Christmas is for the imperfect

     There is nothing overtly religious in Dicken's little book, A Christmas Carol. It is a tale with a theme of redemption. It's a story that recommends human values like brotherhood, love, and charity over crass materialism. These values are universal. They are found in many faiths ,and practiced by many people who practice no particular faith at all. I don't think Dickens slighted the holiday at all when writing his story about the true spirit of Christmas without anything but passing reference to the birth of the figure at the center of the Christian religion. Delving into theology wasn't his intention. For old Scroodge redemption was not about securing a place in heaven, but  realigning his attitude to those around him, making their lives better where he could, opening his heart to their needs, and finding happiness in affection, understanding, and a generous spirit.
    In so many ways the story of Scroodge is even better than the story of the first Christmas as recited by Linus when Charlie Brown asks if anyone knows the true reason for Christmas. Linus quotes movingly from the second chapter of the gospel of Luke. That's a great story, but it leaves out the point Dickens makes; how does one miracle inspire a still greater miracle, the refining of a human heart.
     The story of the birth of Christ as told by Luke is unique and charming. The Christian God is born in a stable, homeless at birth, to a humble family far from the centers of power .He would grow to manhood, but according to Christian theology, he was just as much God then as later in life. That's a remarkable proposal. Only the Christian God of all the gods, of all the pantheons ever imagined appears in this lowliest of forms, appears ,and is worshipped wherever there are Christians, as a helpless baby, the child of impoverished parents, in a dusty Roman backwater.
      Christianity wasn't the first faith to enshrine humility as a virtue. Over the centuries it wasn't always noted for practicing it either. That we in the Western world value humility comes down to the simple story of a baby born in a manger. Our understanding of humility also owes a lot to the religion  Jesus practiced while he lived on Earth, the Jewish religion of his parents. One of the best insights regarding the nature of humility comes from Brazilian Rabbi, Rabino Nilton Bonder, " Many people believe that humility is the opposite of pride, when, in fact it is a point of equilibrium. The opposite of pride is actually a lack of self esteem. A humble person is totally different from a person who cannot recognize and appreciate himself as a part of the world's marvels.".
     I've never admired the level of debasement that some Christians seem to think is required of them and is taught in many of their churches. I get it that you acknowledge your distance from the deity. I understand that all of us are imperfect, and frequently fall short of the mark. I have trouble with people getting stuck on this realization and fetishizing it rather than moving on from there in a more positive direction. The tendency reminds me of the roving bands of penitents of the Middle Ages, wearing sack cloth and whipping their own backs till bleeding. Demonstrations of outlandish humility can only seem impressive to an audience that miss the point of humility in the first place.
     I offer my own definition of humility. I recognize that it lacks both nuance and profundity, but it makes up for all that by being succinct. Humility is the ability to say, I screwed up. This approach  affirms reality. We all screw up. We screw up all the time, and we're wrong about almost everything. Humans are the animal that assumes. We go so far as assuming that assumptions are knowledge itself. That's the worst assumption of all.
        Merry Christmas Telluride. Hope it's not a humble one. There's no reason that a talent for reassessment should stop you from eating a tray of Christmas cookies, a mound of mash potatoes covered in gravy, or spending too much on presents while receiving more than you need. Glut and gluttony are part of the holiday. Some traditions are just too important to be ignored. Excess is America's contribution to the Christmas holiday. Refraining from that is un-American. Anyhow, we already have a holiday for shinning a bright light on our flaws and resolving to get all that taken care of, and it's only a week away. If you're not perfect yet, what can one more week of imperfection hurt? Tomorrow is always the best day for reformation. That's in the bible, or maybe it's in Dickens. You can Google that. My resolution for 2016, is to save you the trouble and do my own fact checking for a change.

Narcissist apocalypse

   Lately I've been intrigued with the topic of narcissism. Maybe it's the current election cycle with its clash of giant egos, the sparring of would be megalomaniacs.? Maybe it's the book I'm reading, Narcissistic Supply, the Drug of Narcissists by Sam Vaknin?  Turns out its author is no psychologist, but his leading credential is that he is himself a narcissist, twice diagnosed by experts. Nevertheless, this book seems rich with insight into the condition, containing plenty of food for thought.
    Narcissism is not a single phenomenon. There is the clinical form, recognized generally as a personality disorder referred to as NPD.  Even that takes many forms. I wish I had the space here to describe them. They are all fascinating. Instead let me offer a simple definition. NPD is extreme self centeredness. It's characterized by an inflated sense of self importance and a deep and overwhelming need for admiration. Lack of empathy is also present. The confident exterior of the narcissist is a false mask. Underlying it is a very fragile sense of self worth that is vulnerable to the slightest criticism. There is also a more general ,less extreme form of narcissism; some call it societal narcissism.
      Narcissists can be found in many settings, but they often gravitate to professions and interests with high attention grabbing potential and access to power. Politics is rife with them, and so are the arts, including show business. Donald Trump fits the profile pretty well. The crucial question to determine if he meets the clinical definition for NPD would be this; does he lack empathy for others? Is he racist, and a misogynist? Does he mock the handicapped for their deformities? All that is helpful but not determinative. It's more important to ask how does he regard those closest to him ? If he uses them as tools, primarily existing to meet his needs, both physical and psychological, then it's a pretty sure bet he is a classic narcissist. I don't know the answer to that question. Others in politics may be equal in scale to his supposed degree of narcissism but are better at hiding it. Trump only differs from this group in his almost complete lack of self awareness and filter, though in fact many will out-perform him in arrogance and lack of empathy.
      A really skilled narcissist may take an entirely different tack and impress others by practicing extreme humility and apparent compassion and altruism, demonstrating willingness to suffer for some higher cause. This is where diagnosing NPD from afar gets really tricky, and also fun. Was St. Francis of Assisi one of the holiest men to ever walk the planet or a charlatan looking for approval and secretly coveting veneration? Was Vincent Van Gogh motivated by his love for beauty ,or a martyr to his own peculiar love for himself and disappointment over rejection? In the end it really doesn't matter. Their achievements were great and long lasting. What should we care if they managed to poison all their closest relationships out of self loathing and the twisted egotism that it spawned.
      Determining societal narcissism is much easier. When a society turns narcissistic it devalues then replaces long held standards for newer ones. Free spending replaces thrift. Modesty is overthrown for conspicuous consumption. Accomplishments are meaningless and empty if they lack the pizzazz to spark envy in others. Building character is replaced by building an impressive reputation. Wisdom takes a back seat to academic credentials. Good looks count for more than a good heart. Aging is associated with decay, and youth is everything. Hedonism is celebrated. Personal responsibility is evaded, and once purely personal prerogatives transferred to an all consuming state. You get the picture.
       When a society turns narcissistic it's often the last to know. Just like a narcissistic individual, part of their condition is that they are incapable of self diagnoses, and will resist the diagnoses when confronted. The narcissist is a master at building defenses around that fragile ego. The narcissistic society is likewise ruthless in suppressing reminders of its own inadequacies. Standard bearers of the old order must not be tolerated. They are not just wrong, they must be evil. They are not just ignorant, they are stupid. They are deniers. They are hateful reactionaries.
        The problem with narcissistic societies is that they are not self sustaining. They are a sure sign of a society or a civilisation on its way downward. The societal values that they place the greatest store in ,when antithetical to established values, undermine them. The values essential to building and sustaining a working society are extinguished and forgotten. The question is, when do we reach that tipping point?

    "And, you know, if you look at world history, whenever people are desperate, when people are lacking food, when people are not able to take care of their families- that's when ideologies arise that are dangerous."   President Obama in interview shown on CBS show This Morning ,Friday, December 4th 2015.
     The president was talking about the relationship between the rise of radical Islam and climate change. I have no doubt he believes this and most of those who have voted for him will shake their heads in ascent at this pearl of wisdom, but it would have been nice to hear a follow up question from Norah O'Donnell when he said it. I don't think that it's asking too much to have heard from Norah something like- " Can you site an example?"
     For the life of me ,I can't think of any. I doubt if he could either. Doubtless there are many examples of famines due to droughts and other unfortunate weather related phenomena causing mass migrations, riots, and other upheavals, but what dangerous ideologies have sprung from hunger? Again, I just can't come up with anything. I challenge anyone to justify his statement.
     What is supremely dangerous is having a president in times like this who doesn't understand the enemy. He's proven in every pronouncement he's made on the subject that he doesn't understand them, is unaware of what motivates them, and doesn't know how to fight them. He'd rather battle domestic foes, namely Republicans in congress. He'd rather make grand gestures and grand speeches in opposition to global warming. Meanwhile the actions he proposes to fight it would be as ineffective and futile as his efforts to " contain " ISIS. If there is any relationship between the battle against Islamic terrorism and climate change it is that alone. 

        Less than a week after the 9/11 attacks, Bill Maher got in considerable hot water for his remarks on his former show , Politically Incorrect, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2000 miles away, that's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, not cowardly! " Say what you want about Maher, or the wisdom of speaking disparagingly of our soldiers and airmen at that sensitive time, you've got to admit he kind of had a point there somewhere. If sacrificing your life for the sake of a chosen cause isn't courage then what do we call it? How does that type of courage compare to the valor and self sacrifice of those who are injured and killed trying to thwart another's fanaticism?
       Soon after the events of Septmber 11 2001 many have speculated over the motivations of the terrorists. For westerners, especially those of us who are not religious, it's especially hard to wrap your head around it. Learning that many the terrorists were not particularly religious themselves, further muddies the water. Why would people who can't be bothered to live their religion be so happy to kill for it?
        I believe that a better explanation for their behavior is found in the premise of Eric Hoffer's 1951 book the True Believer.. Hoffer saw a common thread leading to fanatical identification with extreamist religious cults and political crusades, even those that vary considerably in their dogma. The people they attract are often life's loosers. They share a need to dissolve their own miserable selves by immersion into some great cause. Some who appear otherwise successful also give themselves over to  powerful mass movements in order to feel whole and justified at last. Once inside, they find meaning to their lives where they felt none before.
        ISIS is a that sort of cult. It branched off from Al Qaida in Iraq after the death of its founder. Under the leadership of its former second in command, Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi it soon spread to Syria and co-opted Al Qaida forces waging war there. In 2014  Al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph of the entire Muslim world and changed the organization's name to the Islamic State. They now hold territory in Syria and Iraq with affiliates and operatives worldwide. Through greater success on the battlefield, and a keen appetite for atrocity it has surpassed all rival jihadist movements in recruitment, wealth, arms ,and notoriety. The beheading of captives, rape, and the sale of captive women, terrorist attacks in Africa, Lebanon, Turkey, and now Europe ,are not ends in themselves . The underlying motive is to so horrify and anger infidel nations that they will commit their military strength to destroying them. We are being set up for Armageddon. Their ace in the hole is that God is with them and hates infidels just as much as they do. From their perspective it's a battle they cannot possibly lose. Sounds like the crazy premise for a second rate movie, but that's really what they are all about. Once the infidel is vanquished the Caliphate will rule the world. It may seem ridiculous to most of us, but to ISIS this is deadly serious stuff. Emphasis on deadly.
        So that in a nut shell is the cause. Is it a cause worth dying for? Absolutely, if you're into that sort of thing. Will your dying for this cause mean that you are more courageous than your enemies? I don't think so. There is, you may have noticed, a certain nihilism to these beliefs, and an utter denial of humanity to those outside the cult, also an utter lack of humanity in their values from start to finish. True courage is not a stand alone virtue. It must be in support of other virtues or it is not virtue at all. Courage in behalf of evil is itself evil. It is counterfeit. You can call it audacity, recklessness, a pathology ,or nerve., but not courage. If I find myself depressed and self loathing, in a pretty awful state of mind, taking my own life, you wouldn't call me a hero. Neither should we consider martyrs in behalf of an evil cult courageous. Desperate, deluded, and miserable wretches is a better description. I can think of a few other adjectives but I'll spare you.
     I hasten to add that the cult in question is not Islam but a spin-off perversion of that faith. Jim Jones, founder of the Peoples Temple movement of the 1960s and 1970s considered himself  Christian as did his followers ,but that didn't make them so. When 900 of them took their own lives in the jungles of Guyana on a single afternoon, they did it without honor, courage or any sense of Christian values. They acted in a state of depravity ,under the influence of a depraved lunatic. ISIS is to modern Islam what the People's Temple was to Christianity.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: All's fair
From: David Brankley <kleybran@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 9, 2015, 8:37 AM
To: "mary@telluridenews com" <mary@telluridenews.com>
CC:


    Dorothy Bland is Dean of the Mayburn school of Journalism at North Texas University. On October 24 Bland, who is black, was walking in her  neighborhood in Corinth, a suburb of Dallas , she was stopped by white police officers while walking for exercise. Her encounter was so upsetting that she wrote a piece that appeared in the the Dallas Morning News as an op-ed a few days later. In the piece she described what it was like to be racially profiled. "Knowing that police officers are armed with guns and are a lot bigger than my 5 foot 4 inches, I had no interest in my life's story playing out like Trayvon Martin's death. I stopped and asked the officers if there was a problem; I don't remember getting a decent answer before one of the officers asked where I lived and for identification.", she wrote." I guess I was simply a brown face in an affluent neighborhood. I told the police I didn't like to walk in the rain, and one of them told me, '  My dog doesn't like to walk in the rain.' Ouch!" She went on to say ," Walking while black is a crime in many jurisdictions. May God have mercy on our nation."
      Dr. Ben Carson, as you may know is also black. He is running for president, and in this strangest of all races, his is currently running ahead of all contenders among Republicans. Whenever there is a new front runner there will always follow increased scrutiny. Past speeches will be sifted through for errors and contradictions, and flip flops noted. That's only as it should be. We shouldn't decide on the best man or woman strictly by what their campaign says about them. The problem with Carson is how little track record he has left behind for our scrutiny. He's new to politics and has never held, or even run for office before. Do we judge him as a neurosurgeon instead? You see the problem.
      The one area that he has cornered in this race is a reputation for honesty and trustworthiness. On this attribute he stands alone in the poles, far ahead of others. You might say he has a natural advantage going for him that mere politicians and reality show stars cannot hope to gain. Over the last week some in the press have sought to turn this advantage into his downfall. CNN and Politco have been pouring through his autobiography, the subject of a film starring Cuba Gooding Jr., looking for possible falsehoods and misrepresentations. CNN has tried to verify a story he tells about his fourteen year old self attempting to stab a friend in a fit of rage. Not able to track down the unnamed friend, they've judged the story false and play up this dubious supposition unmercifully throughout the network. Politico has gone even further from the path of responsible journalism ,accusing him of making up a story about being accepted to West Point on scholarship, a claim he didn't actually make. They compounded their mistreatment of the facts by claiming that the campaign had admitted to their reporter that Carson had lied about the incident, a claim they soon retracted. The retraction followed the false story being picked up and repeated by almost every major news source in the country.
       All's fair in love and politics, the saying goes. Wrong on both counts. If anyone looses credibility over these incidents it ought to be the reporters involved ,as well as the agencies they represent, and not Dr. Carson. If there is any justice left in this sad tawdry world of politics and journalism then that is how this affair will play out. I've given up hoping for fairness, but I'm still holding out for justice.
       Meanwhile, will there be justice for poor Dorothy Bland? Maybe. After her op-ed appeared the Corinth police department released dash-cam video of the incident she spoke of. It seems it did not go down quite the way she described. In the unedited three minute video the police were as polite and professional as we would wish all police to be. She was not stopped because of her race. The chip on her shoulder ,evident in the video ,may have got her into exactly the sort of ugly situation she dreaded. As it is, thousands who have seen it are asking for her dismissal from NTU.

    I'm taking in the scenery from the seat of my bike. One foot is still clipped in to a peddle, the other is holding the bike and me up as I stand here in the middle of everywhere. The middle of everywhere, I should explain, is my term for what others like to call the middle of nowhere. It's funny how frequently these " scenery stops " come around now that I'm a cyclist of a certain age. They often happen on steep sections like this one. That has to be a coincidence. All of a sudden a whirlwind of mirth arrives. A pack of pinion jays lands in a nearby juniper, squawking, and mewing, and laughing. They're not there for long. This tree has gotten boring already. They're off instantly, just as loud as the came. They're diving for another tree where they'll keep the party going, and on and on from tree to tree for the rest of their lives. The party never stops.
     But ,were they really laughing? That's probably just me imposing my anthropomorphic view of things on every thing else in the universe. Can animals really laugh? Do they have a sense of humor? I don't know, but I'm willing to think about it for the rest of the day. Here's what I came up with, all of course subject to revision when I come up with something better.
    Even if the day to day struggle of being a jay  to eat, to reproduce, to work out their place in the pecking order ,doesn't lend itself to humor, we can't exclude the possibility that they find humor in observing us. We've been surrounded by other animals for as long as we've existed. They even knew us at our earliest stages of development. A million or so years ago we were already peculiar among animals. We were the ones least likely to succeed.  We were naked, without thick fur or feathers to protect soft flesh. We had neither claws nor fangs. We were small and weak. We scavenged the kills of more powerful predators, we looked for fruits, and seeds, and insects, lizards, and fish to eat. And yet in our helplessness, our lack of speciality, and most of all in our adaptability ,we found strength. Over the course of a hundreds of thousands of years we exploited every small advantage thrown to us and grasped for ever more .Eventually we managed to reach the point of overall dominance of whatever environment we found ourselves inhabiting. Clever us, poor them. It's a story unique to humans, full of missteps, full of irony, tragedy, and humor. 
      I can't help but take the more orthodox scientific view that among our fellow creatures with whome we share so much ,we are maybe alone in this. We may be the only beings truly in on the joke, in on any jokes at all. We may be the only creatures capable of humor. The joke is on us, the joke is us, and nothing else out there can appreciate the farce, or needs to.
      Shakespeare wrote many plays. Some are categorized as comedies, some as tragedies. His comedies contain some tragedy. His tragedies contain some humor. They are mixed because human life is mixed, sometimes tragedy, sometimes comedy, sometimes both at once. His plays live today because he was one of the greatest observers and expositors of the human condition ,more insightful than Freud or any of the mind scientists that followed him. To Shakespeare we were still as frail and preposterous a creature as once walked the African savannah of a million years ago. The same fears stimulate us, the same striving animates us. We're a patchwork of old and new, cruel, generous, noble and ridiculous. Add to that millennia of conditioning, millennia of advancement and culture, ingenuity, blindness, presumption, a thousand other contrivensess and  you have modern mankind. Shakespeare got the joke and used it to his advantage.
     A Mormon leader whose lecture I attended in my youth said that God certainly has a sense of humor, " If you doubt it, take a look around you ". We all did,. We all shared a good laugh. Is there any other way to get through a day, a year  or a lifetime sanely as human beings? Humor is imperative. It's lack in us, not properly turned inward, as well as outward, condemns us, freezing evolution in its path. We are the animal that laughs at itself. And that makes all the difference.
      Even little human babies laugh. Four and five year olds are masters at it. They remind me of a certain bird of the Painted desert.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Federalism gone to pot
From: David Brankley <kleybran@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015, 3:51 PM
To: "mary@telluridenews com" <mary@telluridenews.com>
CC:

    
       I'd like to say a few nice words about pot. It's legal. Come to think of it ,so are a lot of things. So is adultery. So is ruining your health in a thousand different ways. Maybe legality alone doesn't count for all that much.
       I'm not a user. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time saying something really positive about pot smoking. Ill say this for it, it does so much less harm than a few more universally legal and accepted drugs. It has also contributed to several cultural achievements; Reggae, and the Beatles White Album (or was that LSD?)
        "If men were angels, no government would be necessary.", wrote James Madison. "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this : you must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place oblige it to control itself." If anything of great value has been lost from the founding generation of Americans to present generations it's been the principle Madison so eloquently stated. Along with the insight that the powerful will always use their power to gain more power, the insistence that those who govern must be strictly governed themselves by instruments of internal and external control, have become museum artifacts like the Constitution or a fading copy of the Declaration of Independence.
          Madison designed a system of government that would not be particularly efficient or quick to respond, except in moments of great crisis. He believed that containing the power of government by pitting its branches and distinct interests against one another was more important than streamlining it to move decisively and easily. He knew that would be the fast track to despotism. Granting to the states the lions share of responsibilities in this overall project was one way of laying the greater power closer to its citizens while at the same time limiting Federal, centralized power. This idea was enshrined in the Bill of Rights, article ten, the most widely ignored and often abused sentence in the Constitution.
          This brings us back to marijuana. In my lifetime I've watched the principle of states rights come under assault. In the 1950s and 1960s it was commonly referred to by defenders of segregation in the South to justify  policies out of step with the national consensus. Way to discredit constitutional republican government Alabama! Tenth amendment checks and balances have been out of kilter ever since, although they were pretty rocky under Lincoln, and FDR made sure they were irrelevant during the New Deal era. The Supreme Court played its role in centralizing more and more power to the North bank of the Potomac while Madison and Jefferson spun furiously in their graves. Then along came the movement to legalize pot use. If anything holds the potential of reversing the trend to invest all power into the hands of a few Washington elites and spreading it outward again where the rest of us reside it's the pungent herb.
         The movement began by targeting a select few states with rampant pot use and liberal or libertarian voting habits and getting legalization or decriminalization language on the ballots.  States like Colorado soon saw financial reasons for allowing pot use as millions flow into state coffers in the form of sales and excise taxes, and increased tourist revenue. Now that several states have liberalized pot use and have found reasons to defend it the best thing that could possibly happen is for the next administration to put its foot down and remind the states that when it comes to drug policy, they get to call the shots. 
          With the Feds once again pulling rank on the states and enforcing federal law, the states effected would not be likely to roll over this time. They'd ban together and take it to the supreme court, the first supreme court in seventy years that seems inclined to overturn constitutionaly unsound precedence from past Supreme Court decisions . The entire effort to undermine Federalism ( a term that unfortunately sounds like the opposite of its actual meaning) would be jeopardized.
         Past generations of Americans ran rum across the Atlantic through British blockades. The Whiskey Rebellion became our first internal insurrection. Rum running from Canada and the Caribbean came back in style again during prohibition. Marijuana is grown and sold on a massive scale especially where it is not yet legal. 
         Our antecedents toasted liberty with their contraband. Let us remember to toke up for freedom, the Constitution, decentralization of power, and limited government. This puff's for you James Madison.

the politics of envy

         Twenty-five years ago last month the Iraqi army pushed past  the Kuwaiti border and in lightning speed took control of Kuwait City and the oilfields nearby. Both nations had oil in abundance, both were cashing in in a big way from this lucky windfall under the sand. Iraq could buy all the weapons they could get their hands on, and recruit and equip one of the largest armies of the time. It could afford to create a vast Stalinist police State, with all that entails. Very little of its wealth reached its people. That just wasn't a top priority. They could fend for themselves . They'd been doing just that since biblical times. The riches , which were in a real sense the patrimony of all, could flow in only one direction and that was toward the center of power, and from there only to the most favored sycophants and highest placed functionaries, in short, the well connected. Kuwait s approach was far different. Wealth was invested in creating more wealth, and creating a social and physical infrastructure that would benefit all its citizens. They became the richest people on Earth.
          The conquest of Kuwait by its neighbor was not unique in the annals of warfare for its underlying motivation. It is striking among wars of recent centuries for being so obviously a war impelled by envy and little else. Two nations had great wealth. One had squandered theirs and it's people lived miserably. The other made the most of theirs and subsequently had everything the other population desired but could never obtain except by plunder.
         In my sort of perfect world there wouldn't be a lot of perfection really. All of us would not be equal. Not all of us would be rich, not all of us would even be comfortable. There would be poor because there will always be people who make poor decisions. There would be rich because some people are smarter, more talented, work harder, take greater risks, or conversely, are more prudent than others. Given all that, it's imperative that the better off help out those with less, especially their children , who are not responsible for their poverty. My Utopia isn't too far off from the world I grew up in, except that opportunities for all would multiply and impediments would diminish. There would be more autonomy. With autonomy would come a greater sense of pride and responsibility.  How great would that be?
          This isn't everyone's cup of tea. When Bernie Sanders wows an audience he does it with sentiments opposite my own. Instead of speaking for a program that increases opportunity and economic liberty he speaks for a collectivist vision, and rearranging wealth's distribution for the sake of fairness and equity .
             You won't be surprised to learn that I never got the whole argument alleging that the ninetynine percenters are somehow disadvantaged because of the great wealth of the one percenters. That doesn't jive with either logic or experience. Are we supposed to believe that one person's wealth comes only at the expense of another?  What kind of economic model is that? It speaks volumes about the abysmal condition of economic and civic education in our public schools that when Bernie goes into Eugene Debs mode he isn't met with laughter and snickers from the crowds but cheers instead. Appreciating the sometimes subtle relationship between cause and effect may not be their strong suit. Take for example the preternatural incapacity of some to credit  a persons poor life choices for leading directly to their crappy life.
           So what about Iraq's one percenters previous to the Kuwait invasion, wasn't their wealth at the expense of the general population?  As a matter of fact it was. In situations where you don't have economic freedom ,wealth flows to those who are well connected to the most powerful political leaders, but that sort of system is not Capitalist. It's a corrupted hybrid. The incentives are all wrong. Instead of getting rich by providing a product or service superior to the competition at a better price, a businessman is more likely to try cornering the market by providing money and favors to a lawmaker, a governor, or president, to influence them to put the squeeze on the competition . Obviously, that's no way to grow an economy.
           Curiously, that's the same form of capitalism that we are heading for. It's already here and growing steadily. So in the end the bunch that can't stand Capitalism will ensure we get precisely the kind of capitalism that brings with it all the baggage they suspect from free markets anyway. There's a self fulfilling prophesy in there somewhere.
           How do we get there ? How do we avoid getting there, ever deeper into this crony-capitalist Crapilvania? For one thing we call out the demagogues that so easily and naturally resort to waging class warfare and the politics of envy. The kind of politics you find in this campaign is far from the sort of envy that lead to the wanton looting of Kuwait twenty-five years ago. Different only in degree, just the same in kind. Envy is a destructive force more powerful than a hurricane or an earthquake. It's powerful enough to rule by or rearrange a civilisation, but in the end it always destroys what it touches.

Back to Eden

     Are you surprised that a septuagenarian Socialist firebrand and Senate backbencher is drawing huge and enthusiastic crowds to his presidential campaign rallies? The supporters of Bernie Sanders who show up to these rallies, and increasingly in the polls, must make for a very unpleasant surprise to Hillary Clinton. She's seen this all before. She begins her race for the presidency with all her ducks in a row. She's lined up the support of all the most important power brokers in all the key States, she's got all the money behind her campaign any candidate could wish for, and all the biggest donors on her side, but then the wheels somehow fall off the Hillary train. In 2008 it wasn't policy differences that swung the race. The same goes for this race. Bernie Sanders  may call himself a Socialist, but Socialism is pretty mainstream these days in the Democratic party even if it so rarely claims the name. The real difference between Hillary Clinton and Senator Sanders comes down to communication. When Hillary speaks she appears to be pandering and equivocating even on those rare occasions when she's not. Bernie ,on the other hand, appears to mean everything he has to say. He may be a fire breathing , class batting, populist warrior, but at least he does it with winning sincerity.
      The parts of his campaign that best resonate with the left of the party decry the ildistribution of wealth; too much at the very top, too little everywhere else. College ought to be tuition free just as primary and secondary education are. There is too much money in politics, too many wealthy folks buying influence with too many politicians.
        There is not much in the Bernie Sanders program for a conservative or libertarian to love except that last point about the corrupting influence of vast sums of money in politics. The further to the right you are the more maddening and unacceptable you consider this situation, the very same goes for the left, and no, that isn't paradoxical. Anyone can see that the never ending campaigns, the hours spent each day by politicians begging for money, pressuring lobbyists for contributions, then making laws tailored to benefit the financial interests of the few at the expense of the many, this whole ugly spectacle in all its glory, is unworthy of a great republic and detracts from all of our lives in significant ways. Naturally this deplorable situation is going to look most deplorable to the people who are paying closest attention. The more politics and world affairs matter to you, the more likely you are to gravitate to the edges, leaving the broad squishy middle to occupy the broad squishy middle.
       Consensus on the seriousness of the problem unfortunately does not always lead to consensus toward a solution. On this issue left and right ,as you'd expect, call for diametrically different prescriptions. I may not be the best person to present Sanders proposals to limit money flowing into politics . I think he offers greater government intervention in our lives rather than less. He would have us reduce our first amendment rights, passing a new amendment to get there. I may be in a better position to make the right wing case since I agree with it.
       For the libertarian right the fundamental problem is always going to be too damn much government. The too much money in politics problem exists because there is too much government in everything. In our perfect Eden you have the private sector and the public sector. The last is very small and exists to serve the other. Why is it so small? Because it doesn't have all that much to do, and we don't give it all that much to spend. In the real world it's enormous, spending enormous amounts of money, employing enormous numbers of people, and able to make or break industries and businesses through taxation and regulation without hardly trying. Naturally,  business interests that have already succeeded seek to turn those powers against  upstart competition. The term for that is crony-capitalism. Companies , unions, and non -profits buy the support of politicians through campaign donations in order to gain contracts and favors or create a more favorable regulatory environment for themselves alone. More often the politician is not so much bought off as chosen and funded based on their leanings. Either way, the deepest pockets get to do the choosing.
        Reduce government in size and you reduce its ability to do harm. Madison designed a government structure accommodating the clash of competing selfish interests then channeling that energy to the best results for the most people. That design became the constitution. We've wrecked that system without putting anything in its place, but it can be restored. Reduce, recycle, repurpose (in this case the institutions of government), and you've solved the too much money in politics problem by slashing at its roots and not ineffectively pruning the tips of a few branches.
        You may see the problem with this approach. It has limited appeal. We are accustomed to solving the problems that government creates by adding a little more government to them. That sort of problem solving has gotten us into the mess we're in today . With 47% of us either on the government payroll, or receiving government benefits, we're not likely to reach enlightenment soon. It's a pity that so many of us would love to reduce the endemic corruption of Washington, and many a State House and municipality too ,but can't agree on how to get there. The future looks cloudy with a chance of campaign inflation, and the long-term forecast is calling for much more of the same.

     Started painting in gauche again. Have a dozen 10x7 grey panels to play with. This one is of the corner entrance to Nugget building at Colorado and Fir, Telluride.

            Bernie Trump
 
       How long will the glorious spectacle that is the Trump campaign be around for our entertainment and edification? Part of the fun is that it forever seems on the edge of blowing up. The nearer Trump comes to self destruction the higher his rise in the poles, already beating the nearest Republican by a factor of two.
        His candidacy ,and the campaign of Democrat Bernie Sanders don't necessarily appeal to the same sort of voter but do have a lot in common. Both are insurgent campaigns. The narrative goes something like this ; Things are so messed up in this country that we can no longer settle for the same old same old. Voting for the usual suspects only brings the usual results. It's time for an outsider , someone who can actually accomplish what other politicians only talk about but so often fail to accomplish because they only now how to play it safe. We need to risk it all on a natural risk taker.
         A sizeable portion of one party would gladly vote for someone who calls himself a Socialist, is older than any other candidate for President that I can recall, and comes from a State that might actually be a Canadian province. A sizeable portion of the other party backs a man who appears to be a major league narcissist ,bordering on megalomania, has never held office, is fairly fluid in his political views, and who's chief characteristic is the complete lack of any filter between what he says and whatever pops into his mind. Like I said, two peas in a pod.

   
       The sound of one hand clapping

  If you're old enough to remember the Vietnam war then you may remember the anti-war slogan "What if they had a war and nobody came". Obviously, if war is declared but no one shows up to fight it you'd have no war. What happens if you have a war and one side doesn't show up, just pretends it isn't happening?
   Over the past 35 years Iran has been at war with the United States, and the U.S. has yet to show up. Taking over our embassy in Tehran and holding its staff hostage for over a year in 1979, and 1980 was an act of war in itself. Spilling the blood of our soldiers in Lebenon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, as Iran has done or caused to be done, drives home the point, but no one on this side of the conflict is listening. There are lots of reasons to just let Iran do all the fighting, it's not necessarily cowardice alone that keeps us from joining in, but eventually we will be forced to the to face the plain facts. History teaches that conflict forestalled is not made any easier. Delaying the inevitable just ensures the inevitable will have a bigger bite. The treaty just signed between Iran and the United States and others to lift economic sanctions in return for an inspection regime of their nuclear arms program will not postpone either the Iranian nuclear bomb or full scale war between us. It only takes sanctions off the table ; the most effective tool available to limit their influence in the region and the grip of the ruling Islamist party at home. In other words it brings us closer to bilateral warfare, and further from any hope of avoiding that.

           Welcome to my new blog. In the coming days, or weeks if I'm slow, I'll be adding photos and images of paintings I've created to this site along with observations and comments much like those I write for the Daily Planet opinion page. The combination may look incongruous, political rants with bucolic landscapes. I can't imagine that reading my opinions on issues of the day will do much to stimulate sales of my paintings. It will probably have the opposite effect, but I've got these two driving needs to express myself; visually, and through words, and that's what blogs are for. A blog is a place to let it rip, the ultimate soapbox. That's how I'll use it, while sharing a little art along the way. Hope I can provide something interesting for you on both counts.