Riders on the Storm

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. 

Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

— Samuel Butler

We're about to see Joe Biden try to replace deprivation with comfort—or at least the opportunity to achieve comfort. And we're about to see Republicans try to block him.

I was raised to be a New Deal Democrat and cannot sympathize with anyone—except the rich—who supports the other party; and I can hardly sympathize with the rich. (My tender feelings fizzle fairly fast for households earning $300K+ a year.)

Biden's plan is bold because justice is at stake.

Justice is simple.

If you're a Republican, when it comes to defining justice you're on the wrong side of history—or two centuries behind the times, anyway. Your notions of rugged cowboys and laissez-faire capitalists are as outdated as frock-coats; so are your miserly notions of producers, moochers and looters. But you don't care. You're too busy dodging taxes and griping about socialism.

But if you're not a Republican, you know justice is about fairness, not self-interest, not ownership—and certainly not ownership of you (the gripe of Republicans is that taxes equate to Stalinist "forced labor"). Fairness means you don't trammel others' rights, including the right to a fair opportunity—a "fair shake," as Biden prefers to say. 

What's so complicated about that?

Now, Congressional gridlocking aside, the realist in me recognizes that giving everyone her fair shake won't be easy. 

First, some rich people will have to pay more taxes. Tough turkey. If you earn over $300K, I won't cry for you.

Second, some poor people will waste their opportunity. That'll be no one's fault but their own. I won't cry for them, either. Justice, after all, assures inalienable rights; even the right to screw up.

Dasein ist geworfener Entwurf, as Heidegger said: into this world we're thrown.

Thrownness is the human condition, our lot in life, the hand we're dealt. We're all born "situated," as Sartre said. Some are born haves, some have-nots; some White, some non-White; some abled, some disabled; some competent, some grossly not so. Justice seeks to throw off our thrownness.

We're all just riders on the storm. 

Why don't Republicans get that?

Keynes Reigns

The rich, to be blunt, are shitting bricks.

Democrats' American Rescue Plan will jazz the economy by putting $2 trillion into the hands of peasants.

The rich aren't used to such unfair treatment. Pish posh.

What's it mean? 

Reaganomics is dead. Keynes again reigns.

Keynes claimed spending—by households, businesses, and the government—is the driver of the economy. That's spending, not siphoning, accumulating, banking, or hoarding. When households and businesses don't spend, government must.

Prepare for the brainless lackeys of the rich—the GOP—to begin recycling their three foundational cracker-barrel wisdoms:

• The government is a family. Families must not deficit-spend. Just think what would have happened had June spent more than Ward's salary. Wally and the Beaver would have lived their entire adult lives in poverty. (Don't bring up the fact that the Cleavers couldn't print money, set interest rates, or levy taxes.)
  
  
• Government only builds "bridges to nowhere." All government spending is wasteful. (Don't you dare mention the national highway system, space exploration, or the Internet. They were fake news!)
  
  
• Peasants are your moral inferiors. The rich shoulder the weight of the whole world, while peasants just loot from them. Handouts will only incent the latter to laze all day, sipping wine, texting, and birthing more brown babies. (Don't remind us the Kardashians do those things, too.)

Don't listen to the GOP's stale and quite stupid malarkey. 

Celebrate, instead, the triumphant return from exile of John Maynard Keynes.

Beware the Devil's Bargain

What fools these mortals be.

— William Shakespeare

Five years ago, I spent three lovely winter weeks in Cape May, New Jersey, helping to care for my then-preschool-age granddaughter Lucy, while her dad was on an extended business trip.

Every morning while Lucy was in school, I'd grab a joe and a buttered bagel at a café near the county courthouse, and sit and read another front-page story in the local paper, The Press of Atlantic City, about the ruin wrought upon the region by a bankrupt casino developer named Donald Trump.

As story after story told, Trump had systematically cheated small-time building and hotel-service contractors throughout South Jersey, leaving them with nothing for their efforts but unpaid bills, insurmountable debts, and suicidal wishes.

Trump's biography as a businessman, we've since learned, is the tale of a consummate chiseler and all-time loser. Atlantic City was just one brief chapter of the tale.

The chiseler-in-chief has just added a fresh chapter to his biography, as he stiffs the fools who stormed the Capitol on his behalf.

Like those South Jersey contractors, they'll lose everything, while Donald remains safely ensconced on his golden throne.

Beware the devil's bargain!

UPDATE FEBRUARY 4, 2021: Trump is so despised in Atlantic City, the mayor successfully auctioned off ringside seats for the implosion of his abandoned casino later this month.

Comeuppance

An epoch is but a swing of the pendulum.

— George Bernard Shaw

That momentous sound you hear is history's escapement as the pendulum swings back toward economic justice. I didn't think I'd live long enough to hear it. I'm glad I did.

Ninety years ago, the GOP—the party of the rich—handed FDR an economy in ruins. But by restraining the rich, FDR turned that economy around, rebuilding it on the basis of the New Deal and the nation's mobilization against fascism.

The New Deal epoch endured through seven more administrations—those of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter—until Reagan reversed the pendulum. 

Reagan and the GOP ultimately ruined the economy again, in the process awarding trillions of dollars to one of every ten Americans, while driving two of every ten into poverty. 

It took five more administrations—those of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump—to end Reagan's epoch; but, clearly, it's over. Trump made that certain.

Americans need good government—and to again deal the rich their comeuppance.

Rich People

Rich people in cars never look at people on the street. Poor ones always do.

― Lucia Berlin

 

The rich can't empathize, according to a new study appearing in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Researchers at New York University and the University of California, Irvine asked subjects from various economic classes to examine photos of other people and describe the others' emotional states. The poor scored much higher than the rich in the test.

The researchers concluded that, while poor folks can read others' emotions accurately, the rich lack empathy. 

"Lower-class individuals—owing to their greater levels of cultural interdependence—may appraise other human beings as more relevant to their goals and well-being than do higher-class individuals,” the researchers wrote. 

In other words, the rich have little use for the poor—so objectify them—while the poor folks are "people who need people."

Another new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that the rich often deny class privilege "by increasing their claims of personal hardships and hard work." 

The rich "cover privilege in a veneer of meritocracy,” the researchers wrote, because "evidence of privilege threatens recipients’ self-regard by calling into question whether they deserve their successes."

Unstoppable

George is looking down and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody.

― Donald Trump

As he signed a bill that interferes with the free market, free-market maven Donald Trump this week alluded to economists' notion that "a rising tide lifts all boats" and implied the bill would repair race relations in our country.

Apologists for the president don't grasp the fact that, while a rising tide lifts some boats, many Americans are marooned―black ones disproportionately.

More accurately, Trump's apologists don't care that many Americans are marooned.

Those of us appalled by Trump―a majority of Americans―recognize on some level that he's refusing to acknowledge a social evil and is therefore guilty of passive injustice.

Trump's failure to protest an evident injustice is itself an injustice―an injustice his apologists are content with.

Philosophers have deployed such willful indifference, advocating instead the "doctrine of acts and omissions."

The doctrine goes: when you can see that acting or refusing to act will bring about a similar result, there's an ethical, if not practical, difference between acting and refusing to do so.

In short, omissions can be as wanton as commissions. In a pinch, there's no such thing as a "bystander:" refusing to act is negligence.

Champions of the doctrine point to moral quandaries like the famous "Trolley Problem:"

Suppose a runaway train is about to arrive at a branch in the tracks. Ahead on both branches are track workers; one worker on one branch, five on the other. All are oblivious to the oncoming train. If it continues on its course, the train will kill the five workers. Should you switch the train onto the branch with one worker? As a bystander, you can intervene, though it makes you a killer; or take no action and let the train do the killing. Which choice is right?

Philosopher Peter Singer would answer: you can't just stand by and watch; you should kill the single track worker. 

As he says in Practical Ethics, the Trolley Problem shows that, in the face of life-and-death consequences, "the conventionally accepted principle of the sanctity of human life is untenable."

Americans are angry at Trump and his apologists because, while they lean on the brain-dead myth of the free market, they're blithefully ignorant of the consequences of racism in America.

But we're not ignorant and we're no longer bystanders. We know what's right―and where to send the runaway train. No one wants to run the president over; just vote him out.

Lace Curtain

The greatest generation was formed first by the Great Depression.

— Tom Brokaw

My parents both experienced the Great Depression.

But their experiences could not have been more different.

My mother's was a "lace curtain" home. As a 10-year old, she was hardly aware, much less affected, by the disquiet outside.

But she did recall vividly that strange men often appeared at the back door, asking for a sandwich.

She also recalled a Thanksgiving when her grandparents fed hot turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes to strangers they gathered in the cellar.

My father's was a much different home.

He never spoke of it, not once, nor of the Great Depression.

I only know things turned so desperate, his dad sent the baby sister to an orphanage.

If you don't believe there are years of pain ahead for countless millions, I envy you.

You're in the camp that hopes this interregnum is V- or W-shaped.

Perhaps you're an optimist, misinformed by leaders, or simply "lace curtain."

Whatever the case, spend a few moments with MOMA's new video.

PS: Read my most-popular post ever. It's also based on a life experience of my mother.

Past Lives Matter

The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.

— William Faulkner

My Irish heritage has always been a source of pride, as it is for 33.3 million other Americans. (For what it's worth, my genome shows I descend from an Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages, a lordly lineage that makes me all the more proud.)

But being a "mick" ain't all glory.

It wasn't sixty years ago micks, like other groups, were considered untrustworthy outsiders, a distaste that vanished from our society only with the election—and killing—of John F. Kennedy.

I still remember from childhood offhand remarks made by Wasp adults that made the distaste clear to me.

When I conjure up the past lives of Irish-Americans, I picture tin miners and tunnel diggers; road workers and factory stiffs; Civil War soldiers and civil servants.

These people are part of me; I stand on their shoulders.

There are past lives that are a part of me which I haven't thought about.

My alma mater, Georgetown University, sold 272 of its slaves "down the river" in 1838. The slaves, who built the school, were sold out of necessity. The income—$3.3 million in today's money—retired a debt that, if unpaid, would have meant the end to the institution.

I stand on their shoulders, too.