Million $ Road

“Certain habits of mind -- distinguishing between arguments and opinions, admitting self-doubt, rethinking assumptions -- are imperative for collective life.” Andrew Delbanco, The Nation

According to a report issued by Zillow, there are 500 cities in America where the average cost of a home is one million dollars. Astronomical housing prices have been a fact of life in my hometown of Santa Barbara for as long as I can remember, including the day back in the early 2000’s when I wrote my local legislator to oppose a housing development on what had been a small urban farm; at that time, the homes were projected to start at $500,000. That was only the beginning. Inventory is scarce as ever and rents are punishing for working folks. We gave up on the dream of home ownership a long time ago. 

My favorite place to walk is Garcia Road, which starts right across the street from our bungalow, and winds up and up to the Riviera. Garcia is a quiet street with limited traffic, lined by multi-million dollar houses, many of which have spectacular views of downtown and the harbor, and on clear days, the islands in the Santa Barbara Channel. On a recent walk on a day filled with warm sunshine, I felt the sun on my back and heard birds chirping in the trees. I considered all the good fortune I’ve experienced in my six decades of life -- five of which have been lived here -- and felt, not gratitude as much as astonishment. For every person like me, basically content, healthy, how many are like the African woman I read about in The Nation who made a 6,500 trek from her home country of Cameroon to Brazil, through Central America and Mexico, and finally the United States. After coming to the attention of the security forces back home she was arrested and repeatedly raped. She could not stay in Cameroon, her only option was to leave, to go into the unknown. I try to imagine what it must feel like to be forced to undertake such a desperate journey. And that was just one woman’s story, one that happened to gain the attention of a journalist. What about the thousands of forced migrants whose stories will never be known? In the years ahead, as climate change and political unrest make life untenable in more and more places, the world will see more migrants, refugees, and displaced human beings. As far as I can tell, we have no plan to deal with this eventuality. 

I don’t know if unregulated capitalism kills compassion, I suspect it does, though perhaps not at the individual level, because I often see small acts of compassion; it’s at the collective level where scores of human beings are deemed disposable or unworthy. After everything I’ve experienced, studied, read and lived through I shouldn’t be surprised that my country is more willing to build armaments and prisons than schools and hospitals. It shouldn’t surprise me that providing even basic medical care for its citizens is simply a bridge too far or that the American government can break Afghanistan and then blame the Afghan people for their demise. Dig to the root of all of it and you find money. America coddles its wealthy and punishes its poor and still has the audacity to refer to itself as a Christian nation. 

It’s too much sometimes and I feel an overwhelming sadness and sense of powerlessness. Should I just close my eyes and ears and live my comfortable life, convince myself that I deserve my comfort? Should I not notice the homeless person sleeping in the alley behind the motel on State Street, on a night when the temperature dipped into the low 40’s? Should I ignore the lost and broken souls I see around town? 

Some fifty years ago we made the Market our true God and Profit our King. Ever since we’ve busied ourselves slapping a price sticker on almost every aspect of our lives. Unregulated capitalism is cruel, and in the wrong hands wicked. 

The Myth of Normal

 “...positioned there to make me and others aware of our country’s tragic history -- a reminder that we must never regress to a traumatic past.” Ariel Dorfman

I have a one inch tear in the rotator cuff muscle in my left shoulder. It bothers me when I sleep, but otherwise I can work and do my training. I see an orthopedist next week. Looks like surgery. 

So, it’s essentially over, Covid and its variants, known and unknown, as a society we have decided to live with it. Wear a mask or not, get vaccinated or not, it’s entirely up to you. At the market where I work part-time, customers have the option as of two days ago; if they enter the store unmasked it’s assumed they have been vaccinated. I’d say the majority of people are still wearing masks, but as the days pass the number will decrease. I continue to wear a mask, even though it’s hot and uncomfortable. At this point it feels weird not to be masked, but it’s also weird to see the faces of people I’ve been working with for almost 6 months. Ah, so that’s what you really look like!

My wife and I have been watching Inventing Anna on Netflix and with every episode I am reminded of Donald J. Trump, who must be ranked with the greatest grifters of all time. More about Donald in a moment as it has been a bad week for the Moron of Mar-A-Lago. Before I saw the first episode of Inventing Anna, I had never heard of Anna Delvey or Anna Sorokina or the bodacious fraud she pulled off. What astonishes me is that people swallowed her obviously concocted story of being a German heiress, victim of a miserly and vindictive father who demands that she earn her own fortune. He gives her a taste now and again, but it’s up to her to make her way in the cold, hard world. This preposterous young woman convinced otherwise reasonable, intelligent people that not only was she worth millions, but that she was worthy of being loaned millions, for a business idea that struck me as absurd. Grifters need the gullible. 

Trump’s long time accounting firm gave him the sack in what may turn out to be the proverbial straw so many, myself included, have waited for. Trump’s financial statements can’t be trusted and the accounting firm is washing its hands before the hammer falls. Trump searches feverishly in his toolbox for a solution, but all he can come up with is Hillary Clinton, the Bogeywoman for all seasons -- veteran Trump watchers will recognize the usual diversionary tactic; don’t look at me, look at her, she’s the real criminal. Forget logic or commonsense. Forget the fact that Hillary has been off the public stage for nearly 5 years. Along with Hillary, attack the African-American DA, accuse her of racism. Again, put logic and commonsense aside, they don’t apply in the Trump Playbook. Claim that being dumped by the firm is an exoneration and a clean bill of health. Claim that there is a gold-plated Trump Hotel on the moon. The judge saw through the blizzard of BS and castigated Trump’s lawyers for presenting a ridiculous argument. Basically laughed them out of the courtroom. It must be plain hell to be a lawyer for a belligerent moron like Trump. Watch Trump become more unhinged as the walls close in. Not fast enough for my liking, but it’s happening. With a decade of financial statements now deemed worthless, Trump’s creditors could call in their loans. Surely Trump’s dreams are disturbed by the sound of clanking iron chains and screeching metal doors banging closed as the lights dim.  

The caregivers of our society are leaving their professions in droves, and why not? This profit-obsessed country has neglected them for decades, underfunding public education and public health so that millionaires and billionaires are not inconvenienced by tax bills. But when the Covid crisis came, who did we turn to? Teachers, nurses, medical technicians, and others who provide care. They’re exhausted and sick of being ignored, vilified, and neglected so the CEO-class can live large and be spared the minor inconveniences of life. Blame American-style capitalism. Blame a generation of politicians for sucking at the corporate trough. Blame lobbyists and lawyers, bankers, and hedge fund managers. Blame university presidents and overpaid NCAA football coaches. Blame Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Tech. Blame monopolies in almost every damn industry. And don’t neglect to point an accusing finger at the political operatives in black robes who sit on the US Supreme Court. But don’t blame working Americans, we didn’t light this fire as the Billy Joel song goes. The “system” fucked us, lied to us, made us interchangeable and disposable. We’re on the wrong side of 50 years of class warfare. In case you missed it, we lost. We went down with barely a whimper.

Yes, grifters need the gullible. 

"Legitimate Political Discourse"

 “If fossil fuel corporations are allowed to continue heating the planet, mounting food and water scarcity could well induce civilizational decline.” Daniel Sherrell, The Nation

Another week in the open-air asylum that is America. The Republican Party censored two of its members, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, for doing their sworn duty and upholding their oath of office. Pause and allow that to sink in. The Republican National Committee then, believe it or not, called the riot of January 6 “legitimate political discourse.” Sit with that for a moment as well. This is the stuff of which authoritarian regimes are made. Absolutely fidelity to the Great Leader, and belief in fantasy. Is it legitimate discourse when five people die, hundreds of law enforcement personnel are injured, and the seat of our democracy is damaged and desecrated? Is this what the Party of Lincoln calls “legitimate political discourse”? If Dwight Eisenhower was on the scene today, he’d be booted from the GOP. Hell, back in the 1950’s the John Birch Society claimed that Ike was a communist. The nutty fringe is now firmly in the mainstream. Thank you Koch family. Thank you Roger Ailes. Thank you Rupert Murdoch. Thank you United States Supreme Court. 

Stop the presses, Mike Pence said publicly that Donald Trump is wrong! The ultimate blasphemy. Pence was one of Trump’s most subservient lap dogs, who believed as many evangelical Christians did that Trump was the second coming of their beloved lord and savior. Whatever Trump says, spews, or barks is gospel, no matter how witless, idiotic, illegal, or insane. That’s the public belief system that must be expressed at every opportunity, the Party line. Pence was already a pariah in the GOP, the man Trump’s addled foot soldiers sought to hang on January 6, on the gallows they hastily erected, so stating the obvious won’t cost him. Mikey wants to be President almost as much as he wishes to sit at the right hand of the father, but his chance is gone. But let’s not anoint Pence as a courageous man for doing his duty under the law. That’s the bare minimum we should expect from any person in public office. No accolades or praise is necessary. 

Trump’s endless whining about fraud and corruption in the electoral machinery might backfire, and I bet many in the GOP know it. They wouldn’t be disappointed if Trump was struck by lighting and rendered mute. Trump’s unfounded claims could dampen Republican turnout in November. If the whole process is as bankrupt as Trump claims, why bother to vote? Stay home MAGA people, wave your big Trump flag in protest, torch Nancy Pelosi in effigy, stick needles in your Adam Kinzinger voodoo doll. Listen to your false idol, the Fairy King of Mar-A-Lago. 

To watch this country descend into such madness and stupidity, to watch millions of Americans embrace a man as ridiculous as Donald Trump, to watch an entire political party fall to its knees and declare loyalty to Trump rather than loyalty to this country’s institutions and laws, is mind boggling. How can so many people be so gullible? How can so many be so terrified of examining our history, accepting and coming to terms with it? “Real” Americans see liberals as wimps, soft, mush-brained, as Rush Limbaugh told them daily for nearly thirty years. Turns out that Limbaugh’s people, the ones with all the guns and ammo, are a pack of wusses, scared shitless by ideas and historical facts. All this activity around the nation to ban books from school libraries, and etch into law a requirement that teachers not present ideas or concepts that might upset pale-skinned Jack, or high-strung Caitlyn; we can’t run the risk of upsetting the delicate sensibilities of white children. Might harm them for life. Throw those terrible and frightening books on the fire. 

Joe Rogan and Marjorie Taylor Greene are America’s new prom King & Queen.

Remind me, how is the GOP any different from the Taliban?

I’m almost finished with Alfred W. McCoy’s fine book, To Govern the Globe. The world order stitched together by the United States after World War II, which included the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe, the creation of NATO, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and mutual security pacts with Japan, South Korea and Australia, is unraveling. While there was plenty of hypocrisy in Washington’s order (professing democratic ideals and human rights while simultaneously toppling duly-elected governments it disagreed with, climbing into bed with dictators, and so forth) it has managed to maintain relative stability and prosperity for 70 years. What comes next we can only guess at. McCoy theorizes that China has the economic and military potential to supplant the Washington order as early as 2030. If trends continue, the US, with a declining share of the world economy under its control, will be unable to maintain its massive global military presence, and in particular its hegemony over the Pacific Ocean. Climate change is the wild card. McCoy writes, “Through its ever-increasing intensity, global warming will have a destructive impact on world orders for the rest of the twenty-first century and beyond.” What McCoy shows in this book are the circumstances -- political, industrial, diplomatic, social, and military -- that cause empires to fall and world orders to shift. The US is a hollow lion, losing its global edge a little more each year. Trump hastened our slide by stupidly attacking NATO, the WHO, and settled international agreements like the Paris Climate Accords. The framework erected during the American world order, global symbols for order, cooperation, and the rule of law, were either weakened or eliminated under Trump’s reign of error. This country is in for a great reckoning. 

I may not see it, but my children surely will, and that is why I am constantly in a state of anxiety, because time is not on our side and collectively we have failed to take climate change seriously. Baby Boomers, like me, will die in an era we may hardly recognize.