Boxed!

Ever notice how we're stuck with choosing between two cesspools.  Government of the people, by the people, blah blah, we're stuck, at least for now.

If you're pro-life, you're stuck with the big-business candidate who favors the wealthy and is opposed to healthcare.  You can't vote pro-life and pro-health and pro-education at the same time.

If you're pro-equality and anti-poverty, you're stuck with the big-government candidate and with trade policies favoring the wealthy.  You can't vote to address economic inequality without endorsing massive indebtedness for your grandchildren at the same time.

If you're looking deeper than the tv screen, you know some government policies do more harm than good, but neither cesspool is getting pumped out and cleaned up any time soon.

Pick your cesspool.  Our largest political parties along with the media have polarized the nation and limited the debate to just two sides, ignoring the fact that there are more positions of significance than just the two we're offered.  It simplifies their job, of course.  All they have to do is keep us fighting the two-sided battle.


We're boxed, and without a venue for a real public forum. The next decades will be a blast. Only figuratively, we hope.

Among the issues, most of which will not be addressed:

• big pharma price gouging because by rule, they can
• med costs skyrocketing because by rule, insurance must pay it
• college costs up 800% since govt instituted student loans
• economic inequality booming; the richest 10% got 98% of economic gains for the last 40 years.
• the financial industry continues to clobber the world without accountability.

And the list goes on.  It's not a comfortable world for people of faith, nor are the problems we face simple, one-sentence issues.  If our hope is built on government, we're likely to be disappointed.

In the meantime, there are many things we might do, are there not?

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." — Noam Chomsky, American Linguist and US Media and Foreign Policy critic.  Is he right?

Which is better - slavery or poverty?

Between 1525 and 1866, the era of the New World slave trade, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Only 10.7 million survived the passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.

During the time slavery was legal in the United States, perhaps 100,000 slaves escaped to freedom.  If you found yourself in slavery, your likelihood of an exit other than death was less than 1%.

If you find yourself below the poverty line today, you'll have perhaps a 50% chance of finding a way up and out. That's such an improvement.  Of course.  But ...

Recent studies have shown the United States to be less mobile than in decades past and less mobile today than other OECD countries. Around 40% of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes are stuck there for the rest of their lives. Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, rich folks tend to stay at the top and regular folks stay at the bottom, as do their children according to research by the Economic Mobility Project.

The economic mobility of African-Americans compared to that of whites is revealing. Half of blacks born in the bottom income quintile remain there as adults, while only a third of whites do.  Research has also found that the children of black middle-class families are more likely to fall out of the middle class.

Besides overt racial discrimination, explanations include the better access of wealthy families to superior schools and prep schools.  Better credentials mean better jobs and better pay. For the non-wealthy, wages have been stagnant for four decades despite improved productivity. College costs have increased 800% in that same time frame.  The sheer size of the income gap makes it harder to climb the proverbial income ladder as the rungs are progressively farther apart.

So to the question of which is better between slavery and poverty, the answer is another question ... are those few steps toward equality and justice enough?

If we're the wealthiest and most successful country in the world, why do 20%+ of our children live in poverty and food insecurity today?  Those born into poverty in America, they're likely to be trapped there and their children as well.  It's not like that elsewhere in the developed world.

The bottom 90% made more money 30 years ago.  In today's dollars, the bottom 90 percent of U.S. earners averaged $33,526 in 1979 and $30,438 in 2012.  The top 10 percent averaged $144,418 in 1979 and $254,449 in 2012. That's about 76 percent growth.  PolitiFact Jan 13, 2015

So, have we adequately addressed inequality?  Do we understand the one-way flow of wealth from our extraordinary workforce exclusively to the elite?  Or have we missed the goal for 90% of our citizenry.

The federal minimum wage was enacted to eliminate “labor conditions detrimental to the
maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and
general well-being of workers.”  Despite these intentions, the federal minimum
wage has failed to keep up with the rising cost of  living, and has instead
become a wage mechanism that keeps working people in poverty.
Now after years of public protest and exploding welfare
costs, some employers are beginning to change
the way they treat employees.  Just a few.

Does either political party offer a reasonable explanation and plan of action?  Granted, neither party perhaps actually planned to abuse the citizenry.  Both, however, are culpable for the impediments faced by the non-elite, and especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder who neither chose nor deserve what they've endured.

True or false?
If it's true, what must I do differently?

Cultural Evolution

Ideally, the natural evolution of culture would refine us all for the better. Cities would become better places to live, countries would prosper, and the world would be a better place.  At least that's the evolutionary process we're encouraged to believe, but look beyond to the larger context of civilization.

As a rule, civilizations rise, stagnate, and decline.  That inevitable fall is commonly devastating with displacement of populations and economic collapse.  That which might have been considered social progress can be offset by death and suffering.  A vibrant culture can become insipid.

The Babylonians

In 2000 BC, Babylon was a city-state in ancient Mesopotamia.  It became the largest city in the world, and by the 5th century BC, Babylon had grown into an empire. It was captured by the Assyrians, but the citizens rebelled and established the empire again under Nebuchadnezzar. Later, Babylon was conquered by the Persians and then by the Macedonians. The region flourished under Alexander the Great, but after his death in 323 BC, it collapsed.  In the modern era, nothing remained of Babylon but ruins until Saddam Hussein built the city again. 

What happened to the Phoenicians?
Why did the Ottoman and Persian empires fail?
Why did the Greek and Roman empires disappear?
The Yuan and Qing Dynasties came and went.
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen, ending after centuries in 1783, but why?

What might they all have in common?           

Most cited, a natural sequence of rise and fall.                 

"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long." [Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (London, 1788, ed. 1909)] 

To that immoderate greatness, Arnold Toynbee adds:  The fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats (working class folks, grouped).  I.e., revolution follows.

Joseph Tainter observes:  There are diminishing returns to increased complexity.  After a civilization reaches some maximum level of complexity, further increases produce a negative return and decline.  When there are too many hands between the crop and the table, too many layers between work and the product, and too many rules regarding day to day life and business, perhaps the threshold has been reached.

It raises the question, just how complex (and sustainable) is our civilization?  There are obviously many elements in a civilization's durability, yet one can't help but wonder about our 'parasitic elite' and extraordinary complexity.  If there is such a threshold, we have certainly passed beyond the first risk level.  Well beyond.

Solutions?  Are democracy and a free market economy the solution?

Our second president John Adams warned, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” 

How well do we understand the world, the daily life of others and our place in it all?

Perhaps he's got a point. The evolutionary changes our culture has undergone in the last century or so suggest that the wealthy have left common folks behind. The GAP is widening rapidly.  In our country, wages for the bottom 90% have stagnated, opportunity has declined as have mobility, family, and community coherence. Economic inequality plagues a large segment of our population; one in five children lives in poverty.  As for complexity, our subsistence pipelines for food and water, energy and transportation, all are fragile to some degree.  Can we step back and see the larger view?  How might we behave more reasonably? 

And how about that 'parasitic elite' idea?

Civilization's End

Don't bother to go further unless you've got some time and are academically inclined.  The content offers an inquiry into related ecological and economic trends. Follow the issue of inequality through the modeling.  The science is intriguing, to say the least, and the issues are pointedly relevant.

Ecological Economics

Volume 101, May 2014, Pages 90–102

Methodological and Ideological Options

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies

• Safa Motesharrei^a, , , 
• Jorge Rivas^b, , 
• Eugenia Kalnay^c, 

• ^a School of Public Policy and Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland; and National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)
• ^b Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota; and Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES)
• ^c Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and Institute of Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland

Shared under a Creative Commons license

Abstract

There are widespread concerns that current trends in resource-use are unsustainable, but possibilities of overshoot/collapse remain controversial. Collapses have occurred frequently in history, often followed by centuries of economic, intellectual, and population decline. Many different natural and social phenomena have been invoked to explain specific collapses, but a general explanation remains elusive.

In this paper, we build a human population dynamics model by adding accumulated wealth and economic inequality to a predator–prey model of humans and nature. The model structure, and simulated scenarios that offer significant implications, are explained. Four equations describe the evolution of Elites, Commoners, Nature, and Wealth. The model shows Economic Stratification or Ecological Strain can independently lead to collapse, in agreement with the historical record.

The measure “Carrying Capacity” is developed and its estimation is shown to be a practical means for early detection of a collapse. Mechanisms leading to two types of collapses are discussed. The new dynamics of this model can also reproduce the irreversible collapses found in history. Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at maximum carrying capacity if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level and if resources are distributed equitably.

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Graphical abstract

Email Timeline

“Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”

—Hillary Clinton, interview on July 31, 2016

Not true.  The FBI director clearly stated there were classified emails in multiple chains which were classified Secret at the time they were sent by Clinton.  There were hundreds more that were classified after the fact.  The statements she made were not true.  Follow the timeline or jump to the last few paragraphs for the details.

January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001: Democrat Bill Clinton begins as the president of the US for eight years and his wife Hillary Clinton is the first lady.

June 9, 2000: Clinton says she doesn’t want to use email. Home video footage from a private fundraiser shows Senator Clinton talking about how she has deliberately avoided using email so she wouldn’t leave a paper trail. “As much as I’ve been investigated and all of that, you know, why would I? I don’t even want… Why would I ever want to do email? Can you imagine?” By 2006 she will start using a personal and unsecured BlackBerry for email. (ABC News, 3/6/2015)

November 4, 2005: State Department Policy decrees day-to-day operations are to be done on government servers. The State Department decrees that “sensitive but unclassified” information should not be transmitted through personal email accounts. It also states, “It is the Department’s general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized [government server], which has the proper level of security control to provide nonrepudiation, authentication, and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resident information.” (US Department of State, 1/12/2016) (The Washington Post, 3/10/2015)

March 2007 – 2008: The Bush Administration gets embroiled in a private email scandal. A Congressional oversight committee investigates allegations that the White House fired US attorneys for political reasons. The committee asks Bush officials to turn over relevant emails, only to find that government work had been conducted on private email addresses. Millions of emails are deleted and permanently lost, preventing the committee from continuing their investigation. Bush officials use email accounts associated with a private gwb43.com server owned and controlled by the Republican National Committee, which is a private political entity not covered by government oversight laws. (The Washington Post, 3/27/2007) (Vox, 3/2/2015)

June 20, 2007: Clinton publicly criticizes the Bush administration’s use of non-governmental email accounts. While campaigning for president, Clinton says, “Our Constitution is being shredded. We know about the secret wiretaps. We know about secret military tribunals, the secret White House email accounts. … It’s a stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok.” (ABC News, 3/6/2015) (The Hill, 3/5/2015)

2008: The US government publishes rules for email storage. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) issues Bulletin 2008-05, which states that every government email system is supposed to “permit easy and timely retrieval,” and all work emails are supposed to be permanently preserved. Additionally, in the case of a cabinet secretary, permanent records are to be sent to the department’s Records Service Center “at the end of the Secretary’s tenure or sooner if necessary” for safekeeping. (The Washington Post, 3/27/2016)

Problem -- Polarization

Nobody believes.  If you tell the truth in a polarized world, only those who agree will believe you.  If they don't agree, they will assume you're lying.  For example:

True:  Hillary Clinton's foundation received millions, perhaps more than $100M from countries to which her State Department granted extraordinary arms deals despite their human rights violations and internal terrorist funding.
True:  Bill Clinton has a long list of accusers for sexual assault and misconduct.  Also true:  Clinton staffers were assigned to discredit the accusers.
True:  Donald Trump has been sued many times, and his university was generally a waste of money for students.
True:  Donald Trump has repeatedly and emphatically contradicted himself.
True:  Hillary Clinton lied to Congress.
True:  Donald Trump has spawned many businesses that ended in bankruptcy.
True:  Bill Clinton did meet inappropriately with the Attorney General just prior to the FBI announcement that they would not pursue criminal charges against Hillary.

Now notice which of the above you agreed were true and relevant.  That's your bias, perhaps, or is it objectivity, or thoughtful discernment?  Do we want to know the truth, or do we want what we prefer to be the truth?  The latter is the process and product of polarization.

In today's polarized culture, Democrats and Republicans no longer have a middle ground for going forward, the media is no longer fair and balanced, and there's not a reporter we trust to stick to 'just the facts'.

• Obama, apparently, is one step below the antichrist, and Hillary hates everything about America.
• Trump is a maniacal narcissist and incapable of honest interchange for mutual progress.
• There has never been a worse president than Obama ... unless Hillary is elected.
• It's the end of generations of progress and a return to the dark ages if Trump is elected.
• It would be better if a life-terminating event like an asteroid strike killed us all.

That's today's public forum.

Polarization in Congress means they accomplish little of consequence.  Perhaps that's just as well.




It used to be that there were just a few tv channels, just a few news organizations, and a reasonable amount of information we had to assimilate and process. Technology has given us hundreds of channels and news sources, and all of them are competing for a share of the marketplace. The result, they play to their audience, and we wind up with extraordinary polarization. That particular marketplace competition has made us idiots or uninformed or both.