Et tu, Brute . . .

On the walls of the Old Cadet Chapel at West Point are plaques honoring general officers who served in the American Revolution. One plaque lists no name, only a rank, “Major General,” and the date “1740.” This is Benedict Arnold’s plaque. Commemorating the service, but not the man.

His service, by any definition, was extraordinary: The capture of Fort Ticonderoga with Ethan Allen; Leader of an epic expedition through the wilds of Maine to attack Quebec; Commander of the fleet (built under his direction, he was a seaman – and a pharmacist – prior to the revolution) on Lake Champlain that, although unsuccessful in battle, delayed the British expedition against Ticonderoga for a full year; Reliever of the Fort Stanwix siege and true architect of the great American victory of the war at Saratoga; Seriously wounded three times in combat. Arnold was arguably the best military commander on either side; only Nathanael Greene might be considered an equal contender for that honor.

But then, of course, there was that little business of giving up West Point to the British. Not to mention becoming a pretty effective Brigadier General for them afterwards. Arnold’s became the most hated name in American history. Following the war no lasting opprobrium was attached to American Tories, or to British Officers (even those accused of “war-crimes” like Banastre Tarleton, the role model for the villain in Mel Gibson’s The Patriot), nor even to hated Indians like the Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant. Benedict Arnold remains our once and future “Judas.”

Robert E. Lee (turncoat and traitor) became a sainted hero, Bedford Forrest (war criminal at Fort Pillow and founder of the KKK) a grass-roots military genius, William Boney (back-shooting degenerate) a miss-understood kid, Jessie James (thief and murderer) the last defender of a lost-cause, Wyatt Earp (corrupt gambler and killer) a western icon, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (killers and incompetent thieves) working class, depression-era heroes; Donald Trump (egotistical creep) a financial beau-ideal, etc, etc. All too many etceteras. Yet Benedict Arnold, almost alone, continues to occupy the lowest ring of an American hell.

The take-home message seems to be that Americans will forgive almost anything . . . anything but betrayal. Especially betrayal from those from whom much was expected.

Barack Obama might take heed.

Putting up with Bush’s policies from George W. Bush and his gang of sleazy, money-grubbing, immoral incompetents was one thing. Those on the Left never expected anything better – the “kinder, gentler” image put forth to steal the fraudulent 2000 election was never all that creditable – and George certainly didn’t disappoint. But Progressives voted for Obama as “one of us” and expectations were high. Probably too high – way too high. But we certainly didn’t expect Bush II, Bush’s policies masquerading as “Hope and Change.” Sarah Palin asked “how’s that hopey-changey thing workin out for ya?” The answer from progressives is “not so good.”

There was no claw back of eroding civil rights from the “Constitutional” lawyer. Guantanamo is still going strong, ditto “rendition,” and we’ve added Presidentally-sanctioned murder to the list. Harry Truman ended segregation in the military with a stroke of his pen, but gays are still having to suffer with “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Labor got nothing except an up-and-coming tax on “Cadillac” health plans. Wall Street and the banks were saved (thank you, Barack, for bringing back all those Clinton advisors who set the stage for the great collapse and the Goldman-Sachs groupies who facilitated the bailout), but our government couldn’t even manage bankruptcy mortgage modification for ordinary folk.

Bob Dylan sang about “those who rob you with a fountain pen,” but the bankers and brokers whose greed destroyed trillions of “Main Street” wealth not only got off scot-free, but walked away laughing . . . back to the bank. New regulations to prevent a repeat are mostly a joke and do nothing to protect the public interest – we’ve converted banks “too big or too important to fail” into banks that are even bigger and more important. In America we don’t seem to make much, or accomplish much, these days, but our corporations have gotten very much better at mining the Federal purse.

And then there’s his vaunted health care bill . . . Obamacare. Yes, the left finally did came around to supporting it. Reluctantly. While holding their collective nose. But only as a foot-in-the-door first step, something to be later modified and improved – like Social Security had been – not because it represented any intrinsic accomplishment (and we may be very much mistaken about opportunities for improvement). And to get this miserable piece of legislation the administration bought off the drug companies (no more talk of importing drugs from Canada nor reducing costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices) and the insurance industry (no removal of their trust exemption and a gift of 30 million new customers – with most of these new premiums paid with tax dollars). Not to mention assorted other commercial interests and numerous senators. No “single payer,” no “public option,” no “Medicare-for-all,” no separation of health insurance from employment, no long-range cost control. Instead we’re to be forced to buy insurance and practically guaranteed increased future costs. And, adding insult to injury, most of its provisions will not come into effect for years. Thanks again, Barrack.

On the positive side it’s nice having an articulate and intelligent President. Instead of a sneering douchebag. And college loans were removed from the predatory claws of the banks. That campaign promise was kept. Unfortunately, almost the only other promise kept was to invigorate and magnify the war in Afghanistan. It would be nice if, in his efforts to show some backbone, he’d stand up to Republicans instead of Progressives. The President may feel he can ignore his base, that they have nowhere to go; he should keep in mind that the base can even more easily ignore him. We don’t have to go anywhere. We can just stay home. The choice between tweedledum and tweedledee is no real choice at all.

I began with a Revolutionary War theme, let me end with one. Patrick Henry in a speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses said “Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third . . . may he profit by their example.” Barrack Obama should keep in mind that Lyndon Johnson had his Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy; and Gerald Ford his Reagan. He should profit from their example; unless, of course, he wants to go home to Illinois in 2013.

(The photos, counter clock-wise from the top: A monument to Benedict Arnold’s boot on the Saratoga Battlefield; the inscription reads "In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental army, who was desperately wounded on this spot, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution, and for himself the rank of Major General." Arnold’s name is not mentioned. A portrait. The John Trumbull painting of Burgoyne’s Surrender at Saratoga on October 17, 1777 (painted in 1822). Needless to say, Arnold is not included; he lay seriously wounded in hospital and remained an invalid for seven months.)

Sic transit gloria mundi . . .

As a kid I was taught at school to hide under my wooden desk from a nuclear explosion – it was called “duck-and-cover.” But little good would that cover have done me growing up in New York City, an obvious initial target in any nuclear confrontation. Then, as now, our government was good with words; not so good when it came to common sense or rational thinking.

We then faced – and still do face – an existential threat from a nuclear attack. “Existential” meaning a threat to our very existence. We know now, although the threat was real, that the USSR was far more reluctant than our own government to begin any nuclear exchange. We should have realized it then: no nation, having undergone the physical destruction of Nazi invasion and retreat, along with the loss of more than 25 million citizens, would have been anxious for a repeat wartime adventure. World War II was not a “good” war for Russia, nor were WWI and the revolution/civil war that followed. For Russia, it had been a half-century of death – death up close and so very personal, leaving no family untouched.

In the 60s and into the 70s we were sold a war in Vietnam based on something called the “domino theory.” Simply put, if we didn’t fight ‘em there we’d soon be fighting ‘em here. Well, it took us almost 10 years before we gave up, but we finally lost (closer to 25 if you count our financing and support of the French effort in what was then called “Indochina,” and the years building up South Vietnam). It turned out that there were no “dominos.” And the only invasion we’ve had to put up with was from the cheap clothing they now ship to our stores.

It turned out that the Vietnamese hated and feared those Chinese we were so worried about more than we did, and had done so for about a thousand years. They went to war with China soon after we left. So much for the “Communist Monolith,” not to mention that the same Chinese – still Communist, by the way – are now supporting our economy and supplying us with gads of consumer goods. So much for the superior thinking of the “best and brightest” of three presidential administrations.

Forget all that revisionist nonsense you hear about “we could have won.” We wouldn’t have – the Vietnamese always had so much more at stake and a greater willingness to sacrifice – and our Army was disintegrating at the end. There are good reasons why Colin Powell and his generation of officers (who served there at the beginning of their careers) wanted an all-volunteer Army and no more Vietnams – and it wasn’t because they came close to winning. It went on so long, not because we were always almost on the cusp of victory, but because our so called “leaders” – our politicians and generals – were afraid to face the political consequences of defeat. Young Americans died because they didn’t want to admit error or lose their jobs. No one was willing to say “enough, this is stupid.” (At least not out loud.) Kids died because their leaders wanted to save face.

Sound familiar?

The morons who got us into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current bunch keeping us there, are making the “geniuses” that led us into Vietnam look brilliant in comparison. It was nonsense then, but it’s nonsense-squared now. Terrorism is not an existential threat. It poses, at best, some physical danger to a very small number of unlucky citizens – more Americans die every year from accidents in their bathtubs than are killed by terrorists – and a minor economic cost.
A few thousand – or is it only a few hundred? – raggedy-assed terrorists scattered over the world do not pose a threat to our existence as a nation. But our inappropriate response surely does. It’s a waste of lives and treasure that could be better spent elsewhere – at home, for instance. And we will come to rue the hatred it is engendering.

Our military budget is now over 700 billion a year – call it a trillion if we throw in veterans benefits and miscellaneous military costs hidden in other Federal departments – the highest it has ever been. More than the combined military spending of all other nations on Earth. Throw in another trillion for each of the wars. To paraphrase the late Senator Dirkson, a trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon we might just be talking national bankruptcy. We fought Vietnam on the credit card too. That old “guns and butter” routine. The price we paid was the “stagflation” of the 70s. And that was, arguably, a relatively richer and more powerful United States. The Biblical phrase “those that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind” comes to mind.

But we will not, nay, probably can not, simply say “no more; we made a mistake; there is no overriding national interest worth this sacrifice at stake.” The Russians could. They gave Afghanistan nine years and left. Our stay is now going on ten. An irony is that in the old USSR political leaders dictated to the generals (Gorbachev’s dismantling of the Empire and survival of a coup attempt prove that), whereas in the US of A the opposite seems to have taken hold. We seem to adore our military – probably because most of us feel guilty about not serving. Indeed, about not having to make any sacrifice what so ever. And this awe, which should be reserved for the grunts who are doing the sacrificing and dying, seems also to be extended to the Generals – Generals who have led us through ten years of failure at inordinate expense.

Speaking of Generals . . . I find something untoward about the personal appearance of General Petraeus on the news lately. Petraeus’ combat experience has been confined to two tours in Iraq – the second of which, where he damped down the violence by buying off Sunni insurgents, is highly touted – and his present command in Afghanistan (he graduated West Point in 1974 and didn’t serve in Vietnam). I’ve contrasted his appearance in my photo with that of General Eisenhower.

Observe, if you will, the medals and other paraphernalia attached to the uniforms. Eisenhower’s career should need no introduction, nor should that of General Macarthur and Admiral Nimitz in the second photo (taken at as ceremonial a moment as you can imagine – the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay). Macarthur, a General without any noticeable lack of self-esteem throughout his career, earned a Medal of Honor, two DSCs and seven Silver Stars along with numerous lesser awards. All in a career that spanned from before WWI to Korea. The decorations he would have been entitled to wear on his uniform are shown alongside. As countless photos attest, he rarely wore any at all. It would seem that the budget is not the only thing undergoing expansion in our military.

The Election . . .

I feel an urge to say something about the upcoming election. I’ve tried to control it (God knows, far too much has already been said) . . . but alas. So here goes.

It’s an election between the feckless wonders and the morons. And it sure looks like the morons are going to win. And win big.

I sure hope not. A nation that collectively votes for representatives so obviously unfit to make decisions would seem to have lost whatever fragile grasp on reality it might have once possessed. Any party that sees – or claims to see – politicians like Reid, Obama and Pelosi as some kind of existential threat to the republic has gone off the deep end. That that party might actually take control of the US Congress should not be looked upon with equanimity by anyone with half a brain. That after eight years of a abysmally failed administration (perhaps the worst in our history), the sight of an electorate willing to return to their kind of misgovernment – nay, to something far less intelligent than the leadership given us by those evil incompetents – makes one despair for the future of the American Republic.

Some of the morons are almost beyond belief. Privatize this, privatize that, quit picking on corporations . . . Really? There’s that woman in Nevada talking about “Second Amendment Remedies,” i.e., civil war, and a Texas governor wanting to secede from the union – as if that worked really well back in 1860. A guy in Kentucky who thinks Ayn Rand (who he’s named after) said all that needs be said about government (or philosophy) in the 21st Century, and an ex-witch in Delaware that apparently thinks that stopping masturbation would be the answer to most of our problems. (Actually, I like her the best. It might be nice having a witch, or even ex-witch, in the Senate, better than those pious Christian frauds who believe the only human beings worth caring about are the “un-born.” Did I mention she’s easier to look at?)

Of course, the feckless wonders seem little better. Giving us “Bush-light” or “Clinton II” instead of the “change” a lot of us thought we had voted for. A Senate majority that couldn’t be bothered to change the filibuster rules – ‘fraid it might cost ‘em some power should, God forbid, Republicans make a come-back. A continued bail-out of Wall Street and the Banks, along with meaningless new regulations that most definitely will not prevent a repeat of our continuing economic crisis. A repeat we will probably be unable to afford. A health care bill that bought off medical corporations and drug companies, and shoveled even more business to the insurance industry. One war being continued (like “Friday the 13th”, we can expect a few Iraqi sequels) and another put into higher gear. Granted, some representatives and senators have tried to do better (more representatives than senators, for which I thank Nancy Pelosi, who proved to be one of the great Speakers of the House), but the end result was to feed us gruel and dare call it filet mignon.

“Things are probably no worse than they’ve ever been” is probably little consolation. It sure looks like we are re-living in the “Gilded Age,” when wealth and corporate power reigned. (A big thank you to our Republican dominated Supreme Court – the true Bush legacy.) And when politicians could be purchased rather cheaply – an honorable politician being defined as one who would stay bought. It’s probably too much to expect a majority of our Congress to be more concerned about the success of the American experiment than their own careers, but you’d think that every now and then we’d luck out and get a President more interested in the nation’s future than his own re-election.

It seems not, at least not this time. I come back to the wars. It all seems so hopeless. Elections come, and elections go. Yet nothing even pauses the continuing drive to sustain and advance the American Empire. Or the defense budget. There can be no good end. There will be no victory and no honorable exit. Yet the wars continue, because President after President is bound and determined that the eventual defeat will not happen on his watch. None are willing to bite the bullet. And we citizens cannot be bothered to even pay attention. Much less stop the tragedy being carried out in our name. Our nation seems to lack even the good sense of the Russians, who knew when to say “enough.”

I’ve always wanted to ask Jimmy Carter – who I’ve always believed to be a good and honorable man, and whose life after leaving the Presidency has certainly sustained that belief – what he would do differently if he’d known there would be only one term. I have a feeling I’m going to be wanting to ask that same question of Obama. It's almost a fantasy: a war without gore. At least for 99% of us. No National Service, no taxes paying for it, no sacrifices, no shortages, no need to even pay attention. And we surely don't. We are living in a fools paradise, and now we seem to want to put the morons in charge.

Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet, says “A plague on both your houses.” I feel much the same way about this election. It’s a pity both sides can’t lose. Or that there was no “none of the above” line on the ballot. I did vote (mail-in), but I’m hardily tired of voting for the lesser evil. I must admit, the possibility of Sarah Palin being a presidential candidate in 2012 exerts a strange fascination. I may not be able to control myself. It might be the perfect opportunity to try the greater evil.

When the Gods Fail . . .

On a summer evening in 1968, a friend and I ended up sitting on a crumbling wall of Pueblo Alto, sharing a 6-pack, and watching the sun set over Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. The Park Service, then and now, frowns on that practice, as it does on visitors pocketing pot-shards found amid the ruins – another disreputable activity we engaged in. Back then, however, the Park Service presence in what was Chaco Canyon National Monument (now Chaco Culture National Historical Park) was rather slim, consisting of a single ranger, camping in a tent and standing guard over an 8 x 10 wooden shack that served as a museum.

Below us, spread out in this utterly barren canyon, were the ruins of dozens of abandoned pueblos; some had been as tall as 5-stories, each encompassing hundreds of rooms, indicating that thousands of Indians had to have not only lived here, but scratched out a relatively prosperous life in what now appeared to be totally inhospitable terrain. Now, some 900 years later, only these impressive remains were left. What happened? And what became of these people?

Aside from its monumental architecture, Chaco is a strange place. Take those big, multi-room, pueblos (called “great houses”): almost all are located on the northside of the wash, the “better,” i.e., sunnier side (think warmer winter temperatures – we’d call it “passive solar” these days). On the other side there were also lots of pueblos. In fact, lots more, but of a smaller, one-story, variety that had been the usual “Anasazi” living quarters for hundreds of years previously.

(Anasazi is the name applied to this culture, a culture which existed for over 2000 years in the 4-corners area where Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico come together; the word is usually interpreted as “ancient ones,” but it’s literal meaning, from the Navaho, is "enemy ancestors.")

Each of the “great houses” had hundreds of rooms, but it appears they were never fully occupied. At least not year-round. Pueblo Bonito (top photo), the greatest of the great houses, with some 650-800 rooms (archeologist’s estimates differ, indeed archeologists differ about almost everything concerning Chaco) might have housed thousands, but estimates based on the number of useable hearths reduce that to around 800; and some put it as low as 12 households, perhaps only 70 people. But however many, they were very rich households, for Chaco was a class society, the powerful living in relative splendor on the sunny side of the canyon (great house excavations have yielded luxury items such as turquoise, inlayed sea shells, copper bells, macaw skeletons, etc.), while others made do on the less desirable side of the wash. (We probably don’t have to ask who did most of the construction.)

But year-round occupation by a wealthy few doesn’t preclude occasional occupation by much larger numbers. Along with hundreds of ordinary rooms, Pueblo Bonito had 32 kivas and 3 great kivas – circular chambers specifically designed for ceremonial and religious purposes. A hell of a number if used by only a few families. And then there are roads: virtual highways extending out from Chaco in all directions, with the greatest beginning just north of Bonito (the Great North Road, passing in front of the Pueblo Alto wall we were sitting on). This road is over 30 feet wide – 30 feet in a society without wheels or beasts of burden. And planning. Chaco was first settled around 600 AD; with great house construction beginning about 850 and lasting until the early 1100s. From first to last, over a period of at least 200 years, it seems that Pueblo Bonito was being built with its final appearance always in mind.

Massive monumental construction, a vast road network, outlying satellite communities, trade goods moving over great distances (even much of Chaco’s corn – a basic staple – seems to have been grown at a far remove), a class society . . . it’s clear that Chaco was the administrative, political and religious center of a much wider civilization – an Anasazi Rome. And then around 1130-1150 it all came to an end. All signs of occupation vanish shortly after 1130.

Although archeologists have proposed dozens of theories, drought seems to be the most popular. Tree ring studies show the beginning of a 50-year drought at the time of Chaco abandonment. But there’s a problem. There had been earlier droughts, droughts of equal or greater severity. Why then were the consequences this time so much more severe? Especially since a society so much more powerful and better organized, more advanced in the techniques of irrigation, should have been better prepared to overcome this type of adversity.

Others have proposed invasion by outsiders. But it’s not likely that bands of marauding, much less invading, hunter/gathers, moving on foot, would have made much of an impression on relatively dense, organized, populations of settled agriculturists; populations with stored food reserves. Indeed, raiders would consider themselves lucky to escape alive, especially in the southwest’s open terrain. Think of Mongols invading the middle east – but on foot, without livestock, horses, supplies, superior weapons or organization . . . They’d be dead Mongols.

So if not drought or invaders, what then? Consider environmental destruction. Consider almost 600 years of occupation by large populations utilizing wood fires. Consider pueblo construction and the utilization of over 200,000 trees for lintels and beams. Analysis of packrat burrows have shown the area surrounding Chaco to have been completely deforested by the latter stages of occupation; building timbers were having to be transported from nearly 70 miles away. Think subsequent erosion and arroyo down-cutting rendering irrigation works ineffective. Think lowered water tables, flash flooding, earlier termination of streamflow, and the drying up of springs. And then came drought.

It was probably not pretty. We’re talking starvation and societal breakdown. The gods had failed, and their representatives were no longer creditable. It was not a matter of renting a U-Haul and moving on. It was family against family and clan against clan. A majority, and perhaps very much more than a majority, died in the collapse and ensuing carnage. It’s from this time that archeologists find destroyed kivas (the tops removed – no easy task since roofs were built up as a dome of solid timbers – and the insides burnt out), dismembered bodies and obvious signs of cannibalism. Nothing conveys hate and contempt quite so well as eating the good parts of someone and then defecating on the rest, and on their religious shrines.

Those that did survive moved on to other locations and re-established communal pueblo life. But it was communal life with a difference – pueblos were now situated for defense: cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly (lower photo), or fortress towers placed for mutual support at Hovenweep. Throughout the four-corners area Anasazi now lived in fear. And we have to ask “fear of whom?” Since the argument against outside invaders would still hold, the obvious answer has to be other Anasazi. Only other Anasazi had the resources and numbers to conduct war. This should come as no surprise. When things go belly up it’s your neighbors who will kill you. Just ask the Tutsi in Rwanda, or Polish Jews, or anyone who lived during the 90s in what was “Yugoslavia.”

By 1300 the Anasazi had completely disappeared. Survivors undoubtedly made their way southward to establish new pueblos, usually with other refugees from other failing societies afflicted with similar problems (e.g., the Hohokam and Mogollon). But culture and religion had changed; they were no longer Anasazi.

And now for the moral of this story (of course there has to be a moral!). Does environmental degradation and climate change leading to the destruction of an advanced civilization, a civilization that had lasted for hundreds of years, seem slightly familiar? It should. We ignore what we’re doing to our planet at our peril. Wholesale destruction of species, mindless harvesting of higher life forms from our oceans, exhaustion of the earth’s rivers and the mining of its groundwater, expanding human populations and the quest for a “western” way of life, etc., etc., and so on. These things can’t go on forever. And things that can’t go on forever, don’t.

Ignoring the possibility of climate change doesn’t help. Notice I said “possibility.” I’m convinced, along with almost every scientist studying global warming, that it’s not just a possibility, but reality. But let’s give nay-sayers the benefit of the doubt – the mere possibility alone should justify action. We’re fooling with things we don’t fully understand. We’re in for surprises; and most of them are unlikely to be pleasant. When consequences are dire, only the stupid fail to take precautions.

What were the Anasazi thinking during those last years? Did they turn a blind eye? Did they hope for a technological fix? Or put their faith in prayer? Did they condemn and punish those who pointed out the obvious? What was he thinking, that Easter Islander who cut down the last tree? Or those who fled the abandoned cities of the Mayan Yucatan? Why are there now no cedars in Lebanon? And when did the fertile crescent become unfertile? Perhaps these are things we should start thinking about – in preparation against the day when our gods fail us. As they surely will.
Al

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free . . .”

Or perhaps just wanting to make a buck.

Not that I have anything against immigrants. On the contrary. All my grandparents were immigrants. And our newest recruits are coming here for exactly the same reasons. To better themselves. And their families. To make new lives in a place they deem more hopeful and promising. Nothing at all wrong with that.

The average immigrant is no doubt a lot more admirable than your average American. After all, they’ve examined their lives and not only found something lacking, they got off their dead asses and did something about it. Packed a few belongings and a little money – probably damned little – crossed who knows how many borders, endured lots of adventures – mostly of the unpleasant sort – met lots of strange people, who mostly took advantage of them, and ended up in a strange country with strange customs and a strange language. And that was just getting to the starting line.

Next came the crummy jobs and low wages; living as cheaply as possible in order to save. To send money home or to bring over other family members. All the while keeping one eye open for “La Migra” and being exploited along the way – they are, after all, here illegally with little or no recourse to the law. Totally admirable. And if I could swap ‘em one for one with a few million native-born Americans, I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. (I do believe I might start with “tea-partiers” and those who voted twice for George W. Bush.)

But the important word in “illegal immigrant” is not immigrant, but illegal. It’s not their fault for wanting to come here – and succeeding. It’s our fault for allowing it to happen. And make no mistake, we – the collective we, i.e., our government (the guys – and it’s mostly guys – we elected) and the powers that be – did allow it. Any nation that lets more than 12 million illegal immigrants sneak across its borders was not just being a mite careless, it was knowingly inattentive. It turned the proverbial “blind eye” to the problem.

Stopping illegal immigration, or at least slowing it to a trickle, would have been easy. They came here for jobs. Prevent ‘em from working and most would go home, or not attempt to get here in the first place. (To prove the point, over a million have left since 2008; in other words, when our economy headed south, so did 8% of our illegal population.) But important economic interests wanted those immigrants. Wanted them badly. And better illegal than legal; “obey and stay” is a potent management tool. Cheap and docile labor – what’s not to like if the aim be improving the bottom line.

But it gets even better. The influx kept uppity working-class Americans in line. Kiss off unionization and the things unions fight for: reduced hours, worker’s rights, vacations, grievance procedures; dare I mention health care? Keep those on the lower half of the economic ladder fearful of new-comers willing to work cheaper (and probably harder) and half your labor problems disappear. Managing fearful workers is easier, and a lot more pleasant. And did I mention cheaper?

Oh, there’s a whole lot of talk about how immigration, both legal and illegal, makes everybody better off. Increases GDP, blah, blah, blah. A rising tide lifts all boats, blah, blah, blah. It might even be true; expert opinion remains mixed. But true or untrue isn’t the important point. What is, is that turning a blind eye to illegal immigration creates winners and losers. And Americans occupying our lower economic strata are the losers; with least well-off Americans the biggest losers of all.

Along with American businesses, and those who invest in them, the middle class also won. At a time of rising expectations but stagnating incomes, keeping things cheap with low-wage labor helped make ends meet. It allowed a partial return to those dimly-remembered, halcyon days of affordable domestic help. Child-care, cleaning services, gardeners, repair-folk, not to mention keeping all those minimum wage service jobs competitive and, well, at minimum wage. A wage, least we forget, that decreased by about 40% in purchasing power over the last generation. All helping to keep aspiring two wage-earner, middle class families economically viable.

At least until now. With fear, economic fear, stalking the land, all those little, back-of-the-mind, middle-class worries have been moving frontward. And becoming not so little. Losing your job, your house, having your kids drop out of college, moving – God forbid! – down the economic ladder. Toss in hungry college-educated, professional legal immigrants being brought in by American corporations from places like India, and the export of American white-collar jobs to . . . places like India, and it’s not surprising that immigration is no longer a back-burner issue (think “Arizona”).

We have had an enduring anti-immigrant tradition throughout our history, and it usually peaks whenever high rates of immigration intersect with hard economic times. When it comes to immigrants we have been equal opportunity haters. Take your pick: Germans, Irish, Italians, Slavs, etc. Americans, “native” Americans, have hated ‘em all in turn. And that’s just the Europeans (recall, or re-watch, the Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, movie “Gangs of New York” for the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic, mostly pre-Civil War, version). It’s a tradition that becomes even more xenophobic and racist as immigrant skin color darkens. But it needn’t be.

A nation, any nation, has a right, no, a downright obligation, to protect it’s borders. If it can’t. Or it wouldn’t. It fails a basic test. To believe that the strongest nation in the world, arguably the strongest nation that’s ever been, a nation that spends more on defense than all other nations combined, can’t control immigration is laughable. And everyone knows it (hence, part of the anger). So it’s time to end the farce and face up. Not by building bigger walls (but build ‘em if you must), but by removing the incentive that continually draws illegals across our borders – that they will be able to find jobs.

Whatever it takes. Fine businesses and corporations who hire illegals – fine ‘em heavily (how about $100,000 per illegal per year). Imprison personnel department employees who fail to adequately check, and executives who flaunt the law. Institute an National Identity Card (the idea that this will somehow deprive us of our freedom in an era of facebook, Google, shopping discount cards, required driver license ID, etc. is just plain silly) and a mandatory Social Security check. We don’t have to be harsh to illegal immigrants. Simply make it damn difficult to work, to go to school, to get aid. The harshness can be reserved for those Americans who flaunt the law.

Will things end up costing more? Sure. But perhaps they should. Perhaps a willingness to take on society’s difficult, dirty, back-breaking, physically-enfeebling, mind-numbing jobs deserves a premium wage. Perhaps someone willing to do a job most of us wouldn’t, or physically couldn’t, should be accordingly rewarded. Is sitting on ones fat ass, staring at a computer screen, so much more intrinsically valuable than picking our crops, packaging our food, caring for our elderly, or our young? How did we come to so denigrate hard work as to think it worth only about seven bucks an hour (a single mother with a child, earning a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, makes only enough to keep her at the Federal poverty threshold)?

And keep in mind that the last century has not been very kind to multi-ethnic societies. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires disappeared after the First World War; the British, French, Dutch, etc. Empires followed soon after the Second. And we’ve recently watched the break up of the USSR and Yugoslavia. Don’t look now, but we’re almost the only large multi-ethnic society left. Let’s be honest, 200 years of open US immigration succeeded as well as it did because we were able to form a “condominium of whites,” periodically opening the coalition to subsume each European ethnic group in turn. All in opposition to . . . being brutally frank, the non-whites among us. When “tea baggers” scream about wanting their country back it’s their “white America” they want. Alas for them, that nation is gone forever. And good riddance to it.

But that doesn’t mean they don’t have a point. Assimilation of minorities into our body politic takes time; the more culturally and racially dissimilar, the more time. It would behoove us to move slow – certainly slower than we have over the last generation. If nothing else, our exercise of imperial hubris in Iraq and Afghanistan should have taught us that small differences can become major gulfs when societies undergo stress. We’re no exception. Our current political situation may simply be a foretaste of what’s to come.

So for whatever reason, economic fairness, keeping American jobs for Americans, slowing the pace of cultural transformation, calming fears – both irrational and rational, or simply maintaining the rule of law, we need to end the current mess. We need to remove the incentive and shift the exodus into reverse. And soon.
Al

It's the Economy, Stupid.

Lately, the economic news has not been good. And that’s an understatement. Anemic or negative job growth – in a nation that needs 200,000 to 300,000 new jobs a month just to keep even with a growing work force. Housing sales down 25 percent. You name it. The only good news? Our remaining bankers and Wall Street wizards are doing quite well, thank you.

As might be expected, the bad news is far from evenly distributed. Take unemployment. I listened to a talk on C-span last week stating that the upper echelons of our society were only experiencing a 1-2% unemployment rate, whereas it was over 16% for those on the lower end. I tried to track down these data, but it’s hard to find unemployment figures categorized by the economic class people used to belong to. But there were enough unemployment numbers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/data/) to construct this little graph.

It shows monthly unemployment for the last few years (through July 2010). On the left, according to educational background for those older than 24; On the right, by sex, race and age (16-19, and older than 20). None of it’s good news, but it’s obviously better for white women with Bachelor’s degrees (5% unemployment), then for men with only high school diplomas (10%), or (God help you!) a black kid who left without graduating (45%). The more education, the better your employment chances; whites are doing better than blacks; and women better than men. No surprises there – except perhaps the last one.

But official figures are the best part of the bad news. The worst part being that they are far too optimistic: they don’t include those who have given up active job hunting, nor those, who can’t find full-time jobs, working only part-time (our government makes no distinction between part- or full-time employment: if you’re working you’re not unemployed). And there is no end in sight. No one, except possibly those shilling for the Obama administration, thinks better news is just around the corner. Even optimists see substantial improvement only by 2014 or 2016; the pessimists, not until 2020; and the real pessimists believe that a good portion of those lost jobs may never come back.

Unemployment, of course, is a tragedy for those who have lost their jobs. Our most basic question of one another is, “what do you do?” The implication being if you do nothing, you are nothing. Ask any woman who has had to reply “I’m ‘just’ a housewife.” But it’s a tragedy for the rest of us too. We are a society accustomed to smoothing over our various fractures and discontents with continual growth – we are a “bigger pie” nation. Not very good at readjusting the size of the various slices, much less slices of a shrinking pie. Our Pledge states: “one nation, indivisible . . . “ But that’s always been a hope, not a fact. We are anything but. Neither are we a nation inured to adversity.

High unemployment – long-lasting high unemployment – is a recipe for civil discontent and a breakdown of societal norms. For increased fear and anger. We are probably seeing some of it already. But not among those who have lost the most. The “Tea-Partiers” are not mostly young, black or disadvantaged. They’re mostly white, older and well-to-do. But the fear and anger are very real.

And the morons, i.e., the Republican Party, are playing with fire. It’s one thing to be against something, quite another to solve problems once you achieve power. You have to believe in fairy tales to think that their time-honored nonsense – free the free market, lower taxes, cut social spending, fix the deficit – offers any solution for current problems. Repeating Herbert Hoover’s prescription for getting out of the Depression is unlikely to work better the second time around. Combining “up the establishment” with “populism” may not prove to be all that clever.

What about the Democrats? Well, give them some credit. Obama and most of the congressional democrats tried, but their feeble and relatively feckless efforts seem to have fallen far short. The “stimulus” was too small and included little of the “infrastructure reconstruction” it was touted to finance. Injecting money into the banks turned out to be not quite the same as injecting money into the economy. Failure to allow bankruptcy judges to adjust mortgages downwards, and give-aways like “cash-for-clunkers” and “first-time home buyer credits,” seemingly emphasized the unfairness of it all, and may simply have increased the anger of those who didn’t benefit.

They have fought hard – and it’s become an increasingly harder fight – for the continuation of unemployment benefits, perhaps the most efficient way to inject money into an economy. So thank ‘em for that. I could go on, but why bother. A majority, perhaps even most, of the congressional Democrats wanted to do better, and would have had the votes been there – and had the administration been more supportive. Unfortunately, come November and the mid-term elections, these are probably the ones who will suffer most.

As for what comes next? Your guess is as good as mine. But I wouldn’t be living up to my chicken-little reputation if I thought the next news would be good news, and it will all turn out swell.
Al

I’ve read lots of book on the economic crash of 2007-09, perhaps because I’m into doom and gloom; or because it just might prove to be the transformational event of our times; or maybe because I’m the son of Depression Era parents for whom an earlier crash was the transformational event.

So let me make a recommendation: Read “I. O. U.” by John Lanchester (its British title, “Whoops,” is far more apt and descriptive). It’s clearly – nay, elegantly – written. It’s simple and short, and to the point. Lanchester, a novelist (winner of the Whitbread Prize) and sometime columnist, has written the absolutely best book on what happened. The best book that’s ever likely to be written. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s wickedly funny (perhaps not to those he skewers). (You can also watch him on a youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0RbK2kuN2c but Lanchester writes better than he lectures.)

I’ve read other books worthy of mention, “Crisis Economics”, by Nouriel Roubini (one of the few economists who predicted what was going to happen), “Freefall”, by Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel Prize winning economist whom I always read, but not the most elegant writer), and “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008”, by Paul Krugman (NY Times op-ed columnist and another Nobel winner I always read). All worth getting, but none should be considered “easy reading.” “Diary of a Very Bad Year: Confessions of an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager” (by Keith Gessen), however, is. It’s a series of transcribed conversations between said hedge fund manager and a not very knowledgeable reporter, conducted as the crisis unfolded. It would be my second pick for those wanting to be informed, but without feeling that they’ve signed up for a college course.

Democracy . . .

“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”

The quote is from George Bernard Shaw. And it’s something our founding fathers fervently believed. Which is why they considered the word “democracy” a curse. More than four letters, but an obscenity nonetheless. When they framed the Constitution they did their very best to insure we’d have none of it.

For that “no taxation without representation” bit, left over from the Revolution, they gave us a House of Representatives. It would have the first word over finances. But all else, including the last word on everything, would reside in the Senate. Their finest creation.

First, they made sure that the smallest state would count for as much as the largest; e.g., that economic powerhouse of the Great Plains, that hot-bed of culture, that home to countless millions, North Dakota, has as much influence as California or New York. Next, the slave states would always have an edge. Slaves were property, not humans. Except when it came to determining how many representatives each state would have in that House of Representatives, and, least we forget, who would be elected President. Then each slave would count as 3/5 of a human being. Zero when it came to being human, 60% when it came to counting. Which is why, until the election of Lincoln, every President of the United States was either a southerner, or southern sympathizer (otherwise known as a fan of slavery). Except two: the two Adamses. Guess how successful each of their single terms were?

Not that elections were ever to be decided by one-man-one-vote, but by one-landowning-white-man-one-vote (women, of course, along with poor men or men of whatever other shade, need never think of applying). But even this kind of election was not to be used to elect Senators or the President. Oh no, that might not keep dreaded democracy far enough away. Those elections were left to the state legislatures or special Presidential electors. The Senate election business wouldn’t be changed until 1914 (more than a century later by the 17th Amendment; yep, the same one our present day tea-baggers want to reverse); and we still live with the presidential electoral vote nonsense – thank you very much, founders, for George Bush. And as icing on the cake, they gave Senators a six-year term vs. two-years for a congressional representative.

We’ve been able to change very little of this in the 223 years since; the dead hand of these old white men still dictates how our laws are made. I could go on about how the Senate itself proceeded to put together a rulebook to further reinforce it’s anti-democratic character – thanks, guys (it’s still mostly men) for the filibuster, etc. – but why bother. Because the real irony is that the founding fathers need never have worried. George Bernard Shaw was wrong: you can’t depend on Paul to vote in his own interest. Matter of fact, with a little investment of time and effort – and lets not forget money, never forget money – it turns out you can even convince Paul that he needs to rob himself and give yet more to Peter.

How? Just confuse ‘em about which side they should be on. Here’s what a recognized expert had to say about getting representative democratic government to jump on the bandwagon for war: "Oh, that’s all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That’s easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Call it “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” call it “the Death Tax,” or call “Obama’s Death Panels.” Or “Government is the Enemy.” As if. Government is the only chance we’ve got. If it comes down to you vs. big oil. Or you vs. Citibank. Or you vs. what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial” complex. My money will not be on you. Get enough talking heads in suits-and-ties (or, these days, nice dresses) to shout long enough and hard enough and there you are. Details? Who needs sniveling details? Winning the sound bite war is usually enough.

And who was the recognized expert? Why Hermann Goering, of late, unlamented, Third Reich and Luftwaffe fame. I’ll end with another quote, this one from James Bovard, a libertarian author and lecturer.

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

You’ll have to make up your own mind, but to me those two wolves might just be named Republican and Democrat. And that sheep? That sheep, my dear readers, is us.