Taxidreamy

Bear with me; before I’m done here, I’m going to justify the graduated income tax.


But first, I need to relate an old Steve Martin joke:

Steve Martin

How do you make a million dollars and not pay any income tax?

First, yougetamilliondollars.

Then, when the tax man comes around and asks why you pay no taxes, you simply say: “I…FORGOT!”

Well, the humor was more in his delivery, you know, with the arrow-through-the-head gag and that I’m-smarter-than-you smirk on his face.

Anyway, to return to my premise, I’m not exactly going to justify the income part of the tax, just the graduated part, so—

First, yougetanincometax.

Then, when the rich people come around and say they shouldn’t have to pay more, you say, “OH, YEAH!?”

Except, then I would add,  Just chafe on this:

As Speaker-in-Waiting Representative John Boehner has sniffled, it’s all about The American Dream.

But there’s only so much American Dream to go around. And the rich people have more of it.

I don’t mean to be glib; I’ll elaborate.

Let’s take just one part of The American Dream: home ownership.

Homes require real estate. Real estate has finite limits. Rich people own more of it. Other people, of physical necessity, are left with less. See the disparity?

Nor can all of us grow up to be the President of the United States.

Because there’s only one president for a four-year term and there are 300 million of us. It would take 1,200,000,000 years. Ain’t gonna happen. Not surprisingly, rich people tend to be presidents.

Or how about wealth itself?

It’s an unfortunate part of the nature of wealth that, in order to have it, you must have something to which you can compare it. That something is non-wealth or lesser affluence. In bald terms, the only way you know you’re rich is if there are poor people. That's why even my pension would make me a rich man in some destitute corners of this planet.

But this is America. And American wealth is some of the wealthiest wealth, so to speak. We Americans make it so.

Do you get it?

America, the United States, is not a dream. It’s a real thing with defined geographic limits, finite amounts of natural resources, limited beachside property, just so much fresh water, operating in fixed time, with a restricted field of most things measurable. Because of those limits, wealthy people don't have just a larger share, they have a disproportionate piece of that America; the only way they can have more is if we have less.

Meanwhile, the rest of us make it possible. By our profit-creating labor. By our adherence to our code of laws and justice—including property rights. By paying taxes. By purchasing goods and services. By our investments. By borrowing money or using credit cards and paying interest. By electing rich people to national office. By manning (yes, and woman-ing) our armed forces. By fighting and dying in America’s wars.

We create the wealth. We sustain the wealth. We defend the wealth. We are the wealth.

Without Americans, there is no American Dream.

Taxes are the basic price of that dream.

But a premium dream comes with a premium price. It’s the American way.

!

Don’t get me started: Sydney or the Bush!

In the midst of all the maneuvering, manipulating and monkey business over renewing the Bush Tax Cuts, I can offer a sure-fire, never-miss program that will guarantee that the wealthiest Americans reinvest in our economy:
    1. Tax them.
    2. Spend the money.

No muss, no fuss. And with much more immediate economic effect than the never-has-worked-yet “trickle down” theory—what a crock that is!

Let’s face it: the reason the richest Americans are so wealthy is because the rest of us have been supporting them, not just with our labor, but also by shouldering up and soldiering for an America that allows them to accumulate that sort of fortune.

Beyond that, can you tell me that the sweat on their brows is worth $15,000,000 a year, while the sweat on yours is worth only $15,000?

Give me a break!

I’ll tell you what: there’s a “trickle up” theory that has already been proven. Let’s invest in that.

!

Given the finger

Research results, published in today’s edition of the on-line news summary Science Daily, lend further support to the genetic determination of personality and behavior.

In an ongoing study at Britain’s Teesside University, it has been noted that relative finger size, in which the ring finger is compared to the index finger, a ratio determined by the amount of testosterone exposure before birth, can be an indicator of “mental toughness” and sports acuity later in life. Specifically, the longer the ring finger is in comparison to the index finger, the more this sports and mental toughness trait manifests itself.

I had read of a similar study some years ago in which it was found that these finger length ratios were related to sports ability. This type of data is what has helped me to conclude that our personality and behavior is governed by our own specific biology more than anything else.

For me this has significant implications regarding many common assumptions. For instance, if certain criminal behaviors are primarily the result of biological influences, no amount of incarceration, rehabilitative or otherwise, is going to be successful in correcting it on a wide scale.

In practical application, it may mean that we need to rethink our approach to criminal justice. Perhaps direct medical intervention would be more effective in deterrence. I’m just saying.

It may also suggest that finding true compromise in political controversies may be as easy as convincing the other side to grow taller.

Or that cultures whose members identify more with their social roles will be unlikely to embrace the customs and traditions of a society based on rugged individualism.

Or that there may be actual physical differences between peoples that see themselves as part of nature and groups that see nature as something in opposition that must be subdued.

The relevance would reach all facets of human interaction—if we can accept ourselves in this way.

!

Season’s Greetings

Recently I received an email, forwarded by a friend to a long mailing list, which challenged me to declare my preference: “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas.”

The gist of this message was that "Happy Holidays" was used only to be politically correct while "Merry Christmas" was the preferred greeting for the vast majority of people, a majority being manipulated and put upon by the PC few.

Each recipient was urged to include his or her name on a list, below the message, and indicate the preferred greeting, then forward the message to their own email address list. The roll of greetings that followed had 148 names entered. Every entry included a “Merry Christmas.”

I didn’t forward the message, but I did write back to my friend:

As it happens, my standard greeting of "Happy Holidays" has been meant to include the season extending from Thanksgiving to the New Year. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I wish folks a "Merry Christmas." In any case, I don't see any serious religious connotation to merriment.

Nonetheless, when I was the boss at the hospice, I instructed our chaplain to offer a non-denominational prayer at our Tree of Lights ceremony; I knew folks of non-Christian faiths had contributed and would be in attendance. I never pictured this as politically correct—it was simply courteous. It was the prayer that was important, not the formula. (Even the Lord's own Prayer is non-denominational.)

It became part of our hospice lore when, that first year, our chaplain, of Baptist persuasion, began to close his meaningful, nearly poetic prayer with what I'm sure was almost hard-wired phrasing: "This we ask You in the name of, uh...," and he paused awkwardly before the assemblage. He realized too late that his beautiful non-sectarian effort was about to crash and burn. He stumbled through some patched together neutral closing words—and we never let him forget it. "Hey, Jim, tell us about that time you couldn't remember Jesus' name."

The tree itself was called "of Lights" because the emphasis was the lights memorializing our former patients. Their families were our most frequent contributors; a book containing those patients' names was part of the memorial. Obviously, it was a "Holiday" season fund-raiser that would have seemed silly if not for the association with the "Christmas" tree—a holiday custom which, by the way, may have its roots in "pagan" ceremonies. Go figure. 

I think the Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas controversy is a manufactured product. The two phrases have different meanings, different uses. From a Christmas-spirit point of view, at best, it can be quibbling. At worst, it can pervert that spirit of love and inclusion for which Jesus was born—and died. It always saddens me when people try to turn Christianity into a weapon of exclusion and division.

I'm sure most folks see this issue as a matter of Christian pride—but those two words really don't go together.

Amen.

!

Man oh man!

What a piece of work is a man!

How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty,

in form and moving how express and admirable,

in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god—

the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 2, scene 2

I’ve been having some issues with my writing style lately.

I began using the outline layout because I thought my message was being obscured by my prose style. The numbered paragraphs were meant to make each point stand out.

But there’s no flow to it; it’s like climbing stairs when what I’m after is more of a stroll in the park. And it’s pretty impersonal.

I’m up in the air about this because what I’ve been trying to convey are, to me anyway, some very significant ideas, concepts that have shaped my life, especially over the last decade. Exactly how to get these ideas across has had me a bit flummoxed.

So I’m doing a reboot on my approach. I’m going to fall back on the style I used in my emails with my friend the Otter; I'm comfortable with it and he seldom complains.

Let’s get into it.

I want to talk about our vanity. No, not just vanity—arrogance. That’s a subject with which I have some first-hand experience.

Let me tell you what I consider our ultimate arrogance: that many of us believe that we are created in the image of God. 

In the image of God. Just wrap your mind around that for a minute. Go ahead, take a moment….

Feeling god-like? Okay, now let me compound that conceit: the reason we know that we are created in God’s image is because we believe that God told us so.

That's right. We know we are created in God's image because God told us. Who can argue with that?

Well, me, I guess.

For many of us, the source for this message of creation is the book of Genesis.

The book of Genesis, written, we generally agree, by one or more human authors—divinely inspired authors, any true believer will insist.

My problem is this: whether it’s true or not, we would still believe it.

Go ahead, dwell on that notion for a bit: if it wasn't true, we'd still believe it was.

And, even more, it seems a mighty convenient dogma in either case.

Quite the conundrum, I'm thinking.

Well, I reckon that’s enough for now. I’d welcome discussion, if a reader would be so inclined.

That feels better. I think this approach comes much closer to what I’m after. By the way, this whole style business is why I didn’t post last week; I was still rasslin’ with the problem. So, my apology for missing my self-imposed deadline.

!

Free will*

*Does not include administrative fees, shipping and handling or dealer prep.

So, where do several weeks of my psycho-socio biobabble leave us?

Perhaps with the notion that our so-called free will is not so free after all.

Think about it. If you can.

!

Psycho-Sociobiology 101: Is that all there is?

Here’s what it boils down to:

1. Each of us has a unique experience of life because each of us has a singular genetic structure, including our brain and other organs and, to some degree, because of our particular life circumstances.
2. We share some similarities with one another, most noticeably within families, but on a broader scale as well, within discernible ethnic and racial groups. These similarities can include physical, perceptual, emotional and behavioral traits.
3. There are other broad groupings of similarities and differences in these traits, among them:
1. Gender
2. Culture
3. Social group assimilation, i.e., group vs. individual
4. Sexual preferences
5. Age
6. Societal interests, concerns and goals, e.g., liberal or conservative, etc.
4. Our physical traits, including our brains and the way each unique brain perceives, processes, stores and dispatches, cause our behaviors, including emotions to which we respond.
5. To the degree that our brain (and body) is similar to or different from others will largely define similarities or differences in behavior among individuals and groups.
6. Changing these differences and similarities is as simple as changing your brain structure.
7. Think about it.

Psychobiology 101: It is what it is.

When I was a kid, I used to wonder if everyone saw colors the same way. Was the color blue seen the same by everyone? How would we know if it wasn’t?

Much later, I had a sweater. It was woven from multi-color yarn and it was loose and comfortable; it became my favorite. Typical of favorite garments, after a few years it began to show its age.

One evening we were getting ready to go out to some friends’ house for dinner and my wife asked me what I was going to wear. I told her I planned to wear my favorite blue sweater.

She asked, “What blue sweater?”

I said, “You know, the blue pullover, the crew neck that I like.”

She said, “You mean that green one?”

I said, “No, the blue one.”

“What blue one? Show me.”

I pulled the sweater on and said, “Ta-Da!”

She said, “That’s a green sweater and you’re not wearing that ratty old thing out of the house.”

I was immediately interested in our differing descriptions of the sweater—the color, that is; it was definitely ratty.

I went into the bathroom and looked at the sweater in the mirror. Multi-color it was, but it seemed predominantly blue to me.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this blue-green controversy so, to further my research, I went to our teenage daughter’s room. I asked her, if she had to use just one color to describe the sweater, what would it be.

She pondered a few seconds and said, “I suppose brown, or maybe rust. You’re not going to wear that tonight, are you?”

The only thing I was sure of was that I was not going to wear that sweater to go out that evening.

Some years later, though, I became certain of this: to a greater or lesser degree, we all experience existence—life—each in our own unique way.

Absent with outleave.

Excuses posted at Uncle Genie.

Biology 101: We are what we are.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that family members usually, though not always, tend to bear some physical resemblance to one another. Skin tone, eye and hair color, facial features, height, and even more abstract characteristics such as personal interests or intelligence can contribute to recognizable family traits.

 

A close friend had chuckled when she saw a home movie of my father, whom she had never met, walking on the beach in his swim trunks. My friend found it amusing that I walked with the same rolling, slightly bowlegged gait that my father had. As it was, I was pleased by this connection to my Dad, who had died while I was still a teenager.

Thinking about this link made me realize something else. Since my father had never insisted that I should specifically imitate his walk, I recognized that my body structure—bones and muscles, their particular lengths, shapes and placement—were traits that I’d inherited from my father and caused me to move in a similar fashion.

What I learned from all this was that my resemblance to and variation from other people were due to very definite physical attributes, inherited, not learned. For example, one can not teach a child to change his or her eye color. While this may appear mundane and obvious, there are more subtle applications with much greater relevance that I’ll demonstrate as we go along.

Years later, when I was working in mental health, I had occasion to study brain trauma and its effects. I learned that certain behavioral patterns, called “risk-taking” behaviors, were associated with a higher incidence of brain trauma. In other words, folks who, for instance, liked to drive fast, more often found themselves in head-crashing accidents.

I also read that researchers had identified a genetic marker that is associated with such risk-taking behavior.

That information, coupled with some reading from the extraordinary amount of brain research that had been done world-wide in the 1990s, helped me understand that human brains are as subject to physical and functional similarities and differences as any other body part. Moreover, it was obvious these differences and similarities are largely responsible for normal or anomalous behavior as well.

More specifically, people feel and behave in different ways for the most part because their brains are different.

That has some very significant ramifications. Think about it.

Easy for you to say

Call it global warming, or climate change or a big hoax. It really doesn’t matter.

But two things are absolutely certain:

1

No matter how much it costs to deal with it now, the cost is only going up—exponentially.

2

We are betting the quality of life—and many actual lives—of our children and grandchildren on the outcome.

Don’t get me started: What unfair competition?

I’m giving the gray matter a rest this week and figured I’d rant on another issue that ticks me off whenever I hear it suggested: it’s unfair competition when the government enters the business arena.

Talk about a no-brainer. I have several ways to answer this. I'll open with the most sarcastic.

• Wah-wah-wah! Quit your whining! Didn’t your mother ever tell you that life isn’t fair?

• I thought you said that business ran things so much better than government. So what are you afraid of?

• But finally—so what?

If we, the people, decide something is better done by us, then that’s really all there is to it. I mean, have you read the Constitution? Does it say that our purpose is to coddle businesses and corporations? Are they even mentioned anywhere, other than being subject to regulation?

Want to know what the Constitution is about, what our government is about? Then just read the preamble, because it’s stated clearly: we, the people, intend to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Private businesses and corporations are privileged to operate within those purposes. That whole “fairness” issue is a hot crock of monkey snot!

Publishing Note

UGOB is having trouble with my ethernet drivers and I've been unable to maintain a dependable net connection. This has interrupted the publishing schedule I attempt to keep. I'm working on it.

But here's an interesting dilemma: most of the recommended repair strategies require net access.

Free Speech! Offer Ends Soon!

As previously noted (Free speech isn’t free, June 9, 2010)

In every way, the first major problem with politics is money.

Primarily, our elected federal officials (we’ll stick to discussing the federal system for now) need considerable money for their election and re-election campaigns. In many cases, this means millions upon millions of dollars. In almost all campaigns, this money is donated by individuals and groups concerned with—and now invested in—the outcome of the election.

Two questions come to mind:

• What do the donors expect as a result of their contributions?

• What is the candidate willing to do to attract more donations?

Let’s see now, shall we take the high road or the low road?

Tell you what—I’m willing to bet that you can imagine the scenery along either route, so let’s just skip a bunch of superfluous prose. But I will put some spin on it:

Basically, what we uphold for our elected federal officials is a system of legalized bribery.

It is, perhaps, the fairest, most regulated, openly divested bribery system that humankind has yet devised—but it is still bribery. We have proudly institutionalized corruption and venality. (Aren’t we just the greatest country in the world?)

Unhappily, under a Constitution designed to guarantee rule by law and a one person-one vote system, this muddies things up considerably. The entire elective structure appears to be influenced by that freakish derangement of the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

Our toleration of this system says all that needs to be said about our political ideals and social morals.

So here’s what I propose —

 UGOB EDIT NOTE: The finance system that I had intended to outline here, having relevant similarities to the one mentioned below, appears to have been made moot by a federal appeals court decision this past Tuesday. The following excerpt from a Wednesday New York Times article summarizes the situation.

The Connecticut decision, by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, struck down the “trigger provision” of the state’s campaign finance system, which allowed extra public funds for candidates running against opponents who do not participate in the system and who spend more than the system’s limits. The more the rich candidate spends, the more public money his or her opponent gets. Though the playing field is hardly even, the law does give nonwealthy candidates a fighting chance to compete.

The appeals court found that the campaign finance system violated the First Amendment rights of wealthy candidates. Never mind that nothing in the system prohibited such candidates from speaking or spending all they want; the court said that by awarding additional funds to opponents, the system caused a self-financed candidate to “shoulder a special and potentially significant burden if she chooses to exercise her First Amendment right to spend personal funds on her campaign.”

Here is the lesson I take from this: the First Amendment guarantees free speech, not equal speech. Or something. Maybe this will be appealed to the Supreme Court. Even so ...

Back to the drawing board.

How to win friends and influence people who want to kill us.

Here’s what happened in Afghanistan: we took a highly influential, right-wing, religious fundamentalist political party, the Taliban, from being quasi-rulers and turned them into mountain guerillas who are in little danger of extinction. We did this by destroying or capturing their governing infrastructure while allowing a sizeable portion of their personnel to escape. Nonetheless, if our goal was to remove the Taliban from control in Afghanistan so that major al-Qaeda terrorist groups no longer enjoyed government protection, then we succeeded.

What can we do now?

Plan A. Declare victory. Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan. If the Taliban successfully reoccupy their former stations and decide to support more international terrorism, then do the same thing we did before, but try not to let anyone escape this time.

Plan B. Escalate our current military response. Scorch the earth wherever there are Taliban to be found. And then, because it will be the obvious next problem, find all of their relatives and kill them, too. Then kill anyone else likely to be sympathetic to Taliban beliefs or who are related to the innocent bystanders who were killed collaterally in the scorched earth campaign. After that, kill all the Muslims who think we are being anti-Islamic. And then kill everyone else who ends up hating us because of what we’ve done or who just hate us because of our freedom. Only then will the world be safe for democracy—at least for a few days.

OK, so Plan B is mostly just a rant. It won’t be my last.

Plan C. Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep doing what we’re doing. Keep….

Plan D. Stop being so gob-smacking stupid.

“They hate us for our freedom.” That has got to be the dumbest, lamest, baldest, most manipulative and strikingly concise piece of false propaganda I’ve ever heard. If you believe that, then you’ve been sold a pig in a poke.

Listen up: If you want to win, then you’d better know what drives your opponent, and this opponent doesn’t give a rat’s sass about our freedom.

But what they do hate is what they perceive as our political, cultural, corporate, economic and military influence, intimidation, interference and invasions in and of Islamic countries.

And how do we know this? Because those al-Qaeda terrorists, the criminals the Taliban allowed to shelter in Afghanistan, told us.

They told us not just in the controversial video tapes of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, but even more clearly in their choice of targets over nearly ten years of attacks.

• 1992, Aden, Yemen; two hotels that were expected to be housing American troops; the troops bivouacked elsewhere.
• 1993, New York City; first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center.
• 1996, Manila, the Philippines; thwarted (at the last minute) attempt to assassinate then President Bill Clinton during his visit there.
• 1998, Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies.
• 2000, Aden, Yemen; attack on the guided missile destroyer USS Cole.
• 2001, New York City and Washington, D.C.; simultaneous attacks on the World Trade Center (second attempt), the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol (thwarted). 

For al-Qaeda, these were carefully chosen, symbolic targets. They exemplified our military, political and economic predominance throughout the world, especially in Islamic regions. And none of these targets symbolize freedom.

If someone wanted to attack symbols of our freedom, obvious choices are available, among others:

• the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor
• Independence Hall and the nearby Liberty Bell, part of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia
• the Washington Monument, on the Mall in D.C.
• the National Archives Exhibition Hall in Washington, D.C., housing original copies of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights
• “Old Ironsides,” the square-rigged frigate USS Constitution, in Boston Harbor
• the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston
• Fort McHenry National Monument near Baltimore, inspiration for our national anthem. 

No, al-Qaeda doesn’t hate our freedom. Their message is clear. As they see it, there is an entirely different set of problems having to do with oppressive and exploitive policies and actions on our part. That’s what has them miffed.

I do not pass judgment on the valdity of al-Qaeda’s complaints, but I vehemently condemn their acts of criminal terror. They have stooped to become what they denounce. Middle Eastern hypocrisy is just as disgusting as the western brand, no matter what name is used to call upon the Deity in justification.

However, I do have some questions: Why did many of our political leaders try to sell us a bill of goods about al-Qaeda’s motives? Were they too stupid to figure it out? Or did they just want to lead us around by the nose so they could pursue their own agendas? And did they think we’d be too stupid to figure that out?

Plan E. Give the President, Vice-President and each of our Senators and Representatives an M-4 carbine and a sack of grenades and send them to Afghanistan. Trust me, that war will be over before they touch down in Kabul. And we’ll have won.

Plan F. Starts with us looking in the mirror.

Spare Thoughts: Could it be? (A UGOB Extra)

As promised, here is one idle speculation as to why we still have significant concentrations of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It came to me last year when I was looking at a map (a better map than this one, fortunately) attempting to reorient myself to the region. I was looking for other motives that President Obama might have for pursuing these two conflicts. One leapt out at me. Do you see it?

In a word, Iran.

Iran, the next anticipated trouble spot in the Middle East. Heck, we've already practically got 'em surrounded. Keep in mind that the presence of troops also means the presence of military infrastructure, the time-consuming part of world dominance.

Hey, I'm just saying.

Sorry about the map. When UGOB's cartographer was told we'd need something better, he just rolled his eyes and went back to watching movies.

Afghanistan for Dummies

We are many years—and thousands of casualties—late in bringing our troops and those of allied nations home from Afghanistan. We won the war in Afghanistan eight years ago, in the first few months of our military action there, when we unseated the Taliban and sent them running for the hills. Since then, we have just been banging our head against the bamboo (an organic metaphor I use with purpose).

My appreciation for the troops who have served, suffered or died in Afghanistan knows no bounds. I have nephews who have, are and will be serving there; I am as proud as I can be when they call me Uncle Genie. They are among the tens of thousands of (mostly young) men and women who are willing to give that last full measure of devotion in demonstrating American resolve in advancing freedom and human rights and in protecting us and defending our constitution. There is no greater love of country.

Those troops are living to their oaths and doing what we send them to do. They are not the dummies.

The dummies are the national leaders who pay no attention to the lesson of decades of French and U.S. failures in Vietnam. To the failure of the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan, of France in Algeria and of Turkey in Greece. To the failure of the Philippines to eradicate communist partisanship, of Israel to defeat Hamas, of Spain to wipe out Basque separatism, of England and Northern Ireland to unilaterally control the Irish resistance, of nearly every second country in South and Central America to contain internal armed opposition, of many African nations to end decades-long civil wars, of the never-ending murderous civil unrest in southern Asia and the Indian subcontinent and the continuing internal conflicts in Jordan, Syria, Turkey, the Balkans, Mexico, eastern Europe and elsewhere. I mean, lets face it: our leaders haven’t even learned anything from eight years in Afghanistan. Wake up and smell the frustration.

The obvious, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face, clear-as-day, glaring, unmistakable point is this: guerilla wars cannot be won—except by the guerillas.

Guerilla insurgencies can, after a fashion, be suppressed, but only by an overwhelmingly brutal, oppressive and cruel campaign that ignores human rights, has no concern for collateral damage and expects no positive outcomes other than the goal of suppression. But that’s not really our style, is it?

And even so, eventually the embers are once more excited and the armed resistance flares up again.

Why can’t they be defeated? Why do they always rise to fight again?

Because these movements are not infrastructure based. They are organic, like the bamboo. They are rooted in ideas, or beliefs, or desires. Infrastructure can be captured or destroyed, thoughts and feelings can’t. They can move or be reborn in other times and places.

When people are willing to die for those thoughts or feelings, any war is likely already lost.

Especially when those willing fighters are mostly young—meaning virtually oblivious to their own mortality and newly awash in their own naturally-occurring, rousing steroidal hormones. This age group is typical of an insurgency and creates a nearly endless resource of eager soldiers even when the movement is not enthusiastically supported by the general population. That’s why we depend on them for our armed forces.

The solution? Isn’t it obvious? Don’t wage counter-insurgent wars. They never work anyway, except in wishful planning and fanciful propaganda. And have you noticed? President Obama does seem enthusiastic about the making of ever-newer plans and strategies for Afghanistan, doesn’t he?

Now maybe Mr. Obama didn’t see enough of the Vietnam War, so perhaps he’s just misguided. Or maybe he has a hidden agenda (to be speculated upon elsewhere). Hopefully he’s not just one more standard–issue pol willing to trade the lives of American service people for his own re-election. But it’s starting to smell that way.

So, is there anything to do besides fight on the losing side of a guerilla war? There are several alternatives. Tune in next time.

Uncle Genie's Energy Policy

CO2's not good for you!

Sorry, folks, it’s time to douse the campfire—carbon is so last century. Burning carbon produces CO2 and other waste products, which is why nobody likes to sit downwind from a campfire.

Carbon: oil, coal, natural gas and biomass

Oil is carbon. It’s a source-limited fuel poisonous to the environment in extraction, conversion and utilization. More oil means a more toxic world for all of us.

Oil is also a constant incendiary to international relations and a hazard to the causes of peace, justice and freedom. Despite any propaganda to the contrary, on this planet oil does little to prop up democracy; just check your globe. And even in existing democracies it tends to prop up corruption.

Investing in domestic oil production makes as much sense as moving Afghan heroin poppy cultivation to North Dakota or trying to corner the market on bald tires. Why bring even more of the risks of a dangerous moribund technology to our shores?

Wouldn't you rather chomp down
on this than stomp down on it?

Biomass is carbon. It offers, at best, a brief and conditional alternative to oil. More importantly, it is already reducing food supplies in a world which struggles with widespread starvation and is raising the cost of food for the rest of us. It will not do us any good if a failing BP were to be bought out by Kellogg’s.

Coal and natural gas are carbon. So what if they’re abundant? Dirt is abundant, but you don’t see us putting ketchup on it at dinner time.

Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy is exponentially more dangerous than carbon. Unfortunately, the incalculable risks of accidents, of the waste products and of their disposal severely limit the potential of nuclear power generation under current technology. To pretend otherwise is just that—pretend.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is not carbon. But it is abundant and clean. Which is why no one’s gangbusters about it. They haven’t figured out how to get filthy rich from it yet. Not surprisingly, the most popular form of hydrogen production proposed in this country uses—you'll never guess what—natural gas. Yup, carbon.

But there are other methods to extract hydrogen right from water, including using solar power and hydrogen itself. And since hydrogen technology development would be good for us, why should we wait for some multinational corporation to figure out how to make us pay through the nose for it? How about you and I go into the hydrogen business for ourselves? Maybe this is one of those situations where government—us working together—might be a really good idea.

One popular objection to hydrogen is its volatility, that is, its ability to burn or explode. We certainly don’t want to be carrying a flammable substance around in our cars, do we? Let’s just stick with 20 gallons of high octane gasoline or methane alcohol. Duh!

In fact, hydrogen lends itself to creative new technologies. One such method can store hydrogen as a non-volatile solid; it can even be chemically bound to the ultra-light framework of future cars and released only as required, eliminating the need for a fuel tank.

Domesticating Energy Production and Conservation

Backyard solar and wind
generating station.

Solar-based resources (sun, wind, hydro and tidal) are not carbon. They may have certain limits but also offer ideal possibilities for small-scale domestication (e.g., home and business solar and wind generators) perfect for tax-based incentives, outright grant support and patriotic fomentation (think WWII "victory gardens" and bond drives). And wind generators can’t be any more hideous than the forest of TV antennas we used to live with. Finally, wouldn’t it be nice to be selling power to the electric company?

Electric cars are a good idea, but if they depend on carbon based electric generation then we are merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Jobs, business and community development efforts should be combined with compelling mass transit planning and incentives. Hundreds of millions of internal combustion engines moving large populations of single individuals to work or other necessities every day is moronic. Save the car for vacations in the country.

You should listen
 to Uncle Genie.

Unavoidablele Conclusions

Will these alternatives be more expensive than carbon? In the short run, probably. In the long run, however, these are some of the alternatives we can live with.

The United States will never be able to assume a leadership role in the world economy until it takes a leadership stance in its own energy policy. Until then we're just blowing smoke.

Free speech isn't free

Notable among other increasing costs is the rising price of free speech. The recent Supreme Court decision which struck down certain restrictions on corporate campaign spending, coupled with a 2006 decision which denied the validity of state campaign finance restrictions, are among the latest pressures contributing to this inflationary trend. In both cases the narrow court majorities proposed a connection between free spending and free speech. Problem is, as the charges for free speech go up, poorer folks are getting priced out of the market.

Try as I might, I can’t think of a good counter-argument, though—keeping the Constitution in mind.

The way I see it, there is very little free speech that isn’t associated with some monetary outlay. From a speaker’s note cards to the cost of a soap box to stand on, from the bottle of water to wet the pipes to the 30-second spot on prime time TV, it all costs money. About the only speech that is truly free is when you stick your head out the window and shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna’ take it anymore!”

Still, I don’t like it. Seems like those with more money get to buy more free speech. Reminds me of Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”

So let’s take a look at the source document. “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech….” accords the civil rights-packed First Amendment. Hmmmm. I suppose one might argue that the right applies to subject matter rather than to quantity, but probably not.

Well then, what sort of free speech costs are we talking about here? Taller soap boxes? Bigger water bottles? No; for the most part, I reckon we’re talking about transmissions via electromagnetic waves—television and radio, that is.

And guess who owns those waves. We, the people, do.

More on this at a later date.

Don’t get me started: If government were just run like a business.

Enough of the faux academics for now. This is a rant.

One of the most ridiculous things that I seem to hear way too often is, “The government should be run like a business.” Or, “We should let private enterprise take over that government function; they’ll run it like a business.”

And I’m wondering what business it is that they’re talking about. Enron? Lehman Brothers? Frontier Airlines? Circuit City? Countrywide Financial? Bethlehem Steel? Montgomery Ward? Levitz Furniture? Polaroid? Sunbeam? TWA? Arthur Anderson? WorldCom? American Home Mortgage? CompUSA? Wachovia? Mervyn’s? The Sharper Image? Madoff Investment Securities? Peanut Corporation of America? Long-Term Capital Management? Pan Am? Spiegel? Drexel Burnham Lambert? Eastern Airlines? Tower Records? Trump Casinos? Washington Mutual? Ya’ mean like those businesses?

Guess what, folks. Businesses are run by human beings, just like governments. Dumb, smart, greedy, honest, careless, attentive, skilled, pompous, friendly, normal human beings. And governments are run like businesses.

With two major exceptions.

First, governments are not designed to put a profit in anyone’s pocket, so greed is not a built-in factor and costs can be more reflective of actual performance.

Second, my fellow citizens and I get to control all of our governments through periodic elections of their boards of directors and CEOs. And we’re not up against some corporation that holds five hundred thousand voting shares. Everyone’s vote is equal.

But just imagine if your local fire department was expected to earn a profit. Or the Tax Assessor’s office. Or the Road Department. Or the Sheriff. Need I elaborate?

If anything, in today’s culture of righteous avarice, gratuitous megacorp profits, unwarranted executive compensation, imperious exploitattion of labor and arrogant disdain for the consumer, I’d hope governments are run less like business.

Economics 101: Feeling our way

Economics is a social science. That means it’s about people and how people produce, distribute, exchange and consume goods and services.

Even though we often think that economics is about money, or the Dow-Jones Averages, or the price of a bushel of wheat six months from now, or the exchange rate of dollars for euros, or Adam Smith’s theories of capitalism, it’s not. In economics the operative word is social. It’s about human beings and their connections with one another. All of those other things are just symbols or indicators or descriptions of those relationships.

The problem is—and we always need to keep this in mind—human beings aren’t perfect. Nor is their behavior entirely predictable. Generally predictable, often; totally and specifically, never. So while economics might be called a science, it's an inexact one based at best on probabilities.

Why is that? Well, while we so-called intelligent creatures claim to depend on logic, most of the time we are actually reacting to emotions. Emotions are much less calculable than logic might be. So these economic relations are very complex, frequently uncertain, and can easily become volatile.

Which, for instance, is how a stock market crash happens.

Between the day before a crash and the day of a crash very little changes—except how we feel. The intrinsic instrumentality of the vast majority of the companies whose stock prices have fallen has not actually changed. Those businesses still hold the same assets, turn out the same products and cater to the same markets.

Rather, we have changed. We, the people who hold the stock in those companies, have come to feel different. Despite the unaltered nature of those companies, we feel that our shares are less valuable. As a result, we’re willing to sell those shares for lower and lower prices. We react to the fear of others and become fearful ourselves. We crash the market.

It’s even come to the point that we’ve computerized and automated this sell-off reaction, sort of a “sky is falling” program—artificial fear to accompany artificial intelligence.

The same thing has happened to the real estate market. One day we’re willing to pay a certain amount for a house, a month later the same house won’t bring half that price. The house hasn’t changed. The market has. We’re the market.

Economics is about human beings. It’s always about human beings.

Government 102: We put the "us" in USA

In the United States of America, “government” has but one simple yet elegant function: it is how we do things together that we are unable to do by ourselves.

In fact, that is really the only motivating factor in the formation of our country. At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock insisted that there must be unanimous support by the colonies’ leadership. It was then that Benjamin Franklin made this famous comment: “Gentlemen, we must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

“Government” is how we all hang together. Government is our best effort to cooperate in seeing to our common good. It is how we build highways from Oregon to Georgia, how we educate and train adults to be able to earn a living and support a family, how we defend our land against those who would conquer it, how we assure safe living and working conditions for ourselves, how we protect the rights of the weak and defenseless and how we meet a thousand other needs and preferences we’ve defined in our laws and Constitution.

In the US, we use governments to light traffic signals and put out house fires. We use them to assure safe food and water and school buses. Through governments we provide humane care for the mentally ill and certify elevators and gasoline pumps. And we make sure our grievances can be heard and our worship is not denied us.

Is government perfect? Of course not. How could it be? Government is staffed by human beings, some of the most mistake-prone people on earth. They are just like the rest of us—who hire the governments’ leaders.

Government is us, imperfect, well-intentioned, diverse but unified, doing things together that we can’t do by ourselves.

Government 101: "They" are screwing with us again

Don't Tread
On Me

I’ve always thought it slightly absurd to see this sign posted on a chain link fence: “Property of the United States Government / No Trespassing.” It prompts this response in me: well, that means it belongs to me, so how could I trespass?

Maybe it was the way I was taught civics in grade school or maybe it’s some sort of hyper-recessive gene, but I’ve always thought of “The Government” as me and the other citizens who have voting rights. It’s a democratic republic, right? We elect the people who govern. They work for us.

Once, when I was on the payroll of a county government, another employee and I were working together on a project. He was senior to me, though from a different department. In passing conversation he happened to make a disparaging remark about the way the county government did things.

I chuckled and said, “Wait a second. Don’t you realize that we’re part of the county government?”

He replied, indignantly, “No, I’m not. I just work here.”

I asked, “Then who’s doing the bad job?”

He sputtered a bit, trying to describe generalized wastefulness and neglect without implicating himself, but all he could finally say was, “Well, I’m not the government.”

But, in fact, he was. And, in fact, we all are.

But lots of folks don’t seem to see it that way. Many people, even members of the voting majority, tend to view “the government” as being an entity apart, often a dark, sinister agency bent on as much mischief as possible. What’s worse, government bureaus are staffed by a unique human species—bureaucrats—different from other human beings, stupid, cruel, rude and vengeful.

Not so. The government is composed of the people the majority of us elects and re-elects; if they do dumb stuff it’s because we let them. Moreover, research has shown that government agencies are staffed by standard-issue human beings—really the only kind available. Some are great, some lousy, most average, and all of them are hired and employed by the men and women we elect.

It was French diplomat Joseph de Maistre who said, “Every country has the government it deserves.” Certainly this is most true of a democratic republic such as our own.

To take liberties with Oliver Hazard Perry as warped by Pogo:

I have met the government, and they is us.