Defying Gravity

If a bridge collapses, a Mercedes drops as fast as a Hyundai.

— Al Franken

Republican dogma notwithstanding, wealth never trickles down. 

Never.

Yet, despite the fact William Jennings Bryan exposed trickle down's fallaciousness 125 years ago, Republicans insist it does.

Wearing wearisome disguises, this idiotic article of faith resurfaces every time a Republican opens his or her fatuous mouth.

But money isn't subject to the law of gravity.

When it goes up, it never comes down. 

Unless forced to.

Last week we learned the super-rich pay no taxes, reconfirming the fact that wealth never trickles down; at least, not through our tax system.

Republicans' reaction to the news: good for them! They're smart cookies!

Why anyone but a trust-fund baby would vote Republican escapes me. 

They must be brainwashed by their betters. 

As Lenin observed, "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."

The good news is: we're on the brink of another New Deal, courtesy President Biden.

Naturally, Republicans are incensed. 

It puts the Trump tax cut at risk.

"Republicans say tax cuts pay for themselves," writes Al Franken in Rolling Stone. "They never do. How about we try something that actually does work?"

Franken, like Biden, proposes taxing the rich to pay for Biden's new deal.

"Perhaps you’ve noticed that the rich have been getting a lot richer for quite a few decades now," Franken writes. "And as the rich get richer, our country seems to be falling apart."

Which, if you've been outdoors lately, you know is true.

Since Reagan's presidency, the federal government has neglected the country's infrastructure, targeting tax dollars instead to weapons and Wall Street bailouts.

As a result, dynasties—a source of power never foreseen by our Founders—have blossomed.

Biden's new deal would tax those dynasties in order to update our dilapidated bridges, roads, water mains, power plants, parks, schools, railways, and seaports—a diabolical plan, if there ever was one.

Pure socialism! scream brain-dead Republicans.

Maybe it is. But the fact remains, wealth never trickles down. 

Never.

Like gold, wealth has to be extracted.

And why not?

"The fact is that every bit of what President Biden proposes is in everyone’s best interest," Franken writes.

"If a bridge collapses, a Mercedes drops as fast as a Hyundai."

But is It Scalable?

There are no accidents in life.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm sick of algorithm-writers trying to manipulate me.

They suggest who I should follow (like Tomi Lahren, someone I loathe); what I should say (they autocorrect "You're my honey" to "You're my hiney"); when I should shop ("It's time to add more data"); and where I should go ("Belize awaits you!" So does Hell.).

It seems no matter where I turn, an anonymous algorithm-writer—likely to be wrong about my wants—has his grubby finger on the scale.

Even book-writers—some, anyway—are trying to manipulate me, by "click-farming" their way onto Amazon's best-seller lists.

Book-writers hire Chinese click-farms to fake Kindle downloads of their books, which Amazon counts as "sales."

A couple thousand Kindle downloads, which today would cost about $400, can put a book—even one with no previous real sales—on the top of Amazon's Top 10 charts.

The fake Kindle downloads also feed Amazon's "Books you may like," suggested purchases served by—what else?—algorithms.

Whatever became of scrupulous writers? Writers who trusted to the originality and incisiveness of their books to boost sales?

Writers of books like Being and Nothingness.

Written by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, 722-page book examines the experiences of individuals from the standpoint of radical subjectivity.

Weighing precisely one kilo when published in Paris in 1943, Being and Nothingness sprang to the top of the best-seller list, to the author's surprise.

Who were all these Parisians in the midst of the Occupation so eager to read a philosophical investigation of human existence?

They were grocers, it turned out. 

Grocers were using the book on their scales to replace the one-kilo lead weights that had been confiscated by the Nazis, to be melted down for bullets.

America's Most Hated Man

We were fighting for an idea, and somebody who realized that had to say it and keep on saying it until it was believed.

— George Creel

Before there was foxification, there was creeling.

Named for adman George Creel, the flack who ran White House communications during World War I, creeling means to repeat a lie incessantly, expecting listeners to buy it—which they usually do. 

Propaganda experts also call Creel's trick the ad nauseam tactic.

Creel made no effort to disguise his creeling, which he defined as "propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the propagation of faith.”

Lacking the broadcast technology Fox exploits, Creel relied largely on an early form of brand advocacy to weaponize his palaver.

He dispatched a 75,000-man army of public speakers he called "Four-Minute Men" to "meet customers where they are"—or were, in 1917.

The Four-Minute Men would stand up in the nation's movie theaters between reel-changes—which took four minutes in the day—and mouth the White House's lies.

They lied about German atrocities, the fairness of the draft, the urgency for rationing, and the value of US savings bonds, over and over and over.

Creel supplemented his army of brand advocates by distributing millions of garish posters, booklets and films that demonized the enemy and glorified us, insisting, "America must be thrilled into unity."

To do any less, Creel believed, was to let the Germans win.

"The printed word, the spoken word, motion pictures, the telegraph, the wireless, cables, posters, signboards, and every possible media should be used to drive home the justice of America’s cause," he said. 

"Not to combat disaffection at home was to weaken the firing line.”

Historians haven't been kind to George Creel, calling him, among other things, a "warmonger," "petty tyrant," and "irredeemable villain"—even though his intentions might have been patriotic.

But, well intentioned though he be, Creel perfected the propaganda tool that bears his name—creeling—and handed it to the dybbuks at Fox.

For that, we can hate him.

Wind's Rising

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks.”

― Raymond Chandler

One of the grimmest recurring images in literature is a hot wind.

A harbinger of mayhem and violence, it blows in summers across cities like Los Angeles, turning the streets pitiless. 

As tempers and the red stuff in thermometers rise, beatings, stabbings and shootings spike.

As cops and criminologists know, a hot wind does things to people.

America's cities are in for a hot wind this summer. 

Last year, the homicide rates in large cities rose, on average, 30%. 

In some cities, the increase was far worse. In Minneapolis, homicides rose 72%; in Portland, 82%.

This summer will be even more violent.

"Unless the American people speak out," the Miami chief of police told CNN this week, "it’s gonna be a long, hot, bloody summer."

Child's Play

A child loves his play not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

— Benjamin Spock

The recent rehabilitation of Mr. Potato Head has led me to consider whether one of my favorite childhood games—Cowboys & Indians—can be similarly salvaged, or whether it's so outré it must remain on the ash heap of history.

When I was a kid, we'd exhaust ourselves playing the game. 

We'd dress in partial costumes and chase each other around the parks, playgrounds and backyards for hours, in hopes of catching anyone from the other side off guard.

Cap guns made the game especially thrilling.

Woke being only a preterit in the late 1950s, no one—least of all, the adults—questioned the politics of the pastime. 

It was, after all, the era of TV Westerns like Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, The Lone Ranger, and The Rifleman.

If Cowboys & Indians is to be suitably reformed for today's kids, fundamental changes to the game will have to be made.

First, the name.

Although the word order unjustly prioritizes the colonizers, Cowhands & Indigenous Americans would seem best. But only the full name should ever be used; never the acronym.

Next, the objective.

Cowboys & Indians' goal is simply to eliminate as many of your opponents as possible in an afternoon. The goal of Cowhands & Indigenous Americans should be for both sides to meet and negotiate the restoration of broken treaties (including appropriate reparations). The change will mandate that all players dress as attorneys.

Finally, the rules.

Under the new rules, Cowhands will be required to wear body cameras at all times. Purchase of a cap gun will require training, licensing, an intensive background check, and a two-week wait period (except in Texas). The use of bows and arrows, if certified authentic, is permitted. No player may pad her billing.

  

As Dr. Spock said, child's play isn't easy.