My sister has Alzheimers. What an awful shitty disease. She is in the last stages now, is bedridden, incontinent, can't speak beyond an occasional one-syllable slurred word, and doesn't seem to recognize me, my other sisters or brother, or her own children. She might still know her husband.
She had a brain scan some time ago that revealed massive deterioration in her frontal lobe. Why this has happened is unknown with any certainty. I've heard theories concerning what sets off the Alzheimers degeneration, everything from a virus to calcification of brain tissue, but as her brother I really don't care too much why this has happened, I just hate that it has happened.
Her husband is mad at God. He doesn't see how a merciful God could allow such a thing to rob any person of her faculties, especially not a woman who has just turned sixty and was always so vibrant, so inquisitive, so full of life and compassion. He will allow a Catholic interment for her when the time comes, as it will soon, but has no plans I know of for Extreme Unction, or a funeral mass. He is more or less reconciled to what is coming, says he will put her in a nursing home or hospice when he's convinced she no longer can recognize him, but I know he dreads that day, as we all do.
There are stories about possible cures, or at least medications that could slow the disease. These will not be available on time for my sister. All that we who love her can do is wait for her end and remember the child and the woman she was.
And live in fear that it will happen to us next.
I'm not mad at God, I just think God is remote, unknowing and uncaring. We're God's great science project and God is just observing us to find out what we'll do next.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Ayn Rand, Again - and Ken Kesey Too
A few weeks ago, combing through DVD's at the local library, I came upon the 1948 movie version of The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, screenplay by Ayn Rand, based on her novel. I decided to give it a look.
The movie concerns an architect, Howard Roarke, who designs brilliant buildings, and is unwilling to see his beautiful plans ruined by the mediocrities who control the money, which controls popular tastes. So tenacious is he that he abandons architecture and takes a job as a manual laborer rather than see his masterpieces bastardized. Only the intervention of a good woman lures him back to the profession, and even then he must battle continually to get his visions of modern buildings made into reality. He remains poor but retains his integrity, while another architect prospers by selling his professional soul.
It seems to me that the point of the movie is that a solitary genius is worth more than many so-so people, and must stick to his principles, even if it means his talents will go unnoticed and unfulfilled for a long time, if ever.
It reminded me of another movie, one I remember from the early 1970's, Sometimes a Great Notion, based on a Ken Kesey novel and starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman. This second film told the story of a family of (very) independent loggers in the Pacific Northwest who defy unions and timber barons to continue operating as they think best. In the end, they are destroyed by their own insistence on doing everything their own way. The family motto was "Never give an inch," and the film says this is sometimes a great notion, but often leads to disaster.
So, shall a person who has independent ideas and tendencies insist on doing everything his own way, or be willing to reach some accomodations with society, to go along to get along?
Ayn Rand was the supreme proponent of individualism. I thought the characters in The Fountainhead were two-dimensional and not very interesting, good guys who were noble to a fault and bad guys who were irredeemable in their willingness to prostitute themselves for material success. Sometimes a Great Notion is a much better movie.
Ms. Rand - many years dead now - is a philosophical fountainhead for the radical right in current American politics. As an individualist, she claimed that charity and social welfare are counter-productive because they foster dependence. Therefore, the best favor anyone can do for impoverished people, addicted people, and so forth, is to encourage them to help themselves, but not to offer any material support that would only leave them dependent on continuing handouts.
There is just enough truth in her treatise to make it plausible to the already half-convinced. Helping is really hurting, so don't contribute to charity, and dump whatever government programs are meant to assure a minimal standard of living for everyone.
Except that I don't believe in Satan, I might call this the devil's argument. We can justify all our greed, our hard-heartedness, in a nice bit of self-justification. We turn a blind eye to the misery around us for the enlightened betterment of the poor. Crawling back into the gutter is good for them! What could be tidier? Or more wrong?
The movie concerns an architect, Howard Roarke, who designs brilliant buildings, and is unwilling to see his beautiful plans ruined by the mediocrities who control the money, which controls popular tastes. So tenacious is he that he abandons architecture and takes a job as a manual laborer rather than see his masterpieces bastardized. Only the intervention of a good woman lures him back to the profession, and even then he must battle continually to get his visions of modern buildings made into reality. He remains poor but retains his integrity, while another architect prospers by selling his professional soul.
It seems to me that the point of the movie is that a solitary genius is worth more than many so-so people, and must stick to his principles, even if it means his talents will go unnoticed and unfulfilled for a long time, if ever.
It reminded me of another movie, one I remember from the early 1970's, Sometimes a Great Notion, based on a Ken Kesey novel and starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman. This second film told the story of a family of (very) independent loggers in the Pacific Northwest who defy unions and timber barons to continue operating as they think best. In the end, they are destroyed by their own insistence on doing everything their own way. The family motto was "Never give an inch," and the film says this is sometimes a great notion, but often leads to disaster.
So, shall a person who has independent ideas and tendencies insist on doing everything his own way, or be willing to reach some accomodations with society, to go along to get along?
Ayn Rand was the supreme proponent of individualism. I thought the characters in The Fountainhead were two-dimensional and not very interesting, good guys who were noble to a fault and bad guys who were irredeemable in their willingness to prostitute themselves for material success. Sometimes a Great Notion is a much better movie.
Ms. Rand - many years dead now - is a philosophical fountainhead for the radical right in current American politics. As an individualist, she claimed that charity and social welfare are counter-productive because they foster dependence. Therefore, the best favor anyone can do for impoverished people, addicted people, and so forth, is to encourage them to help themselves, but not to offer any material support that would only leave them dependent on continuing handouts.
There is just enough truth in her treatise to make it plausible to the already half-convinced. Helping is really hurting, so don't contribute to charity, and dump whatever government programs are meant to assure a minimal standard of living for everyone.
Except that I don't believe in Satan, I might call this the devil's argument. We can justify all our greed, our hard-heartedness, in a nice bit of self-justification. We turn a blind eye to the misery around us for the enlightened betterment of the poor. Crawling back into the gutter is good for them! What could be tidier? Or more wrong?
Friday, February 17, 2012
Michele Bachman Returns!
This is from the Huffington Post.
The House and Senate both approved a payroll tax cut bill on Friday that would extend unemployment benefits through 2012.
But according to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), the extension is hardly the bill's crowning achievement.
"They're extending unemployment, too, but the big thing that we get is no longer can a welfare recipient walk into a strip club and get money out of an ATM machine to pay for a lap dance," she told conservative radio host Mark Levin on Thursday night. "Now, I'm not making this up. That's the big thing that we get out of this bill."
According to the bill, welfare recipients won't be able to use government-issued debit cards to get cash through ATM's at strip clubs, casinos or liquor stores. The ban is similar to one included in a House bill proposed earlier this month by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.).
Questioned by Levin whether this use of welfare funds was a major problem, Bachmann replied, "Welfare recipients across the country, Mark, have been using their welfare cards -- they look like credit cards, it's a debit card. They get these debit cards, they can walk into a casino, they can walk into a liquor store, they can walk into a strip club and if there's an ATM machine in there, they can use their welfare card, draw down the money and use it to pay for gambling, lap dances."
Bachmann, who is running for a fourth term after dropping out of the GOP presidential race, called the issue "unbelievable."
"People need to be outraged by this, because we are literally going into hock and reducing our standard of living to keep this kind of ridiculous spending up," she said. "That's a problem."
Well, Ms. Bachman is right about one thing. This is unbelievable.
There are more than three hundred million people in this country. There isn't a thing we could imagine that hasn't happened or doesn't happen, at least on occasion. The question is, does Ms. Bachman, or anyone else, have any evidence that people are using welfare debit cards at casinos, liquor stores or strip clubs on anything other than a very rare basis? And does this use, if it's less than endemic, invalidate the program of welfare for millions of people who are struggling, many many of them with children?
Furthermore, isn't locking ATM's in these locations rather silly? First of all, what mechanism allows the machine to differentiate between a relief debit card and any other? Second, and even sillier, if a person cannot use a welfare debit card in any of these places, there's nothing to keep a minimally determined person from using an ATM next door or across the street from any of them. The ban seems to me to be totally impractical.
But I guess it's good fodder for Ms. Bachman as she seeks re-election. Personally, I hope she gets retired this November.
Oh, Hell!
Did I ever tell you that I once worked at Carmax? Well, I did. This was in the period after I left the National Park Service and while I was working on a master's degree so I could teach high school history.
I bring it up because one of the duties of a salesperson at Carmax is to take and submit loan applications for people who would like to buy a car. By federal law, car dealers and others cannot refuse to take a loan application and submit it to lending institutions. That doesn't mean anyone will offer credit to the applicant, however. Two stories have stuck in my mind ever since then.
One night I answered a phone call from a woman who wanted to apply for a car loan, and started to take her information. While listening to her, I could hear the voices of small children crying and quarreling in the background. As we went through the process of filling in the form I learned that she worked in a chicken processing plant - that is to say a slaughterhouse - cutting up chicken carcasses all day. She had four children but no spouse, and her income clearly was inadequate to get a car loan. I knew that by the time I was halfway through the process, but had to complete the loan application anyway. I thought to myself, if there's a hell, this woman is in it. She was heavily in debt, her income didn't yield her any way to escape the financial quicksand she was in, and there was no hope for any improvement in her situation, at least until her children were grown and on their own. Cutting up recently deceased chickens for the next twenty years at least would be her fate, not even a car to drive on weekends to relieve the tedium of her life.
Of course, all the banks turned her down, and I had to call her back to tell her there was no way she could qualify for a loan.
The other occasion concerned a man who came in to the dealership with his pregnant wife and baby in a carriage. While the woman excused herself to look at cars in the showroom, he told me he had a six year old Saturn he had bought two years previously at a roadside used car dealership. He was still making payments on the car. He showed me the paperwork, and I noticed he was paying interest at 29%. His car had about 100,000 miles on it when he bought it. Because his mother was ill in Atlanta, he had made a number of trips there to see her, and had put 30,000 more miles on the car. Now it was becoming unreliable.
Carmax adverrtises that they buy cars, even from people who don't buy from them, so I had one of the appraisers look at his Saturn. You won't be surprised to learn that the trade-in value on a Saturn with 130,000 miles is not very high. In fact, because of the interest rate he was paying, he still owed more on it than it was worth. Once again, I had to tell him there was no way he could qualify for a loan or buy a car from Carmax. He left with his wife and daughter, disappointed.
I've told these stories to illustrate a point. I don't believe much in an afterlife, but I think we live in our own version of heaven or hell right here on earth. We make our own lives, but sometimes we have hell inflicted on us, by our own poor decisions, or by blind fate.
So, given these two stories, I get truly exasperated with the mentality of "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and everyone else should be able to. Nobody made it easy for me, so I don't know why I should have to make things easy for anyone else."
I'm glad such people have prospered, and I hope they're happy. But let's have some pity on folks like the two I've just told you about. We can alleviate the hell our fellow humans suffer in, and I think we must all try to do so.
I bring it up because one of the duties of a salesperson at Carmax is to take and submit loan applications for people who would like to buy a car. By federal law, car dealers and others cannot refuse to take a loan application and submit it to lending institutions. That doesn't mean anyone will offer credit to the applicant, however. Two stories have stuck in my mind ever since then.
One night I answered a phone call from a woman who wanted to apply for a car loan, and started to take her information. While listening to her, I could hear the voices of small children crying and quarreling in the background. As we went through the process of filling in the form I learned that she worked in a chicken processing plant - that is to say a slaughterhouse - cutting up chicken carcasses all day. She had four children but no spouse, and her income clearly was inadequate to get a car loan. I knew that by the time I was halfway through the process, but had to complete the loan application anyway. I thought to myself, if there's a hell, this woman is in it. She was heavily in debt, her income didn't yield her any way to escape the financial quicksand she was in, and there was no hope for any improvement in her situation, at least until her children were grown and on their own. Cutting up recently deceased chickens for the next twenty years at least would be her fate, not even a car to drive on weekends to relieve the tedium of her life.
Of course, all the banks turned her down, and I had to call her back to tell her there was no way she could qualify for a loan.
The other occasion concerned a man who came in to the dealership with his pregnant wife and baby in a carriage. While the woman excused herself to look at cars in the showroom, he told me he had a six year old Saturn he had bought two years previously at a roadside used car dealership. He was still making payments on the car. He showed me the paperwork, and I noticed he was paying interest at 29%. His car had about 100,000 miles on it when he bought it. Because his mother was ill in Atlanta, he had made a number of trips there to see her, and had put 30,000 more miles on the car. Now it was becoming unreliable.
Carmax adverrtises that they buy cars, even from people who don't buy from them, so I had one of the appraisers look at his Saturn. You won't be surprised to learn that the trade-in value on a Saturn with 130,000 miles is not very high. In fact, because of the interest rate he was paying, he still owed more on it than it was worth. Once again, I had to tell him there was no way he could qualify for a loan or buy a car from Carmax. He left with his wife and daughter, disappointed.
I've told these stories to illustrate a point. I don't believe much in an afterlife, but I think we live in our own version of heaven or hell right here on earth. We make our own lives, but sometimes we have hell inflicted on us, by our own poor decisions, or by blind fate.
So, given these two stories, I get truly exasperated with the mentality of "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and everyone else should be able to. Nobody made it easy for me, so I don't know why I should have to make things easy for anyone else."
I'm glad such people have prospered, and I hope they're happy. But let's have some pity on folks like the two I've just told you about. We can alleviate the hell our fellow humans suffer in, and I think we must all try to do so.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Mawwiage
"Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam."
Fans of "The Princess Bride" undoubtedly will recognize this quote from what was credited as the "very impressive" clergyman. Funny as it was to hear the line being mangled in the movie by Peter Cook, the sentiment is valid - overstated, but still true. Marriage is what brings us together.
Right now it's also what is driving us apart.
Public opinion polls consistently indicate that married people are happier and healthier than single folks. They're almost certainly more prosperous too.
So why would anyone want to deny other Americans the chance to pursue happiness by being married? It's a complicated matter that revolves around the word "marriage," it seems to me.
"Marriage must be for one man and one woman," some people say. Others say, no less passionately, that gay people are also entitled to marry each other. The rhetoric becomes heated on both sides, and the basic point often is obscured by dire worries about extraneous issues.
I keep thinking there must be something simple in the middle of it.
Paraphrasing the lovely language in the Book of Common Prayer, marriage was instituted by God in the time of man's innocence, and therefore is not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently. I guess we all would agree about that. Yet, often marriages are undertaken without any reflection or awareness of the solemnity of the occasion. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee were married on the beach at Cancun after knowing each other for a week. She wore a bikini and he dressed in cutoff jeans. Brittney Spears married in Las Vegas while intoxicated and immediately filed for annulment. I recall a wedding ceremnony some time ago in which a dog participated. I'm sure they loved the dog, and personally I'm all for individualizing the ceremony, but to an outsider it appears they were mocking the event.
Let me not be too strident. When I was a boy in parochial school half a century ago, I was told that only a Catholic wedding was really valid. People who married in any other church were not truly wedded. It took a while for me and the church to outgrow such a mentality, but nowadays I think we all would accept the idea that other Christian weddings are true, as are Jewish weddings, Muslim weddings, Hindu weddings and so forth. Even Pamela on the beach and Brittney in Vegas were actually married. Well, possibly not Brittney, considering she wanted out of the marriage almost immediately.
My point is, we have become much less sectarian in our thinking, but not to the point where many of us would accept gay marriage. Or mawwiage.
So here's what seems simple to me in the middle of it all. Marriage is a religious ceremony, not a civil one. If a minister, even one from some diploma mill, says two people are married, I agree that they are married. If people are joined in a civil ceremony, the license from the state should not mention the word "marriage." Call it a license to cohabit, to share community property, or whatever the state wants.
So, to sum up: if a minister says two people are married, then I say they are married. If the state accords two people the right to share the material benefits associated with marriage, then I'm for that too. The business of the state, after all, is to assist people in their pursuit of happiness, not to thwart that pursuit.
Fans of "The Princess Bride" undoubtedly will recognize this quote from what was credited as the "very impressive" clergyman. Funny as it was to hear the line being mangled in the movie by Peter Cook, the sentiment is valid - overstated, but still true. Marriage is what brings us together.
Right now it's also what is driving us apart.
Public opinion polls consistently indicate that married people are happier and healthier than single folks. They're almost certainly more prosperous too.
So why would anyone want to deny other Americans the chance to pursue happiness by being married? It's a complicated matter that revolves around the word "marriage," it seems to me.
"Marriage must be for one man and one woman," some people say. Others say, no less passionately, that gay people are also entitled to marry each other. The rhetoric becomes heated on both sides, and the basic point often is obscured by dire worries about extraneous issues.
I keep thinking there must be something simple in the middle of it.
Paraphrasing the lovely language in the Book of Common Prayer, marriage was instituted by God in the time of man's innocence, and therefore is not to be entered into unadvisedly, but reverently. I guess we all would agree about that. Yet, often marriages are undertaken without any reflection or awareness of the solemnity of the occasion. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee were married on the beach at Cancun after knowing each other for a week. She wore a bikini and he dressed in cutoff jeans. Brittney Spears married in Las Vegas while intoxicated and immediately filed for annulment. I recall a wedding ceremnony some time ago in which a dog participated. I'm sure they loved the dog, and personally I'm all for individualizing the ceremony, but to an outsider it appears they were mocking the event.
Let me not be too strident. When I was a boy in parochial school half a century ago, I was told that only a Catholic wedding was really valid. People who married in any other church were not truly wedded. It took a while for me and the church to outgrow such a mentality, but nowadays I think we all would accept the idea that other Christian weddings are true, as are Jewish weddings, Muslim weddings, Hindu weddings and so forth. Even Pamela on the beach and Brittney in Vegas were actually married. Well, possibly not Brittney, considering she wanted out of the marriage almost immediately.
My point is, we have become much less sectarian in our thinking, but not to the point where many of us would accept gay marriage. Or mawwiage.
So here's what seems simple to me in the middle of it all. Marriage is a religious ceremony, not a civil one. If a minister, even one from some diploma mill, says two people are married, I agree that they are married. If people are joined in a civil ceremony, the license from the state should not mention the word "marriage." Call it a license to cohabit, to share community property, or whatever the state wants.
So, to sum up: if a minister says two people are married, then I say they are married. If the state accords two people the right to share the material benefits associated with marriage, then I'm for that too. The business of the state, after all, is to assist people in their pursuit of happiness, not to thwart that pursuit.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Intramural Squabbles
My sister and brother-in-law are having a little tussle over Facebook concerning lightbulbs. He says the new mandated devices use only one-fifth the electricity that traditional bulbs use and last much much longer, making them better for the environment, and more economical.
She says the light from them is depressing.
I feel like I'm putting my hand on the third rail here, but the simple fact is the new bulbs are the wave of the future. However anyone feels about them, they're here to stay and the incandescent bulbs soon will have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
The question on my mind is: should we discard the old bulbs before they burn out or keep using the inefficient things until they're gone? On television recently I heard a pundit refer to them as "Little heaters that also throw out some light." So my compromise is to burn the old bulbs in winter and the new ones in summer until there's no alternative to the new ones. Since we keep our thermostat rather low, we heat the living room this time of year, but not the rest of the house, while also illuminating it.
That might also alleviate my sister's concerns about the depressing qualities of the new bulbs, at least for the time being.
On a somewhat larger scale, Rick Santorum, his campaign newly invigorated by his Tuesday primary wins, claims President Obama secretly wants Iran to have nuclear weapons. Santorum and the other Republican would-be presidents are starting to appear like a boxer in the fifteenth round who knows he's behind on the scorecards and is throwing haymakers at his opponent in the despeate hope that one of them will somehow land and give him a knockout victory. The odds are long, Mr. Santorum.
She says the light from them is depressing.
I feel like I'm putting my hand on the third rail here, but the simple fact is the new bulbs are the wave of the future. However anyone feels about them, they're here to stay and the incandescent bulbs soon will have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
The question on my mind is: should we discard the old bulbs before they burn out or keep using the inefficient things until they're gone? On television recently I heard a pundit refer to them as "Little heaters that also throw out some light." So my compromise is to burn the old bulbs in winter and the new ones in summer until there's no alternative to the new ones. Since we keep our thermostat rather low, we heat the living room this time of year, but not the rest of the house, while also illuminating it.
That might also alleviate my sister's concerns about the depressing qualities of the new bulbs, at least for the time being.
On a somewhat larger scale, Rick Santorum, his campaign newly invigorated by his Tuesday primary wins, claims President Obama secretly wants Iran to have nuclear weapons. Santorum and the other Republican would-be presidents are starting to appear like a boxer in the fifteenth round who knows he's behind on the scorecards and is throwing haymakers at his opponent in the despeate hope that one of them will somehow land and give him a knockout victory. The odds are long, Mr. Santorum.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Thugs?
Listening to NBC news tonight, I heard Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky make a reference to "liberal thugs." I thought we were a bunch of wimps! But then, it's election year and no charge is too ludicrous.
I don't recall that it was liberals who disrupted Congressmen's town meetings back in 2009 and 2010, shouting and refusing to stop. It wasn't a liberal years ago who called federal law enforcement agents "jack-booted thugs."
It kind of reminds me of a short scene in the musical "Cabaret," in which a bemused German, pondering Nazi propaganda says, "If all the Jews are bankers, how can they all also be Communists?" And another German says, "If they can't get us one way, they try another."
I don't recall that it was liberals who disrupted Congressmen's town meetings back in 2009 and 2010, shouting and refusing to stop. It wasn't a liberal years ago who called federal law enforcement agents "jack-booted thugs."
It kind of reminds me of a short scene in the musical "Cabaret," in which a bemused German, pondering Nazi propaganda says, "If all the Jews are bankers, how can they all also be Communists?" And another German says, "If they can't get us one way, they try another."
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Give Us This Day Our Daily Quiz
We now inaugurate a new feature of this blog, supplementing the huge success achieved by CAPTAIN OBVIOUS. Today's quiz question concerns the end of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union fell apart because
a) President Ronald Reagan ramped up the arms race so much that the USSR could not keep up, but ruined their economy trying.
b) Communism as a system cannot be sustained indefinitely. The arch-welfare system combined with political totalitarianism must eventually collapse.
c) They were Russians, for crying out loud, and sooner or later the Russians muck up pretty much everything they're connected to.
d) All the above are good answers.
It's entirely true that the USA spent much more on weapons systems beginning in 1981. It's also true that the Soviet economy was reeling by 1985 as they tried to match American rearmament. It's also true that substantial amounts of that American cash went to the Salvadoran government in its effort to squash a leftist revolution there, including money for the infamous "death squads." Money also went to the "Contras" in Nicaragua, fighting against the elected government of that country - admittedly leftist. Finally, our country funded the Mujahadeen resistance to the Russian forces in Afghanistan.
Operating on the theory that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," President Reagan hosted Mujahadeen leaders in the White House and saluted them as the "Moral equivalent of our founding fathers." The Mujahadeen were the immediate precursors of the Taliban.
Sometimes we teachers of history use a poker analogy concerning all this. Ronald Reagan raised his bets so much that Mikhail Gorbachev had no choice but to fold his hand. In poker when that happens, the winner gets the pot, which is mostly composed of his own bets. In the world of power politics, money spent as we did is simply lost. There was supposed to be a "peace dividend" after the Cold War, but that has been lost beginning with the 9/11 attacks and the wars of George W. Bush.
Communism as a system has been consigned, as Reagan hoped, to the scrap pile of history. We can say the Soviets were hardly real Communists in the sense that Karl Marx intended, but the system produced nothing but tyrants and seems to be invalidated by that fact alone, if no other. The misery that Communist governments inflicted on their populations outweighs any benefits they might have received. Nowadays, only Cuba seems to be keeping the secular faith.
(We can, however, applaud the Cuban government for the achievement that infant and child mortality has been greatly reduced there, and the literacy rate there is very high.)
Oh those Russians! Can they do anything right? Fifty years ago they were menacing. They had launched Sputnik, and had beaten us to manned space flight. Their rockets worked, while ours had a distressing tendency to blow up. By 1964 they were producing more steel than we were, back then considered the true measure of industrial might. The Red Army was really terrifying.
Beneath the surface there was dissent, and an economy that was slowly deteriorating. The Russians became wheat importers. Their consumer goods were shoddy and often produced in such small quanitites that they were unavailable. Russian automobiles were a joke. After Leonid Brrezhnev went into decline, the country was ruled for almost ten years by a succession of sick old men and nothing was done to modernize the country. Ethnic identification grew and became a centrifugal force within the empire. The Russians foolishly tried to prop up a socialist government in Afghanistan and that became a running drain on their economy and the graveyard for 20,000 Russian soldiers.
When Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 he tried to implement a controlled set of reforms, but by then the situation was so bad that events soon surpassed his efforts to channel and control them, and nothing less than a revolution took place. The final dissolution came after the failed military coup of 1991 and the ascent of Boris Yeltsin.
Now Russian prosperity - concentrated in a small number of plutocrats - is based on oil and gas exports. Eventually they will run out and where will the Russians be than?
So, why did the Soviet Union fall apart? We can argue about the importance of the choices mentioned at the start of this blog, but the answer would seem to be "all the above."
The Soviet Union fell apart because
a) President Ronald Reagan ramped up the arms race so much that the USSR could not keep up, but ruined their economy trying.
b) Communism as a system cannot be sustained indefinitely. The arch-welfare system combined with political totalitarianism must eventually collapse.
c) They were Russians, for crying out loud, and sooner or later the Russians muck up pretty much everything they're connected to.
d) All the above are good answers.
It's entirely true that the USA spent much more on weapons systems beginning in 1981. It's also true that the Soviet economy was reeling by 1985 as they tried to match American rearmament. It's also true that substantial amounts of that American cash went to the Salvadoran government in its effort to squash a leftist revolution there, including money for the infamous "death squads." Money also went to the "Contras" in Nicaragua, fighting against the elected government of that country - admittedly leftist. Finally, our country funded the Mujahadeen resistance to the Russian forces in Afghanistan.
Operating on the theory that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," President Reagan hosted Mujahadeen leaders in the White House and saluted them as the "Moral equivalent of our founding fathers." The Mujahadeen were the immediate precursors of the Taliban.
Sometimes we teachers of history use a poker analogy concerning all this. Ronald Reagan raised his bets so much that Mikhail Gorbachev had no choice but to fold his hand. In poker when that happens, the winner gets the pot, which is mostly composed of his own bets. In the world of power politics, money spent as we did is simply lost. There was supposed to be a "peace dividend" after the Cold War, but that has been lost beginning with the 9/11 attacks and the wars of George W. Bush.
Communism as a system has been consigned, as Reagan hoped, to the scrap pile of history. We can say the Soviets were hardly real Communists in the sense that Karl Marx intended, but the system produced nothing but tyrants and seems to be invalidated by that fact alone, if no other. The misery that Communist governments inflicted on their populations outweighs any benefits they might have received. Nowadays, only Cuba seems to be keeping the secular faith.
(We can, however, applaud the Cuban government for the achievement that infant and child mortality has been greatly reduced there, and the literacy rate there is very high.)
Oh those Russians! Can they do anything right? Fifty years ago they were menacing. They had launched Sputnik, and had beaten us to manned space flight. Their rockets worked, while ours had a distressing tendency to blow up. By 1964 they were producing more steel than we were, back then considered the true measure of industrial might. The Red Army was really terrifying.
Beneath the surface there was dissent, and an economy that was slowly deteriorating. The Russians became wheat importers. Their consumer goods were shoddy and often produced in such small quanitites that they were unavailable. Russian automobiles were a joke. After Leonid Brrezhnev went into decline, the country was ruled for almost ten years by a succession of sick old men and nothing was done to modernize the country. Ethnic identification grew and became a centrifugal force within the empire. The Russians foolishly tried to prop up a socialist government in Afghanistan and that became a running drain on their economy and the graveyard for 20,000 Russian soldiers.
When Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 he tried to implement a controlled set of reforms, but by then the situation was so bad that events soon surpassed his efforts to channel and control them, and nothing less than a revolution took place. The final dissolution came after the failed military coup of 1991 and the ascent of Boris Yeltsin.
Now Russian prosperity - concentrated in a small number of plutocrats - is based on oil and gas exports. Eventually they will run out and where will the Russians be than?
So, why did the Soviet Union fall apart? We can argue about the importance of the choices mentioned at the start of this blog, but the answer would seem to be "all the above."
Monday, February 6, 2012
Very Perceptive Comment from Fareed Zakaria
In 1990, China represented 2% of global gross domestic product. It has quadrupled, to 8%, and it's rising. By most estimates, China's economy will become the world's largest between 2016 and 2018. And this is not simply an economic story. China's military capacity and reach are also expanding. Beijing's defense spending is likely to surpass America's by 2025.
It's not just China that's rising. Emerging powers on every continent have achieved political stability and economic growth and are becoming active on the global stage. Twenty years ago Turkey was a fragile democracy, dominated by its army, constantly in need of Western economic bailouts. Today, Turkey has a trillion-dollar economy that grew 6.6% last year. Since April 2009, Turkey has created 3.4 million jobs - that's more than the entire European Union, Russia and South Africa put together.
Look in this hemisphere: In 1990, Brazil was emerging from decades of dictatorship and was wracked by inflation rates that reached 3,000 percent. Today, Brazil is a stable democracy, steadily growing with foreign-exchange reserves of $350 billion.
I could go on, Mitt.
Barack Obama has succeeded in preserving and even enhancing U.S. influence in this world precisely because he has recognized these new forces at work. He has traveled to the emerging nations and spoken admiringly of their rise. He replaced the old Western club and made the Group of 20 the central decision-making forum for global economic affairs. By emphasizing multilateral organizations, alliance structures and international legitimacy, he got results.
It's not just China that's rising. Emerging powers on every continent have achieved political stability and economic growth and are becoming active on the global stage. Twenty years ago Turkey was a fragile democracy, dominated by its army, constantly in need of Western economic bailouts. Today, Turkey has a trillion-dollar economy that grew 6.6% last year. Since April 2009, Turkey has created 3.4 million jobs - that's more than the entire European Union, Russia and South Africa put together.
Look in this hemisphere: In 1990, Brazil was emerging from decades of dictatorship and was wracked by inflation rates that reached 3,000 percent. Today, Brazil is a stable democracy, steadily growing with foreign-exchange reserves of $350 billion.
I could go on, Mitt.
Barack Obama has succeeded in preserving and even enhancing U.S. influence in this world precisely because he has recognized these new forces at work. He has traveled to the emerging nations and spoken admiringly of their rise. He replaced the old Western club and made the Group of 20 the central decision-making forum for global economic affairs. By emphasizing multilateral organizations, alliance structures and international legitimacy, he got results.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Congressman Doctor Paul
So, let's see if I have this right. Congressman Doctor Ron Paul believes the "individual mandate" in the Health Care Reform Act is both unconstitutional and personally offensive to many or most Americans.
Right so far?
Congressman Doctor also believes that health care is an individual responsibility to be decided upon by each person in consultation with a physician of choice, untrammeled by government annoyance.
Still correct?
And, it's absolutely irresponsible for any adult to take advantage of others by accepting treatment the patient can't actually pay for, shifting the bill indirectly to the the rest of us in the form of higher doctors' fees and taxes.
Am I still getting it?
So, what do we do with people who are too broke to pay for needed care, kids whose parents can't pay, or those who are just freeloaders? Are they just welcome to go somewhere and die? Those ignoble Florida Tea Party people applauded that idea a few months ago.
If you put the question to any of the fanatics of the right, I'll bet they'd insist that everyone must pay for medical services or do without them. In fact, many people do exactly that, and either suffer poor health needlessly or die prematurely.
How do you get these ne'er-do-wells to buy health insurance except by an individual mandate, and since we'd need an enormous, intrusive and costly bureaucracy to identify who would be likely to abscond on a doctor's or hospital's bill, the only solution seems to be to require insurance from everyone.
Am I missing anything here?
Mind you, I don't know how the new law identifies how much health care insurance is sufficient. When I'm feeling cynical or facetious, I think I'd like to start my own health insurance company, the "All You Pay is $8.95 Annually" health insurer that covers fully if you're struck by lightning at the very moment you're being attacked by a shark, but not otherwise. (Not available in Hawaii California or Florida. Only $5.95 here in Colorado.) "Your policy puts you in compliance with the law without breaking the bank."
If Congressman Doctor was still practicing medicine, would he refuse to treat someone he knew couldn't or wouldn't pay the bill? Or had my insurance? Or would he jack up his fees for the rest of his patients to cover the time and materials spent on his pro bono case? Or would he just absorb the loss himself, and do without life's needs or desires for himself and his family?
What do you say, Congressman Doctor?
Right so far?
Congressman Doctor also believes that health care is an individual responsibility to be decided upon by each person in consultation with a physician of choice, untrammeled by government annoyance.
Still correct?
And, it's absolutely irresponsible for any adult to take advantage of others by accepting treatment the patient can't actually pay for, shifting the bill indirectly to the the rest of us in the form of higher doctors' fees and taxes.
Am I still getting it?
So, what do we do with people who are too broke to pay for needed care, kids whose parents can't pay, or those who are just freeloaders? Are they just welcome to go somewhere and die? Those ignoble Florida Tea Party people applauded that idea a few months ago.
If you put the question to any of the fanatics of the right, I'll bet they'd insist that everyone must pay for medical services or do without them. In fact, many people do exactly that, and either suffer poor health needlessly or die prematurely.
How do you get these ne'er-do-wells to buy health insurance except by an individual mandate, and since we'd need an enormous, intrusive and costly bureaucracy to identify who would be likely to abscond on a doctor's or hospital's bill, the only solution seems to be to require insurance from everyone.
Am I missing anything here?
Mind you, I don't know how the new law identifies how much health care insurance is sufficient. When I'm feeling cynical or facetious, I think I'd like to start my own health insurance company, the "All You Pay is $8.95 Annually" health insurer that covers fully if you're struck by lightning at the very moment you're being attacked by a shark, but not otherwise. (Not available in Hawaii California or Florida. Only $5.95 here in Colorado.) "Your policy puts you in compliance with the law without breaking the bank."
If Congressman Doctor was still practicing medicine, would he refuse to treat someone he knew couldn't or wouldn't pay the bill? Or had my insurance? Or would he jack up his fees for the rest of his patients to cover the time and materials spent on his pro bono case? Or would he just absorb the loss himself, and do without life's needs or desires for himself and his family?
What do you say, Congressman Doctor?
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Ah, Sarah Palin, you are an almost endless source of amusement. Ms. Palin, governor of Alaska for two and one-half years before resigning to cash in as a political pundit, says the Republican establishment is using tactics of Joseph Stalin and Saul Alinsky to discredit Newt Gingrich.
Those wacky establishment Republicans with their adherence to the radical left!
First of all, I doubt Sarah Palin knows much about either Stalin or Alinsky. In fact, I can only assume she means the historical Stalin and Alinsky. She could be referring to some other Joseph Stalin and Saul Alinsky. But never mind that. The Stalin we remember was narcissistic and paranoid, and Alinsky wrote a book called Rules for Radicals. I read about half of it about forty years ago. I don't think he had anything really profound to say. I think the reason the GOP has begun using him as whipping-boy of the year is that they couldn't fasten Bill Ayers around Barack Obama's neck four years ago. So, they're trying out Saul Alinsky.
I checked. Saul Alinsky died in 1972. The political establishment of the Republican party would need a long memory and would be quite grizzled to have had any personal contact with him. Frankly, I think whatever establishment Republicans were around in 1972 were probably in a business school, and if they were doing anything political it was probably telling us how wonderful President Nixon was. And President Obama was eleven years old in 1972.
For the record, Stalin executed almost all his political associates and anyone who dared oppose him, "liquidated" the Kulaks as an entire class, stripped all the food from the Ukraine one year just to demonstrate his authority, and forced millions into prison camps for any criticisms they might have made of him or his government, where most of them were worked to death. In short, he was such a monster that many of the people of the Soviet Union actually welcomed German troops in 1941, naively thinking of them as liberators. (They soon found out otherwise.)
Whatever one thinks of the establishment Republicans, as Sarah Palin calls them, they're not that bad. Smug and arrogant yes, ready to cash in on our wars, but hardly mass murderers.
It seems a common tactic, however, for Ms. Palin and the Republicans generally, to personify and villify the opposition. Two years ago it was Nancy Pelosi they verbally assassinated, that awful San Francisco liberal. (We know what goes on in San Francisco, don't we! Can't that kind of thing spread to the rest of the country. They already have Provincetown and Key West for cryin' out loud!) Now, it's Saul Alinsky who is the boogey man, forty years in the grave though he is.
What astounds me is they're now using the same unethical methods on each other.
I suppose I could make an analogy to wolves devouring one another, but if they were wolves Sarah Palin would just shoot them from a helicopter and call it sport.
Those wacky establishment Republicans with their adherence to the radical left!
First of all, I doubt Sarah Palin knows much about either Stalin or Alinsky. In fact, I can only assume she means the historical Stalin and Alinsky. She could be referring to some other Joseph Stalin and Saul Alinsky. But never mind that. The Stalin we remember was narcissistic and paranoid, and Alinsky wrote a book called Rules for Radicals. I read about half of it about forty years ago. I don't think he had anything really profound to say. I think the reason the GOP has begun using him as whipping-boy of the year is that they couldn't fasten Bill Ayers around Barack Obama's neck four years ago. So, they're trying out Saul Alinsky.
I checked. Saul Alinsky died in 1972. The political establishment of the Republican party would need a long memory and would be quite grizzled to have had any personal contact with him. Frankly, I think whatever establishment Republicans were around in 1972 were probably in a business school, and if they were doing anything political it was probably telling us how wonderful President Nixon was. And President Obama was eleven years old in 1972.
For the record, Stalin executed almost all his political associates and anyone who dared oppose him, "liquidated" the Kulaks as an entire class, stripped all the food from the Ukraine one year just to demonstrate his authority, and forced millions into prison camps for any criticisms they might have made of him or his government, where most of them were worked to death. In short, he was such a monster that many of the people of the Soviet Union actually welcomed German troops in 1941, naively thinking of them as liberators. (They soon found out otherwise.)
Whatever one thinks of the establishment Republicans, as Sarah Palin calls them, they're not that bad. Smug and arrogant yes, ready to cash in on our wars, but hardly mass murderers.
It seems a common tactic, however, for Ms. Palin and the Republicans generally, to personify and villify the opposition. Two years ago it was Nancy Pelosi they verbally assassinated, that awful San Francisco liberal. (We know what goes on in San Francisco, don't we! Can't that kind of thing spread to the rest of the country. They already have Provincetown and Key West for cryin' out loud!) Now, it's Saul Alinsky who is the boogey man, forty years in the grave though he is.
What astounds me is they're now using the same unethical methods on each other.
I suppose I could make an analogy to wolves devouring one another, but if they were wolves Sarah Palin would just shoot them from a helicopter and call it sport.
The Man Nobody Knows
In 1925, a man named Bruce Barton published a book called The Man Nobody Knows. It became a best seller that year and was influential for several years afterward.
The man in question was Jesus. Barton made the claim that Jesus was the greatest business executive in all of world history. Jesus, Barton said, took eleven fishermen - and let's be honest, they didn't have one entire brain among them - and one tax collector - an unpopular occupation in every time and place - and forged them into an organization that went out and conquered the world. Eleven oafs and a pariah they were. By inference, businessmen are heroes, making order from chaos and promoting the general welfare, and their own welfare in particular.
A few years later, President Calvin Coolidge repeated Barton's claim when he said that, "The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the men who work there worship there." Then the stock market collapsed in 1929, a Great Depression followed, the reputations of businessmen were soon in tatters, and Barton's book, and Calvin Collidge's opinions, were consigned to the dustbin.
Nowadays, I think Barton's premise would be laughed at, both from a historical and religious viewpoint. Peter did head the Jerusalem church in the years after Jesus died, it is true, but the center of gravity in the embryonic Christian church soon passed to the Greek and Italian converts attracted by Paul and his successors. The other apostles are hardly mentioned in Acts or the epistles. Though the Catholic church of my youth insisted that they scattered to the farthest reaches of the earth to preach, the lack of any historical record leaves the impression that they simply resumed their prior lives.
Theologically, Barton's Jesus is just ludicrous. The gospels are replete with warnings about those who prosper in this world and clearly say there will be a much different order of things in heaven. Corporate Jesus is just unimaginable.
Now I say all this because we're in an election year, and much of the country is still reeling from the worst economic downturn since shortly after The Man Nobody Knows came upon the scene. You might think the image of Jesus encouraging entrepreneurs and suggesting the poor must shift for themselves would be thoroughly discredited, considering so many people have lost jobs through no fault of their own. You might think too that the political party which champions unfettered private enterprise would be tainted by the likes of Bernie Madoff, the auto executives who flew private jets to Washington to beg for a bailout, the banks generally, the financial houses especially, and anyone who profits from the misery of others. But no, they still bang the drum for rich rewards to people who have a product or service, no matter how lame or injurious that product or service might be.
Sometimes when I'm out driving, I get behind a truck with mudflaps, and on those flaps there is often a profile cutout of a half-recumbrent girl, presumably naked, in chrome. I wonder, when I see the image, how long it took someone to produce it, and how much money that person has made from it. Yet, that's what we reward with large sums of money in our country, while the ordinary hard working man or woman suffers along from paycheck to paycheck, often slowly sinking into greater and greater debt and discouragement.
And people still listen to the latter day Bartons and Coolidges. And more's the pity.
The man in question was Jesus. Barton made the claim that Jesus was the greatest business executive in all of world history. Jesus, Barton said, took eleven fishermen - and let's be honest, they didn't have one entire brain among them - and one tax collector - an unpopular occupation in every time and place - and forged them into an organization that went out and conquered the world. Eleven oafs and a pariah they were. By inference, businessmen are heroes, making order from chaos and promoting the general welfare, and their own welfare in particular.
A few years later, President Calvin Coolidge repeated Barton's claim when he said that, "The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the men who work there worship there." Then the stock market collapsed in 1929, a Great Depression followed, the reputations of businessmen were soon in tatters, and Barton's book, and Calvin Collidge's opinions, were consigned to the dustbin.
Nowadays, I think Barton's premise would be laughed at, both from a historical and religious viewpoint. Peter did head the Jerusalem church in the years after Jesus died, it is true, but the center of gravity in the embryonic Christian church soon passed to the Greek and Italian converts attracted by Paul and his successors. The other apostles are hardly mentioned in Acts or the epistles. Though the Catholic church of my youth insisted that they scattered to the farthest reaches of the earth to preach, the lack of any historical record leaves the impression that they simply resumed their prior lives.
Theologically, Barton's Jesus is just ludicrous. The gospels are replete with warnings about those who prosper in this world and clearly say there will be a much different order of things in heaven. Corporate Jesus is just unimaginable.
Now I say all this because we're in an election year, and much of the country is still reeling from the worst economic downturn since shortly after The Man Nobody Knows came upon the scene. You might think the image of Jesus encouraging entrepreneurs and suggesting the poor must shift for themselves would be thoroughly discredited, considering so many people have lost jobs through no fault of their own. You might think too that the political party which champions unfettered private enterprise would be tainted by the likes of Bernie Madoff, the auto executives who flew private jets to Washington to beg for a bailout, the banks generally, the financial houses especially, and anyone who profits from the misery of others. But no, they still bang the drum for rich rewards to people who have a product or service, no matter how lame or injurious that product or service might be.
Sometimes when I'm out driving, I get behind a truck with mudflaps, and on those flaps there is often a profile cutout of a half-recumbrent girl, presumably naked, in chrome. I wonder, when I see the image, how long it took someone to produce it, and how much money that person has made from it. Yet, that's what we reward with large sums of money in our country, while the ordinary hard working man or woman suffers along from paycheck to paycheck, often slowly sinking into greater and greater debt and discouragement.
And people still listen to the latter day Bartons and Coolidges. And more's the pity.
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