Another Reason To Fear Greed...

...When it comes to the extraction of resources from our oceans. Also another reason we must take the lead in forming global partnerships in establishing strict controls on the means to get these resources, as well as a fair means to allocate access.

A New Threat to Oceans: Deep-Sea Mining for Precious Metals

POSTED BY SARAH FAHMY ON NOV 27, 2016

The Importance Of A Carefully Considered Response To China

The Atlantic has a very well done article by James Fallows on just how much things have become more difficult for both us, and the people of China, as its leadership engages in a retrenchment of old hard line attitudes. This is a must read for anyone wanting to understand just how complicated, but necessary, is a carefully controlled response to that complexity. Something that does not give in to the easy, knee jerk response of bellicose denouncement, or fearful counter escalation, while still making it quietly clear that there is only so much we can tolerate in things being out of balance.

One can only hope that cooler heads in the now forming cabinet of our new president will listen to the message of a nuanced response to China precisely because we really do need each other if this world, as well as our nation, is going to respond to the many challenges facing it. Time will tell I guess.

China’s Great Leap Backward

The country has become repressive in a way that it has not been since the Cultural Revolution. What does its darkening political climate—and growing belligerence—mean for the United States?

• By JAMES FALLOWS
 
•  DECEMBER 2016 ISSUE
 

See Also:

Why Trump's Taiwan Call Is A Big Deal

 Digg

Dec 3 2016, 3:10 AM

He Literally Makes Things Up As He Goes

How comforting to have such a reckless imagination in control of our nuclear arsenal.

As I have said before we are going to be living that Chinese curse about interesting times.

With No Evidence, Trump Claims 'Millions' Voted Illegally

by PHIL MCCAUSLAND

Isn't It Interesting...

...That Mr. Trump can vilify Castro as a "Brutal Dictator," but then find it so convenient to cozy up to another.

One could certainly argue, if one accepts the assumption that Castro was in the same ilk as, say Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Mao, even if it was on a much smaller scale, whether he was more or less so than Putin, but it would be difficult, I think, to argue that Putin is not so, even if the scale of his achievements so far still pale to the B.D. list just indicated.

Putin, after all grew up within the cherished legacy of Stalin, making a point to prosper within the very institutions (the KGB probably being only one of them) that Stalin made so infamous. And there can be little doubt now that a considerable number of people have been tortured, and/or eliminated, as a part of his trying to re establish a Stalin like pinnacle of power in Russia; even if he tries to cover it with the facade of a supposed Democracy.

It would be natural then to wonder why this inconsistency has taken place.

On the one hand Trump is a narcissistic, opportunist who simply likes to latch onto whatever is outrageous, for both the quick publicity, as well as the thrill of pissing off what he considers is just another elite (in the foreign policy world). But be that as it may, one cannot, on the other hand, escape the obvious observation that Trump has been in a quite beneficial quid pro quo relationship with Mr. Putin (getting hackers, and god only knows how much behind the scenes propaganda). The bottom line being that there was hardly anything for him to get in return for not vilifying the dead guy, and a great deal to gain in being buddies with the guy not only still alive, but actually still in power.

The cold calculation at work here ought to be an alarm bell for those who have so far been either entranced, or just asleep at the switch, as they supported and voted for this man. It is, unfortunately, clear that this is quite unlikely. Even as the early indications are that, despite the lip service, or the token efforts, little in the realm of substance for true economic change is likely to occur; assuming, of course that by "change" one means something quite positive. Which is to say that even that alarm bell is likely to be ignored as well. At least for the time being.

The next question then becomes how bad things will have to become before those folks finally do get it into their heads that they have been played like a bumpkin at a carney show.

Trump Attacks Castro's Legacy as a 'Brutal Dictator'

FIDEL CASTRO'S DEATH

See Also:

From the Quartz Daily Brief

 Sat, Nov 26, 2016 4:38 am:

"...An unlikely mix of populism and conservatism has abruptly shaken up financial markets.

For decades, globalization and free trade supported companies and boosted stock prices. After the 2008 crisis, slow growth and inflation led central banks to inject record amounts of stimulus into markets. This created a “new normal” for traders, where the direction of trading was controlled by expectations of monetary policy. In sum, it was boring.

In just a few months, that’s all changed. The Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election have made traders expect a surge in spending. Throwing skepticism to the winds, they’ve poured money into stocks, sending the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to record highs, while dumping safer government bonds ($1 trillion in the week after the US election).

But this is irrational. The politicians promising this spending spree are right-wingers, better known for strict adherence to tight budgets. And Trump’s plans to double US economic growth don’t square with the global rollback in free trade that he seems to want.

Right now the stock rally is mostly benefitting American markets at the expense of export-dependent markets in Asia. How long that disconnect can continue is unclear. And bank shares are soaring on Trump’s promise of regulatory cuts, but leniency for the creators of the financial crisis won’t enthrall voters.

The conflict between the populist majorities in the US and UK and the conservatism of the governing elites will at some point come to a head. This week’s UK budget statement hinted at that, showing that the rhetoric of an economy “for everyone” cannot be met by action.

In reality, Brexit will worsen the living standards of the poorest, and further aggrieve many people who voted for it. In the US, Trump is fighting(paywall) to stop companies moving jobs to Mexico. If he fails, he could lose some of his support even before his term begins..."

Fuck Work, Or Fuck The System That Has So Far Defined It?

James Livingston, professor of history at Rutgers University in New York, does a pretty good job of agreeing with something that I have been trying to convince people of a long time now: that betterment of our social and economic circumstances cannot be accomplished with any kind of emphasis on jobs as they are currently defined by a market, consumer economy. Where we diverge, however, is that that same economic system can be reformed, by proper taxation and the application of the budget surpluses thus created.

Great budget surpluses might well be created by more enlightened taxation. And higher taxes for corporations, as well as the wealthy, might not have nearly the adverse effect on further investment for further job growth, as he suggests. But these aren't the real problems. The real problem is the absurdity of human labor as a commodity in the first place now.  As well as the absurdity of a mass production, mass consumption model of productive distribution where that labor commodity served as a main part of its own self perpetuation (within the mindset of the factory as a social organizational model).

Further, whether paying people a living wage, regardless of having a job or not (however you might go about that), would actually work, within the current context of what is considered "economics," or not is certainly quite debatable. The real question ought to be why would you even want to try such an alteration of a demonstrably obsolete operating system at all? Especially when your alteration does nothing to change the fact of money itself, and it's current equivalency with information. Assuming, of course, that you also wanted to preserve Democracy as way to govern.

That being said, though, I would urge you to read Professor Livingston's article in Aeon. It is quite interesting, as well as suggestive of the faultlines that our current economic operating system has beneath it. Fault lines building up pressure that will, of necessity, find release one way or another. There are questions here. Fundamental questions that everybody ought to be giving serious consideration of.

Fuck work
Economists believe in full employment. Americans think that work builds character. But what if jobs aren’t working anymore?

by James Livingston

See Also:

A World Without Work

For centuries, experts have predicted that machines would make workers obsolete. That moment may finally be arriving. Could that be a good thing?

For Those Keeping An Early Score...

...On Trump's march to drain the swamp in Washington DC, what do we have so far? Are we talking about an amazing reconfiguration of the power landscape to be a part of this change?

Not so much.

He is in fact looking like he will be bringing in more of the same into his cabinet, including the very Republican main liners who tried to trash him during the campaign. And I know he's indicated that he's given the TPP trade deal partners notice on pulling out of that deal, but how much real zeal, let alone real effort, will actually come from that rhetoric? What are the possibilities that a token effort will be made, knowing that cooler heads in Congress are unlikely to want to start a true trade war with everybody else, not to mention China?

One clue can be gleaned from the report linked below on the Dow going over 19,000 for the first time in history. A quoted comment by Katie Stockton (chief technical strategist at BTIG) might be something more than just tea leaves in a cup; especially in the last paragraph:

"Global equity markets are reacting positively to new all-time highs in the SPX," said Katie Stockton, chief technical strategist at BTIG, in a note. "Momentum is proving strong enough to overrule overbought conditions, so we think it is appropriate to be buying breakouts."

The three major indexes closed at record levels on Wednesday, along with the small-caps Russell 2000, which continues to outperform the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq since Nov. 8.

But "don't forget, we spend about three months consolidating before this breakout after the election," said Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Baird. "From a time standpoint, this may be just the beginning."

"We are in a transition period on a number of fronts. First, we're moving from an interest-rate driven market into an earnings-driven market," he said. "Also, something most people are missing, is we're getting a more business-friendly administration."

Let's see now. Wasn't he going to really lay into the banks and big business? Not to mention that he was somehow magically going to make more manufacturing jobs appear out of forcing the construction of non competitive factories here? If that were really the case don't you think Wall Street would be a good deal more worried right about now? And of course we already know that he's planning on major tax cuts for "Big Money."

Boy, doesn't this just sound like a revolution in Washington DC?

Maybe if you are a head in the sand avoider of facts it might be.

And at the end of the day here one can only ponder yet again, in mind boggling amazement no less, on how the Trump Chump brigades figured a rich man was going to give them real economic reform. I can hardly wait to see what kind of "coming back to reality" hangover these people are going to get.

Dow Breaks Above 19,000, S&P Jumps Over 2,200 as Stocks Hit Record Highs

by FRED IMBERT, CNBC

The Efficacy of Investment Revisted

Ordinary folks like myself wouldn't be aware of this, but most savvy investors certainly are; The quant investment firm Medallion has beat not only every other investment fund out there, it has seemingly defied the very notion of market unpredictability. You need only look at the returns for this fund for the last twenty eight years to see just how remarkable this winning streak has been.

And just to review for the rest of us, a quant fund refers to an investment house that uses various arrangements of computers, and computer algorithms, to crunch as much data as possible in order to make market picks. In the case of Medallion, a fund open only to the grand list of big brains that run it, some very high level of statistical analysis has been used to find correlations between all the things that are happening around the world, and that they can then gather into these high end computers, with the movement of everything to do with supply, demand and prices.

On the one hand here, you have to congratulate them for being so over the top successful at this. I mean seriously, everybody else must be just drooling at the prospect that such returns are possible. On the other hand, though, you have to wonder at the notion that so much money can be made simply by investing in some computers, and a few really brilliant mathematicians, statisticians and coders. And all they are doing here is just making money on what various information flows say will happen to certain prices, and then placing bets on the items themselves, or the companies doing the selling.

What is salient here is that nowhere in this process does the economy as a whole benefit all that much; especially as it relates to better products, or better processes, that would make our economy stronger in the long run. More counters may be put into the system generally, but that benefits only a few. As, indeed, during the great recession, these folks received their biggest return ever.

It is, of course, tricky to even begin talking about investment efficacy when it comes to the real bottom line of Capitalism; which is only to make money by profiting however you can in the exchanges of goods or services. Which is, certainly, the real problem here. One might change the socially equitable trade off here if such questionable (efficacy wise) investments were taxed at a much higher rate, but good luck in even getting that started, much less than keeping it in place.

At the end of the day all we are really talking about here is the importance of information. That some people can take advantage of getting more of it, and having more resources to analyze it, not to mention more paid time to do so, only serves to emphasize the power imbalance generated when the rest of us have so little access, or the time to make use of it. And thus do we see another illustration of why technology has made Capitalism obsolete; especially if you value Democracy as way to govern a society by.

Inside a Moneymaking Machine Like No Other

The Medallion Fund, an employees-only offering for the quants at Renaissance Technologies, is the blackest box in all of finance.

 

Katherine Burton

November 21, 2016 — 12:01 AM EST

And speaking of information

See Also:

Psywar - Full Documentary

Media As a Shaping Agent of Society: Wherefore Art Thou Treacherous?

8. The Co-Evolution of Media, Technology and Society: Past, Present, and Future — The Technology of Influence Singularity

Whether He Really Supports Them Or Not...

...His pandering to their interests have allowed them to crawl out from under the rocks they've been festering under for all these years. To crawl out and think that their way of thinking has a place in American thought and policy.

The ultimate irony of a nation formed of immigrants; formed of, and made so much stronger, from a mix of so many peoples and cultures, would begin to give into this kind of ignorant reductionism of what it means to be human, is just unbelievable. I suppose, though, that, given the fact that the Russians suffered something like twenty million dead at the hands of the fascists, and the subsequent growth of similar white nationalism there, it shouldn't surprise us that it might happen here.

Lest you forget fossil evidence strongly suggests that the very first humans to come into existence were people of color; precisely because of the latitudes of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and the amount of sun skin there would be exposed to. With all of the subsequent migrations, and intermingling, that took place over they many millennia since, how could we not all share at least some portion of the genetic makeup of virtually every nationality out there? You would think that under the light of these facts any notion of racial purity would be the most obvious of absurd notions.

But this is what happens when you get a bunch of people together who have no desire to know, or to distinguish, fact from their own fevered delusions. And then you get a national figure who plays into the denial of facts in the same way? Do you seriously think there will be no blowback from this kind of behavior? Unless, of course, you have decided to just give up on facts altogether. The question then is where will you be when the jacked booted brown shirts start coming round to beat their way of thinking into the rest of us?

White Nationalist Alt-Righter Claims 'Hail Trump' Comments Were 'Ironic'

by HALLIE JACKSON and TIM STELLOH

See Also:

WELL IF HE'S NOT AGAINST THEM...

White Nationalists See Trump As Their Troll In Chief. Is He With Them?

Mother Jones Donald Trump

Inside the extremist movements seeking to capitalize on his victory.

The Only Real Change You Desire...

...Will come when most of us finally realize that it is the economic operating system itself that is the problem. It's that system that desires trade deals that are good mostly for the corporations that pushed for them. It's that system that desires the increased profit potential of "Supply Side" economics. It's that system that likes to offset the power of labor with not only union busting legislation, but with the already mentioned trade deals that put our workers in competition with the lowest paid workers in the rest of the world (which is bad enough, but to also face AI as a competitor, it just gets even worse). It's that system that sees any attempt to regulate industries, and corporate operations as just more layers of cost, rather than an attempt to keep us from being either overcharged, poisoned, or outright swindled.

It is simply an operating system well past its use by date, just as the original Windows would be now if Microsoft had tried to insist that it would still be good enough. When desk top systems first came out that may have been true. Just as when we were still dependant on animal power, water wheels and the first glimmers of steam power, the system based on the linear, segmented thinking of typography, was good enough. Now that we are as far removed from that as vast network complexes of transactional interaction, and the burgeoning fields of "Big Data," and self taught AI, is from the environment those former means of power, as well as ways of seeing the world gave us, we also need a new system.

The sooner we realize this the sooner we can begin to undertake the very difficult task of coming up with an alternative able to make use of these new realities; usage that is in balance with both personal liberty, and concern for the greater good. As well as to say a better balance for the life of the planet, and our own sanity.

I urge you to think about this. Pass the questions asked here on to others so that they can give it the thought it deserves, and have them pass it on as well. Time is running out on the window we will have to be able to do this in a reasonably organized way. This is so because change is coming. It just won't be the kind of change that will offer a lot of opportunities for rational thought; being as it will mostly involve a great deal of chaos and disarray. If we are to have any chance to shape that change in meaningful ways we need to act sooner rather than later.

The Voters Who Picked Trump in '16 But Obama in '12 All Want the Same Thing: Change

SUN, NOV 20

In Macomb County, Michigan, voters are united by their desire for better-paying jobs, and an upturn to their long-suffering cities.

See also:

A Donald Trump Trade War With China Would Hurt America: Experts

by ALEXANDER SMITH, ERIC BACULINAO and ED FLANAGAN

Why Some Protests Succeed While Others Fail 

By Jesse Singal

Trump's Firm Grip On Economic Reality

Trump Says He Saved Ford Plant — That Wasn't Even Closing

Mr. Trump Will Undoubtedly Write This Change To Arctic Temperature Off...

...As just another bit of Liberal bias in the media. Or an expansion of the cunning plot by the Chinese to make us think climate change is real (those rascals).

When a candidate finally gets into this high office his view on reality often changes. What we have here is a real litmus test on whether the new guy can be made to see reality at all.

Energy and Environment

The North Pole is an insane 36 degrees warmer than normal as winter descends

By Chris Mooney and Jason Samenow November 17 at 1:41 PM

Stand By For More Supply Side BS...

...And government, both state and national, without the resources to do basic services. That is what you can expect as Mr. Trump prepares to take office.

What this boils down to is corporations able to do more profit wise, but without any regard to working americans being able to spend any more; which is, of course, the down side when you ignore the demand side of things here. You couple that with government increasingly unable to do basic services... You know, like make sure your drinking water isn't contaminated with lead. Or consumer protection agencies aren't able to watch for products that will either severely sicken you, or outright kill you. Or education forced to hand over more schooling to the charter schools ordinary working folks can't afford. Or the undermining of established programs like Social Security, and Medicare (which working folks in the past supported because they were promised to receive when their turn to need it came around). Just to name few of the more prominent areas of concern.

I know that a lot of you have real concern about the efficiency of government tasked to do much of anything. As a Libertarian Socialist I share a good portion of those concerns. Government's tendency to bog down within the inter workings of bureaucracy are well established. The problem is government is the only counterbalance we have to corporate power, and accumulated capital. And unless you're willing to talk about starting over as far as what we have for an economic operating system, then, as a practical matter, there's an inherent limit to how much you can apply understandable Libertarian ideals.

Interestingly enough, if one were to give serious consideration to the alternative model for an operating system that I have proposed, you would see a great deal more in the application of those ideals. This would be so automatically not only because the power of capital would be removed, but also because we would be in direct control, community to community, of how things were initiated and managed. Just as we would be responsible for making our own end use items to meet our personal needs.

In any case, though, those of you who voted for Mr. Trump better prepare yourselves for a great deal more disappointment than what we Liberals and Progressives felt when Obama short changed us on the majority of the things he promised. Not only are you not going to get what he promised, you are likely to get an economy made worse. Much worse.

A good deal of that will depend on just how much he is able to both screw with world trade agreements (which I did not support, but again, if you stay with Capitalism, those are the things that make capital happy), and piss off all of our current allies, as well as those who are already at odds with us. Only time will tell there.

The bottom line here is that you have placed upon yourselves the epitome of that famous Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Boy are you going to get interesting in spades.

NOV 18 2016, 5:05 AM ET

Trump Jobs Plan Could Boost These Industries, At A Price

by BEN POPKEN

Throwing More Money At It Hasn't Helped...

...Maybe it's time to start considering, with all this money being thrown around, that money itself, and the economic operating system that supports it is the real problem. That and the fact that profit is the only real reason we have it at all.

Sure, a lot of other developed countries have done better but, just as with how Socialism in general is showing signs of strain in being able to continue, going into the 21 century, as competition gets more intense, resources get more scarce, and severe weather events increase, what do you think the long term prospects are going to be for anybody to continue to provide generous healthcare benefits?

As you ponder that I'll just leave you with the two most telling paragraphs from the nbcnews.com article below:

"...'The United States trailed other countries in making health care affordable and ranked poorly on providing timely access to medical care (except specialist care),' the report reads. ' Problems were often particularly acute for low-income adults.'

Yet Americans now spend $9,523 per person a year on medical expenses — by far the most among developed countries. Health spending now tops $3 trillion a year. Health insurance premiums have been steadily rising since 2008 and employers, who cover 60 percent of Americans, have been increasing the amount their workers must contribute to their own medical care..."

United States Comes in Last Again on Health, Compared to Other Countries

by MAGGIE FOX

See Also:

Surprise Medical Bills Found in 22 Percent of ER Visits

by MAGGIE FOX and JANE DERENOWSKI

When You Think About What's Possible For AI...

...Think about it in terms of what it could contribute to a society that tried to deemphasize specialization. Think about what the human-AI connection could be if it allowed non experts to perform a significant portion of tasks that only experts can do now.

I make this suggestion because this is precisely what I mean when I say that moving away from the current economic operating systems reliance on specialization, and the universal experience translator that money was meant to be (to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan) would allow us to find the best balance of personal involvement with AI and automation. Especially would this be so if we also no longer had to worry about these same systems undercutting our competitive stance in a commercialized labor market.

I would propose to all of you who see AI as a potential for great benefit to humanity to consider that doing so, while still shackled by that same outdated operating system, is in no way the best means to achieve that desired goal. For my way of thinking, the best way, without question, would follow from accepting the need for a complete rethink on how we do the management, and maintenance, of a production/distribution system where specialized labor for production is taken out of the equation. A new model where everyone in a community shared the responsibilities for productive management and maintenance of material basics, and the individual made their own end use items; with everyone participating getting an equity share of the productive output the community, as a whole, decided they were willing to support.

It is in that kind of new social environment, in my opinion, that visionaries like Professor Manuela Veloso would be able to really make AI a shining contribution.

HUMANITY AND AI WILL BE INSEPARABLE

MANUELA VELOSO | HEAD OF MACHINE LEARNING, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
BY RUSSELL BRANDOM | NOV. 15, 2016

The Working Hard Class And...

...What Just Worrying About Jobs Leaves Us With.

This is another juxtaposition of two threads of thought bubbling up through the infosphere now.

On the one hand, as indicated by a piece done in the Harvard Business Review by Joan C. Williams, is the idea that Liberals and Progressives need to understand that the real middle class sees themselves as the Working Hard class. They've grown resentful of elitist professionals because they don't respect people who make their living telling them what to do when those same professionals don't understand the essential work ethic of the traditional working male breadwinner. The don't care about minimum wages for the bottom level of workers, or rights of minorities, or even unions for that matter, because these issues don't have anything to do with providing steady, truly middle income jobs; jobs for people who see themselves as the only ones who understand not only what hard work is, but who live the ethic of disciplined self denial. The people who also admire the rich because they must have had the same ethic in order to get that way.

Then there is the story out of Oklahoma now of just how much effect that waste water dumping back into the oil wells created by fracking have caused. This effect being, of course, the alarming increase of earthquakes that the pressure of waste water dumping has created.

What is interesting here is that we have not only a physical equivalent of what has happened to politics at the national level (earth shaking in its own right), but also the highlighting of a predicament faced by the political leadership there; a leadership, as the article indicates, is owned by the oil companies of Oklahoma. Even with the ground shaking away the infrastructure all around them they are loath to make waves that might upset the benefactors of so many jobs in Oklahoma. Jobs that I am sure have a good number of the white working class. The same folks who admire the rich for giving them jobs in the first place, as well as for whatever supposed efforts they did to get that way.

I would like to propose another class of people. This would be a minority class unfortunately, but they still need to be recognized. These are folks who have come from both the middle, and upper middle class, who are informed (as well as being educated), and have worked very hard to stay that way. Folks like myself, for instance, who worked days to put himself through the first two year college session (so that I could be a better writer, as well as someone who could read history and understand it). Someone who then got a little help (through the old CETA program) with the second stint at a Junior College, but who did so in one year because I already had most of the credits required from my first two years of college; taking on that further education so that I could understand what information processing was all about (getting an Associate of Science degree in Data Processing).

I mention this  only to illustrate that people who work at being informed, and trying to understand what is going on around them, work pretty damned hard as well to do so while still keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table; especially in the IT world where ten and twelve hour days, six and seven days a week, can be a regular occurrence.  And I mention that because I want to make it clear that folks in the middle do not have an exclusive on any supposed righteousness with a strong work ethic. As well as to suggest that just working hard does not give you a pass on being ignorant of what is going on around you.

This deficiency is important now because ignorance can, and will, kill you. More importantly, it can, and will, kill the planet we live on. The fact of the matter is that just wanting good jobs, and not wanting to rock the boat for those who create those jobs, is simply not going to cut it any more. Whether its lead in your drinking water because municipalities are either too underfunded, and/or too corrupt, because money stays with rich, and usually goes out to keep them that way; or because an industry group has either become too big to fail, or so big they can charge you whatever they want for what you need, for whatever profit they desire; make no mistake. It is your ignorance that empowers them, and which gives them the ability to make you work yourself into the ground for pennies on the hour compared to what they get in return.

And the bottom line for all of this is the economic operating system that allows it. The operating system that became obsolete the minute virtually any skill started to have to compete with machines skilled by electrified data retrieval.

If you want to talk about jobs why don't you try to start imagining that work ought to be oriented around communities actually providing for ourselves; doing the managing and the maintenance, so that we could make our own goods for living. As well as to imagine that we would represent ourselves in deciding policy and laws that we would then vote on. We could do that now precisely because we have the means to use technology in our best interests, balancing personal involvement with automation.

What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class

• By Joan C. Williams

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

Oil And Gas Industry Ensnarled in Spate of Oklahoma Earthquakes

by AMANDA SAKUMA

The Soul Searching Within The Side That Lost

The link below to the PBS NewsHour  segment with Shields and Brooks on looking into what ought to be faced now by those who had the rug pulled out from under them with Trump's win is telling. Both long established participants of the now much maligned "media" went to great lengths to indicated that, however much you felt of the deep ugliness of the Trump campaign, there should be questions that have to be asked of why so many white working class voters went with him despite all of the foul things he seemed to represent. As well as to say that, whatever the reservations you had, the process resulted in Trump winning and that, above all else, the process has to be respected.

And in that vein both veteran writers took pains to acknowledge the fact that those very same white working voters had real issues they felt the elites weren't taking seriously any more; which of course fall back mostly to the bedrock economic issues that have been given lip service by both parties for decades now, but for which little remedy has actually come forth.

A lot of this then comes back to how, as David Brooks indicated, people who know words can engage with people not quite so gifted; doing so in a way that is not condescending, or as Mark Shields indicated, in a way that avoids resorting to the rhetoric of labels such as "racists," which drops "an atomic bomb," as it were, on any further dialogue being possible.

There is truth to this certainly, but there is also truth in the fact that severely misinformed people, especially as it relates to issues of power, as regards to who and how, are simply going to be ripe for being taken advantage of. And it doesn't have to be a Trump who will do this as virtually all of the winners for this high office, for the last three decades at least, have promised so much, and have actually delivered so little.

Another view of trying to engage misinformed folks comes from the work of sociologist Arlie Hochschild; especially with her book "Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger And Mourning on the American Right" (see here, and here) This was a work where she tried to take off the typical prejudices of a Liberal and engage some folks on a personal level. And in doing that one of this things she encountered was this "deep story" metaphorical view these folks had of what has been wrong with American life; a view seen as where good folks stand in a kind of line, working hard, waiting for their turn at the "American dream," but where minorities, and immigrants, seem to be getting preferential treatment and, in a sense, get to cut into the line ahead of them. She also encountered a very deep mistrust of government not only because of the seeming preferential treatment, but also because of their own experience of having state government let them down so often; particularly in handling the industrial pollution that was killing so many of them (in Louisiana), as well as not providing very well for education or other basic services.

What is interesting for me in this combined view of American life is how it expresses both an astonishing passivity towards accepting how things are around you (as if simply working hard at a job and keeping your mouth shut otherwise would give you what you wanted), but also an ignorance of how any group get's its grievances heard and addressed.

Minorities such as blacks were not given a cut into some imagined line for the injustice they suffered. They organized, protested, and generally shook the status quo up, often at great cost in life and limb in the process, to make their plight known and understood (as did the early efforts to organize labor did to eliminate sweatshops, child labor, and wages little better than slavery). Just as they also went to considerable lengths to educated themselves on just how things worked in practical terms, and how they could use that knowledge to better express their plight and make the system realize the rightness of it.

From my point of view it is hard to sympathise with people who don't understand that their state government doesn't work worth shit precisely because they have let the big petrochemical industries, the ones they think are doing them a favor in providing jobs, have their way in virtually owning that local government; so much so that they can pollute as they please; as well as to say that these same local governments have so little resource to accomplish anything because those same big companies get away with paying so little in taxes.

One then has to ask the question: What will follow when the truth of Mr. Trump's con becomes clear? You need only consider just how disillusioned liberals and Progressives were, given Obama's initial rhetoric and promises to make real change happen, and how little came of that, to see that these working class whites are in for a very rude awakening. Whereupon the follow up question must be asked. What will any of the groups involved here ask of themselves about what should be done; the whites, minorities, immigrants, the media, Liberals, Conservatives, or Progressives. Administration after administration and very little of what is at the bottom line of power is addressed. Very little of it can be talked about it at all precisely because message of any kind now gets drowned out within the mind numbing cacophony of hard sell for profit, or some advantage within the system that makes profit king.

The fact of the matter, in my view, is that the system we're all trying to talk in, as well as to change, has made all such efforts virtually impossible because (see here) of the structural realities now in place, as well as the ingrained power that comes from that structure. Unless we can begin to question all of the fundamental assumptions that keep that structure going we are doomed to keep on repeating this process of slickly packaged promise ending up with a great deal of buyer's remorse.

Shields and Brooks on a ‘political earthquake’ and how America can move forward