2012: watershed year

Think about it. Over the last year, it seems to me, there have been fundamental-- one might almost say seismic-- shifts in public opinion in four important areas:

1. President Obama was reelected. True, it wasn't a landslide, but it wasn't a squeaker, either. He will not now take his place in history alongside Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Given the state of the economy, the Presidency should have been the Republicans' for the taking. In addition, Democrats gained two seats in a Senate they were widely expected to lose control of, and the aggregate Democratic total in House races was 500,00 more than the Republican total (voided by absurd gerrymandering of districts).

Aside from the weaknesses of their candidate (would Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann have done better?), I think this election represents a fundamental repudiation of Republican ideas. A rising tide does not lift all boats-- only the yachts, for some reason. And Republican willful ignorance of science is coming back to bite them, which leads to the next point:

2. Climate change is back on the agenda. Despite being a no-show during the presidential debates, this issue has a secret weapon going for it: reality. The long drought this summer and fall (which is continuing in some places even into winter) plus the more dramatic evidence of Hurricane Sandy have made people into believers. The evidence of one's own eyes and ears is somehow more persuasive than ignorant ideological rhetoric.

3. Gay rights have gotten over some kind of hump of popular approval. All four ballot initiatives involving this were won by pro-gay forces. We have a president who is on record in favor of gay marriage, and Wisconsin has elected the first openly gay US senator in history.

4. Gun control is now again open for discussion. I don't think it's going away this time. People are seriously starting to ask these questions about just why people should have these crazy levels of firepower at their private disposal, and why there is such an ineffective effort to regulate just who has access to any weapons at all. Mayor Bloomberg was right to say that NRA bigwig LaPierre's speech smacked of paranoia. It's a facet of this whole issue that really needs to be explored in depth.

There is one more issue that needs to be put on the front burner: The absurd disparity of income and wealth we now have in this country. Rep. Boehner's 'Plan B' fiscal-cliff proposal went down in flames because the Tea Party types in the House refused to raise taxes even on people making over $1 million a year. This kind of thing presents the Democrats with a golden opportunity to ask an uncomfortable question: Why should a small group of people be allowed to live on a plane of existence completely different from the rest of us, while people holding down full-time jobs can't make ends meet? And then, of course, there are those who can only find part-time work or none at all. Students taking on absurd levels of debt at the beginning of their adult lives, etc. This issue has got to start coming to the fore. Well, we had to leave something for 2013.

newtown and the NRA

Chez La Pierre, nothing at the 'supply' end is up for discussion

. Not the question of why high-end military weapons (and accessories) designed to kill large numbers of people as efficiently as possible should be available to private citizens. We're not talking whitetail deer here. Why on earth should private citizens to be able to buy bullets that can pierce inch-think armor at 1,000 yards (to choose but one example)?

.No mention of how the NRA colluded with the gun manufacturers to reverse declining profits. In an increasingly urban nation, hunting is simply not as popular as in the past. It's part of a demographically declining rural culture. But selling cool state-of-the-art military hardware has more than made up the deficit. Talk about male enhancement!

.Not the question of why we continue to allow this gun-show 'loophole.' Loophole? More of a gaping hole, in which 40% of gun sales require no federal background check.

No, there's nothing at the prevention end at all. It's all about the Gunfight at the OK Corral, this bunch's most fervent fantasy. And even within that context, putting an armed guard in every school hardly seems like the best allocation of resources. There might be a few school districts in Texas or Mississippi that would be willing to lay off yet another teacher to do this, but the appeal would seem to be quite limited. And certainly not on my federal tax dollar.

'different learning styles'

This is a phrase that ed-school leftists seem quite enamored of.  What exactly does it mean?  What does it mean to say that inner-city youth aren't stupid, they simply have different 'learning styles' from suburban white and Asian kids.  I've never heard any specifics as to how these people's 'learning style' differs from that of other people.  Moreover, I've never heard any indication that this different 'learning style,' whatever it is, is remotely as effective as that of other people.  If the only difference between one 'learning style' and another is that one is more effective than the other, you should simply ditch the ineffective one, n'est ce pas?

how suicidal are we?

How suicidal as a nation are we that we would subsidize the least successful among us to reproduce?  Our welfare system should be providing strong-- and successful!-- incentives for these people NOT to reproduce.  I think the taxpayer would be much more amenable to providing a reasonable 'floor' of income, housing, etc. and the social services to support it, if he could also be assured that the number of children would be limited to, say, one for a single mother or two for a married couple on welfare.  Then we could concentrate on trying to help these people and their children make their way in the world.  But if they are allowed--or even encouraged, by higher benefits-- to dig the hole they're in even deeper by having more children, the prognosis is unavoidedly grim.  We can't allow these people to reproduce us into being a third-world nation.

synthesis

My right-wing views on reproduction and my left-wing views on environmental issues meet at this point.  We probably can't have a planet on which virtually everyone enjoys a Western middle-class standard of living and still have seven billion people living on it.

marketplace money

Here's a link to the 'Marketplace Money' website.  Look for the October 5th show about poverty.

http://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-money

There are many segments, but the thing that struck me about so many of them was that these people had many more children than they could support.  One has to wonder how many of these people would still be under the poverty line if they had just stopped having children at two (or one for single mothers).  There was one Somali woman who had six out-of-wedlock children.  What the hell could she expect?

People shouldn't have children they can't support.  That means that people on welfare shouldn't have children.  The welfare system should provide serious-- and successful-- disincentives to having additional children.  Certainly there should be no increase in benefits.  In fact, among other things, maybe there should be a monthly bonus for NOT getting pregnant, and if the woman became pregnant anyway she would lose the bonus.

irresponsible reproduction

This is one issue where I've become very right-wing.  I listened to a 'Marketplace Money' show on NPR last Saturday that made my blood boil.  I'll give the link and expand on this in a couple days when I have more time.  The subject was poverty and how people deal with it.  Yet all of these people had at least two children, and one had six, all out of wedlock!  I wonder how many of these people would fall below the poverty line if they had only two children per couple or one child per single mother.  These people are reproducing us into being a third-world nations!  More later.

the earth system

THE EARTH SYSTEM

It seems to me that we might have a better chance of seriously addressing environmental problems-- especially climate change-- if we started thinking of this planet as a congeries of interlocking systems-- the climate system, the food system, the energy system, etc.

This would be a different approach than the 'Gaia Hypothesis,' which is a kind of romantic biological metaphor of 

planet Earth as a living organism. Given that our species seems to have this technological bent, thinking of it as a kind of ubersystem might have more appeal.

We know that human activity takes place on such a scale now that it can have significant effect on these different systems. We affect the climate system by throwing all these greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere; we affect the food system by driving some fisheries-- cod, tuna-- to the brink of extinction; etc.

If we got into the habit of thinking all these related systems as part of an 'earth system,' then we could use systems analysis to 'tweak' it toward better 'performance.' This would become a habit of mind that would then drive public policy.

bumper sticker

There is only one 'Job Creator':  DEMAND.

we built that

The new New Orleans levees, with $15 billion in federal money.

denial central

"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans . . ."
[Laughter]

". . . and to heal the planet."
[Laughter]

"My promise is to help you and your family.”

As far as I can tell, this is the only reference-- and a rather oblique one at that-- to climate change in the entire 2012 Republican convention and platform.

This denial of reality continues apace. One can only hope that the subject somehow raises its ugly head during the debates.

the big issue

The more I think about it, the main thing that bothers me about America-- that takes away from its first-world status-- is our utter inability to undertake meaningful action on climate change.  We have one major political party that is in complete wilfull denial on the subject, and the other is too cowed to even bring it up.  People may talk about 'clean energy,' but they never say why we need clean energy-- to bring down greenhouse-gas emissions.  It's shameful that this subject isn't even being discussed during this election season.

The two main people-- nonscientists-- that I look to on this subject are Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein.  I think I posted a link to McKibben's most recent article in Rolling Stone.  Klein's cover article in The Nation, "Capitalism vs. the Climate," http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate is quite insightful, and I understand she's working on a book on the subject.

climate change

For your perusal, Bill McKibben's recent article in Rolling Stone on the culpability of the fossil-fuel industry for the paralysis of serious action on climate change:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Quoting Naomi Klein:  " . . . [W]ith the fossil-fuel industry, wrecking the planet is their business model.  It's what they do."

The only country I can think of that has anywhere near this kind of organized opposition to action on climate change  is Australia.  But there, it's in large measure because the Australian government is actually doing something about it!  They've actually instituted a carbon tax (and refund), which is making the coal producers extremely miffed.

In this country, on the other hand, we have one of two major political parties who are simply in complete denial of the science on the subject.  (But then, they're in complete denial of the science on evolution as well.)

How to change this state of affairs is a conundrum.  But McKibben thinks that identifying an enemy-- the fossil-fuel industry-- could be a powerful catalyst.  He likens their denial and  obfuscation to that of the tobacco industry back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.  And he also suggests that a disinvestment campaign, a la the one waged against apartheid South Africa in the 80s and 90s would be an effective weapon:

the enemies of first-world america

These are the enemies of first-world America:

.Evangelical Nutcakes
.The Evil Rich and the Evil Poor
.The Showbiz Dumbers-Down

I'll discuss these at greater length later.

on the offensive

One thing's for sure.  It's not enough to tell third-world types to 'get   with the program' of becoming civilized, educated , and responsible.  We have to go  on the offensive to make sure it happens.  We can't allow the US to become a third-world country.  This is a non-negotiable demand.

IQ

Yes, it's politically incorrect, but shouldn't we admit that IQ is important, that higher-IQ nations are likely to be more successful than lower-IQ nations?  It seems perfectly reasonable to me, for example, that private companies would request prospective employees to take an IQ test.  It would be an important-- although probably not determinative-- element in evaluating job applicants.

strictly third world

Tattoos and piercings.

bumper sticker thoughts

Scientists and engineers . . .

. . . are more important than athletes and entertainers.

evolution

In a first-world society, evolution would select for intelligence.  In a third-world society it simply selects for sexiness, which is often akin to ignorance if not outright stupidity.  How can we create a society that selects for intelligence?

npr segment

I posted the following comment to a segment on 'All Things Considered' about a single mother trying to eke out a living in Reading, Pennsylvania, which is now evidently the poorest city of its size in America. The segment aired on Wednesday, July 11,2012, if you're interested.  It makes for fairly dispiriting listening.


"If this woman is typical of the residents of Reading, it's not hard to see why it's devolving into a third-world city.  Uneducated, if not ineducable; colossally irresponsible in bringing three children into the world (by different fathers, yet) with no apparent thought as to how to provide for them.  Her life seems a hodgepodge of government handouts of one sort or another.  Even the job  she claims she's aiming at seems just another phony makework government job.

It's hard to know whether this kind of monumental cluelessness is somehow learned or just innate.  The result is the same in any case.  Third-world people make third-world cities-- and countries.  First-world people-- civilized, educated, responsible-- make first-world countries.  It's pretty much that simple."

third world people in a first world nation: what is one to do?

Three alternatives:
.Get with the program.
.Stop reproducing.
.Leave.

eugenia

I'm not totally averse to the eugenics idea.  It would have to be done in a rather more, unh, nuanced fashion than in the past, to say the least.  I'd emphasize more 'negative' eugenics-- mostly along the lines of not allowing people to have children they can't support.  About the only 'positive' eugenics attibute I think might be worth pursuing would be IQ.

In any case, though, such policies should not be implemented on a top-down basis. Rather, they should be done on a bottom-up basis. Any eugenics actions should be parent-driven, parents looking out for the best interests of their offspring.

get with the program.

In the US, we've got a lot of third-world people living in a putatively first-world country.  First-world people are civilized, educated, and responsible.  Third-world people need to get with this program.  If they can't handle this, maybe they should be living somewhere else-- or at least not reproducing.

bumper stickers

left sticker:

People
shouldn't have children
they can't support . . .

right sticker:

. . . So people
on welfare
shouldn't have children.

Thomas Friedman:  'Friends don't let friends go into finance.'  (By way of saying we need more scientists and engineers, not more investment bankers and hedge-funders.)

a political choice

For the US to remain a first-world nation will require a political choice.  Of course, to do nothing is also a choice-- to allow the third-world drift to continue.

the main point

If there's a linchpin to this proposal, it's that science and technology must work their way into the mainstream of American popular culture.  In the first place, they should be at the center of our educational system.  A  basic understanding of the scientific method, which I don't think most Americans have, is essential.  Things like, oh, say, evolution and climate change would then become common knowledge.


It's not enough for this change to take place in the educational system, though.  Americans must become known as a people whose culture includes a basic understanding of science and technology.  All Americans should be conversant with these things.  This would replace the trashy, imbecilic popular culture we see on television today.  In the nineteenth century, Americans were known for their 'Yankee ingenuity.'  We need to get back to that.

urban

First-world societies are urban.  The cities are the center of national life.  But first-world cities are not hollowed-out shells like Detroit or Cleveland or parts of LA.  They are clean, safe, and affluent.  This is where the great universities and corporations are located.  The crime rate is low to nonexistent.  Public transportation is fast, safe, and abundant-- a pleasant experience for the rider.  There are no slums.

environmental

If America were a first-world country, we wouldn't have one of two major political parties in willful ignorance of climate science.  It was disgusting earlier this year to see the Republicans using denial of climate change as a litmus test for their presidential candidates.


As far as actually doing something about global warming, a carbon tax by itself wouldn't fly at this point; but I'm intrigued by the idea of substituting a carbon tax for the income tax, to the extent possible.  Generally, you tax things you want to discourage, and nobody wants to discourage income.  The inequalities in our society might also be addressed by a financial transactions tax and a wealth (rather than income) tax.  The former would come down on financial speculators, who don't produce actual goods or services but who simply know how to play the stock-market casino; the latter would help remove the gross inequities of a society that allows a certain class of people (the fabled One Percent) to live on a completely separate plane of existence from the rest of us.

desmond hatchett

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/18/desmond-hatchett-30-kids_n_1528850.html


Without going into any negative stereotypes about promiscuous, irresponsible black males-- of which this guy seems to be a living embodiment-- let's just say this:  People like this, left to their own devices, will reproduce us into being a third-world nation.  Who is supposed to pay to support these children?  This is why women on welfare shouldn't receive higher benefits if they have more illegitimate children.  You don't reward behavior you want to discourage.

part of the problem?

Here's a prime example of what I call 'The Third World Drift.'  Third-world people living in a first-world country.  Deport them!