Necessity, Crisis and Change

The level of dishonesty we have become conditioned to accept in political campaigns is disconcerting. Rumor, innuendo and outright deception are trumpeted across every form of media. The use of common fallacy is increasingly common. We hardly notice anymore, and if we do notice, it is always the candidate from the other party who is the culprit. The contradictory claims of the candidates are mutually exclusive. In other words, someone has to be lying. In some cases both candidates lie. We elect liars to office, expect them to represent us with integrity and become indignant when scandal is exposed.

I don’t like Democrats and I don’t like Republicans; don’t like conservatives and don’t like liberals. Author, Tom Robbins, said, ‎"Conservatives understand Halloween; liberals only understand Christmas. If you want to control a population, don't give it social services, give it a scary adversary." With our two party, one agenda system we’re forever trapped somewhere between Halloween and Christmas and Thanksgiving comes for fewer Americans every year.

Democratic candidates posture a concern for the downtrodden to hang on to their slim majority of voters. To pay for their ability to remain in power the fifty percent of us who actually pay income tax in this country are increasingly burdened by the costs of an ever growing government bent on being all things to all people. Democratic candidates appeal to people with open minded and egalitarian views, to non-judgmental people and to people with guilty consciences who want the government to force everyone else to assuage that guilt.

Republican candidates posture a concern for enemies that surround us at all times to hang on to their slim majority of voters. To pay for their ability to remain in power the fifty percent of us who actually pay income tax in this country are increasingly burdened by the costs of an ever growing government bent on projecting American corporate power into every corner of the world. Republican candidates appeal to hard working people with conservative values, to entrepreneurs and to people who are afraid of anyone who is different and want the government to force everyone to have the same values and religious beliefs.

How’s that for a political (or anti-political) ad? Oversimplified, emotive and not entirely accurate? As far as technique it isn’t too far afield from the marketing campaigns “approved by” today’s candidates. I have to wonder if we would actually elect a candidate who dared to tell us the truth, because the truth does not a guaranteed happy ending like a half hour sit-com.

The truth is deceptively simple; easy to see but hard to reach. The continued prosperity of a nation is dependent upon just a few simple things: private investment, productivity and a sustainable population growth. Private investment is dead right now because entrepreneurs and small businesses which might otherwise be hiring and building are instead saving and paying down debt. The specter of increased taxes will support that trend. Sustainable population growth is the 500 pound gorilla in the room that is increasingly hard to ignore. It is at the root of the inability of either political party to solve the immigration problem. Without immigration, legal and otherwise, we have a below-replacement fertility rate in the United States. With immigration we just about break even, which nevertheless may not give us enough of a working force to pay for the Social Security and Medicaid of the impending flood of Baby Boomer retirees. As far as productivity, it has increased dramatically over the last two decades. The problem is that the benefits of increased productivity have been appropriated by the financial sector. Real wages have stayed the same or, according to some estimates, decreased as prices have risen.

And here, dear readers, is the rest of the story. The last problem mentioned is the one that will prevent a solution for all the others. The continued appropriation of productivity by the financial sector will continue and expand the hardships felt by average citizens. Do not look for solutions from government, for as the actions of the Obama Administration - that great hope for change so quickly subdued by the corporate elite - clearly illustrates, government itself has been appropriated by the financial sector. Nothing in politics today indicates that either political party will do much to change the status quo.

As Jean Monnet said, “People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them.” We can by all means vote our conscience and our convictions, but don’t expect anything to change. Not just yet. The quiet coup orchestrated by the financial sector will ultimately lead to crisis. There is no other outcome to the policies they have designed to enrich themselves. When that crisis comes, then we will have a chance to purge the den of thieves which currently controls the reins of power. Better to batten down our hatches. Save our money, cut our expenses and pay down our debts. Invest wisely. Pay attention. Look to our families, neighborhoods, churches and local organizations for support. Think outside the box. Develop local ties and affiliations and again, pay attention. Pay attention.

Fear and Loathing in Washington

We have been uncharacteristically silent regarding politics this year and the midterm elections are approaching rapidly. In the gubernatorial race we are content with the knowledge that whichever candidate wins, Georgia will get a competent Governor. Both candidates are flawed; each has stretched the truth about the other, but they are both basically decent men and cut from nearly the same cloth: a little scratchy around the collar but wears well. No matter who wins, Georgia will manage.

We are less than content with national politics, still smarting from how quickly the “lesser of evils” presidential candidate caved in to the big banks. We think Obama is also a decent man, but arrogant, insulated and ill advised. The economic problems he inherited were at least 20 years in the making, but he surrounded himself from the beginning with the same people who helped create the problems - people as removed from mainstream American life as the average American is from an Aborigine. Reminds us a little of George W. Bush, but no, we don’t “miss him yet,” as the famous billboard asks. We do miss the political savvy of Johnson, the sense of hope engendered by Reagan and the integrity of Jimmy Carter.

We like to give people (and politicians) the benefit of the doubt when we can. It is better for the digestion that way; but apparently Obama and his advisers still believe that the survival of the entire American economy is dependent on a handful of gigantic investment banks. We strongly disagree. We think that Greed is advising the President as we watch banking behemoths gradually digesting small town banks all across the country. The majority of our media is owned by only a half dozen corporations and the financial industry seems set to follow the same course.

We are not concerned at the probability that the Republicans may gain control of the Senate and win many seats in the House. Our Democratic Congress with its clear majority has managed to accomplish very little. It took the serious problem of healthcare and turned it into a disaster. Everyone agreed that healthcare should have been overhauled, but the shiny chrome of a shared ideal, when it was exposed to the battery acid of backroom deals, lobbyists and political maneuvering, turned into something just plain ugly. If the Republicans win the Senate, it may well be worth it if they can dismantle the wreckage of Obamacare.

There is some hope, perhaps, in the growing level of anger and disgust with government which is shared by so many Americans. Unfortunately we have little hope for a movement as conflicted as the Tea Party as long as it is influenced to any degree by racism and religious intolerance or guided in ANY way by the ambitions and self promotions of a Sarah Palin. We had hoped that Palin would quietly fade away without any further fragmentation of the Republican Party. Our best hope for her now is that, like a net used to clean the floating debris from the top of the swimming pool, she will at least gather together the reactionaries and nuthatches so that they can be addressed as a group. Anger can be a positive agent for change if it is focused intelligently, but unfortunately it can also make us vulnerable to the likes of Palin. Sadly, if it wasn’t her, it would be someone else. Someone has always been willing to lead the mob and, lacking a mob to lead, to help create one.

Anger with government is widespread. We are fed up with the lack of integrity that exists in Washington, in state capitols and in county seats. Alexis de Tocqueville said that in a democracy, we get the government we deserve. When we allow the ambitions of political candidates to frame our choices in terms of so many common fallacies; when we allow candidates to paint their ideas in such broad strokes while we listen for key words which identify them as one of “us” or one of “them,” the result is permanently polarized political parties at the extremes and a disempowered majority in the middle to push the pendulum in one direction or another as our frustration with one side becomes our hope for the other.

Too many of us vote for the candidate who best pretends to sympathize with our own fears and prejudices, which are of absolutely no use when a candidate is actually elected. Whether a candidate worships god in the same way as we do, or at all; what a candidate believes about conception or capital punishment or gun control or what people choose to put in their own bodies or what they choose to do with their own bodies in the privacy of their own homes - and a host of other “issues,” has no effect on a candidate’s ability to govern. Our favorite “issues” do not predict a candidate’s ability to build a consensus, to manage an economy, to create jobs, to maintain infrastructure and to protect us from enemies. Our favorite talking point issues are utterly useless in gauging a candidate’s ability to maintain freedom, opportunity and stability. While divided, we are conquered. Gullible and easily manipulated, with each passing year we lose a little more freedom and a little more opportunity – no matter what political party is in power.

October Magic

October is the magical month. The air acquires a crystalline quality rarely seen in the haze of summer and hidden behind the gray mantle of winter. October skies are bluer; all the colors, more vibrant. October invites us to sit upon the bare ground and bask in the warming rays of the sun, the same sun which only a few short weeks ago drove us panting into the shade or trapped us indoors with the ubiquitous buzz of the air conditioner.

Each passing year increases the distance between Technological Man and the Earth which sustains him. Being “one with nature” is a quaint cliché from a bygone era; inconceivable when the temperature and the humidity are both above 90 or when the ground is hard and the breath turns to ice crystals, but in October, nature is welcoming. The hordes of stinging, biting and sucking things are in retreat and it is easier to remember why a walk in the woods is a very good thing.

October hints of mysteries obscured for most of the year by the neverending pursuit of stimulation and gratification. Leaves change colors and fall to the ground. Flowers fade, go to seed, wither and die. Hints of the winter to come are carried down the mountains on the evening breeze.

October reminds us of change and season and the irresistible march of time. In the frantic but fading calls of crickets we can hear the primordial rhythms of life on earth, older than civilization, older than religion, visceral, untamed. We feel the irrational but perfectly natural urge to build a bonfire, beat a drum, carve a pumpkin or wear a scary mask, to unconsciously join the thousands of generations stretching back into the mists of prehistory who raged against the dying of the light. The ancients claimed that the veil between this world and the next is thin this time year. The grinning pumpkin sitting in the window would agree…

Diversity and Tolerance

Mark Twain wrote that "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” Twain went on to say that “broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

I understand the frustrated idealism in the statement, but I think perhaps that the operative word here may be “vegetating.” My grandfather, born in 1886, never traveled outside the Southeast, never owned an automobile or even a television, but never was there a more charitable or tolerant individual. He never “vegetated.” He observed human behavior; he read voraciously; he prayed constantly and he died peacefully at the age of 98. He was, perhaps, exceptional in his egalitarian views.

Americans have for generations taken pride in being a great “melting pot” of cultures, and nowhere on earth has travel been more ubiquitous than in the United States. Travel is central to our national identity, our perception of freedom and independence and in some cases our very sense of self. Yet a generation after the great civil rights struggles of the 1960’s, prejudice persists and we are a nation divided by race, ethnicity, politics and religion; this, despite the efforts of mass media to frame every situation and every comedy as a happy mixture of every race, color, creed and national origin that can fit on a screen.

As for the “melting pot,” a recent study based on census data and posted on the Radical Cartography website illustrates the extreme racial and ethnic segregation that persists in our largest cities. With the ability to live anywhere we choose, we choose to live among our “own kind,” and humankind is not enough of a distinction for many of us.

Mark Twain hoped that if Americans exposed themselves to different cultures that they would recognize the humanity which joins us all. Yet travel in and of itself does not seem to fulfill his wish. The British Empire at one point in history circled the globe and yet many of the people who lived within the “empire” were considered by the British to be subhuman – not a particularly charitable view. Africans who traveled halfway around the world to America did not consider life on the plantation to be wholesome and their owners, when they were exposed to a foreign culture, attempted to eradicate it.

Prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness display the ability to survive travel and exposure to other cultures. Decades after the desegregation of our schools they appear capable of withstanding even education. These debilitations of the human spirit seem to be hardwired into the animal side of human nature. Genetically identical animals form groups, develop identities separate from their neighbors and compete with each other for territory and resources. This is true of a hive of bees, a pack of wolves, a pride of lions or a herd of elephants.

Is this not also true of humans? Several studies have shown that the human mind is incapable of comprehending more than about 150 meaningful relationships. People outside this group have a tendency to be perceived as “the other, “no matter how similar they may be to us. Perhaps this is the determining factor in our astounding ability to create divisions among ourselves. Combine our hardwired perceptual limitations with fear of “the other,” and you have the history of the human race in a nutshell.

I’m still inspired by Mark Twain’s hope for “broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things.” As well as being capable of division, humanity has used religion, education and compassion to overcome the limitations of the human animal. For many it is not the perception of the other but the fear of the other that is the root of the problem and for many, travel provides the opportunity to overcome that fear. For others it is the spiritual journey or the travels of the educated and inquiring mind.

Perhaps there is a cautionary tale to be found in the structure of the human brain. A hundred and fifty individuals is about the size of a small tribe or a clan. Perhaps we achieved the optimum organizational unit for human beings generations ago - and while nations and empires have erased the natural boundaries of the community, we have invented divisions to replace them. While there seems to be little chance of an orderly retreat from the homogenization of cultures, it would behoove us to remember the plagues and infestations endured by the natural world that was brought on by our industrial practice of monoculture. In the final analysis, perhaps our best hope for survival is to be found in a twofold approach: by encouraging diversity and, above all, by teaching tolerance.

Time to Take Away the Keys

The wisdom is as old as history. It survives in homilies and platitudes repeated so often as to go unnoticed by many, but it is intuited if not understood by a variety of people: a student working to gain an education, an athlete training to excel, a child saving to buy a bicycle (or an iPod) or a parent saving to send that child to college. The wisdom is this; that great things are accomplished by sacrificing a measure of immediate gratification to make small, incremental changes oriented towards a future goal.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. “Slow and steady wins the race,” said the tortoise to the hare. Our parents’ generation understood this. They opened savings accounts when they were young. They bought bonds and annuities. If they invested in the stock market they chose companies with solid fundamentals which paid dividends. Back in the “old days” nation building was funded by a country’s savings. The WWII Generation used their savings to build the strongest nation in the world with the best schools, the best infrastructure, the best science and the most innovative businesses.

If civilization survives us, historians may argue indefinitely about where we lost our way. If you compare today’s economy, infrastructure and educational system with those of the previous generation, we begin to look like one of those before and after posters of a meth addict. Our drug, it seems, was gratification. Born into the affluence created by the previous generation, we lost the will to sacrifice anything for our own future. Some say that we allowed the moral fiber of the nation to weaken, but we might also understand it this way: Our dissipation weakened our immune system and made us vulnerable to an array of predators and parasites.

Parasites and predators have been with us since we lived in caves, but today we exist in a tapeworm economy while the vultures circle overhead. If we are lucky enough to have a dollar, an incredible array of devices exist to entice or to extort it from us. All forms of communication and commercial media are infested with tapeworms. The Internet is becoming one endless marketing campaign. Radio and television attempt to shout us into submission. Even the old fashioned telephone is not safe from the computer generated sales pitch.

Our largest and most venerable institutions have also turned parasitic. If we want to save for the future, our bank pays us almost nothing for the use of our money - but if WE want to use it, transfer it or, so it seems, even look at it – they charge us a fee. We can’t drive an automobile without paying an insurance company – and who can afford to have a tooth filled or visit a doctor without insurance? But of all the institutions great and small, the hungriest, the greediest, the most intrusive and by far the most parasitic is none other than our own government.

In such an environment sacrificing and saving for the future becomes difficult when our best efforts are barely sufficient to keep up with our obligations. We are living with the consequences of our choices and unfortunately we are only in the beginning stages of what some have called the Great Recession or, as Bill Bonner coined, “The Great Correction.” Like a drug addict beginning to detox, our society is in for some unpredictable behavior as we experience withdrawal symptoms from being denied the instant gratifications we can no longer afford. Working Americans are becoming savvy to this situation. Our savings rate has grown rapidly as we learn to spend less and save more. But in the process we are starving many of the parasites which have thrived for so long on our indiscretions.

Think of it this way – our economy is being “wormed,” and like the dog or cat unfortunate enough to have experienced this process, we will feel a little sick for a while as the parasites struggle to stay alive. Our biggest challenge will be “worming” the government, which has bored very deeply into us, feeding heavily on our vital processes.

In our growing frustration it may make us feel better for a moment to consider the similarity between government institutions and tapeworms. In the final analysis, however, we are dealing exclusively with human beings; human beings who share many of the same addictions that have plagued the general population. The difference is that the people in government are in a position to leverage their addictions. We feel the momentary rush of power when we are able to satisfy our desire for instant gratification. In government the rush of power is more long lasting. It is, perhaps, a more serious addiction. Wresting power from such an addict will not be any easier than taking the car keys from an alcoholic, but it must be done. We have allowed Washington to drive drunk for too long.

Most of us have heard the term, “voodoo economics” batted around in political circles, but for many of us, economics itself is a form of voodoo. One would think that the opposite would be true; that the study of buying and selling would be easy to understand. After all, the transactions involved in commerce are overwhelmingly those of addition, subtraction and division. The forty dollars I paid this weekend for pasta and tomato sauce divided by two people is greater than that same forty dollars divided by 10 frozen dinners. The frozen dinners are more “economical,” especially if you consider the bargain price you pay for multi-syllabic chemical additives, but they are certainly not as tasty as our favorite Italian restaurant, nor as healthy.

Nevertheless, though economics considers transactions involving basic math, the theories about those transactions are anything but basic. Keynesian, Post-Keynesian, Consumer Theory, Value Theory, The Austrian School and Time-Based Economics: these are but a few of the many, and in the process of explaining the simple process of buying and selling we have moved from simple math to statistical analysis and beyond, into the mystical realm of human psychology.

Yet few if any of us pause to consider whether the Keynesians or the Austrians are to blame when it takes 50 bucks to fill the gas tank or when the power company raises it rates. In fact, the recent rate hike by Blue Ridge Mountain EMC has caused quite a stir in our local communities and there is plenty of blame, most of it directed at the power company. Some of the theories as to the reasons for this rate increase would make a Keynesian blush. I took some time this weekend to examine the numbers behind this rate hike.

Looking at the power company’s own statistics, it appears that they have joined a growing number of Americans including our national government, our state government, hundreds of thousands of banks and corporations, millions of small businesses and tens of millions of American citizens in that their debt to income ratio has grown to an unsustainable level. How did this happen?

Again, the numbers tell the story, and the culprit isn’t the new facility they are building, which has been a favorite target for some. That project will add a whopping $1.49 to the average electric bill. The “culprit,” in fact, is the unplanned and unregulated growth which we have railed against in this column for years, and the story of how that happened is a familiar one to our readers.

We have a relatively low population density in our area compared to many other parts of the state. Our residents are spread out over a large area on terrain that is often difficult to access. Consider the number of trophy homes perched on steep inclines or on ridge tops that no fire truck will ever reach. Consider the house tucked away at the end of a long and winding pig trail that the county will never pave, yet the power company is required by law to provide electricity to each and every outpost in their service area. Multiply the number of pretentious perches and pig-trail palaces by the number of years we allowed, in fact encouraged, unregulated growth in this area. Factor in the often overlooked fact that it usually takes decades for a power company to recoup the costs of providing service to that floodlight we see glaring out from the top of the mountain. Can you do the math?

When it is all said and done and no matter how the numbers are presented, there will still be some who prefer to understand current events in terms of conspiracy or malfeasance. There is a simple answer to those accusations, and I found the numbers on a website provided by the Georgia Public Service Commission at http://www.psc.state.ga.us/electric/surveys/2010/allprowin10.asp. This website compares rates for all electricity providers in the state of Georgia and the most recent comparisons are for the winter of 2010. In the 1000 to 1500 KWh range, the cost of electricity in our area was the 17th cheapest in the state. There were 77 electric providers that were more expensive. If you add our recent 6% rate increase, we are still well within the top third for cheapest electric rates, and by the time the next numbers are published, many electric providers will have raised their rates as well, including a likely 10% increase by Georgia Power.

Think about that for a moment. With a lower population density over the most extreme terrain in the state, even with the rate increase our EMC provides power at a rate that is cheaper than what most Georgian’s pay. According to the math I learned in school, this means that they are doing their job more efficiently than most of their peers. Look at the numbers for yourself, and if you still want to punish the power company, you might try turning off those floodlights.

Some unknowns in life are easy to discover. All you have to do is pay attention and remember what you see. This is called “experiential education,” and it is widely considered the best way to learn. Thanks to experiential education, I never buy any processed food with the word “delight” on the label. I tend to avoid eateries named after any part of a chicken and businesses which have the words “and more” attached to their names.

Some of life’s questions are arguably a complete waste of time and resources. Consider the recent media spectacle around the big question of whether a famous ball bouncer would play his game in this city or that. I saw the governor of Ohio singing an embarassing song of praise to this minor deity in a creepy video one morning before I had taken my first sip of coffee…and although I believe I should be able to eventually leave the disgusting memory behind without therapy, this spectacle which might otherwise be funny still leaves me saddened for what it says about our society and our pitiful and fawning worship of celebrity.

Some questions are extremely difficult to answer. Is capital punishment just or even effective? When is war justified? Is abortion “right” or “wrong?” I want to touch for a moment on the last question, and not because I think I can answer it. As a male, I’m not one hundred percent sure I even have a right to address it. It is a question of faith that we attempt to address in terms of science, even though we lack the science to completely answer it. Does human life begin at conception? How exactly do we define “human?” Does the soul enter the body at conception or when the body takes its first breath? What is a soul?

As a society we may never agree on these questions simply because, like all questions of faith, they exist beyond the reach of our science, beyond the reach of logic itself. This does not mean that we do not have the right to choose what we believe and to create customs and laws which reflect those beliefs. The problem is, what do we do when we need to make choices about issues upon which we strongly disagree? We have a system designed to do just that; a system where popular opinion begets legislation which is then filtered through the courts to become law. On the question of abortion our system has barely been able to handle such a polarizing issue, but it has been able to produce laws, though highly unpopular with many.

Which brings us to the point of this week’s discussion. This is an election year and the polarizing issue of abortion will once again be used as a litmus test by candidates who know that they can guarantee themselves a number of votes simply by stating a position on the issue. In Georgia’s governor’s race this year the “pro-life” or “pro-choice” position is at the top of the list of many candidates’ alleged qualifications for the job. At the risk of deeply offending some on either side of the issue, I must in all sincerity suggest to you that, in the context of impending economic disaster, with soldiers continuing to die in two wars often forgotten by the starry eyed public, and in the face of continuing environmental catastrophe – the issue of abortion is a red herring.

For many voters a candidate’s position on this single issue is enough to guarantee a vote without any further investigation of the candidate’s ideas or her past performance. Nevertheless I must continue to assert that voting for a pro-choice or pro-life governor, or president, will not change the law of the land. Millions of Americans voted for George Bush simply because he claimed to be a Christian and a pro-life candidate. After eight years of the Bush Administration, however, abortion was still legal and you would be hard pressed to demonstrate conclusively a single instance where the former president’s avowed religious beliefs affected the events which occurred during those years.

The business of politics divides to conquer. Yet after years of undermining and through the continuing assault on our Republic, the mechanism for change is still within our grasp. I challenge you, I beg you…in the upcoming elections please set aside the “litmus” positions and examine logically and dispassionately what the candidates are presenting. Set aside the façade of political party and try to assess who you think would be the best manager as opposed to the best figurehead, the best icon, or the best celebrity. Managers are what we need and the need is becoming desperate.

Every president in my lifetime and every governor has claimed to be a “Christian.” Let’s assume then that all the candidates are, and set aside this consideration. Most candidates choose to run as a democrat or a republican. Barak Obama ran as a democrat, yet if you put politics aside, some of his decisions would make any republican happy. Obama is a corporatist, as are many candidates wearing the democrat or the republican label. Set these labels aside. They mean very little when it comes to how a candidate will perform in office.

As for the issue of abortion, this is a question that will not be decided in a governor’s race or even a presidential election. This is a “bottom up,” not a “top down” issue. Laws on this issue change when society changes. Society becomes more educated, more mature and wiser – and it becomes less so. Laws will follow.