Still, it’s unsettling.

Race

Black Lives DO Matter

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blmblogPrudence and I were at our Book Club the other night – it was at one of the member’s homes in a room full of smart people. We felt a little out of place. Good food, though.

Our book this time was titled “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” and it’s not an easy read. The professor who advocated for us to read this particular book was unable to make the meeting, so 8 white guys had a discussion. The topic is definitely worth the work.

Author, Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor has done America a service, although its presentation is flawed by numerous non-factual declarations that are merely – and purposely – bumper-sticker- inflammatory. But one can get past them and still learn from the mountain of evidence she has laid before us.

Ladies and gentlemen of the polity, we do have a problem.

However, the book is a little one-sided. Problems faced by, let’s say, unsuccessful blacks, are not being solved in the “system” that America embodies, in Taylor’s (and #BlackLivesMatter’s) view, and that argument is valid. To them, the fact of some excessive force against black suspects and some unjustified killings of blacks by police, are reasons to indict ALL police and, by conflation, ALL of white Americans and, to seal the accusations, ALL of capitalism. To all of that our question is: What is the end-game?

Taylor and #BLM call repeatedly for the end of capitalism. This is somewhat understandable when considered from the standpoint of large numbers of blacks for whom “capitalism” doesn’t seem to work, and worse, is defended by a police-state of brutal, murderous police forces. Well. Given that George Soros and other America-haters provide funding to #BlackLivesMatter chapters, socialism is made credible for dismayed blacks. But, the “soul” of #BLM is dichotomous.

On one hand, and that most publicized, #BLM is fighting to change policing AND to obtain reparations for slavery, Jim Crow and for “institutional” racism of which all whites are (must be) guilty. On the other hand, they seem to be advocating for the dissolution of white America and replacing it with a socialist democracy that will share its wealth with downtrodden blacks. This aspect is not as publicized, as the acquiescence of guilt-ridden whites is essential to #BLM’s political success. Amorphous guilt is working; fear of total loss will not.

Prudence and I are not ready to destroy what does work and which can be made to work much, much better. Unfortunately, and largely thanks to corrupt politics, American capitalism is twisted and encumbered by unbelievable debt, tax games and cronyism, and outright government-sponsored monopolies. The past 8 years of the first “black” president, Mr. Obama, has brought the flaws of politicized capitalism into stark relief. (He is not blessed with a large fraction of “black” genes; his black African roots comprise about 1/8th of his African ancestry, while Arab ancestry fulfills the balance of that “half” of him. His mother was white, of course, denying him the percentage of “blackness” needed to claim African-American as his “race.” Indeed, his Arab ancestors may have been selling blacks into slavery.) While Wall Street revels in a Federal-Reserve-fomented bonanza, black America has slipped even further behind in terms of employment, income, apparent opportunity, and familial net worths. Concentrated neighborhoods of poor blacks, mostly a burden of large cities, but not exclusively so, became, again, tinderboxes of hopeless dissatisfaction and outright hatred of “white privilege,” which most evidently exists given the (near) total absence of “black privilege.”

Colleges and even grade schools have tried to inculcate the guilt-laden concept of “white privilege” in white students. Only if whites can be made to regret their apparent membership in a national bloc of proto-slave-owners, can the plight of blacks continue to be purveyed as the result of nationwide group suppression. Like all politics based on anti-capitalism… that is, on the left, these views deny the sovereignty, power and responsibility of individuals.

Most white individuals have nothing to do with making or keeping blacks poor, although if they (we) were more sensitive to the distant or unseen conditions in black ghettos, perhaps we would demand better government and governance. Several problems pervade American politics and its resulting economics.

First, politics has become organized theft. A majority of us have agreed to take part in and benefit from the thievery. Despite 19th century warnings, we figured out not only how to vote ourselves money from the public treasury, but how to vote ourselves “money” from the future. Our hunger for this “free” wealth has resulted in $20 Trillion of debt and a worldwide distrust of American economics. Americans themselves are happy to suspend disbelief so long as “benefits” or “entitlements” keep appearing in their bank accounts and on their “EBT” welfare cards.

As debt has grown, periodic increases in the “debt ceiling” have been voted by Congress primarily to buy votes from beneficiary groups, including poor blacks on various forms of welfare. Welfare, despite shifts in programs, called “cuts” has grown fairly steadily since the federalization of it in the 1960’s. Welfare doesn’t make blacks happy or grateful. For white politicians (maybe for all colors of politicians) welfare is the only tool they can wield to keep blacks contained and not too restive in their ghettos. It’s a system we have tolerated/imposed for 50 years, and it deserves some questioning, like, “Who benefits from the welfare-hopelessness cycle?”

The socially blind might say that blacks do. After all, look at all the money “we’ve” transferred to them from the public treasury. More cynical types might say that over time, only the politicians benefit. Keeping blacks somewhat nurtured and somewhat angry means that politicians can commiserate enough at election time to direct their votes toward themselves. Democrats do this in no small part by pointing out to blacks that it is those evil Republicans who have failed to take care of them; indeed, it is Republicans who prevent caring Democrats from enacting the programs that will transfer enough money and other support to finally make for “level playing fields.” What bastards they must be.

Next is drugs and crime. The U. S. is not really serious about cleaning society of drugs and, if one were cynical about this, too, he or she might observe that “drugs” and brown skin tend to concentrate in the same parts of cities. Despite our 50-year “war” on drugs, they are more available today than ever. So, the same question pertains: Who benefits from drug crime? And a corollary: Does the ongoing drug economy fulfill a social or political purpose?

Our response has been to “manage” the drug economy and build more prisons. One might be reminded of national treatment of “Injuns” and “redskins.” Their susceptibility to alcohol didn’t bother us, it fulfilled a prejudice. In a sad, sick way, the fact that blacks (and browns) are affected the most by drugs and related crimes, seems to fit a prejudice, too. Unaffected people see the self-destruction of blacks and their communities as a “natural” outgrowth of weaknesses in black character. Worse, so long as it keeps blacks busy and of limited danger to suburbanites, no ultimate solution to drugs is in the works.

Unfortunately or, perhaps, fortunately, drugs are killing suburban white kids in noticeable numbers, now. Perhaps a real war on drugs will be finally joined. If so, it still won’t be because we are deeply concerned about black lives. All lives matter.

So, despite their odd politics, #BlackLivesMatter has a valid point, but not a true target for its efforts. Rogue police officers and “prejudices” within police departments are certainly a problem, and a wildly public one, lately. Bad practices on the part of police do result in wrongful deaths – some practices/reactions far worse than others. Prejudice among police personnel at every level should be corrected, removed, discussed, stamped-out, brainwashed away and punished – all of those things, maybe more. But, prejudice doesn’t really matter so long as police actions are preserving of life and safety every time it is possible to be so. Actions may be modified by training.

Better training of police officers, however, will do virtually nothing to improve the lives of most blacks. Blacks in the welfare/hopelessness cycle must be taught to believe something different about their lives and possibilities. Neither the Federal government nor any other amoral entity can perform that function. Correcting the spirit of hopeless people is almost impossible. Not killing them accidentally is possible.

So, #BlackLivesMatter has selected a politically advantageous target in the relative handful of cases so destructively publicized as to foment riots and new levels of hatred by blacks and of fear by whites. They have not – and will not – take on the big target of destructive welfare policies, destructive drugs, destructive fatherlessness, destructive life choices and all the rest of it. Right now, they can’t; neither, politically, can, or will, anyone else.

At some point, if #BlackLivesMatter, and others who claim deep concern about the future of black lives, can come to a more honest understanding of politics and economics, perhaps a totally different approach to black society’s dysfunctions will manifest. It must be free of political profit, for one thing, and based on a moral, marriage-based code. All the social license and all the foolish names we concoct for it, cannot replace stable families with two parents. Prudence says that some adults have to step forward… adults who can lead the children the rest of the way to a drug-free, non-communist promised land.