Vulture Capitalism

Vultures, we understand, are nature's useful dead flesh eaters. They soar high in a blue California sky, occasionally joined by their even larger cousins, the condors. I don't know if they are protected, but I would never harm one. They perch near the dying, then consume the carrion, recycling the calories, leaving behind nothing but bones and a little skin. Also I would never take a turkey vulture home because they stink of rotting meat and death.

Mitty Romney devoted his short working life to running up his inherited wealth, perching near companies in trouble, selling off their assets, taking out huge loans, then eating the dying companies, leaving behind only skin and bones. In some cases this sort of thing is probably needed in a capitalist economy. Maybe its useful. It's legal. But you wouldn't make a vulture President--he stinks of death.

Mitty Romney's Stand up Comedy

In the last day or two we've gotten a taste of Mitty Romney's sense of humor. He started by telling us that he "enjoyed" being able to fire people whose services didn't meet his needs (he was discussing health care). Romney was half-smiling, being daring. Many of us have changed doctors or dentists at one time or another, of course, but how many of us actually "enjoy" firing people? How oblivious do you have to be in order to take pleasure in crushing care providers?

In Romney's circle everyone who counts is rich. They might get his jokes. (Romney ranks as about the 3,000th richest person in the USA.)

For his next joke, Romney told us that during his senate campaign against Ted Kennedy, he spent so much money that he forced Kennedy to raise opposition money by mortgaging his house. That anecdote, a real knee slapper, was meant to endear Romney to the Republican primary voters by mocking the departed Massachusetts liberal.

Have we ever seen a major Presidential candidate with less ability to relate to voters with ordinary incomes?

The Psychopathy Checklist

I don't put much stock in Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist, but just for fun we might want to check it against some of our political and corporate leaders. Hare estimates that about three million Americans are psychopaths. That means that if you go to a Santa Rosa Symphony concert, there are probably about three psychopaths in the audience and maybe one leading the orchestra. Keep in mind that psychopaths are often "deciders" who exhibit what humans call "leadership."

Leaders suffering from aggressive narcissism show many of the symptoms listed below:

• Glibness or superficial charm
• A grandiose sense of self-worth and pathological lying
  
• Cunning/ manipulative skills
• Lack of remorse or guilt for antisocial outcomes of their behavior.
• Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and self-centered)
• Callousness; lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

It's easy to point to examples of people who are glib, cunning, lack remorse and fail to accept responsibility for their own actions: Dick Cheney, Ralph Nader, Michele Bachmann, Noam Chomsky, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, most corporate CEOs, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, Paris Hilton, Ron and Rand Paul and so on.

Many of us are eager to follow at least one or two of them, aren't we?

No One Celebrates

People who said that it would make no difference if Obama or McCain won the Presidency, might want to consider the following message from President Obama.

"Early this morning, the last of our troops left Iraq. As we honor and reflect on the sacrifices that millions of men and women made for this war, I wanted to make sure you heard the news. Bringing this war to a responsible end was a cause that sparked many Americans to get involved in the political process for the first time. Today's outcome is a reminder that we all have a stake in our country's future, and a say in the direction we choose."

John McCain, outraged, has protested. He wanted the war to continue endlessly.

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We don't say it out loud, but the sacrifices made by our men and women and by the Iraqis were made for nothing. They died for nothing. The war was pointless, except that it made certain rich Republicans even richer. What we hear today, a few days after leaving Iraq, is that the Shia President has begun to crush the Sunni minority. As many predicted, the outcome in Iraq may be a new dictatorship to replace the old dictatorship, the real difference being that the new dictator will befriend Iran.

We can't face pointless deaths in an open way, but a war has ended and no one is celebrating.

Teabagger Studies

Studies of teabaggers have begun to reach us, and we can begin to form a more accurate picture of them. For instance, the Teabaggers have always been Radical Right Republicans and always will be. They have never voted for Democrats.

Teabaggers are old. They have no youth branch, but if they did they would look down on it because young people are not old. Teabaggers regard young people as fools.

Teabaggers approve of government programs to support wise old white semi-literate people. They disapprove of programs to help children, people of color and young adults. They don't care for public education, prenatal health counseling, student loans, etc. These things are, in the Teabagger's view, undeserved freeloading.

Teabaggers are as white as polished rice but not as smooth to touch.

Teabaggers like Newt Gingrich because he is an authentic butt-head who looks wisely ancient. Newt is their idea of an intellectual leader, someone has noted.

Teabaggers disapprove of the sciences and rational discussion. In their view, the idea that some people are better informed than others undermines democracy, which depends on a belief that all old men are equally wise.

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This is a curious era in the sense that we have a block of ignorant old people who dislike the young vs. a larger and growing block of young voters looking for change. Perhaps that is always the case, but seldom has the division been so stark. The election in 2012 will decide a generational struggle. The next year should be fascinating.

Free Yourself

The great American revolution of the 2oth century went unnoticed by many of us, because it was silent and leaderless. In 1900 about 90% of black people in America lived in the South, where they were denied citizenship. In the 1920s, for example, if you were a black motorist, you were forbidden by law, in much of the South, to pass a white motorist on the road. Over the next 50 years about half the blacks, deciding one at a time, moved out. They freed themselves.

Bloomberg the Book Burner

Have you ever wondered what Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC is up to? I haven't.

I mean, until now. Bloomberg's a billionaire and a five foot pile of horseshit in a wig. My guess is that he bought himself a political job to get more face time on camera.

Last week he confiscated the donated 5,000 copy library of Occupy Wall Street and had it destroyed. That makes him Bloomberg the Book Burner. He did this, he claimed, to protect the citizens of New York, which he accomplishes by assaulting those citizens with hordes of large blue men wielding batons and pepper spray against children and old ladies.

Bloomberg is a typical American mayor, funded by real estate interests. By "protecting citizens" what he means is "protecting the system run by the 1%." A few people in tents are pushing for changes in the system--so tenting must be against the law and punishable by street justice. If you tent in NYC, Billionaire Bloomberg will beat you black and blue.

Big Window

I like to amuse the Peace Project's Bob Boardman with new facts (new to me). The last time we had dinner together, about ten days ago, he spent most of the meal staring out the Big Window. I finally told him that 100,000 Jews (half Jews and quarter Jews) had fought in Hitler's army. "I didn't know that," he said, glancing at me, then resuming his stare.

A few years back Bob decided to bike in the AIDS ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. He hadn't done much serious cycling, so the little bike club I belong to provided people for him to train with.

Anyway, Bob loves this club. Until recently he has joined us on twice-a-week excursions, where the point is to play like kids and then stop and eat something sweet. Bob fell on the trail for no apparent reason on his last ride. I suspect that he fell because he'd started to look through the Big Window. That's no way to ride a bike.

When Bob steps through the Window, everything will change. Nothing can stop that. The way I see it, we're here only once, so we should be good to each other right now. We won't get another turn. That is, more or less, my politics. Bob Boardman--no one better--has gotten his turn right.

Not Enough Jobs

We've seen the new Sonoma County pension proposal made by Supervisors Shirlee Zane and David Rabbit, and it is conventional, thoughtless and a good illustration of why the Democrats will have a hard time enlisting the 99%ers into their party. The Tea Party fled immediately into the arms of the Republicans because they were Republicans to start with and because the Tea Party wanted funding from Wall Street. Now the Democrats hope for a similar boost from the 99%ers, but they won't get it unless they figure out why the 99ers are in revolt. So far they haven't.

The county Democrats plan to reduce benefits for county employees (a Republican concept involving punishing the poor for the sins of the rich) and to increase the age of retirement (guaranteed to reduce employment slots for young people). The elected Democrats are not getting the message--they listen to corporate campaign donors, not to ordinary people.

The basic problem is that there are 7 billion people on the planet and not enough jobs to go around. The Democratic Party response is to make the lucky folks who have jobs keep them longer, shutting out newcomers. That's senseless.

We live in an age where technology ends more jobs than it creates (see RACE AGAINST THE MACHINE by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee). That is our future, except that it's going to get worse. Robots are more profitable than human workers. Our current economic system depends on everyone working to earn money so we can purchase products etc. And the system is failing because many cannot find work. An estimated 2 billion people on this planet go to bed hungry each night.

There are quick temporary fixes for the relatively rich Western World. We could cut the work week to 35 hours and have instant full employment. We could make the retirement age 55 and have full employment. But our ideology--when times get tough, America punishes the poor--forbids these answers. Our political class doesn't get it (or doesn't want to). Almost no one in power is listening. Finding humane answers is left the powerless.