tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91718408200591929972024-02-25T13:13:06.730-08:00Natural Liberation BlogNature, philosophy, politics, news, and culture from a natural philosophy viewpoint.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.comBlogger575125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-70165219470761542272016-04-17T10:00:00.002-07:002016-04-17T10:00:41.500-07:00Ready to move onSorry, but I'm discontinuing posting here, at least for now. Almost all post here are copies of posts at my site <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/">www.iiipublishing.com</a>. <br />
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I began using this site so that people could give feedback to my posts, but that does not happen often enough for the trouble.<br />
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I may start posting at a newer, more popular social sharing type of site. If that happens, I'll make a note of the link in a final post here.<br />
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Thanks for reading, and a special thanks for those who did post comments or shared these posts.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-80538670273732718232016-03-25T10:20:00.000-07:002016-03-25T10:20:05.305-07:00Bernie Sanders, FDR, and the Export-Import BankSenator Sanders followers love his attacks on Hillary Clinton. They love his promises of free things: free college educations, free medical care, and free money without working.<br />
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They love his alleged Socialism. <br />
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When asked who his hero is, Sanders said FDR, <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/fdr.html">Franklin Delano Roosevelt</a>, President-for-life from 1933 until he died in 1945.<br />
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Yet Sanders voted, along with Tea Party Republicans, against renewing the <a href="http://www.exim.gov/">Export-Import Bank of the United States (ExIm)</a>. According to Sanders, ExIm is just corporate welfare. Sanders says the government should not own a bank that finances exports and provides jobs for American workers. <br />
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Um, might I point out that under Socialism, the government is supposed to own businesses, including banks? That pushing for state (as in California, or Oregon) owned banks is something that lefties and socialists have been pushing for recently?<br />
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The federal government actually makes money from ExIm. So it is not really a subsidy for corporations. It makes money from corporations. At the same time allowing businesses to make money exporting American products, creating jobs for U.S. workers.<br />
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But Senator Sanders (a certified member of the Establishment since 1980) gets confused easily. He calls this confusion "having principles." Is Socialism one of his principles or not? Don't ask, he'll wave his hands in the air, act indignant, and change the subject.<br />
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Did he ever retract the FDR is his hero statement? Let's take a good close look at that. Unlike Sanders, Roosevelt was a lifelong Democrat, though his uncle, President Teddy Roosevelt, was a Republican. FDR was not an independent.<br />
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And talk about Rich. FDR was born richer than Hillary and Bill will ever be.<br />
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And talk about militaristic. FDR was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913 when he was just 31 years old. His qualifications? He was from a rich and powerful family. On his mother's side, the Delano fortune came from running opium into China. His father was one of the Robber Barons in coal and railroads.<br />
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But FDR presided over the complex system of programs that came to be called the New Deal. In some ways it was socialist, but there was also a fascist element to it. In any case:<br />
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<strong>Franklin Roosevelt (by executive order, without help from Congress) created ExIm in 1934.</strong><br />
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Sanders can't think straight. But he is one of America's longest reigning politicians because he is really, really good at making promises and at lying. <br />
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No serious American leftist could support Senator Sanders based on his actual voting record in Congress. He gives a good stump speech. It sounds like he is a leftist. It sounds like he is for the poor, impoverished, college-educated white male voters that fund and power his campaign.<br />
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But look at his votes at the beginning of the Great Recession, and you can see why it would be folly to make the man President. In 2008 things fell apart for a variety of reasons, not just because some banks were too big, too stupid, and too greedy.<br />
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The important thing for Government was arresting the downward spiral. Poor people and working people are the ones hurt worst by a downward spiral. A family with $100 million can lose 90% of it and not starve. But for most people losing a job will wipe out any savings or assets they have, and may scar them for life. And if things got as bad as during the Great Depression, masses of people would have been dying in the streets <br />
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<strong>The first thing FDR did when he took office in 1933 was rescue the banks. </strong>Why was Senator Sanders against rescuing the banks in 2008-2009? Because he doesn't like big banks. Like anyone much does. He was willing to let America go down the tubes just so he did not have to go on record as doing what his hero did, saving the banks. Same for the auto industry. And again, the bank-saving plan turned out to be sound, eventually earning the government more than it put in.<br />
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So why is Bernie such an idiot? You might speculate he took too many hallucinogens between when he arrived in Vermont in the 1960s, the son of a rich Brooklyn business owner, and when he emerged from the fog in 1980 to take his first decently-paid job as a politician.<br />
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I don't know about the origins of Bernie's mental and emotional disabilities, but I have an analogy that explains how his current personality operates. He is like a foody who goes into a party with a giant smorgasbord and notices some offending food. He waves his hands, twists his face into a parody of an insane person, declares everyone at the party unclean, and walks out.<br />
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But what particularly saddens me is all the leftists who have fallen for his BS. College students I can understand. They are typically privileged children of privileged parents, and he has promised them more privilege, not having to pay for college, not having to make any contribution to society, just reaping the rewards of high-paying jobs requiring college degrees.<br />
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But leftists and even progressives should know better. They should be able to check voting records and do a little bit of critical thinking. Instead most have just been caught up in the hatred Bernie peddles. William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-8072225933121128402016-03-17T14:38:00.001-07:002016-03-17T14:38:47.612-07:00Rock, Paper, Scissors<h3>
There is no guaranteed winning choice in most complicated situations </h3>
People like the idea of causality. We use phrases like "A happened because B caused it." Given that there are causes, making choices is important. "He is rich because he bought Microsoft stock when he was young." Or "She left her keys in her car, of course it was stolen."<br />
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Without denying that there is causality, few people have failed to notice how complicated the world is. Causality is clear in simple Physics experiments and in many of the simple aspects of life. We can reasonably expect a car to start when the ignition is switched on, and if it does not, we can seek a cause, or hire an automobile mechanic to find it.<br />
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But life is complicated. Some things that tend to have many causes and effects that are hard to sort out are biology, economics, and anything that involves human relationships or a large number of human beings.<br />
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The game Rock, Paper, Scissors helps teach children important lessons about the complicated world. Rock smashes scissors, which cut paper, which wraps the rock. Rock wins against scissors but looses against paper. Each of the three choices can be a winner or loser depending on what the second player decides to choose. <br />
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In a fair game the two players reveal their choices (made by hand signals) at the same time. There can be strategy involved, based on expectations about how one's opponent will play (like realizing an opponent never repeats the same choice twice in a row). But generally with two players each will win about half the time. And so loses about half the time.<br />
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In the rest of life situations are usually more complex, but one central theme remains true: no strategy, tactic, or individual choice will always work. The term for this quality is "indeterminate."<br />
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We try to keep the complexity at bay by making things simple for ourselves. Most common screws work with either a Philips head or slot head screwdriver. Most people prefer driving cars with automatic transmissions rather than trying to manually chose the right gear all the time. Most people choose a political party and vote for that party's candidates rather than spending a lot of time investigating each candidate in each election. And mostly that works. Despite their complexity, most modern bridges that get built don't fall down, most of the time.<br />
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But when two humans, or two groups of humans, clash instead of cooperating, there will be a loser. There are also losing choices because the future is indeterminate.<br />
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Gambling and investing are a case to point. "Alice" has $1,000 that she does not need to pay bills. She owes $2,000 on a credit card at 12%. She has been thinking (at the urging of more affluent friends and family) of opening a brokerage account and buying her first stock shares, say Microsoft or Facebook. She also has a friend who bets on horses and is certain that she can get $8,000 for her $1,000 if she will just bet on Whipping Star in the 3rd race. Or she could just keep the money as cash.<br />
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I would advise her to pay down the credit card. 12% interest saved, guaranteed. We won't know Alice's best move until some time later. If Whipping Star does win his race, we'll know that was the best choice, but there was no way to know that in advance. Even fixed horse races sometimes go awry (as when a dope-up horse breaks a leg). In a year a particular stock might be up over 12%. In a year we can certainly retroactively pick stocks that went up over 12%. But no one knows in advance, with absolute certainty, how well any company's stock will do in any given period of time. Stocks go down as well as up. <br />
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Uncertainty rules in relationships. Can you trust Judas? Should you date the blond clean-cut medical student? Who is a good mentor, who is trouble best avoided?<br />
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Then there is war. A nasty business all around, and filled with uncertainty. Great generals sometimes lose battles, incompetent generals sometimes win, and wars seemingly won can turn into defeat. The strategy that won the last war may be a losing strategy in the next war. <br />
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Paper, rock, scissors. You can win by cheating, if your opponent does not know you are cheating. The basic cheating method is choosing shortly after your opponent has shown her hand.<br />
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Cheating reality is a lot harder. Cheating in a poker game can have much worse consequences than simply losing the game. Cheating in business can land you in jail. Cheating in a relationship can be the end of a relationship. Cheating can often be beaten by not cheating, and by refusing to play with cheaters.<br />
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Scissors, paper, rock. Everyone has a childhood, but not everyone learns the same lessons from childhood, even when you account for differing environments or parents.<br />
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Given the complexity of reality, it is best to keep on one's toes, so to speak. Understand the present as best you can. Anticipate the future as best you can. But don't be too surprised by the unexpected. Being flexible rather than rigid is a good general strategy, but even that does not always work out in life. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-2400927855479124812016-03-12T16:06:00.000-08:002016-03-12T16:06:01.638-08:002016 Election the Most Complicated Ever?<h3>
Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz compete for angry voters </h3>
Which kind of angry voter are you? Some would argue the Presidential primaries are simply sorting out people into categories of anger. <br />
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In every election cycle I can remember, the establishment of both political parties has argued that "this is the most important election ever." Importance keeps climbing a mountain, never looking backwards. I don't buy it, never did. More important than 1860, which led to the Civil War? More important than 1932, in the depth of the Great Depression?<br />
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But I will grant that this is the most complicated primary season ever. I grant it has historic competition, notably the <a class="in_text_link" href="https://www.blogger.com/2014/06/blog_06_07_2014.html">1952 Presidential Primaries</a>, in which Senator Kefauver won the Democratic Primaries as an anti-corruption reformer, and Senator Taft won the Republican primaries as the darling of conservatives. Both were denied the nominations at the conventions.<br />
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How complicated? It begins with the difficulty many working class people, particularly white older men, have choosing between Senator Sanders and Realtor Trump. Both are adept at telling this group what they want to hear: that there will be a bigger piece of the economic pie for them. Sanders promises pie from the left-wing play book: he will simply tax the rich (more) and spend that on things like free medical care and free college tuition for all. Don't want to work? Go back to college on the taxpayers' dime. I'm planning on getting several degrees. <br />
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Donald Trump. What can I say that has not been said? He does not appear to be as angry on stage as Sanders, but he is just as good at whipping up a crowd. No college tuition program from Trump. Instead, his main message is that he will increase working class wages by kicking out the illegal immigrants who drive wages down for everything from construction work to babysitting. If he could drive them out that would certainly raise wages for those without college degrees, but I doubt he could do it. Neither a Democratic Congress nor a Republican Congress is going to vote enough funding for the immigration service to cut down on illegal residents substantially. <br />
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Black markets are what happens when people want something and the government makes it illegal (or even just too expensive through taxation). Illegal immigrants are a sort of double black market. Immigrants want higher pay than they can get at home (and sometime intangibles like safety), so our imperialist high pay scale creates an incentive for them to break the law and enter the nation illegally. At this end all sorts of employers want to pay less, and maybe even think a Hispanic nanny is sort of a racist step up from a black nanny, and so there is a black market here for people without work permits.<br />
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Given the double strength black market, it will take someone smarter than Trump to end the labor competition. Like most campaign promises, his is empty. At the Sanders end of spectrum, his nostrums like free college and higher government subsidies for the working class and poor will simply strengthen the magnetic pull. Resulting in more competition for U.S. jobs, not less. <br />
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Ted Cruz actually attacks Marco Rubio for not be anti-immigrant enough, and basically controls the Jesus Nutter vote, plus the end all spending that is not military in nature vote. Which makes Trump seem like a centrist, if you look at his vague policy positions instead of his insults. <br />
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The other centrist is Hillary Clinton. In a normal year she would be so far to the left as to endanger the Democratic Party's chances. This year she simply isn't angry enough for the electorate. Except that women in America are much better at hiding their anger than men. I think a lot of women are going to be really angry if she does not win the nomination. Will they desert the Democratic Party? I hope so. Maybe they will vote for Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. Maybe they will form a new party for women and their allies. Probably they will just regroup and try again in 2020 with someone other than Hillary.<br />
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Why are so many people so angry? Why do so many people watch <em>Walking Dead</em>, possibly the most boring high-budget show ever produced for television? <br />
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In 2008 people were too busy trying to save their own asses to try to figure out who to lynch. Now most people have jobs and a place to live again, but they have not forgotten the promise of 2006 when all you had to do was lie about your income, buy a house with a 0% down, and live the rest of your life trying to take money out of the house's increase in value fast enough to keep up with your neighbors' lifestyles.<br />
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Bernie's people are mad at bankers. Trump's are mad at immigrants and Islam. Ted Cruz's hate Obama, liberals, Planned Parenthood, the IRS, and anyone who isn't packing a semi-automatic weapon and at least 100 rounds of ammo.<br />
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Hillary's people are not haters, for the most part, but I think they are being whipped into it. They are beginning to hate Bernie and his followers, Cruz and Trump and their followers, and probably becoming suspect of men in general. As they should be.<br />
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I'm guessing the angriest candidate will win. That would be Bernie. It would have been a lot easier if he just got himself a glock and started shooting it out with bankers on Wall Street, but if he wins the election, bankers beware. <br />
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The President is not supposed to make the laws, she is supposed to faithfully execute the laws written by Congress. Bernie indicated in the Miami debate that he does not intend to let that theory stop him, if elected. Maybe it won't matter if the incumbents win most of the seats of Congress again in 2016, as is usual. Bernie flapping his angry arms at Congress will do nothing. But Executive Orders are another matter entirely. Reminds me of 1932 in Germany. William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-12295378213468183392016-02-27T15:24:00.000-08:002016-02-27T15:24:04.354-08:00On Hating President Obama<h3>
Precedents for Hating Barack </h3>
Feeling overworked, I decided to relax today with a copy I unearthed of <em>United States Diplomatic History</em>, Volume I, edited by Gerard Clarfield<br />
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Any history book is bound to have revealing details about the past. For instance, in the Chapter on the Jay Treaty with the British Empire (or Treaty of London of 1794), I learned that John Jay (who was already the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), lacking instructions otherwise, decide to not demand payment to American slavers for their slaves that were freed by the British Army during the Revolutionary War.<br />
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But what struck me most was the hatred unleashed on President George Washington because of the treaty. The background is complex, but at that time the two major political factions in the U.S. were pro-French (and the French Revolution) or pro-British (and more conservative). The problem was the U.S. really needed a new treaty with the Empire because of unresolved issues from the Revolutionary War. President Washington did not particularly like the new treaty, but he needed it to keep the young nation out of war and with some chance to prosper economically.<br />
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One more detail before the main point: the U.S. Senate discussed the treaty in secret, and agreed that it would not be published. But anti-British Senators eventually made it available to the press.<br />
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How vitriolic was the hatred for Washington? There were riots against the treaty in Boston. The pro-French press said the President "had completed the destruction of American freedom." A series of articles accusing George Washington of theft was published. A common toast was "A speedy death to George Washington."<br />
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I certainly don't condone hatred of President Barack Obama. But I am not shocked that it exists. He is not my favorite President, but I would not slip from criticism (with occasional agreement or even praise) to hatred. But for many Americans, the vitriol of the 2008 campaign just rolled on into hatred of the man in office. <br />
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I think there is a racial component to Obama hating, but I don't think it is the main issue. Every President before Obama inspired hatred, at times, among certain people. The more famous an American President is now, the easier it is to find out why he was hated. Jefferson was hated for being pro-French and an atheist. Jackson was hated by the East Coast establishment. Lincoln was hated by the South, and so on down the line. Liberals have hated Conservative Presidents, and Conservatives have hated Liberal Presidents. <br />
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Several Presidents have been hated to the point of being assassinated, and attempts have been made on many more.<br />
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The political parties, of course, have been responsible for the whipping up of hatred. The Democrats hated Reagan and Bush. The fury unleashed by Republicans at Bill and Hillary Clinton was probably not unprecedented, but odd given that liberal Democrats considered them to be too conservative. Nor was Hillary the first First Lady to be hated. Many prior first ladies had their detractors (notably Eleanor Roosevelt). It probably started with Martha Washington, but <em>that</em> I have not read about, so far. <br />
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The President I hated the most was Richard Nixon. He was the President of my teen years, when I started rebelling against authority. I volunteered to campaign for George McGovern in 1972 (something Hillary and I have in common). My college roommate and I clipped pictures of Nixon and recaptioned them in nasty ways and attached them to our dorm door.<br />
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Now I see Nixon differently. He was a war criminal, sure, but I doubt he would have committed war crimes if Lyndon Johnson hadn't started the Vietnamese War. He was conservative, sure, but he accepted most of the New Deal. By today's standards he was to the left of Bernie Sanders. As Vice-President in the 1950s he had done much to advance civil rights. I could criticize him all day long, but I can no longer hate him. <br />
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Some people are just filled with hate, a few may not hate at all, but most of us live in the gray zone. We learn, over time, that most people are complicated. We can hate one thing they do, and love another. We can even disagree, or strongly disagree, without hating.<br />
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I hope Hillary becomes President, but I expect her to be the most hated President ... since Obama. I don't think she hates anyone, though I suspect she is not fond of Republicans or right-wing radio. She is the only candidate still standing who thrives on understanding complexity. And it's a complex world, so we want a President who can make decisions, understanding that the results can be complicated and even unexpected. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-33820064194783157652016-02-14T12:24:00.000-08:002016-02-14T12:24:50.445-08:00Good Riddance, Justice Antonin Scalia<h3>
Justice Scalia was a neo-fascist who tried to destroy America </h3>
Antonin Scalia (1936-2016) died yesterday, and good riddance. Our nation would have been better off if he had never been appointed to the Supreme Court. Scalia did his best to insert fascist ideology into the American legal system and <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/constitution/constitution_main.html">Constitution</a>. He was dishonest, manipulative, and unpatriotic. I only wish he had died sooner, preferably hanged like the Nuremberg criminals whose ideas he promoted.<br />
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Scalia was of Italian descent, and was the first-Italian American on the Supreme Court. Too bad, because there were many Italian-Americans with American values who would have made better Supreme Court judges. [disclaimer: I am of one-fourth Italian descent]<br />
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I do think being raised a Roman Catholic had a lot to do with his moral degeneracy. Roman Catholicism is at the root of <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/fascism_main.html">fascism</a> and other authoritarian political trends. But I should point out that many American Roman Catholics traded in their Dark Ages values for American rationalism during the very era that Scalia slimed his way through. [disclaimer: I was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools through the eighth grade. I have long been a atheist with a positive, nature-centric philosophy.] <br />
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Scalia became a committed ultra-conservative Catholic while attending a Jesuit-run school in New York City as a teenager. Depending on how you look at it, he either was smart or just spent a lot of time memorizing Jesuit nonsense. He then attended a Roman Catholic college, Georgetown University. By the time he reached Harvard Law School he was so deeply entrenched in lies and casuistry that he never emerged from the black pit. Instead, he worked hard all his life to suck American down into that pit. <br />
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I will leave it to others to try to analyze what was in Antonin's genes or childhood experiences that turned him to the dark side. Nor can I take on his opinions in thousands of Supreme Court cases in a short essay. What I want to convey to readers is his general method of attempting to destroy the Constitution. Contrary to his many eulogizers today, he did not invent these methods. They were conveyed to him. He simply reinvigorated them.<br />
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Suppose someone said to you: the right to bear arms, when the Second Amendment was added to the Constitution, meant only the right to own muzzle-loading weapons requiring those who wish to fire them to dump some gunpowder and a bullet into the barrel each time.<br />
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Scalia, when it was convenient, promoted "originalism" and "textualism" for interpreting the Constitution. In this theory the words of the Constitution mean exactly what they say and cannot be interpreted in modern terms. They have to be interpreted the way <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/georgewashington.html">George Washington</a> and crew interpreted them.<br />
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Except when originalism and textualism where inconvenient to right-wing agendas, as with gun control laws, which he consistently ruled against. <br />
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This enabled Scalia to deny that women have rights other than the right to vote. He denied that Congress could create good laws and programs, unless they were specifically listed by in the Constitution. He even ruled that Congress cannot regulate campaign donations as part of its duty to regulate elections, because that is trumped by the right of wealth individuals, corporations, and labor unions to spend all they want on an election.<br />
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But originalism and textualism were a phony agenda, a means to an end. Scalia did not rule that guns using technology more modern than that of 1780 could be used only the the U.S. military and police forces. No, he even voted to overturn parts of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Handgun_Violence_Prevention_Act">Brady Bill</a>. <br />
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Scalia's real agenda was to push the nation towards an authoritarian, right wing, Christian (and evenually Roman Catholic) government. Perhaps with slight variations from the <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/religion/catholic/popes/pius_xi.html">Pope Pius</a>, Mussolini, Hitler, General Franco model. But certainly in the direction of the fascist model.<br />
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Some people say Scalia could be charming in person. People said the same thing about Mussolini and Hitler.<br />
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Scalia denied the reality of the Evolution of Species. He tried to force religious theology to be taught in public schools.<br />
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Scalia denied the rights of people to affirmative action. Affirmative Action is Justice, because it makes up for past injustice. But Scalia wanted to steer the nation towards ever increasing injustice.<br />
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Scalia was un-american. He was against democracy and human rights, including the right to the pursuit of happiness, instead of misery under a Pope. He wanted to push America into a purposefully ignorant society of obedient religious nutters.<br />
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Scalia was a liar and a scumbag in a black robe, which is pretty much what his Jesuit teachers were aiming for. <br />
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Within the Catholic Church Scalia refused to accept the move away from fascism known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council">Vatican II</a>. While we may be unfortunate that he was ever appointed to the Supreme Court, and to some point he did manage to persuade people to find ways to interpret our Constitution in a fascist manner, we are lucky he was just one of nine. <br />
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More on <strong>Antonin Scalia</strong> by William P. Meyers: <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/blog/2012/06/blog_06_28_2012.html">Impeach Antonin Scalia</a> [June 28, 2012]William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-31386783942602026042016-02-05T11:04:00.001-08:002016-02-12T15:49:54.782-08:00Bernie Sanders: Progressive, Socialist, or just Liberal?<h3>
Is Bernie Sanders a really a Socialist or just another Liberal?</h3>
I cannot point out too many times that people tend to see specific a word as representing a specific, real object. But we all have had the experience that one word can mean many things, and that specific things may have more than one name. Words of the day: socialist and progressive. <br />
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The Democratic Party Presidential debate in New Hampshire on February 4, 2016 provided lessons in both semantics and real politics. It was a long debate. Anyone who listened to it, or who reads the transcript, might reasonably select different points to emphasizing in reporting on it. Not surprisingly, Bernie advocates believe he won the debate, while Hillary advocates believe she won the debate.<br />
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I am not concerned with who "won" the debate. I am not registered in any political party, but I certainly have a political agenda. And I have priorities. I put the environment first, international peace and justice second, and American economic & legal justice third. But I have an opinion about just about every detail of politics, society and culture.<br />
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To me the debate was an important read on Bernie Sanders' foreign policy. Hillary Clinton is too hawkish for my taste, but of course she is much closer to mainstream sentiments than I am.<br />
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Bernie harps on Clinton's vote to attack Iraq (which was a war crime, if you use the Nuremberg criteria for <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/war_crime/war_crime_main.html">war crimes</a>). But Bernie's rabble rousing speeches always fail to mention his vote to attack Afghanistan (which was a war crime, if you use the Nuremberg criteria for war crimes). When pointed out, he changes the subject, as he did in the debate. When it is pointed out to his supporters, they usually go back to the Clinton Iraq vote.<br />
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In the debate there was a second part to the question. Both Hillary and Bernie were asked, by the moderators: what would you do about the U.S. troops currently in Iraq. Hillary gave a clear answer without hesitation: she would leave the troops there, subject to the situation changing. Bernie tried to evade answering, but when pinned down said, or I should say mumbled, that he would leave the troops there.<br />
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Bernie is also for fighting ISIS, preferably with other nation's armies. It is a hypocritical position for someone who claims he has been screaming for 50 years about American job losses. Isn't killing ISIS soldiers a paid job? Why should that skilled labor go to foreigners?<br />
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Forgive me if I wax sarcastic. It's the "I'm perfect," from Bernie, "He's perfect" from his chorus of followers chanting that has become irritating. But then I'm from California, in fact northern California, where a Bernie Bot seems to be lurking in every smoke-filled room. No, not tobacco.<br />
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In short, when pushed to comment, Bernie was just as hawkish as Hillary. Too hawkish for me. <br />
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I was surprised and pleased that Hillary finally started poking at Bernie's allegedly perfect Progressive credentials. I think earlier in the campaign she and her advisors assumed she would beat Bernie easily. She did not want to alienate his followers, as she will need their support in November. But his follows drank his kool-aid, not knowing, as he himself remembers, what a bad little boy he has been these past thirty years.<br />
<br />
Hillary pointed out that <strong>he voted to deregulate derivative</strong>s. Bernie did not deny it, he just went on to change the subject. Bernie Bots would be all over Hillary if she did something like that. They would claim it is proof that she is just a pawn for Goldman Sachs. But in all the commentary I've read today (admittedly just a fraction of what there is), I have seen no Bernie Bot criticizing Bernie for that vote. Maybe Bernie Bots don't know what a financial derivative is.<br />
<br />
The Democratic Party is no home for Socialists. I would say the Democratic Party is socialist-influenced. Sanders bought the socialist line in college (so did I). Now, in his dotage, apparently doing something about it is on his bucket list. Great. Do something about it, if you can. I personally favor mixed systems, though I would probably argue about what specifically should be socialized and what should be left to free markets. Also I favor worker ownership of business, not the centralized government bureaucratic ownership of business that Sanders favors. Though I might make an exception in some cases, like localities owning their own utility companies.<br />
<br />
So hurray for Bernie, but I've had enough of old white socialist male domination in my lifetime (most of my friends were fellow leftist activists). I'd like to try old white female liberal domination for 4 years, especially since the alternative is Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.<br />
<br />
I have watched a lot of bullying done by Bernie supporters both on the Internet and in my local area. At the comments section of the <em>New York Times</em>, for instance, you would think 98% of the Democratic Party voters favor Bernie. I've found that if I even hint to many voters around here that Hillary might be the better candidate, suddenly they want to talk. The rabidness of the Bernie Bullies is not something they can turn off. Most people need that personality defect to maintain a leftist stance in America. But bullying does not a Democracy make. William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-62380678110979802132016-01-31T14:09:00.000-08:002016-01-31T14:09:05.160-08:00The Nazi Party Before Adolf Hitler<h3>
"Hitler is a good Catholic." — Rudolf Hess, May 17, 1921 </h3>
Adolf Hitler became "Party Comrade No. 55" in the fall of 1919 in the city of Munich in province of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavaria">Bavaria</a> in Germany. The Armistice that had ended World War I had been signed on November 11, 1918, while Hitler was in a hospital, recovering from poison gas used by the Allies against German soldiers. If you no anything about history at all, you probably know that Hitler went on to become the Chancellor of Germany and is generally considered the baddest of bad guys of the 20th century.<br />
<br />
The party that Hitler joined, and quickly became the leader of, was not yet known as the Nazi Party. It was the German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiter Partei or DAP). At that time its members were all in Munich. The DAP was part of a broader trend of mostly small parties and clubs that were trying to combine nationalism with socialism. This trend was a spontaneous response to the combination of national sentiment with socialist thinking that was global in scope. The main line of development that led to the DAP originated in Austria, which was part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria-Hungary">Austro-Hungarian Empire</a> before the empire broke up at the end of World War I.<br />
<br />
In Austria Roman Catholicism was the only legal religion. "In the face of the dual threat posed by socialism and capitalism, the Christian Social Party succeeded in attracting workers, shopkeepers, and white collar workers with national-social and anti-semitic catchphrases." [Bracher p. 51]<br />
<br />
By origin Adolf Hitler was Austrian, not German. Yet the dividing line between Austria and Germany was an artificial consequence of politics. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunau_am_Inn">Braunau am Inn</a>, on the Bavarian-Austrian border. The Austrian Empire had many ethnic groups, but the key rivalry that led to national socialist ideology was between ethnic Germans and ethnic Czechs. Despite the Marxist idea that class divisions were more important than ethnic divisions, within the Empire many labor unions ending up splitting along ethnic lines. Union workers wanted a party that fought the capitalist bosses, but they did not want to work with other ethnic groups.<br />
<br />
The Roman Catholic Church contributed three critical components to the national socialist mix: anti-Semitism, the leadership principle, and corporatism. It should be noted that is was not the only source of these practices. Leninism, in particular, contributed strongly to the idea that an authoritarian party organization was necessary to seize power.<br />
<br />
People and ideas moved freely from the German ethnic areas of the Austrian Empire to Bavaria. The first German Workers Party had been founded in Bohemia in 1904, but was centered in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linz">Linz</a>, where Adolf Hitler went to school. As a young adult Hitler lived in Vienna (painting postcards but mostly living off money sent by his family) and read pamphlets written by German nationalist-socialist and Catholic anti-semitic groups, but did not join any.<br />
<br />
The Bavarian version of the German Workers Party, or DAP, was founded at a conference held between January 2 and 5, 1919, at the Furstenfelder Hof. The founders were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Drexler">Anton Drexler</a> and twenty-five of his coworkers from his railroad shop. At the time Munich had just passed through an attempted seizure of power by leftists that had been put down by the German military, police, and their right-wing allies. The DAP was just one of many such groups and conspiracies.<br />
<br />
Hitler was in the employ of the military when he first contacted the DAP. Essentially, he was their military liaison. He was 30 years old. He already was anti-semitic, a German nationalist, and anti-capitalist, though he had never been a worker receiving a wage from a capitalist boss. As an soldier he was angry at Germany's loss of the war. The signing of the peace treaty at Versailles on June 28, 1919 gave a strong impetus to all right-wing groups in Germany. It was grossly unfair to Germany and did not keep the promises U.S. President Woodrow Wilson made to induce Germany to stop fighting. [Wilson tried to keep his promises, but was overruled by the British and French Empires.] <br />
<br />
Within a few months Hitler became the most important person in the DAP, mainly because he devoted himself to it full time, whereas Drexler continued to work at the railroad shop. Hitler focused his recruiting on former soldiers, rather than the factory workers the DAP had been founded on. <br />
<br />
On February 24, 1920, the Party had its first mass meeting. There Hitler introduced a new name, the National Socialist German Workers Party, or NSDAP, which connected it ideologically to nationalist socialist groups in Austria. He also introduced the revised party <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program">program of 25 points</a>.<br />
<br />
When thinking about the Nazis and World War II, there is a critical point that is always left out of the American and Vatican propaganda versions of Nazi history. It is best to just quote the point, number 24: "The Party as such advocates the standpoint of positive <strong>Christianity</strong> without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination." <br />
<br />
Apologists for the Catholic Church later tried to (and still try to) use the adjective "positive" to deny that the Nazi party, like the Italian, French, Austrian, Polish and Spanish fascist parties, was aligned with the Roman Catholic Church. Hitler, an astute politician, talked almost constantly. By selecting carefully, a propagandist can make him sound like an atheist, a good Roman Catholic, or a pagan.<br />
<br />
It was ultimately the Pope and the German military that together selected Hitler to be Chancellor of Germany. The explicitly Roman Catholic parliamentary party in Germany confirmed that selection.<br />
<br />
Hitler was not just the head of the National Socialists in Germany. The National Socialists of Austria quickly accepted him as their leader as well. The Austrian national socialists were almost exclusively good Roman Catholics. The Austrian Roman Catholic Church was particularly anti-semitic.<br />
<br />
The most reasonable interpretation of the phrase "without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination" was to leave room to recruit Lutherans, not just Catholics. In Bavaria almost everyone (except leftist atheists) was a Catholic. But Hitler wanted to rule Germany, which was majority Lutheran. Not a particular problem for Hitler, since Lutherans had been anti-semitic going back to Martin Luther himself.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-32784814816515944512016-01-24T13:46:00.000-08:002016-01-24T13:46:55.408-08:00Immigration Amnesty is Racist, Sexist, Classist and destructive to the environmentThere is a lot of talk about immigration right now. It is a teaching moment. Political candidates who want to be President are talking a lot of nonsense.<br />
<br />
Start with the basic facts:<br />
<br />
The U.S. is overpopulated and creates more ecological destruction per human than any other country on earth (yes, including China).<br />
<br />
The economy can not be expanded infinitely. <br />
<br />
There has been growing economic inequality.<br />
<br />
Immigration amnesties lead to further illegal immigration.<br />
<br />
Illegal immigrants mostly compete for the lowest paying jobs. Even legal immigrants tend to compete for entry level jobs, though some are wealthy or educated enough to join the upper class or upple middle class as soon as they get here.<br />
<br />
Who else competes for the lowest paying jobs in America? High-school dropouts, and even graduates, of course. That means mainly children of people who themselves are marginally employed or work regularly, but for low wages. Working class and welfare class women. And, disproportionately, people who have traditionally been discriminated against, including African-Americans, American Indians, etc. <br />
<br />
The people who advocate for immigration amnesty, and hence for unlimited future immigration to the U.S., are well-intended. They see it as a human rights issue.<br />
<br />
And there are long-term benefits to immigration for the economy. More people means more demand and more workers, and so more GDP. Legalized immigrants can better match their talents to the job markets. That is why the Republican establishment used to lead in advocating for more immigration, including immigration amnesty. That is why the largest single amnesty was put in place in 1986 under <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/ronald_reagan.html">President Ronald Reagan</a>.<br />
<br />
The immediate impact of new immigrants, whether legal or illegal, is pressure on those jobs that require little skill to perform. They are often hard jobs. This includes childcare, cleaning services, and unskilled physical labor. These are exactly the jobs that unskilled citizens, including poor white, black, and hispanic citizens also want. The competition for these jobs pushes down wages, often to below the official minimum wages. It makes finding full time work difficult, except perhaps during brief economic booms. It makes it even harder for families that have been in the United States for generations to accumulate the resources necessary to climb out of the bottom of the working class.<br />
<br />
That is why labor unions, otherwise pretty liberal and supporters of the Democratic Party, have traditionally been for minimal immigration. <br />
<br />
The effect on the U.S. and global environment is also negative. Most illegal immigrants come here because they are greedy and want to have a higher standard of living than they would have in their native nation. To the extent they achieve that they are using more energy and other natural resources. They are generating more greenhouse gasses, and they are speeding up global warming.<br />
<br />
In an ideal world the idea that "all men are created equal" might mean that men and women could move freely, to live wherever they want. We don't live in an ideal world. We live on a dying earth where most nations are already populated beyond what is sustainable. That is particularly true of the United States.<br />
<br />
What we really need is a one-child policy in the United States. Mexico needs a one-child policy. So does Canada. So does nearly every nation on earth.<br />
<br />
So what is wrong with my dear liberal and leftist friends? They are mostly herd animals, and they are not much for thinking for themselves. They "buy" a package of positions on issues that make them feel good about themselves. They want an environmentalist merit badge and a human rights merit badge. On many issues those badges are quite compatible. <br />
<br />
But not for immigration. Increasing immigration and anything that encourages illegal immigration are positions that have practical consquences. They help rich white employers and bankers. They hurt working class men and women, and disproportionately hurt black workers. And they hurt the environment.<br />
<br />
Congress should change the immigration law to allow in a number of immigrants each year that will not have a negative impact on employment for unskilled citizens. Congress should not grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-26581947007644176042016-01-21T07:36:00.000-08:002016-01-21T07:36:14.852-08:00Hillary Clinton v. Bernie Sanders: Who can put a chicken in your pot?"<b>A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in every Garage</b>?" [Herbert Hoover campaign, 1928] <br />
<br />
The Republican Party candidate of 1928 had good intentions. <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/herbert_hoover.html">Herbert Hoover</a> was a mining engineer best known for organizing the civilian food relief efforts for Europe during and after World War I. He had a reputation for honesty, which was important given the scandal-ridden administrations of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Twenties">Roaring Twenties</a>.<br />
<br />
His campaign slogan was "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." Cars were still somewhat new and many people did not own one. Having a meat dish once a week was also still beyond many American families. This was despite the generally upbeat economy of the 1920s.<br />
<br />
We all know how that worked out. In 1929 Herbert became President Hoover, and late in 1929 the stock market crashed. Then the economy crashed. Then the banks crashed. Then we had the New Deal, but the economy did not really recover until 1939, when war in Europe created demand that got America's factories rolling again. By 1946 most of the world's factories outside the U.S. had been destroyed, insuring American economic prosperity and dominance for decades to follow.<br />
<br />
Now Democrats are being asked to choose between <a href="https://berniesanders.com/">Bernie Sanders</a>, a career politician from Vermont, and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/www.HillaryClinton.com/">Hillary Clinton</a>, who needs no introduction. [Links are to their campaign web sites, in case you don't already get as many email solicitations for donations as you would like] <br />
<br />
Today most Americans can afford a chicken once a week, even if they are using Food Stamps. Most Americans who need a car have a car.<br />
<br />
But the idea stands: everyone wants more. The welfare people want more welfare, the workers want higher pay, the middle class business people want more than they have, right on up to the highly discontented billionaire class.<br />
<br />
But let's just worry about the lower middle class on down, the small business owners and assistant managers, lower ranking professionals and bureaucrats, the hourly workers, freelancers, and the economically marginal.<br />
<br />
Lets call whatever Hillary and Bernie are promising a chicken. Who is most likely to put a chicken in your pot?<br />
<br />
Consider that the Republican candidates have an ancient recipe for boiled chicken: lower taxes and lower services. A proven recipe for some people having billions of chickens and some having none. <br />
<br />
Whoever is President, whether it is Hillary or Bernie (or <a href="https://martinomalley.com/">O'Malley</a> or a new face), will face a Congress that has plenty of Republicans in it.<br />
<br />
That chicken will have to be fought over. So, who do you want fighting for your chicken?<br />
<br />
Right now the left wing of the Democratic Party clearly wants Bernie. His campaign speeches promise much. He promises to tax the rich to pay for everything. But when you look at his record as a politician, it is almost devoid of accomplishments. He mostly boasts of voting against things he does not like.<br />
<br />
If Bernie is President he will try to wrestle the whole chicken from the Republicans. <br />
<br />
Hillary, on the other hand, will give the wrestling match some thought. She we get as much chicken for us as she can. Maybe half the chicken, maybe most of the chicken, maybe just a leg. But if Hillary is elected, we will at least get some chicken.<br />
<br />
Bernie won't get us so much as a feather. What he will be best at is criticizing Hillary for not getting the whole chicken.<br />
<br />
That is why he is so appealing to angry leftists. They've been living on anger so long, they've forgotten what chicken tastes like.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-17395439791531347982015-12-29T10:06:00.001-08:002015-12-29T10:06:57.680-08:00A Confederacy of Art Haters: the Islamic State & etc.<h3>
What is Art, and what excuses its destruction? </h3>
Art gets trashed every day, and has throughout history. Artists often trash some of their own work as "not good enough." Some parents save their children's art, some throw it out.<br />
<br />
Generally, if art starts having a cash value, it tends to get saved. If it does not have value, it gets trashed when it becomes inconvenient.<br />
<br />
Old art, good and bad, tends to get valued, to be seen as "collectable," simply because it is old. Almost anything over 200 years old is of antiquarian interest, even if it was not very good art to begin with. <br />
<br />
Some art gets trashed because some people find it objectionable.This raises the question: who gets to decide what art is objectionable? <br />
<br />
Recently the Islamic State and other radical Islamic groups have been accused of destroying art, including ancient artifacts. For instance, it has been reported that soldiers of the Islamic State recently destroyed some of the ancient remains at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmyra">Palmyra</a>.<br />
<br />
It is pretty easy for Americans to look down our noses at the citizens of the Islamic State for their lack of appreciation of the art of ancient civilizations. But America has a pretty bad record when it comes to destroying art. We just don't think about it, because we are trained to have a Nationalist attitude.<br />
<br />
For instance, there was that statue of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein">Saddam Hussein</a> that American troops famously destroyed during the Second Iraq War. Pretty much all statues are art. Is it okay to destroy a statue of a person you don't like? <br />
<br />
If it is okay to destroy a statue of Saddam Hussein, who gets to decide what gets preserved as Art and what gets destroyed as Statues of Hated People?<br />
<br />
When Christians took over the Roman Empire they destroyed a lot of Art because it represented gods other than Jesus and "God the Father." Some statues were preserved by repurposing them as Christian saints. How is Islamic destruction of what they perceive to be false gods different from the favorite Christian pastime of smashing idols?<br />
<br />
How much art was vaporized with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or burned with Tokyo and dozens of other German and Japanese cities that were firebombed during World War II? Is it okay to destroy art if it is just collateral damage to the destruction of enemy populations? [It should be noted that <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/fdr.html">Franklin Delano Roosevelt</a>, or his advisors, did not allow Kyoto to be firebombed, because of its artistic and historic significance. But he okay'd all the other destruction, until he died and <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/truman_main.html">Harry Truman</a> did the final okays.] <br />
<br />
Now that I have desensitized you a bit, be prepared for a shock. There is a movement to destroy a lot of important, historic art right now in America.<br />
<br />
This movement is not being done by Christian yahoos or right-wing thugs. It is being promoted by people who would style themselves leftist, progressive, or liberal (which is how I typically would style myself, except when I think leftists and progressives are acting like idiots, which is surprisingly often).<br />
<br />
This movement wants to destroy art that depicts leaders of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America">Confederate States of America</a>.<br />
<br />
It is easy to understand the feelings of this particular group of would be art destroyers. The Confederate States of America was a complex phenomena, but central to that nation were the institution of slavery, and specifically a slavery based on "race," or skin color. Not only were slaves badly treated, but for about 100 years after the Confederacy was defeated in battle, descendants of slaves were denied civil rights (and economic rights) by the Democratic Party in the states that had been in the Confederacy.<br />
<br />
If the display of a statue makes people feel bad (for whatever reason), should the statue be destroyed?<br />
<br />
How precious is art, really? If we can throw away an old painting we don't like (by an artist who did not become famous), or a child's classroom work, can we throw away any art for any reason? For a good reason like not reminding them of slavery? <br />
<br />
If so, there should be no problem with the Taliban or the Islamic State throwing away art, no matter how ancient. Nor should it be a problem to melt down statues of Confederate generals. <br />
<br />
I favor preserving art, especially if it has become historic. I don't like Christianity or Islam, but I would not destroy the art of these groups.<br />
<br />
I would not destroy a statue of Harry Truman, even though he is the only national leader in history to use atomic weapons against cities of civilians. <br />
<br />
If we collectively decided to destroy statues of Confederate generals, should we not also destroy the statues of other slave owners, including Presidents? Should we not destroy the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/thje/index.htm">Jefferson Memorial</a> and Washington Monument? Most of the Presidents before Lincoln were slave owners. That is a lot of art and history destruction to put on the agenda. And what about Indian-killer statues? <br />
<br />
I think there are two things that are appropriate to do about Confederate statues and other artistic artifacts. One is to put up new plaques beside the statues, pointing out our present view that these were bad men who defended a rotten social system. We should not forget history. We should particularly remember the mistakes of the past, in the hope that those mistakes are not repeated.<br />
<br />
The other option is to let governments make a little money, and let the free market decide what is worth keeping. Auction off the statues. If a museum or private collector is the high bidder, fine. If a materials recycler, or someone else who wants to destroy art, is the high bidder, that is fine too. Not all art deserves to survive forever.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-50734945901965767602015-12-13T15:17:00.000-08:002015-12-13T15:17:23.304-08:00Judge nations by per capital carbon emissions<h3>
Americans continue to generate carbon dioxide at unfair levels </h3>
Since Nationalist Public Radio (NPR) constantly says that China is the world's largest carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas producer, and they pass for liberal in these United States, I assume most Americans have a distorted view of how our nation fits into the problem of global warming.<br />
<br />
If all people <em>are</em> created equal, we should set an average target allowance that is safe. Then everyone should work to push down the carbon emissions of those who are, in effect, cheating the rest of humanity (and all living creatures) by consuming more than their fare share.<br />
<br />
So let's look at a few national averages, remembering that within each nation there are also high consumption carbon emitting individuals, and below average individuals. The following table is a sample. You can find fuller tables at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions">Wikipedia List of Countries by carbon dioxide emissions</a>.<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#FFFFCC" border="1" bordercolor="#0033FF" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 80%px;" summary="co2 averages by nation">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#CCFF99" width="36%">Nation</td>
<td bgcolor="#CCFF99" width="35%">kilotons CO2 emitted </td>
<td bgcolor="#CCFF99" width="29%">tons per person </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>United States of America </td>
<td><div align="right">
5,334,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
16.5</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Russia</td>
<td><div align="right">
1,766,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
12.4</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>European Union </td>
<td><div align="right">
3,415,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
6.7</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>China</td>
<td><div align="right">
10,540,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
7.6</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>India</td>
<td><div align="right">
2,341,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
1.8</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Mexico</td>
<td><div align="right">
456,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
3.7</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Indonesia</td>
<td><div align="right">
452,000</div>
</td>
<td><div align="right">
1.8</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Of the nations with large populations the U.S.A. clearly consumes far more than its share of carbon per person. The global average is 5.0 tons per day, so we are at over 3 times that.<br />
<br />
There are a few nations with per person carbon emission higher than the U.S.: Australia at 17.3, a coal producing nation; and Saudi Arabia at 16.8 are notable. But the E. U., with a standard of living similar to the U.S., is under half.<br />
<br />
China is, on a per person basis, is at 46% of the U.S. Its total emissions are higher than the U.S. because of its much larger population (1.38 billion vs. 322 million). <br />
<br />
When you throw in history, the unfairness of the situation is heightened. The industrial revolution started in Great Britain in the late 1700s, in Europe in the early 1800s, and in the U.S. around the mid 1800s. So we have had very long periods of carbon emissions compared to the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
In the aftermath of World War II pretty much every factory in the world had been damaged. Except the factories of the U.S. With our vast petroleum fields and array of factories, we dominated the world economy and dwarfed the emissions of other nations. Other nations' factories came on line gradually. By the 1970s Americans had to compete again, and had grown soft, and so began losing the economic competition to other nations. We were just so wealthy by then that it took a while for the truth to sink in.<br />
<br />
China made stabs at industrializing going all the way back to the 1800s, but did not really start to grow production faster than America, Europe, Japan and Russia until the 1980s. <br />
<br />
The competitive advantages to nations that continue to burn fossil fuels are enormous. Clearly, if it were about fairness, the U.S.A., which has done the most historic damage, should do the most to cut its per capita fossil fuel consumption. Instead gasoline and natural gas are cheap right now, so consumption is increasing rather than decreasing.<br />
<br />
Fairness is all fine in a game of tennis or baseball, but in the real world people who are unfairly privileged typically don't want to play fair. I've talked to people across the spectrum of American wealth and poverty, and the response is almost uniform. People want scientists to fix the problem without any substantial personal impositions on themselves. <br />
<br />
Scientists can't change the laws of thermodynamics. That is why they are called laws. It takes energy to keep buildings warm in winter and cool in summer. It takes energy to move cars and planes around. It takes energy to fertilize farms, plant and harvest food, and get it to markets. It even takes energy to separate silicon from silicon dioxide to make solar panels, or to extract and transport fossil fuels.<br />
<br />
It is clear that their are too many people in the world and that their standard of living is too high. In the United States we should probably do our share by immediately limiting families to one child, turning off all air conditioning systems (except, perhaps, hospitals), and adding a punitive tax to sales of fossil fuels, something like $3 per gallon of gasoline. Also all flying of any kind should be prohibited. <br />
<br />
But we won't. The rich will buy Teslas and pretend they have done their part. They will meet with politicians in exotic locations and pat themselves on the back for closing the occasional coal-fired generating plant and putting in a few solar panel. The middle class will continue to aspire to the luxuries of the rich, and the working class will aspire to middle-class luxuries. <br />
<br />
The coral will die, and the plankton will die, and sooner or later crops will wilt. Nature will will unleash plague and famine, and balance will be restored. Hopefully when humans die off, it won't be entirely random. Hopefully the humans that survive will give birth to an improved species. <br />
<br />
Agree? Disagree? You can <strong>comment</strong> on this post at <a class="in_text_link" href="http://iiipublishing.blogspot.com/">Natural Liberation Blog</a> at blogspot.com<br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-41982423690003243042015-12-08T11:49:00.000-08:002015-12-08T11:49:22.320-08:00Atheists: A Little Tolerance for Christmas, Please<h3>
Christmas Can Be Secularized Through Toleration </h3>
The Founding Fathers of the United States seem to have included many atheists, agnostics, and deists (people who believe in a God that doesn't matter). It is also a historical fact that in the late 1700's there was a Christian religious revival, and that since that time a majority of Americans have been at least nominally Christian. <br />
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Officially the national government has always been secular, as enshrined in the Constitution, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exorcise thereof." And "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office of public Trust under the United States." <br />
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At times in America it was dangerous to say you were an atheist, especially if you were both a communist and an atheist. So atheists kept a low profile. <br />
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For decades now the separation of Church and State has become a battleground. Christians forget the historical fact that they were the ones who originally asked for the separation because they feared the doctrines of either the Church of England (now Episcopal) or the Roman Catholic Church would be imposed on them.<br />
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Atheists have led the struggle to keep Church and State separated. That is fine, but some atheists have become as intolerant as their Christian opponents.<br />
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I believe we can benefit, now, from showing a little tolerance. I believe that building up a culture of tolerance, including among religious sects, is something that atheists should help with, not fight against.<br />
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I believe our message of the priority of reason and fact-based culture over "revealed" religious tradition is winning. I believe that being nice to Christians (within reason) and people in other cults encourages dialog that leads to reason and fact-based beliefs.<br />
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So: I don't have a problem calling a Christmas Tree as Christmas Tree. I am not going to deny that Christmas Day is Christmas Day. I personally don't celebrate Christmas, I deny the divinity of Christ (and Isis and Zeus and all the other gods), but I'll take any holiday I can get. Sure, in my ideal world we would secularize Christmas by moving it to the Winter Solstice, but that is not a priority for me.<br />
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Let's start with the naming of decorated trees traditionally put up during the month of December. Most atheists, Jews, and other non-Christians want them to be called Holiday Trees or maybe Yule trees.<br />
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I can see the argument that official government holiday trees should be for everyone, not just Christians. But it is hard to get around the fact that they are associated with an official government holiday, Christmas Day. <br />
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But Christmas long ago came to have a meaning going far beyond the (probably not accurate) birthday of Jesus Christ, who certainly was not God, but was a historic figure and therefore must have had some birthday. Judging from the New Testament, he did not make a point of celebrating his birthday when he was alive. The holiday could be cancelled on religious grounds; the Puritans did not celebrate it.<br />
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Many Americans celebrate a non-Christian Christmas. Gifts and family and alcoholism and all that food. <br />
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We atheist are supposed to be the reasonable ones. We are the leaders in tolerance. So let the Christians have their Christmas and Christmas Trees.<br />
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Let's use the opportunity to talk about what is important: good will towards all people. Including immigrants, homosexuals, foreigners, and people of other faiths than our own. The ability of the Earth to renew itself (the evergreen trees being a symbol of that before being appropriated for Christmas), which is being rapidly lost. <br />
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The atheist brand has been tarnished over the centuries in a number of ways, most notably by scientific inventions gone awry, from atomic bombs to insecticides that are killing off bees. Joseph Stalin's mass murders did not help our image either.<br />
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If you want to attract people to atheism, the brand should have a positive aura. Fight for the environment, fight for justice, fight for truth. But be kind to those who have not seen the light of reason yet. <b> Our brand should be a showcase of tolerance</b>. We should not fight all the time just because we have gotten used to having to fight for our rights. <br />
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I'm going to celebrate Christmas as an atheist. I don't admire Jesus the way I admire Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. But to the extent he is symbol of the idea of tolerance (as when he stopped stonings) and substituting love for humans over the cruel laws of the Old Testament, Jesus is okay. If he were alive today, he'd probably be an atheist. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-34132225216162497312015-12-05T12:40:00.000-08:002015-12-05T12:40:56.278-08:00Air Conditioned Nightmare, a HistoryI was born on a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, in 1955, near the ocean. That is a temperate climate by most standards. It got hot in summer and cold in winter, but as a child I did not worry about it. We had no air conditioning, almost nobody did back then, but we certainly had heat. I remember being seriously cold only once, when Legendary Mother locked me out of the house during a snow storm in Greenville, Texas when I was four, to punish me (Legendary Father was stationed in Japan that year).<br />
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In 1955 the human population of the United States was about 165 million. The population of the planet Earth was about 2.6 billion. <br />
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When I was six years old Legendary Father was retired from the Marine Corps (they failed to anticipate the need for trained, reliable murderers starting in 1965 in Vietnam) and we moved to Florida. It was hot! But again, no air conditioning. Our house was in a suburb that had recently been a swamp. My grade school was not air conditioned either.<br />
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Then around 1964 we moved into a fancier neighborhood and the house had central air. Legendary Mother set the thermostat at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21.1 degrees C.) In summer it was 70, and in winter it was 70. Whatever budget strains the family had, no thought was given saving a bit of electricity by letting the house vary from 70. The electricity, in that place and era, came from burning fuel oil. <br />
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In 1965 the human population of the United States was about 190 million. The population of the planet Earth was about 3.4 billion.<br />
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I have to admit I became a bit of a weenie. Cold was seldom a problem. I continued to play outside when I could, and I continued to sweat profusely while sitting still at school, in the fall and spring. But I also enjoyed walking into our air conditioned house and cooling off. At some point a new car was bought that had air conditioning.<br />
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In school I never, ever had air conditioning. Not in grade school, not in high school, not in college.<br />
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But in the winter of 1973-74 I ran into a different problem. That was a result of the Arab Oil Embargo. I had no budget for clothing for college (Legendary Father and Legendary Mother had thrown me out of the family), or I should say that working for minimum wage to pay for college made me extremely careful about buying anything. My freshman year I had endured the cold of New England dressed in Florida appropriate clothes. But at least the dorms and classrooms were well heated. <br />
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Not so the winter of 1973-74. My college economized. I was cold all the time, in my dorm room and in classrooms. But I did not die, and when Spring rolled around, I had largely acclimatized. My Florida clothes (now becoming rags) were adequate because my body had adapted.<br />
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In 1975 the population of the U.S. was about 215 million. The global population was about 4.1 billion. <br />
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My body had adapted to cold despite spending most of my childhood in Florida. In the meantime, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, America was converting vast amounts of fossil fuel into carbon dioxide. In 1975 Global Warming itself was still somewhat hidden among the ordinary fluctuations of weather, but we, the human race, had built a big ol' Greenhouse by burning fuel to run heaters and air conditions, cars and trucks, factories and armies.<br />
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Now political leaders (well, heads of state anyway) are gathered in Paris to pretend to do something about greenhouse gasses and global warming.<br />
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Couldn't they just agree to <strong>Turn Off the Goddam Air Conditioners</strong>! No one on earth had air conditioning until the 20th century. People can acclimatize to heat. They can wear shorts in summer, even at places of business. The first year will be tough, sure, as we get used to sweating again (and other people sweating). <br />
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Instead the Air Conditioned Nightmare (Henry Miller's term) is spreading like a cancer on the earth. As soon as people have the dough, they want their first air conditioner. Just like my Legendary Mother. <br />
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Sure, do all the other things. But turning off all air conditioners can be done quickly and would have a major impact.<br />
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An estimate of the current human population of the United States is 322 million, and of earth is 7.2 billion.<br />
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The other important item that should be on the Paris agenda is lowering the human population by setting up a global One Child policy. Half the population would produce only half the environmental problem. But sadly, that idea is not on the agenda. It is not on the agenda of most environmental non-profits, either, because they are afraid of the fundraising repercussions of speaking the real core truth to Power. Better to blow up skirts and reap the rain of donations. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-80107875239572730032015-11-27T10:37:00.001-08:002015-11-27T10:37:09.590-08:00Pope Francis Pushes for Global Destruction through Overpopulation"Countries are frequently pressured to adopt policies typical of the culture of waste, like those aimed at lowering the birthrate." <br />
— Pope Francis in Nairobi, November 27, 2015
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Pope Francis has excited the left-to-liberal spectrum of Americans with his "progressive" statements. Progressive, at least, compared to his predecessor, the neo-Nazi <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/religion/catholic/popes/benedict_xvi.html">Pope Benedict</a> (who was an actual Nazi as a teenager).<br />
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But while he talks of social justice, protecting the environment, and allowing divorced Catholics to receive Communion, he harbors the traditional destructive, anti-environmental and anti-woman culture of his predecessors.<br />
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If there is one thing that causes more global warming and environmental destruction, it is more people in the world. They go hand in hand. Apparently Pope Francis does not feel that the current population of over 7 billion is high enough. He is against lowering the birthrate, and against contraception and abortion.<br />
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Which means that in practice he is for global warming, for war (over resources), for the oppression of women, and for trying to keep the Roman Catholic religion alive by out-breeding religious and social rivals.<br />
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But what else could we expect from an organization that was founded by two masterminds of evil? Christianity was a loose confederation before it was given a top down structure by Constantine the Great, a mass-murderer and Roman Emperor fro 306 to 337, and Sylvester I, Pope from 314 to 335. Over time the bishops of Rome, styling themselves Popes, set themselves up as supreme leaders, in the process re-writing history and editing Scripture to support their claims.<br />
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The suppression of secular knowledge and freedom of religion were key to the success of Roman Catholicism. Violence was used to convert many nations to Catholicism, including Poland, Mexico, and the nations of South America. In many other cases a King converted to Catholicism and enforced the religion on his subjects as a means of tightening control on them.<br />
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After about 1500 the Catholic Church gradually lost its ability to kill everyone who disagreed with it in Europe. In the 1930's it made one last grasp at world dominion, promoting the dictators <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/adolf_hitler.html">Adolf Hitler</a>, <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/mussolini.html">Benito Mussolini</a>, <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/franco_main.html">Francisco Franco</a> and eventually <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/petain1.html">Philippe Petain</a> in their attempt to crush Protestant Christianity (including the planned conquest of the U. K.) and atheism (including the failed conquest of the U.S.S.R.).<br />
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Preventing people from having access to birth control creates poverty and lack of education, two keys to substituting Catholic bullshit for a modern outlook based on science and reason. It leads to environmental destruction.<br />
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As Catholic Popes to, Francis seems reasonable in contrast to Benedict. Where points of agreement can be reached, there is reason to work with him, just like it is with any political or religious leader. But beware of buying the package. The Roman Catholic package is a lie will continue causing environmental and human destruction until it is dead and buried for good. <br />
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Many American and European Catholics believe the church should change its doctrine on birth control, or even abortion. Instead of accepting this enlightened view, Francis is pushing a Dark Ages view, which is still favored by the bishops of Africa. He deserves thorough criticism for this mistaken and cowardly view.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-49668039489017088862015-11-22T13:39:00.000-08:002015-11-22T13:39:54.403-08:00From Kunduz to Paris, with LoveNo one wants to be an innocent victim of human violence. The recent attacks in Paris, Mali, Lebanon and elsewhere show that if nothing else is prospering in the world, hate is. But, if you can gain the perspective, these all represent small scale violence by weak players in the world's political and religious arena.<br />
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I just received a reminder from Doctors Without Borders about the tragedy at Kunduz. You may recall that Kunduz is a city of about 300,000 people in Afghanistan to the northeast of Kabul, not very far from the Tajikistan border. The Taliban briefly occupied the city in September. The "central" government took it back fifteen days later in October, with help from American troops and warplanes.<br />
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The hospital operated by Doctors Without Borders was struck by a U.S. Air Force <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130">AC-130 gunship</a>, an awesome weapon of war and successor to the AC-47 used to mass murder peasants during the Vietnam War.<br />
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Hospitals, as long as they function as hospitals, are never fair targets in war, the same as trucks and tents marked with Red Cross identification. For details on why the Kunduz massacre was a war crime, see <a href="http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/protection-medical-services-under-international-humanitarian-law-primer">Protection of Medical Services Under International Law</a>.<br />
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This is not the sort of incident that happens by accident, nor do the circumstances around the massacre look accidental in any way. This is not a case of stray bullets from the AC-130 missing a legitimate target and then hitting some doctors, nurses, and patients. <strong>The Hospital Was the Target</strong>. <br />
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And that is the kind of thing that is controlled from the White House Situation Room. Whether President Barack Obama was actually in the situation room and made the call will probably become publicly available in about 60 years.<br />
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I have no sympathy for anyone who kills civilians, whether Presidents of the United States (or other nations) or freelance Islamists or any other political/social/religious group. So I have sympathy with the victims in Paris, and no sympathy for the perps, including the chain of command above them, right up to the Caliph.<br />
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The difference I have with most Americans [Trigger alert: prepare to be shocked by an opinion] is that I don't think the victims of American President Barack Obama (and the many war criminal President predecessors) are in any essential way different than the victims of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_al-Baghdadi">Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi</a>, or Osama Bin Laden, or for that matter Pol Pot, Trotsky, <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/franco_main.html">General Franco</a> or anyone else. The government of the United States was established by violence; almost all governments are. It does not matter to me whether violence is used to establish a republic or an Islamic State, it is wrong because it is violence, and particularly wrong when it is violence against civilians.<br />
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In particular, I am not a fan of the French government. To me the French monarchs starting with Charlemagne, Napoleon, the French imperialists who conquered Vietnam and other colonies, <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/fascism/petain1.html">Philippe Petain</a>, and the leaders who recently bombed Raqqa are just slight variations on the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi theme.<br />
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The American people have no learning curve. They are not told the facts, and if a few people learn a few facts, they are swiftly swept aside by a torrent of daily woes. We could have learned a lot from the <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/international/somalia.html">Somalia disaster</a>, but most Americans don't even know there was a Somalia disaster, much less how American foreign policy and military stupidity drove that nation to disaster, step by step. Somalians can now choose between a corrupt and inept U.S. puppet government and an al-Qaeda aligned opposition. <br />
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Which is not much different than choosing between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. There was a time when I thought the people of Mendocino County, California, would find their way out of that trap, but with the Bernie Sanders phenomena, I see that too much marijuana and too-little fact checking, and thinking things through, makes escape impossible. Bernie has vowed to destroy the Islamic State. And how does that differ from every other power-hungry American politician? <br />
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It can be tempting to say that the victims in Paris were is some sense fair targets because they allowed their government to bomb Syria in the preceding weeks. This is the type of argument used by the British Empire and the American Empire during World War II to justify carpet bombing Japanese and German civilians during World War II. This argument leads to the excusing (by the perpetrators, anyway) of all killings of civilians.<br />
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Every nation should police its own government to prevent war crimes. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama and all their gang should be tried for war crimes and, instead of being hung by their necks like the Nuremburg criminals, spend the rest of their lives in prison. To some extent the American people are to blame for allowing the crimes. But our lack of power to change the system is really no different than the situation of those living under the Islamic State. Hopefully the governments of Syria and Iraq will be able to defeat the Islamic State, but will respect the lives of civilians. And spare the lives of any soldiers that surrender, as per international law of prisoners of war. William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-64885272082542112252015-11-12T08:10:00.000-08:002015-11-12T08:10:01.275-08:00Natural Gas Solution to Global Warming?Can Technology Save us from an Environmental Apocalypse? <br />
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Yesterday I heard about something of a technological miracle. A company that makes alternative engines for transportation vehicles (a Green Investment, if you will), reported that the State of California has certified one of its natural gas engines as being cleaner than electric car engines. <a href="http://www.westport.com/">Westport Innovations</a> is introducing the "ISL G Near Zero (NZ) NOx natural gas engine" for medium duty trucks and busses.<br />
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"The engine was certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Air Resources Board (ARB) in California that meet the 0.02 g/bhp-hr optional Near Zero NOx Emissions standards. . . Cummins Westport ISL G NZ exhaust emissions will be 90% lower than the current EPA NOx limit of 0.2 g/bhp-hr and also meet the 2017 EPA greenhouse gas emission requirements. CWI natural gas engines have met the 2010 EPA standard for particulate matter (0.01 g/bhp-hr) since 2001." [<a href="http://www.westport.com/news/2015/cummins-westport-isl-g-near-zero-natural-gas-engine-certified-to-near-zero-emissions">Westport ISL G press release</a>]<br />
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Vehicles equipped with these engines will create less smog and greenhouse CO2 than electric vehicles. Why? Because electric vehicles must get their electricity from somewhere, and in California most electricity is produced from natural gas fired plants.<br />
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Natural gas is preferred to coal, for anyone wanting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because it has a lot of hydrogen in it. Petroleum gasses consist of molecules that have a chain of carbon atoms surrounded by hydrogen atoms. Burning hydrogen creates water. Burning carbon creates carbon dioxide. So burning coal, which is almost entirely carbon, produces more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than burning natural gas.<br />
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Most environmentalists, both of the ordinary citizen kind and paid non-profiteers, are very enthusiastic about solar energy (and wind). In theory solar energy produces no pollution of any kind. So in the ideal green world, solar panels capture energy, and electric automobiles and trucks would run on that energy. Most environmentalists advocate for moving to all solar and all electric vehicles as soon as possible, which would still take a while, given that solar currently creates only about 1% of U.S. electricity.<br />
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Of course the real world is more complicated than the imaginary utopias of environmentalists, or the imaginary utopias of climate change deniers.<br />
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While waiting for solar, let's think about the thesis of natural gas being better than coal. The first objection of environmentalists is that natural gas is cheaper than coal (the real reason coal plants are being abandoned in the U.S.) only because of fracking. Environmentalists hate fracking. They hate mountaintop removal for coal too. How does one fairly compare the side effects of natural gas extraction versus coal extraction? [a question I can't answer here]<br />
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You can see why environmentalists want to go straight to solar. But environmentalists are in denial about the complications of solar. The main active component of solar cells is silicon, but that has to be supported on some long lasting, strong material like aluminum or steel.<br />
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Producing a commercially usable solar cell requires separating silicon from silicon dioxide (sand or quartz) and extracting aluminum or iron from their ores. That involves huge amounts of energy, which comes from coal fired plants in China. It involves building massive plants to shape the raw silicon and steel into panels. Those plants are mainly in China, so the tons of panels have to be transported to the U.S. first by ship, then trucked to distribution centers. If they go on roofs it takes energy to life them up there. Even when installed they are not care-free. Cleaning them requires energy, and if they are covered with dust they produce no electricity. Also, they take up space that could be used for rooftop gardens.<br />
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Solar panels have high upfront costs. A single panel generates surprisingly little electricity. That is why it take years, perhaps two decades, for a panel to pay for itself compared to just buying electricity from a utility company.<br />
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That is no reason to not install more solar power. But it does bring us to the essence of the global warming problem: the size of the human population.<br />
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In <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/">The Martian</a></em> the lead character says something like he is going to "science the hell out of the problem." I like science, I liked the movie, and I think we should science the hell out of the global warming problem. And other environmental problems like habitat destruction and lack of clean water. But the real solution involves the Secret Sauce. <br />
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Very few people want to talk about the Secret Sauce. I have noted that in the United States even the Green Party politicians don't want to talk about it, much less the Democrats.<br />
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The Secret Sauce is reducing the human population. Reducing it in California, in the United States, and in the World.<br />
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The science is available, but not the culture or technology, much less the political will. The science is birth control. <br />
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The governments of California and the United States encourage people to have children. They do that many ways, most notably through the income tax exemptions for children and the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/Credits-%26-Deductions/Individuals/Earned-Income-Tax-Credit">Earned Income Tax Credit</a>.<br />
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We need a One Child Policy, to be in effect for about 3 generations until the human population has reached sustainable levels. 3 generations is 60 years, which should allow us to better understand what is really long-term sustainable for the Earth.<br />
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I believe in making such a policy as minimally coercive as possible. By eliminating tax credits for children, after the first child of a couple, we could probably get a good balance. Some religious crazies would probably insist on having more children than they should, but some couples (or singles) will have none, so it should balance out.<br />
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Our economic system would need some alterations as well, but then it needs alterations anyway. Average people could have a higher standard of living if there were less people competing for what little is left of the world.<br />
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Meanwhile, hurray for converting trucks from diesel to natural gas. Hurray for solar. But let's no be naive. The human population can be brought down gently and humanely, or Nature will bring it down in a crash. Talk about it. Ask politicians and environmental groups and churches about it. We are out of time. We we be far better off if we started a One Child Policy a generation ago. We have the tools, let's use them.William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-64253532203178572602015-10-31T14:34:00.002-07:002015-10-31T14:34:45.846-07:00 Rich Lives Matter More: How Robert Kennedy Got to be U.S. Attorney GeneralA 19 year old black man hits another man over the head with a bear bottle. He is arrested by cops, charged with assault or even attempted murder. He is convicted and serves 2 years in jail. After that he is a felon, and so can't get a job, and ends up in a life of crime.<br />
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That is a believable story in the United States of America. Some variation of it has happened millions of times in our history. It could have been a true story in the 1920s, or 1950s, or in 2015. <br />
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Now consider this quote from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375713255/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0375713255&linkCode=as2&tag=iiipublishing&linkId=WVXVIOULENYV27BM" rel="nofollow">The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=iiipublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=0375713255" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />:<br />
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At a bar "Magnuson, happened to be already celebrating his birthday there, and his friends began singing Happy Birthday to him. Infuriated over what he apparently regarded as an intrusion into his celebration, Bob walked up behind Magnuson and hit him over the head with a beer bottle, sending him to the hospital for stitches." This was just an example of a pattern of illegal, criminal, violent behavior. In another fight friends said "Bobby would have killed him if we didn't pull him off."<br />
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Now there are many reasons an act of violence does not result in jail time. Much violence is simply hidden, as when the victim can't ID the assailant, or has his or her own reasons to avoid the police.<br />
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Anyone who thinks all white men and women carry get out of jail free cards with them, should take a look at <a href="http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp">prison statistics</a> (there are about 120,000 white males in federal prison on any given day in the USA with about 77,000 black men).<br />
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Some times violent men avoid jail because they have good lawyers. Some times that may be a public defender, but more generally for serious violence only a private lawyer will do. As a result, black or white, having money for lawyers is the main prerequisite<br />
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Some violent men get off scott free because they are part of a system of corruption. That would include cops, friends of cops and judges and politicians, and other connected people.<br />
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The Bob above is better known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy">Bobby or Robert Kennedy</a>. He is better known for being the brother and United States Attorney General of President <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/jfk.html">John F. Kennedy</a>. Bobby was assassinated and died on June 6, 1968. President Kennedy was assassinated and died on November 22, 1963.<br />
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Are you surprised? I am. I thought I knew quite a bit about the Kennedy family. Only recently I read Robert Kennedy's The Enemy Within, which is mostly about his (later successful) attempt to jail Jimmy Hoffa. Robert did not mention that he acted like a psychopath at least as late has his college years.<br />
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In this particular case the violent criminal was the son of one of the most powerful men in the world, Joseph Kennedy, a billionaire (when there were only a few in the world) who maximized profits by dancing back and forth over the imaginary line separating business from organized crime. Apparently no charges were every brought against Bobby for anything he did. The American Bar Association found nothing objectionable about his ethics. He joined the Justice Department, then became <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~lillsie/McCarthyism/homepage.html">Joe McCarthy</a>'s henchman in his anti-communist crusade. And at last, through nepotism, the highest figure in American law enforcement.<br />
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My own, anecdotal experience in life confirms the picture. Mainly I stay away from criminals and crime. I figure being a political dissident in America is dangerous enough. But three friends of mine have been involved in crimes that were slightly more than petty. Two, probably binging on drugs, copied a scene out of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061512/">Cool Hand Luke</a> and one of them was caught. One friend, a cook, punched the restaurant owner in the face during an argument.<br />
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All three were white. The cook was charged with assault, convicted, and spent over a year in jail. One thief, as I said, got away. I later learned he followed Bobby's path, getting a law degree and a job at the Justice Department. The one who was caught was quickly released and only orally reprimanded by a judge. I don't know what he did for a career.<br />
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The difference? The cook was poor and had poor parents and a public defender. The thief had rich parents, with connections to the intelligence community, and an expensive lawyer.<br />
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I know black and hispanic and Native American Indians all get treated worse by law enforcement and the courts. But being white and poor or working class is no picnic.<br />
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One more anecdote comes to mind. If you are going to be a terrorist, it pays to be from a rich, powerful family. Ask <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst">Patty Hearst</a>.<br />
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Black lives matter. We need to do more to end all forms of racism. But we also need to give the same justice to people who commit crimes regardless of their economic status and ability to hire lawyers of various levels of competency. William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-78071478911931555612015-10-12T18:21:00.001-07:002015-10-12T18:21:17.438-07:00Parable of the Drunk and Sober Drivers"When you (or somebody else) finally has the good idea, you feel very stupid for not having seen it sooner." — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Georgi">H. M. Georgi</a>, "Grand Unified Theories" in <em>The New Physics</em><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One evening two men went to a social club event. One of the men had quite a bit of alcohol, the other stayed entirely sober.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Each man drove home in his car in the darkness. The sober man got distracted and drove off the road and smashed his car into a tree, but he was not hurt.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The drunk man weaved around a bit on the road and almost hit a car, a dog, and a mail box, but kept it together and made it home without scratching his car. He even managed to stumble unhurt into bed before passing out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The men at the social club analyzed the event. The concluded that in the interest of safety, every man would be required to drink a minimum of two alcoholic beverages at all future events.</span><br />
<br />
Obviously this is a false parable, but it illustrates some very interesting aspects of reality and the human mind. In shows the difference between anecdotal evidence and statistics. Also that drinking is preferable to sobriety, until it isn't.<br />
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Statistically driving drunk is a bad bet. Take a sufficiently large sample and a trend will appear. Not everyone who drives sober drives safely every time. Not everyone who drives drunk gets in a wreck every time. But the frequency of accidents is quite a bit higher for drunk drivers than for sober drivers. The frequency of accidents also climbs as the amount of alcohol measured in the blood climbs.<br />
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I originally made up this parable to explain to my friends why one of my friends did not believe in global warming. Most of my believer friends have only the vaguest idea of how statistics work. That does not prevent them from sharing statistics that confirm their beliefs, even if it is easy to show the statistics are falsified. Math is just not a strong point with them. Let's call them artists, rather than math disabled.<br />
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On the other hand my global warming denier friend is a very capable guy. He is good at logical argument, at accounting, and at statistics. He knows more about the history of temperatures of the ancient earth than I do. So what are the chances that he is wrong and the artists are right?<br />
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We can know he is wrong by looking at the work of people, scientists, who know even more than he does. Those scientists have vast arrays of data available for analysis and know what can go wrong when data is collected.<br />
<br />
We know he is wrong because we can step into a greenhouse during a sunny day in winter and notice it is warmer than outside. We can check (should we have the time and interest) the spectral characteristics of sunlight, of carbon dioxide, and of the radiation of heat from the earth, and see that carbon dioxide is indeed a greenhouse gas. And we can measure (in a home lab, if you have the money for equipment and the skill) the level of carbon dioxide in the air, and compare it to older measurements. And of course there are all those thermometers the scientists have set up around the world, starting in the 1700s.<br />
<br />
But for a lot of stuff is even harder to distinguish between anecdotes, belief systems, and factual statistics. Recent studies showed many science experiments are difficult to reproduce, and that difficulty seems to be driven by mental (and ethical) problems of the scientists. In other words, Publish or Perish drives the survival of the best liars. In particular it seems like the entire profession of Psychology is run by nut cases. When specifically asked why their experimental techniques were so bad, most psychologists did not even seem to understand there was a problem. Yikes. [See <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20151008&spMailingID=49730097&spUserID=MTc2NjQ0OTY3MAS2&spJobID=781102586&spReportId=NzgxMTAyNTg2S0">How Scientists Fool Themselves</a>] <br />
<br />
Of course my global warming denier friend would take this information and say exactly: my global warming denier scientific minority has it right. Your ecology-warped green scientists are misinterpreting the data.<br />
<br />
Even stay-at-home paranoid Internet mavens don't have time to check every fact. Politics and many other professions depend on lying as a basic tool. Yet we need truth or we will suffer bad consequences. <br />
<br />
Fortunately most lies don't pass the basic smell test. My first order guess is that the scientists are right and the theologians are wrong. Scientists are not always right, and theologians are not always wrong. But it you drink the theological kool-aid, you are going to crash into reality at some point. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-18547136067996208522015-10-05T14:39:00.000-07:002015-10-05T14:39:38.406-07:00Why Israel (Secretly) Loves the Islamic StateBoundaries of the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS or the Caliphate) shift from day to day. Currently most of the Islamic State territory is a good day's drive from northern Israel, about 350 miles. But pockets of Islamic State control are already within a few miles of Israel, or at least the Golan Heights (illegally and apparently permanently occupied by Israel), according to the Carter Center map that tracks the Syrian conflict:<br />
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<img alt="Syria civil war areas of control map" src="http://www.iiipublishing.com/blog/2015/10/syria_control_Oct_2015.png" height="517" width="576" /><br />
<br />
The bottom left of the map touches Israel. Lebanon is to the east, Turkey to the north, and Jordan below the long slant at the bottom. <br />
<br />
While many people in the world are upset at the to-date triumphs of the Islamic State, Israel is not. Here, by Israel, I mean the typically ultra-orthodox, nationalist Jews who have controlled the government for some time now. There are still many Jews in Israel that believe in human rights for all peoples, they just have been marginalized over time. <br />
<br />
The Islamic State fits perfectly into the National Zionist Zeitgeist Ideology (NZZI) narrative. Zionists like to pretend that Palestine was empty, more or less, before they arrived. The existence of large numbers of Palestinian survivors of the Holocaust of 1948 has always been an embarrassment. Extremist Zionists have always advocated a Greater Israel with various boundaries, but typically including everything south of Turkey and north of Mecca, to be taken in bites, of course.<br />
<br />
The Islamic State appears to Americans and Europeans to have no redeeming qualities. ISIS are ultra-orthodox Islamists hell bent on taking over the world and willing to kill anyone who disagrees with them, even other Sunni Islamic sects. Unlike the Palestinians, who traditionally were either moderates or secular, and the PLO, which was Marxist and therefore atheist, the Islamic State has no appeal to anyone outside its own camp.<br />
<br />
The Islamic State is the Israeli caricature of Palestinians, Arabs and Islam made into reality. <br />
<br />
So if the Islamic State takes over Syria, the Israelis can dust off the old war plans for the capture of Damascus. No one would stop their fighting ISIS, and the people of Damascus might actually welcome them. At first.<br />
<br />
If the Islamic State takes Syria it will also take Lebanon and Jordan. Then Greater Israel is just a matter of eating, digesting, and eating again. Enough area can be left to the Islamic State to make it a permanent global threat that justified anything Israel does, including to the Palestinians within its borders. <br />
<br />
For the Israelis and Islamic State, it is a win-win situation. Of course, as Hitler learned when he tried to create Greater Germany, things don't always go according to plan. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-13085451953859458092015-09-25T13:57:00.000-07:002015-09-25T13:57:57.186-07:00Betrothed: Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI<h4 align="center">
How love of a Romantic Novel led to global human misery </h4>
Perhaps excepting the rare graduate student of Italian Literature, few Americans have heard of Alessandro Manzoni or his novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DVT7YZQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DVT7YZQ&linkCode=as2&tag=iiipublishing&linkId=Z5AGQZSURA76K7JZ">The Betrothed</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=iiipublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=B00DVT7YZQ" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. I read it only because it was mentioned as the favorite book of <a href="http://www.iiipublishng.com/religion/catholic/popes/pius_xi.html">Pope Pius XI</a> in David I. Kertzer's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081298367X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=081298367X&linkCode=as2&tag=iiipublishing&linkId=DYOBMK7DLOOJPQZX">The Pope and Mussolini</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=iiipublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=081298367X" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />.<br />
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<em>The Betrothed</em> was written in the 1820s and was set in and near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan">Milan</a> (Milano) in 1628. It is largely an old-fashioned adventure story centered on the romance of a young peasant couple who are prevented from consummating their planned marriage by an evil local member of the nobility. It is quite readable and modern. As literature it is notable in the way it develops a wide variety of complex characters, from a simple peasant girl to the powerful movers and shakers of the nobility and Roman Catholic Church.<br />
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Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI, would have found it easy to identify with several of the characters. Achille was born in 1857 to a silk factory supervisor and his wife in a town just north of Milan. He became a priest early in life and quickly rose to the position of director of the Ambrosiana Library. Thus he could relate to Renzi, the silk worker who is in love with Lucy, as well as with the monk and priest characters up to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Borromeo">Cardinal Federigo Borromeo</a>, who founded the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_Ambrosiana">Ambrosiana Library</a>. Achille became Cardinal Ratti, archbishop of Milan, in 1921, around the time Benito Mussolini was developing his Fascist Party. <br />
<br />
Benito Mussolini was born in a small town in Romagna, northern Italy, in 1883, to a socialist blacksmith and a Roman Catholic schoolteacher. Benito was not baptized, but was sent to a Catholic boarding school. As a young man he was influenced by a variety of writers in the socialist camp, notably Georges Sorel, and was attracted to violent tendencies within the socialist camp. The world would likely be different if he had remained a school teacher, but in 1904 he joined the Italian Army for two years. After another teaching stint he became a Socialist Party functionary. Still attracted to violence, he nevertheless opposed the Italian war against Libya in 1911 [part of a series of preludes to World War I in which European nations began dismembering the Turkish empire]. <br />
<br />
After initially opposing Italy's entry into World War I, Mussolini switched positions, rejoined the the Italian army, declared himself a nationalist, and began to develop what would come to be called fascism. It was an anti-establishment, nationalist, anti-clerical, violent movement with socialist tinges. It appealed to young men, and to local gangsters. Italy's democratic national government was weak and corrupt, and Benito was elected to it. In 1922 King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini to be Prime Minister. <br />
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And now we are in <em>The Betrothed</em>, at least as far as Cardinal Ratti was concerned. Pope Benedict XV had died in January 1922. A flock of cardinals divided between an ultra-conservative faction and a conservative faction settled on Ratti as the next Pope. He took the name Pope Pius XI. It was all perfectly clear to him. He was the equivalent of Federigo Borromeo, and Benito Mussolini was the equivalent of the character in Betrothed only referred to as The Unknown.<br />
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In the novel The Unknown was the leader of bad men, and a threat to all that was good. Yet, through his encounter with the virtuous Lucy and then with Cardinal Borromeo, The Unknown turned his back on evil and becomes a force for good.<br />
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Mussolini is now thought of as a dictator with absolute power, but that is a caricature of the real situation. The Pope too, while powerful, depended on a bureaucratic machine to rule. Mussolini had changed his ideology many times prior to becoming Prime Minister, and now made a strategic decision that fed into the Pope's delusion. He decided to embrace the Roman Catholic Church. He eventually made it the only legal religion of Italy.<br />
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The Pope liked that the Fascists beat Protestants and atheists into line. But he did not want to take orders from Mussolini. Benito liked that the Catholic Church solidified his rule and enabled him to control some of his own rabid-dog fascists, as well as to destroy his main political rival, the Socialist Party. But he did not want to take orders from the Pope. See <em>The Pope and Mussolini</em> for the gory details.<br />
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Reality contradicted <em>The Betrothed</em>. Both Mussolini and the Pope became more evil as the years passed. Hitler rose to power in Germany and added his own evil to the mix. At a crucial time Pius XI helped Hitler become Chancellor of Germany. Probably he again saw <a href="http://www.iiipublishng.com/politics/fascism/adolf_hitler.html">Adolf Hitler</a> as a useful tool against atheism and communism, and another The Unknown. It helped that Hitler was Roman Catholic (he thought the small percent of Nazis who were pagan or atheist were nuts).<br />
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Pius died in 1939, of natural causes, before the final terrible results of his sponsorship of Mussolini, Hitler, and <a href="http://www.iiipublishng.com/politics/fascism/franco_main.html">General Franco</a> became obvious to all. Mussolini died in 1945, shot by communists.<br />
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<a href="http://www.iiipublishng.com/religion/catholic/popes/pius_xii/pius_xii_main.html">Pius XII</a>, who followed Pius XI, danced with both Hitler and Mussolini, and hoped that they would destroy communism and atheism. Islam, Budhism, and Protestant sects could be mopped up later. But when it became obvious the Allies would defeat the Axis, Pius XII switched sides, thus becoming a cold war ally of the capitalist block.<br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-24414068775081310332015-09-07T16:37:00.000-07:002015-09-07T16:37:51.740-07:00Harry Truman's Hell<blockquote>
"According to the pleasant mythology Truman later created about those years, he was the solitary rose in the manure pile, an honest public servant unaware of the crimes around him." </blockquote>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Pendergast">Thomas Joseph Pendergast</a> was the political boss of the Democratic Party of <a href="http://kcmo.gov/">Kansas City</a> and effectively controlled the city from 1925 until about 1936.<br />
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<a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/truman_main.html">Harry Truman</a> served in the U.S. Army in World War I, and one of his associates then was a nephew of Pendergast. Truman was elected county judge in 1922 with the backing of the Pendergast machine (which had been started by Tom's older brother). Like many city machines of that era, corruption was rampant. With Prohibition in full swing, vast bootlegging profits slushed around Kansas City; plenty to buy any votes needed to control the political offices.<br />
<br />
Harry was a funny guy, according to his own notes. He followed orders from Pendergast, helping the machine to rob the city, but (he claimed) doing his best to minimize that, and refusing to take any graft for his own use. "I could have had $1,500,000.00. I haven't $150.00. Am I a fool or an ethical giant?"<br />
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Pendergast liked Harry because he was a competent administrator, kept his own hand out of the till, and yet followed orders. When a U.S. Senate seat became available, it was Pendergast's machine that sent Harry Truman to Washington in 1934, in the depths of the Great Depression. Truman then and later claimed there were no strings attached. Biographer Richard L. Miller observed: "Clearly he protested too much, perhaps to ease his own guilty conscience about his role as an honest front protecting the power of thieves and murderers."<br />
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During the Pendergast era Kansas City was the nation's Las Vegas. Nothing illegal was not available and easy to find: alcohol, prostitutes, casinos and other forms of gambling. The city actually prospered, as organized criminals led by Johnny Lazia made sure visitors and citizens were safe from petty crime, and the take from the criminal enterprises was generally divvied up in a civil manner. They even used a lot of it to build up infrastructure. Even after Lazia was gunned down in July of 1934.<br />
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Senator Truman, of course, was an ardent supporter of the New Deal. Pendergast eventually fell victim to his own gambling addiction. He was indicted for tax evasion by the IRS and went to jail in 1939. In 1940 a reform slate came to power in Kansas City, just in time to the boom years of World War II.<br />
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<a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/fdr.html">Franklin D. Roosevelt</a>, in 1940, found he needed the corrupt urban political machines (he had not needed them, at least not much, in 1932 or 1936). American tradition, starting with George Washington, was that no President would serve more than 2 terms. Roosevelt imagined himself indispensable, but he did not openly run for the Democratic nomination. When the convention assembled in Chicago (where the Capone machine still ran things) the delegates thought they were nominating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nance_Garner">John Nance Garner, then FDR's Vice President. Ed Kelly, Chicago's Mayor and a Capone man, packed the convention hall with thugs who "spontaneously" staged an hour-long demonstration demanding that Roosevelt accept the nomination. Roosevelt did. Mussolini's </a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Rome">March on Rome was not more perfectly staged. </a><br />
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By 1944 the bosses were back in charge of the Democratic Party. "The 1944 convention — dominated by Hannegan, Hillman, and the city bosses — added Truman to the ticket. Roosevelt died three months after his fourth inauguration, and Tom Pendergast's boy became President."<br />
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President Truman continued the New Deal and tried to extend it to creating a national health insurance program. He also committed heinous war crimes, continuing Roosevelt's policies of purposefully targeting civilians in German and Japanese cities with conventional weapons, then becoming the only human in history to actually use nuclear weapons, and against mainly civilian targets at that.<br />
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Go to hell, Harry.<br />
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[All quotes were found in Stephen R. Fox's <strong>Blood and Power, Organized Crime in Twentieth Century America</strong>, William Morrow & Company, 1989.] William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-75318287754495557182015-08-22T07:59:00.000-07:002015-08-22T07:59:31.041-07:00Spirit, Dualism, and Consciousness"I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual." I've heard that from plenty of people. What does it mean? The <em>not</em> having a religion part I understand. Some who claim free-floating spirituality believe in God, and others don't. Most think they have something like a soul and some sort of cosmic link or immortality.<br />
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Duality, the belief that individuals have both a body and a non-material component, call it mind or soul or spirit, is an old concept. The ancient Egyptians had it, but it may be an idea that existed before civilization started.<br />
<br />
I reject it. And I am not alone in that. Consider what Nick Lane has to say in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393338665/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393338665&linkCode=as2&tag=iiipublishing&linkId=VLPDHM2D2GKK5KZD">Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=iiipublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=0393338665" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />:<br />
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<blockquote>
"Another paradox that can be addressed quite simply, at least in part, is the perception that our minds are immaterial, and our feelings ineffable . . . The essential insight is that the mind does not, indeed cannot, detect the existence of the brain. We perceive neither the brain nor the physical nature of the mind by thinking about it. Only the objective methods of science have linked the mind with the physical workings of the brain. How remarkably misguided we have been in the past is exemplified by the ancient Egyptians, who in embalming their kings preserved the heart and other organs with great care (they took the heart to be the seat of emotion and mind), but scooped the brain our through the nose with a hook . . . They were uncertain what the brain was for.<br />
<br /></blockquote>
That was published in 2009. Ponder it. Our minds do not seem material, the feeling is of a consciousness immersed in a body immersed in the material world (or the illusion of a material world, if you belong to an <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/philo/questions_to_the_illusionists.html">illusionist</a> religion or sect of philosophy).<br />
<br />
Now consider what <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/philo/persons/ludwig_wittgenstein.html">Ludwig Wittgenstein</a> had to say in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1405159286/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1405159286&linkCode=as2&tag=iiipublishing&linkId=7L5ZHJ6B5OSRFIX4">Philosophical Investigations</a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=iiipublishing&l=as2&o=1&a=1405159286" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
412. The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process: how does it come about that this does not come into the consideration of our ordinary life? This idea of a difference in kind is accompanied by slight giddiness — which occurs when we are performing a piece of logical slight-of-hand. (The same giddiness attacks us when we think of certain theorems in<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory"> set theory</a>.) When does this feeling occur in the present case? It is when I, for example, turn my attention in a particular way on to my own consciousness, and, astonished, say to myself: THIS is supposed to be produced by a process in the brain! — as it were clutching my forehead.<br />
<br /></blockquote>
Of course both Wittgenstein and Lane go on quite a bit. We can dissect the idea endlessly. We can watch someone else go unconscious when they sniff chloroform, take a sleeping pill, get hit on the head, or catch a bullet. But we still feel like a spirit, and if we try to analyze that, may end up scratching our heads and noticing that we are <em>aware</em> of the sensation of our skulls being scratched.<br />
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And so the quest to understand consciousness by understanding that mass of neurons known as the brain goes on. And even if it does come to be understood by a few, as quantum physics is, most people will either have to take the new understanding on faith, or stick to the older idea. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-89364463387477107672015-08-17T11:07:00.002-07:002015-08-17T11:07:32.729-07:00Robert Kennedy, The Enemy Within, and Labor UnionsRobert Kennedy is rapidly fading from the national consciousness. Only those of us who lived through the period of his activity remember him. At best younger people know him as the assassinated brother of <a href="http://www.iiipublishing.com/politics/us/presidents/jfk.html">President John Kennedy</a>.<br />
<br />
Robert Kennedy wrote a number of books. Lately I have been reading what is perhaps his best known book, <em>The Enemy Within</em> [Harper & Brothers, New York, 1960]. I am reading it as part of my study of the influence of organized crime on business, society and politics (and vice-versa). See, for instance, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/05/blog_05_25_2015.html">Uncle Raymond Clinton, Or Is Hillary Still Mobbed Up?</a> [May 25, 2015]<br />
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It is possible that Robert titled <em>The Enemy Within</em> more aptly than he knew. <em>Enemy</em> mainly chronicles Kennedy's investigations of Hoffa and the Teamsters Union and associates. It paints a pretty grim picture of how bad things can get when a union is corrupted or mobbed up. But it also shows how glaringly narrow-visioned Robert Kennedy was, and raises the question of whether, at the time it was written, Robert Kennedy knew where the Kennedy family wealth came from.<br />
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Today it is well known that Joseph Kennedy, Robert's father, was an important organized criminal, in addition to being an important legitimate business and political figure. In popular culture you can see that illustrated in the later seasons of the TV series <a href="http://www.hbo.com/boardwalk-empire">Boardwalk Empire</a>, for instance.<br />
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But in the 1950's Robert (born in 1925) certainly acted as if he was ignorant of where the money came from that made for a luxurious childhood, a Harvard education, law school, a career in the Justice Department, and working at a high level for Congress at an early age. <br />
<br />
As I waded through this often tedious book about dead crooks and the men who investigated them, I came upon this delightful passage:<br />
<blockquote>
Fortunately, our work was not without its lighter moments. There is an office building on Fourteenth Street in New York City whose tenants include a number of labor unions. Knowing that some of these unions were under investigation, and suspecting that perhaps the building was owned by a racketeer or perhaps even by "The Mob," Walter May, Paul Tierney, and Bellino checked the records. They were shocked to learn who owned the building.<br />
<br />
It was my family.</blockquote>
Of course the investigation stopped there. Had some other reputed mob family owned the building, Robert would have kept digging like a terrier.<br />
<br />
Many researchers have alleged that Robert did indeed know his dad had been a mobster, at least in the distant past, based on what Robert (and his brother John, then a Senator and also on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Homeland_Security_Permanent_Subcommittee_on_Investigations">Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations</a>) avoided investigating. <br />
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But something else is obvious in the book. Kennedy crucified the Teamsters and James Hoffa. It helped turn the nation against unions in general. Republican politicians, Hollywood and the business propaganda machine went on a decades-long spree telling Americans that all unions are corrupt, that every member is a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Thugs/367105936678679?fref=ts&ref=br_tf">Union Thug</a>. <br />
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But on page after page, where does most of the corruption come from? From the businesses that employ teamsters. Hoffa & crew misuse union dues, to be sure. But the extra money is coming from business owners who find it is good business to pay Hoffa, say, $100,000 in cash to get results that save $1 million on the payroll end.<br />
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Democratic unions, run honestly by elected officials responsible to their members, has always been a goal to almost all union members. Corrupting those unions has been a goal of employers and organized crime, which are often the same thing. <br />
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There are some reasonably honest businesses too, perhaps a majority. But a careful examination of the record shows that the interface between organized crime and profit-taking is a loose one. In addition to the Joe Kennedy types who move money back and forth gracefully between criminal enterprises (like importing whiskey during Prohibition), stock market scams, and legitimate businesses, there are the many CEOs and stockholders who don't mind making a little extra money by dumping toxic wastes, failing to invest in worker safety, or selling dangerous and shoddy products to consumers.<br />
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Most people are complex, and the more successful they are, the more complex they have to be. Joe Kennedy amassed a vast fortune at other people's expense, but it is hard to criticize the job he did helping to set up the SEC (<a href="http://www.sec.gov/">Securities and Exchange Commission</a>). If it weren't so tedious, that story would make a good <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Thief_(1968_TV_series)">"It takes a Thief"</a> type TV series. <br />
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Maybe, if elected President, Robert Kennedy would have ended the Vietnam War his brother started. Maybe he would have led America to Camelot. Maybe he would have expiated the sins of his father. On the other hand, his regime might have been the most corrupt and hypocritical in U.S. history. We'll never know. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9171840820059192997.post-24849352996945385792015-08-12T10:15:00.002-07:002015-08-12T10:15:28.361-07:00OvergeneralizationPeople who are smart, or think they are smart, often criticize others for their inability to "connect the dots," or to see a pattern that makes sense of otherwise unconnected information.<br />
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But both smart people and not-so-smart people have problems with <strong>overgeneralization</strong>. That is, once they have figured out or learned a general rule, they sometimes fail to see when there are exceptions to the rule.<br />
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In other words, they connect dots that, in reality, are not connected. We all do it. It is one of the difficulties of life.<br />
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Partly this is driven by necessity, partly by laziness.<br />
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We all have limited time. For any given task we must limit the time we can commit, otherwise the many other tasks in our life will not get done. This is true in decision making and in intellectual pursuits as well as daily tasks.<br />
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Limits on decision making time are often externally imposed. Most American citizens don't devote very much time to politics, for instance. A fair proportion of citizens vote in elections, and there is a deadline for each election. We are only willing to devote so much time to learning about the candidates and choosing between them. We might listen to ads, if not willingly, and some voters listen to debates. But how many voters go over a candidate's voting record? And even if a citizen had nothing else to do, to actually read all the words of all the legislation that elected officials vote on is impossible. Even the politicians don't do it: they rely on their staffs and on the work of the committees that write the legislation.<br />
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So we generalize. We let simple criteria guide us. In most general elections most voters simply vote either Democratic Party or Republican Party. Primaries are more difficult, because the choices are within a party. That is one reason so few people vote in primaries: they don't know who to vote for. Some people vote based on a key issue like Social Security or pro-life/pro-choice, or based on perceptions of personality, or even just handsomeness.<br />
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Generalizations can be untrue, but the more difficult cases are when they are mostly true, but have important exceptions. Since the beginning of the science of astronomy, objects in the sky were classified into the sun, moon, planets, and stars. But when a sufficiently powerful telescope was developed, it turned out some of the stars were actually galaxies. So to every animal that swims is not a fish: some are marine mammals.<br />
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One of my favorite areas to watch people overgeneralize is in food, diet, and health. The best example right now is <em>glutenphobia</em>. Gluten, the protein component of wheat, can cause reactions in individuals whose immune systems are out of balance. But this is rare. Yet by constantly complaining, these gluten-intolerant individuals got food companies to note which foods are gluten-free. Other people (most people thrive on gluten) started seeing the words "gluten free" on labels and decided that gluten must be a poison. Quack doctors, pseudoscientists and "health food" corporations realized they could make a lot of quick bucks by promoting this fear.<br />
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Fear and hope are big drivers towards overgeneralization in ordinary life. Barked at by a dog? Beware of all dogs. Win a jackpot at a casino? Lose all your money trying to hit another jackpot. <br />
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Fear can save your life, of course. Not to long ago, in a state of nature, when there were still lions and tigers and wolves and bears to worry about, fear was a friend. Fear kept people alive. Hoping to kill a grizzly bear alone with a flint knife was a bad use of hope. Somewhat in the same way that people now get immunological diseases because their immune systems are not exposed to enough bacteria and viruses, now our fears tend towards the irrational. Our fear system overgeneralizes. <br />
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Almost everyone has life experiences that show us that some particular overgeneralization is wrong. As a child I was taught Jews were bad people who had killed Jesus. Anti-jewish remarks were a commonplace where I went to school (Roman Catholic Schools) through 8th grade. In 9th grade, at a different school, I made the usual anti-semitic remarks. Imagine my embarrassment when I learned that many of the students in my classes were Jewish, and that they tended to be the kids I wanted to be friends with. Fortunately they were gracious and came to accept me, once I stopped talking like a jackass.<br />
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By now police in America should know that being a black and a teenage male does not mean you are a criminal. Policing can be a difficult job, but that is no excuse for making judgments about people based on appearances. A poorly-dressed person may be poorly-dressed precisely because he (or she) is not as greedy and unscrupulous and the people in nice suits. <br />
<br />William P. Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258196216689767630noreply@blogger.com0