It’s No Fun If You Can’t Share   (2016Sep16)

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Friday, September 16, 2016                                              10:04 PM

When one group fights against another, someone wins and someone loses. We see this in the trouble-spots of the world—two sides which will fight until one or the other of them wins—beyond reason, beyond humanity, the absolutism of one group against another seems basic enough to overcome civility.

I’ve been thinking today of our strength as a nation—the melting pot that makes any one group a part of the larger whole—whether they like it or not. Immigrants to the United States know that the rules are different here—feuds from the old country don’t count here; authoritarian prerogatives once enjoyed by men over women, or one class over another—in their homeland—are forever null and void, here in the land of the free.

America has never fought for conquest or territory—only for the Right as we saw it (and a few mistakes, undeniably). And indeed, who could we attack? Where is there a country that isn’t already a part of ourselves? Reel off the role of the United Nations’ 193 countries—not a one of them fails to be represented by a segment of our population. Even those whose governments are seen as ‘bad actors’—their people, too, are a part of who we are—the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Libyans, the Syrians—you name the place, and chances are high that the United States contains the largest number of any country’s population, outside of that country.

So, as we recognize that inclusion must be part of our domestic social policies, we also recognize that all nations are siblings—and that our nation is the glaring proof of that truth. We attract immigrants for many reasons—but I believe that most come here because, in the USA, you own yourself. Nobody tells us what to do. Nobody says we have to ask permission to try a new idea. We say whatever we want, and if you don’t like it, you say whatever you want back.

We take personal freedom very seriously here in America—sometimes, some of us even get a little crazy, pushing the bounds of propriety and safety merely to demonstrate the fullness of our liberty. In its own way, it’s pretty rough and tumble. But the acme of the ideal is not merely to have freedom—it is to accord it to everyone else, even when you don’t like it—even when it gets in your way.

And we certainly see abuse of the concept—many people are only too glad to take freedom, and less enthusiastic about giving it to others. Liberty isn’t always obvious—it doesn’t shout, it waits for you to notice it. Some people willfully turn away, and use ‘Liberty’ cynically, hypocritically, as a cudgel attempting to carve out their freedoms at the expense of others’ rights. But they will run out of hot air before America runs out of people who treasure its ideals.

In the end, our immigrant heritage not only strengthens us as a nation, it bonds us to all nations—not as a competitor, not as a threat—but as a family of humanity, all collected together in the great experiment of America. While our capitalists and generals may sometimes lose their perspective, and get lost in the struggle for power, remember this—all most of us want is to share our freedom with the rest of the world. We don’t want other countries to belong to us, we just don’t want to hog all the good stuff for ourselves—it’s no fun to be happy if you can’t share it with everyone else.

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Pro and Con-fidence Man   (2016Aug10)

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Wednesday, August 10, 2016                                           3:47 PM

Donald Trump tells us that America is broken, America has failed, it’s just a big pile of junk—and that he can fix it and make it ‘great’ again. America does have serious problems—no one could refute that. But is America the sum of its problems—or is there something more? Well, I think it’s pretty clear that there is more to America.

Over 94% of workers are earning a paycheck—that doesn’t change the millions in poverty, but it does mean that the vast majority of 300,000,000 Americans are actively engaged in the economy. That’s not nothing. And Trump’s desire to throw out all the rules and turn it all on its head would far more likely disrupt the economy, throwing more people out of work—and have no effect on the unemployed other than making their plight even more intractable.

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Trump says China is ‘raping us’ because of our debt—he wants to use his bankruptcy tricks to reduce that debt. China has $1.24 trillion in Treasuries and Japan has $1.13 trillion. All foreign investment in Treasuries comes to a total of $6.1 trillion. US Treasuries are the safest investment in the world—it’s where everyone puts their savings. That’s why American citizens, our corporations, and our local governments hold $2.8 trillion in Treasuries. If Trump staged a Treasuries default to cheat China, he’d be bankrupting you and I—and the whole world—as well.

Trump wants to segregate Muslims, erasing two centuries of our proud tradition (and constitutional law) of embracing all religions equally. But Muslims are part of us—the 99.99% of American Muslims who embrace tolerance and peace are our strongest bulwark against terrorist infiltration. Over three million Muslim-Americans own businesses, police our streets, serve in our military, teach in our schools, and raise their families with the same values as every other American. Only an idiot would marginalize these loyal citizens because of hysteria over ISIL. Their children are being targeted by online terrorist propaganda—do we really want their parents to feel victimized by our government? No one hates the ‘Islamic-extremist terror groups’ more than the real Muslims. Paranoia has never been a virtue—and inclusion is among America’s highest virtues. We are left to wonder if Trump simply hates America, as it is, and wants to take it over and run it like a dictatorship.

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Trump says we are wallowing in a swamp of political correctness—and there is some overreach by the nit-pickiest PC-police types—but when he calls for hatred against all Muslims and fear of all Mexicans, he simply makes the PC-police’s case for them. Advising his daughter to run from sexual harassment and find a new career elsewhere is proof that the PC-police still have a lot of work to do. And dog-whistling for snipers to take pot-shots at his political opponents is proof that Trump’s objection to political correctness is that it prevents him from saying whatever outrageous bile spills from his mouth.

It seems likely that this election will not be a choice so much as a sociological survey of the mentally unbalanced in America. By the time we reach November, Trump’s voters will have been winnowed down to only the most backward, bigoted, spiteful high-school drop-outs—and this will provide important data for the mental health care community. Using the voter stats from GOP down-ballot races for candidates who still stand by Trump will help further refine the input. We will know, for the first time, exactly how many of voting-age Americans are sane, how many are apathetic, and how many are just plain bat-shit crazy.

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America has many troubles—no one denies that. But with the most prepared, experienced, smartest, toughest president to ever take office in charge, we have our best chance of rising above our issues and finding solutions. Vote for Hillary. And let’s hope we get enough sensible legislators in Congress to untie her hands, so she can get done what needs to be done. We can’t go on with a Congress that goes fishing while Zika establishes a beachhead in Miami, or keeps a Supreme Court nominee waiting for a record full-year for a Senate hearing, and on and on. Who votes for these snail-trails? Kick’em out—put the Congress back to work. Eight years of racist paralysis is enough—we don’t need another four years of misogynist paralysis there.

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Paul Ryan – What A Jackass   (2015Nov17)

Tuesday, November 17, 2015                       10:50 AM

I’m so mad I could spit. Obama spoke at the G20 yesterday, making several sensible points about dealing with Daesh. Among those points was his conviction that humanitarian concern for the refugees was not only a responsibility of the world’s governments, including the USA—but that caring for these helpless victims, without questions about their faiths, is what separates us from Daesh.

In response, a crowd of jackass GOP governors have announced that they will not accept refugees from Syria in their states. That they have no authority to do that is something they choose to ignore—apparently, the political effect of announcing their cowardice and prejudice is enough to satisfy their ostrich-like followers.

Then this morning Paul Ryan was on CNN talking about being ‘prudent’—about how, in the case of Syrian refugees, it is “better to be safe than sorry”. What a cowardly, un-American, xenophobic jackass. He spoke about halting the flow of refugees until we can verify that they are safe to accept into our homeland—ignoring the fact that America’s vetting of refugees is lightyears more involved than any other country’s—that it could not possibly be any more thorough. He just wants to halt the flow—and the rest is all BS excuses.

Is he really afraid of a bunch of dazed, victimized, mostly women and children refugees—or is he simply another GOP knee-jerk, anti-whatever-Obama-wants idiot? Either way, he’s no American. Not the kind of American who leaps, unarmed, to defend a train-full of people from a gun-toting terrorist. Not the kind of American that says, “Give me…the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me…”. Paul Ryan is an elitist, anti-American coward.

And if he and his band of mouse-panicked elephants weren’t bad enough, we have CNN and all the other news outlets making hay out of terror, digging their heels in on the terror aspect of all this and blocking out all the defiance that real men and women feel, far more than any intimidation these thugs wish to engender. I’d rather deal with a suicide bomber than these mealy-mouthed, chicken-hearted, entitled scaredy-cats—they make me sick. And Paul Ryan—you should be ashamed of yourself, you dick.

No News Is Good News   (2015Sep29)

Tuesday, September 29, 2015                                          12:19 PM

I’m exhausted—and no wonder. The pope, the speaker, the UN, refugees, drought in California, water on Mars, a super blood moon, the new Daily Show once again precedes the Colbert show… is it just me or is the world turning twice as fast these days? Have you noticed a lot of news shows start their segments with, “Well, there’s a lot to cover tonight…”? That used to signify a ‘busy’ news day—now it’s just what they always say.

My personal life, away from the TV, isn’t quite as busy. But I did just post a big Brahms performance I’ve been working on for months—and I just found out today is my son’s 27th birthday! (I wish Claire had told me before I said to him, “Good Morning”—like it was any other day…) We had our daughter and her husband here for a visit from California last week. Claire just passed her big OT qualification test—a culmination of years of study for her OT Master’s Degree—and a sign that she will soon be job-hunting. But first she has to do jury duty in NYC—we were relieved she was only called downtown last week for Thursday morning—commuting right through the pope’s visit to ground zero—that would have been a hassle. I’ve got a road-test next week that will re-instate my driver license, if I pass it—Spencer just passed his a few weeks ago. So, okay, maybe I am busy.

As they say, it beats the alternative. I’m sitting here at my keyboard, on watch to tip the delivery man when he gets here with birthday lunch Chinese take-out. Tuesday is new movies day On Demand—Melissa McCarthy in “Spy”—so there’s even a good movie in my ‘cart’. Time to catch my breath, I think.

Patton was right—“Americans love to fight”—but I think he oversimplified it, thinking in bellicose terms. Our Revolutionary War was a declaration of our willingness to fight when we encountered unfairness. “Live Free or Die” seems overly familiar and trite to us today but it was a formula for suicide in the centuries before the Declaration—when the greatest prior advance in social justice had been the allowance that a person owned their own soul at death—“Free Doom”. Somewhat less ambitious, wouldn’t you say?

And after the revolution, when Texas was willing to enter the Union rather than submit to Spanish imperialism, we fought for them. Then the majority of Americans decided to fight against slavery—give or take a week-long Civil War historians conference on the ‘root causes’. It was unfair—and we were willing to fight over it. In both World Wars, we entered on the losing side—fighting unfairness. The internal struggles over racial equality, gender equality, and the rights of the sick, disabled, LGBT—all fights over unfairness. You show me an injustice and I’m ready to start swinging—why? Because I’m American, that’s why. I really would rather die than live in unfairness.

There are always those who don’t get the central premise—as early as Hamilton’s arguments with Jefferson over Federalist versus Republican, there were those who sought out the ‘easy win’—people who felt that leaving the mother country was simply a chance to be an England of our own, with a monarchy and all that implies. They wanted Washington to be “President for Life” and be addressed as ‘your majesty’—but Washington said ‘no’, like an American. Hence he is known as the Father of our Country not just because he fought the war, but also kept the peace as an American would and always will.

Today we have many people who don’t get the central premise—they think America’s greatness resides in its wealth and power—its shock and awe. Nonsense—childish nonsense. The unbelievable success of our country comes not from any material richness or military prowess—it comes from our ambition to fight for the truth. Yankee ingenuity has been finding new shortcuts towards a better future since the founding. Freedom of speech has made our democracy into the strongest of ties between a government and its people of any country on Earth. Open minds and open commerce have exploded into a global community of digital thinking, space exploration, genetic manipulation, super-sonic travel, and on and on.

Our greatest threat is the explosive variety of our success—the ‘easy wins’ float around like fish in a crowded barrel—the opportunities to exploit our success by working either in lieu of the American spirit (through hyper-capitalism) or in direct opposition to it (through extremist bible-thumping and xenophobic exclusion) are more numerous, and get better media coverage, than the real goals of true Americans.

The enemies of America seek to reinstate unfairness through new pathways—income inequality, religious division, jingoism, and denying the existence of intractable racial injustice—and all their arguments are based on fear and hatred, with a big dollop of laziness and greed to top it off. They make me tired—traitors in our own land. Fight the power!

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There—I had to get that off my chest. I always get self-righteous after watching a documentary. I just watched “Standing In the Shadows of Motown—The Funk Brothers”—about all the great studio musicians whose uncredited artistry was behind hundreds of number one hits—hits that I remember from my childhood as the ‘product’ of the lead singers and groups whose names are so familiar to us all today. A handful of men in a Chicago basement would be responsible for over a decade of a multi-million-dollar music industry, without so much as a credit on the dustjacket. That kind of unfairness burns my chaps and it always will. Why? ‘Cause I’m a ‘Murican, that’s why.

Trumpical Correctness   (2015Aug12)

Wednesday, August 12, 2015                                           7:33 PM

Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Okay, okay, fine, alright—you want to talk about this clown—let’s talk about him. He’s a wonderful businessman. In a boardroom he can’t be beat—he’ll shaft you right between the eyes without hesitation; he’ll burn your house down with your family inside and he won’t even blink. And his famous, off-the-cuff, no-filter patter—that’s a powerful business tool. It lets whoever he’s talking to know that he’s up on all the political-correctness memes—he knows how far he can go without crossing a legal line—but he also lets us all know that he doesn’t give a damn about right or wrong—he’s all business. Or, in his own words: “I don’t have time to be politically correct—I’m too busy.”

He may be a misogynist—he may not be—in his heart of hearts, who knows? But Business is a misogynist culture where condescending to women is as acceptable as calling a man a pussy for not ‘going for the throat’—and he’s a Business Man.

This comes to the fore in what passes for his foreign policy also—trash-talking one’s rivals is common business practice and no American businessperson ever lost points for smiling at their Chinese or Mexican counterparts while at the negotiating table and then trash-talking them to his American cronies afterwards. Trash-talking is a part of sports and Business is a blood sport.

Would brash bullying be an advantage to an American President? Reagan had some success with it—but he was canny conservative, not a lord of the boardroom who had been lauded his whole life primarily for his cold-blooded willingness to attack all comers. If Business is like Football, then Politics is a Chess game—can Trump’s aggression, flexibility and maneuverability win the day against a longer, deeper game-player who looks many moves ahead? This question has two answers—because we are in the uncomfortable position of considering (a) whether Trump can win the election and (b) what kind of country will result from a Trump presidency.

I say ‘uncomfortable position’ because this will be the first time that our country’s choice of its leader may have no connection to our expectations as to what that leader will lead us into. But as Trump says when asked about policy, “We’ll get to that later.”

As a businessman, Trump is strongest in his domestic agenda (what there is of a Trump political agenda, that is). He’s made noises about fixing our infrastructure and improving the jobs market—and a real businessman may be what we need in that regard. It may come at the price of a sweeping away of most of the social progress of the last fifty years, but you don’t get nothing for nothing. It is conceivable that a single Trump term might get this country out of its domestic doldrums—and that the reactionary Democrat who follows him will have a fairly easy time putting our social justice agenda back on track.

But it is the breadth of the presidency’s powers and responsibilities that scares me—what consequences may result from four years of Trump leadership—and will those consequences be too heavy a payment for a surge in our domestic economy?

I don’t believe Trump himself expects America to be dumb enough to actually elect him—he may have underestimated the power of modern media. Jon Stewart when interviewing President Obama asked the president if he felt the public was fair in mistrusting politicians for speaking so ‘carefully’—and Obama replied to the effect that a citizen was freer to express himself or herself, while members of government had to consider the potential influence of their words on things like the stock market, international relations, and other factors—outside of whatever they might wish to say to their constituents in plainer language.

You can take that with a whole bag of salt but there is a kernel of reality there. A businessman/reality-show-host may find that distinction a bit too fine—Trump has never allowed himself to feel vulnerable. The great American empire, however strong, is far more vulnerable—not existentially, of course, but the point of America is not whether it will continue to exist.

The point of America has always been about what it will become. Will it offer social justice? Will it maintain human rights? Will it look after the old, the weak, and the sick? Will it reward honest effort and restrain the mighty from creating a de facto upper class? Will we retain our primacy in the arts and innovation because of the love of free expression we instill in every kindergarten child? Will we remain the first and most successfully unreligious government in history? And will America continue to be among the leaders of the United Nations that try to maintain peace and international humanity?

Some tall corn, I grant you—but whether that is what we are, or if it’s only what I wish we are becoming, it’s still my American Dream and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I’ve always felt that America isn’t great because it is rich and powerful, but rather the other way around. Successful businesspersons like Trump are playing the game of Capitalism. Like I said before, it’s blood sport—a serious game—but it is still a game, based on the conventions of property, currency and bookkeeping—it’s all somewhat fictional, in a sense. Governing America, on the other hand is no game.

Trump wants to stop all the blathering nonsense that is today’s Republican party—and I applaud that sentiment—but the answer is not to double down on the anger that seethes among the disaffected. I have never cared for the rich, elder citizens in Somers County who fight against real estate taxes for personal gain. That money goes to our public schools—something only a moron would underfund. I’m still happy to pay any kind of school budget, even though my own kids are long gone from our local schools—it’s common sense. You don’t want to be known as the county with the dumbest kids.

And I feel that this principle applies in a larger sense. People are always fighting against taxes. I don’t want to fight against taxes—I want to fight over what we spend them on (and who’s lining their pockets along the way). I don’t want to pay less for gasoline for two years—I want to drive on well-maintained roads (and breathe the air). I don’t want to be tax wise and infrastructure foolish. I don’t want to mine any more of the fool’s gold this country has been busily digging up for so long—interference in women’s health (to protect the poor things, I guess), interference in gay relations and lifestyles (to stop Satan, I guess), and caving to the personal whims of our nation’s wealthiest and most influential (because it’s “by business, of business, and for business”, isn’t it?)

Trump would say that’s all a bunch of ‘political correctness’. But it is interesting to note that we have come to think of that as a term for those who go too far in their socially-conscious vocabulary. People aren’t into subtlety these days, but there is a difference between rectitude and correctness. Political rectitude is farcical—but political correctness, in its literal sense, is what America is all about. Outside of their casting doubt on scientific verification, the invention of the term ‘political correctness’ is one of the right’s strongest moves in their eternal march towards the past. It allows them to poo-poo that which we hold most dear—the acknowledgement as equals of those who are different from ourselves.

The English language evolved in a society of god-fearing, bigoted, male chauvinists—trying to modify it to sound like free-thinking egalitarians makes for the occasionally ridiculous. Using that laughter to dismiss such efforts, however, is an urge from the pit of the evil one—and is only stressed by those who yearn to maintain that old-timey slime.

Here’s a video I forgot to post a few days ago:

Have you seen my Youtube channel?

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Have you seen my Youtube channel?

There are various genres of music represented–including my improvisations, which I think of as daily meditations more than musical works.

Please note that I have several Playlists that include some of my generation’s most evocative pop hits, some of my favorite classical pieces (including “Sad Class”, which is my demonstration of the theory that ‘having the blues’ can also be treated with classical music).

I’ve Looked At Greed From Both Sides Now

Call them entitlements; call them social programs; call them liberal arts boondoggles; however you think of them, you don’t think of them in the same way as everyone else. Some people see our governmental infrastructure as an imposition upon them, a charity towards us (assuming you and I are both among the 99%) and a betrayal of the self-made American Dream for individualists, pioneers, and let’s face it, rich people. Others, like me (and maybe you) see our social supports and education enhancements as an investment in our quality of life.

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Amidst the latest electioneering was some debate about small government. Also briefly appearing on the sound-bite battle-lines was talk of entitlements—a word aptly chosen, because it makes financial aid sound as if it were some fancy-assed dilettantism that reeked of intellectuals and leftists (you should pardon the French). And I loved that phrase, ‘small government’, imagining it in the sense of being made more responsive, efficient, and streamlined. But I’ve gathered, over time, that small government is actually code for ‘low taxes’ and ‘no financial aid for the needy’.

But without help, the ‘Have-Nots’ are being placed on an unequal footing with the ‘Haves’, and this is a problem for the land of liberty and the land of equal opportunity. Part of the importance of equal opportunity is that it ensures the government doesn’t spend money on services for the elite while taxing everyone else. Or, put another way, we don’t like taxation without representation. If federal or state government funds an institute of higher learning, that college or university should be equally available to citizens from all income-levels. If our taxes are paying fallow-farm subsidies to big farmers, they should pay out a matching amount in food stamps to help the poor keep pace with the artificially boosted value of food commodities.

So, that is number one on my list—small government is a cancer of inequality that, if unaddressed, can only grow over time and cause our ‘equality’ to become a total sham.

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Beyond that, we have to look at the ethics of small government from both Pro and Con. The obvious Con is the expense of supporting people who do not contribute to the community. This is bad business, on its surface. Why should I pay taxes for something that doesn’t benefit me? I’m sure, also, that there will be cheap-skates who work the system to grab a free ride or a free lunch, or whatever. So some of my taxes are inevitably going towards a scam that pays out only for one greedy bastard! Or even (god forbid!) an organized-crime family or terrorist cell.

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The not-so-obvious Pro is that we could end up taking our own place in the breadline, depending on charity for food and shelter and medicine. Our own children may one day find themselves in desperate straits, dependent on government assistance to survive. If we take this concept out to its furthest resolution, we can imagine a world in which, should you lose your job, your house, and everything you own, your quality of life won’t change a bit. Business owners would hate that, of course. They would have to offer real compensation to anyone that chose to ‘cooperate’ with them, i.e. ‘take a job’. A minimum wage enslavement would have no basis in reason—finally, bosses would have to treat with their employees like equals. Frightening, right?

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But there is another Pro — peace of mind. It is far easier on the conscience to feel badly for the families in shelters than it is to feel sorry for the people one must step over to hail a cab. Even if we ignore the difference it would make to the homeless people, it would still be of benefit to us.

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Plus, there’s the health angle—even in the Dark Ages, individuals in cities and villages could say “Those corpses are none of my business.” But that wouldn’t change the fact that it is dangerous to live ten yards away from a plague-victim’s bloated carcass.

In our modern settings, similarities appear—mental wards’ and criminal facilities’ overflow create an unstable environment for commerce and leisure. Central Park can only be enjoyed if the police patrols keep any homeless folks from setting up camp therein. The crime rate rises in proportion to the desperation of the less-fortunate of that community. And many poverty-stricken neighborhoods, city or country, are locked in cycles of suffering that only real dedication to healing the issue can break. And by ‘real dedication’, I’m suggesting not only serious thought and full-time personnel, but governmental oversight and financial support.

Besides, if we raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, it isn’t as if they are going to starve—they will have less cash, not NO cash. What’s the big deal? We tried that trickle-down BS for three decades, and there are fat-cats who swear it’ll still work—if we just give it a little more time. Ha! So let’s give ‘taxing the rich’ a measly year or too—then if it precipitates an even worse economic collapse than the Republicans presided over, we can always go back to relying on the super-wealthy to voluntarily create good jobs. No harm, no foul.

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And, lastly, I’d like to appeal to your paranoia. The USA once had the greatest productivity, highest literacy rate, best public schools, the most innovative scientists and inventors, and we still had plenty of rich people. Working on our ethical infrastructure is no more a danger to them than is work on our transportation or communication infrastructures. It is, in fact, even more important for them.  If there are only a tiny elite of high-ticket consumers, mostly every shop is going to stock the ‘brand x’ stuff; the airlines won’t have regular flights to the really ritzy vacation spots; advertisers will spend less because the market for goods just isn’t there. Pretty soon, you’re living in Syria. And have you seen the line-up on Syria’s prime-time TV broadcasts?

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Our dominion over the earth has already gotten pretty threadbare. In time, we may have the worst schools, the least productive research, the stupidest citizens. In trying to keep pace with emerging nations, particularly China, we will rip the heart out of what always made us better off than they. I remember back  in the eighties, Japan had set up a college devoted to replicating the experience of American students, in hopes that Japanese students could have the same innovative, inventive creativity that our college grads had. One of the things they found out was that college was too late to start. The entire childhood experience of American children was a non-stop urging to test boundaries, to criticize ideas, and to seek solutions. I wonder if they still see that in us?

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But whatever lows we may have reached, it is obvious where our past strength came from—from unity, community and a respect for each other that knows no sowing of generosity will produce anything but good for all of us. We were the first country to have free public schools and in the nineteenth century we were the first country to have a majority of our citizens be literate. In a world undergoing an Industrial Revolution, that gave America a tremendous advantage.

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Many pundits point out the financial, commercial reasons for doing this or not doing that—you would think that this ‘acumen’ was the only achievement of the most powerful country in the world. But we showed our greatest power in enduring a Great Depression for ten years and then conquering the world! We weren’t a nation of fat cats, then. Obviously, our greatness came from our rejection of elitism, our respect for each other as equals, and our open-minded-ness towards change.

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And social programs (by whatever name) are simply an offshoot of the ideal of equality. There can be no equality between the opportunities available to rich kids and to poor kids. So, government programs that add a feather to the scales on the side of the poor—to offer them the merest inkling of opportunity—are not ‘taxation without representation’ perpetrated against the rich. They are, rather, a tenuous link between rich and poor which allows the poor to feel they’re not being completely played. The super-rich should realize that millions of unemployed citizens are filled with anger and frustration—and it would be a bad thing for us all to turn that blame (and rage) towards the millionaires….

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I think the biggest problem is this insistence on black-or-white choices. A lot of what Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital was, and is, true. By creating a sham model of Marx’s ideas, Communism became a dirty word. This is convenient for the rich, creating a boogey-man that makes unfettered Capitalism seem preferable, even desirable. But Capitalism has recently sidelined millions of once-productive, once-employed citizens–and that could make those unemployed thoughtful enough to realize that Capitalism, founded and maintained by a rich and powerful elite, is nearly as bad as Communism founded and maintained by a greedy and powerful elite. The good ideas that Marx had have been lumped in with all the madness of the Soviets and Red Chinese. The Chinese have seen this problem and have tried to unclench about some of the good things Capitalism has to offer. The USA, and especially its Conservatives, have unfortunately clung to their hatred of any Socialism, however beneficial to our country as a whole, because of its effects on the wealthy.