Yesterday I was critical of Governor Abbott for the cheap theatrics of a ‘day of prayer proclamation’; today, reading from a prepared text, he sounded like a different person.
He sounded like what a governor is supposed to sound like, thanking some, telling residents where they could get aid, talking about gas availability, and issuing warnings for another threatened area. He sounded like he was in charge and on top of events, as much as anyone can be.
But getting through this and preparing for the next one is going to take some doing. People are going to need help, and the closest source of labor is Mexico. So will officials stick to the party line (no illegals, restrictions on legal residents and even citizens), or will they pull their collective heads out and do what needs to be done?
Officials in cities like Boston and Chicago understand that the snows will come, and they may well be catastrophic. They maintain a fleet of snowplows and salt/sand dumps to combat the ice.
But along the coast, no such preparation exists. Not nearly enough emergency vehicles, no supply dumps. Not nearly enough boats and high-water trucks. Why?
Development of wetlands and swamps is encouraged; why? Development makes storms and flooding worse. Developers took the profits, left homeowners with the risks. I’m astonished and appalled that so many didn’t have flood insurance. Why?
I’m equally astonished and appalled that voters elect officials with so little forethought. Climate change is here. This is the third ‘hundred year flood’ in the area in less than ten years. The floods and storms will keep rolling in and eventually the ocean will simply engulf the entire Gulf coast. The ice sheets and glaciers are melting, the ocean is rising. Scientists have been saying this for years, but our leaders claim it’s a hoax. They’re instant experts by virtue of winning an election, and people believe them. Why?
The rest of the developed world accepts it and they’re working together. But not us. Trump pulled us out of the climate accords. This time, I know why; money. He’s for drilling, even in national parks and monuments. He understands that he’s in a position to get a chunk of the money for himself, and he couldn’t care less about anyone else. But it doesn’t make sense; we already have enough fossil energy reserves to see us through the transition period to full green power. We don’t need more.
We do need a lot of other things. We need a national water distribution system, where as much floodwater as possible is collected and pumped to the dry west and great plains. We need to recharge aquifers. We need more trees to extract carbon dioxide from the air, and harvested water could be used to develop forests where there are none. We can push back against desertification.
But we won’t, not until we elect real leaders. Leaders who will fight for REAL needs, not a stupid wall. Who will enact programs to benefit citizens, not billionaires.
And we need voters who will insist that elected officials do just that.
Harvey, and the Aftermath
September 1, 2017On Alliances
March 19, 2017I was just thinking about Trumpsky’s comments. About how other countries should pay the US for defending them. About how much we pay for defense, and his rationale for spending more.
He’s a fool. You probably knew that, but maybe someone will explain.
The US, to the best of my knowledge, never spent a dime to benefit other nations.
Ponder that carefully.
The money was for our benefit primarily. If it also helped them, great.
Consider Germany; we spent quite a bit keeping folks like me there in the mid to late 20th Century, in my case on various hilltops waiting for the Soviets to roll across the border. So why did we do it?
Think how many men and women we had in the armed forces, how many machines we bought, and how much this nation spent fighting WWII. Just off the top of my head, I think we had around 7m people in the armed forces.
But not now. We don’t maintain a huge standing army, and that results in an enormous savings. I’ve seen it called the ‘peace dividend’.
Why?
Because we have allies. They have men and women in uniform, machines, ammunition, you name it. They maintain armies which allows us to keep ours relatively small.
Sure, we might want them to spend more, but even that has limits. If they expand their armed forces too much, the temptation is there to use them. Sort of what a number of American presidents have done, send troops to fight in wars against nations that had not attacked or even threatened the US.
What we’ve bought with our alliances (including NATO, whose nations are closest to our immediate threat, Russia) is peace and savings. Also security.
Someone should explain that to the guy who works more on his golf game than on governing.
On Treason
January 14, 2017When is a Conspiracy Theory not a Theory?
Answer, when is is backed up by facts. It helps if the facts are widely known and from reliable sources. This is seldom true, which is why I’ve been skeptical of conspiracy theories in the past. This essay may, in fact, be no more than theory. I invite you to read it, think about it, fact-check it.
I begin with a question: Lacking military and economic assets to launch an external attack, how would an enemy destroy the United States?
Answer, from within. Use US institutions against it. Weaken or destroy links to friendly nations. Do so covertly so as to avoid the risk of open war. That has been tried before, unsuccessfully.
Do we have such an enemy?
Consider recent events in Eastern Europe, the Russo-Georgian War of 2008. Consider the annexation of Crimea. Consider the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Facts, easily verified.
Conclusion, Russia, directed by Vladimir Putin, is expansionist. It is actively engaged in an attempt to bring the former nations of the USSR under Russian control. There is no reason to suppose Putin’s ambitions will stop at that. Some conjecture, but based on fact.
How can Putin remove the greatest obstacle to his ambitions, the United States of America?
Consider American alliances, American trade partners, and American institutions. Consider American weakness. We destroyed the political system set up by the founders. We turned our government over to two political parties, which systematically set up procedures designed to hamper formation of others. Power was their goal, money was the means. Political professionals sold our government for money. Which they spent in the effort to gain political power, which would then be used to generate more money to gain more power. The cycle was endless. We knew, and did nothing.
Our economy was handed over to oligarchs and multi-national corporations, which did what capitalist entities always do: invest money and seek the greatest possible return on that investment. If cheap labor could not be brought in, jobs would be sent to where the cheap labor was. Socialism became a curse word. Capitalism ruled. No one questioned the false doctrine that competition always ensured more opportunity, more social mobility, more efficiency.
Competition could easily be blocked by payment to a Congressman, who would then slip an ‘amendment’ into an unrelated, must-pass bill. We knew, and did nothing.
We sheep prepared ourselves for slaughter.
Vladimir Putin recognized our weakness. Now we come to the recent national elections.
US and foreign intelligence agencies have evidence that has led them to conclude that Russia interfered in the election. Putin ordered the interference. It was carried out by hacking and disinformation, commonly called fake news, generated to aid Donald Trump and discredit Hillary Clinton. Information gathered from the hacks was released through Wikileaks, possibly others. It was furnished through a cutout to protect the source of the information, but hacking is based on code which includes information about where it originated. Intelligence agencies report the hacks were done by Russians and the campaign was directed by Vladimir Putin.
The effort was designed to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump. Clinton supporters considered him a joke at first, a boor, a bully, a clown. Others, victimized by our political parties and the people who control our economy, saw him as an outsider who would reset the stage. Already looking for a way to upset those in control, they were ready when Putin launched his covert effort to weaken the US from within.
The operation succeeded. We elected Donald Trump. Most of those who voted (many didn’t, or couldn’t) voted for Hillary Clinton. Nevertheless, Donald Trump won election.
We assumed his first official acts, nominations of persons to head departments or advise him, were based on foolishness.
But were they? Or were they part of an effort to attack American institutions, part of a covert attack on the nation? Consider the following:
Trump nominated a man to head the Energy Department who once promised, if elected, to shut it down. The Energy Department is responsible, among other things, for the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
He nominated a woman to head the Education Department whose expressed aim is to weaken public education by taking money from public schools and handing it over to for-profit charter schools.
He nominated a man for Secretary of State, fourth in line of succession to the presidency, who has never held public office, never served in the armed forces, but who holds an award given him by Vladimir Putin: the Russian Order of Friendship. This nominee still has deep economic ties to Russia and Russians. The award has been given to many, including George Blake, an espionage double agent from the UK. Fact.
He nominated a man to head the Department of Health and Human Services who once declined a similar position, citing lack of knowledge and experience. Fact.
He has surrounded himself with people who would not question his motives. These include a propagandist, formerly the head of an Alt-Right news organization. Another is a former intelligence director, removed for inability to lead a major agency. Whose ability to bend truth labeled his conclusions as ‘Flynn Facts’. Fact.
Foolish? Or something more?
Donald Trump has already acted to weaken our trading relationship with China. China has responded by pressing harder in the South China Sea, threatening US allies and some who may no longer be allies.
Donald Trump has disparaged NATO, threatening to not respond if, in his judgment, member nations had not ‘been paying their bills’. His remarks were made during an interview with a NY Times reporter. Facts. It is noteworthy that US troops just moved into Poland; their presence is intended to act as a deterrent to Russian pressure. Poland, formerly occupied by the USSR, is now a member of NATO.
Foolish? Or something more?
One more fact: The U.S. Constitution states, in Article Three, Section Three: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
The Russian Federation, with the knowledge of and at the order of Vladimir Putin, interfered with the American election in an effort to elect Donald Trump. Putin’s Russia is, by definition, an enemy.
Donald Trump has frequently expressed admiration for Putin and Russia. Fact.
Donald Trump, as President-elect, has acted and spoken in a manner designed to weaken American government institutions, including departments headed by nominees to become part of his cabinet. His nominations include persons who have stated in the past that they intend to destroy such institutions. He has made statements designed to weaken American alliances and trade relationships. Fact.
I therefore consider the evidence clear, that more than two ‘witnesses’ have observed overt acts by Donald Trump. He has ‘adhered to an enemy, has given an enemy aid and comfort’. Fact.
By his statements and his actions, Donald Trump has met the definition of treason. Fact.
Donald Trump is a traitor.
Conjecture: Donald Trump may be a fool, but he may also be part of a massive covert attack against the United States, an attack directed by Vladimir Putin. I have not included another conjecture in this essay, that Trump is being influenced by compromising information held in a dossier by Russians.
I wonder if essayists in the past have felt as nervous, even fearful, as I do now?
Turning the Economy Inward, Revisited
January 5, 2017From an article in the NY Times:
“In a Nov. 15 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, (Steve) Bannon described the goal of the “entirely new political movement” he believes Trump is leading:
“It’s everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Shipyards, ironworks, get them all jacked up. We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”
Bannon is explicit in his identification of the enemy:
“The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over. If we deliver, we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years.””
Issues:
Financing this plan means borrowing, increasing the national debt, something Tea Partiers don’t want. The other option is raising taxes, which Republicans generally don’t want. Chance of passing such a plan, not good.
A third option, simply create money by fiat to finance up-front costs is what I believe would work best. Looked at like that, I could find a lot of common ground with Bannon. I’ve described a similar idea and called it ‘turning the economy inward’.
Instead of constantly pressing for exports, which many can’t afford, turn the nation’s attention inward, to fix our own problems. Highways, including the back roads. Power distribution systems, including measures making them less vulnerable to hacking. More wind and solar power. Things like that.
But will the Fed go along? They did, when creating money bailed out the banksters. But to bail out the economy? To bail out ordinary workers?
Will CONGRESS go along? A lot of congresscritters are invested in industries that Bannon’s plan will hurt. It’s like healthcare, if they rein in what Medicare is forced to pay pharma companies, they hurt their own pocketbook. Nope, can’t be doing THAT!
We’ll see.
Sports and the National Anthem
September 25, 2016Are the two not essentially the same?
Now protesters have taken a different tactic, refusing to stand for the national anthem.
On Climate Change, and Wringing of Hands
August 14, 2016We’ve been changing the climate since we first crawled down from the trees.
And promptly began cutting them down.
Instead of shade, the sunlight went directly to the ground. Re-radiated heat was captured by water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. But there were still plenty of trees, billions of them, so no one noticed.
We built cities. No one knew there was a ‘heat island’ effect. After all, there were still hundreds of millions of trees. The heat island effect wouldn’t be discovered for a few thousand years. Why worry?
We paved over the ground. No one paid attention. Any fool knows better than to walk barefoot on a macadamized highway in the summer; if he forgets, there are blisters to remind him. But there were millions of trees still remaining, so no one noticed.
The deserts grew larger. There had once been trees there, but they had been cut. The rains no longer came. The forest became productive farmlands, which in time became a place called the Sahara. But no one understood, because there were still millions of other trees.
The fossilized remnants of billions of trees, of trillions of tiny plants, were mined and pumped out. Finally, people began paying attention.
There were still a few trees, after all.
But the forests are vanishing. More people need cars, which need more oil, gas, and coal to provide power for them and for the houses. Instead of billions of trees, we have billions of people.
Who are still doing precisely what that first ancestor did, put pressure on the climate.
We could begin planting trees. Trees take carbon from the atmosphere and shade the surface, meaning there’s less energy to be transferred by infrared radiation, which in turn means a reduced greenhouse effect.
But no, all those people need food. Food production takes a lot of land, so we can’t plant trees there. The food needs roads and highways to bring it to the cities where the people live. In their own heat island. Where trees have been cut down to make room for ever higher buildings. To make room for ever greater numbers of people. In an ever-growing heat island. Which is served by more and more highways that absorb solar energy and re-radiate it to the atmosphere, where carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor capture it. In the process we call the greenhouse effect.
How nice! We now know about the greenhouse effect, about heat islands. We have NAMES! Not solutions, but at least we know what’s threatening our world.
The simplest solution, long term, is to plant more trees and let them grow until they’re old. But no; poor people will cut them down and sell the wood for lumber, or burn it to keep their houses warm and cook their food.
An almost-as-simple solution is to put reflectors alongside all those miles of highway and on all those heat-island roofs. Reflectors send incoming radiation directly back to space, instead of allowing it to be absorbed by the atmosphere.
But that’s ridiculous. Line highways with cheap reflector panels made from sheets of mirror-finished Mylar? Sure, the reflectors would be cheap, but that’s too simple. It would cut down on the greenhouse effect by preventing surface heating, BEFORE the heat is re-radiated and captured by the atmosphere.
Why don’t we wring our hands instead?
Good Ideas Gone Wrong
November 4, 2015Any idea can be carried too far. When that happens, good ideas become bad ideas. As examples, consider the Veterans Administration and the American public school system. Neither institution does what it’s expected to do. How did they go wrong? And are there lessons in why they’ve failed?
In both cases, the failure is caused by believing that government programs can be operated like a business. Eliminating waste in business makes the business more competitive. If carried too far, market influence will force a correction. But schools and the VA aren’t businesses and they aren’t subjected to market forces. Instead, they’re controlled by politics. Politicians invariably cut too much, because claiming they’ve eliminated ‘waste’ appeals to voters.
But what happens when you cut too much? You make the programs ineffective at doing what they’re supposed to do.
In both of these systems, the operating budget controls everything that’s done. The focus should be on the outcome, on what the institutions do, but invariably it’s on the budget. As a result, underfunded institutions don’t do what they’re supposed to do, educate students in the case of the public school system and provide for the needs of veterans through the VA.
Both institutions must select between two choices: provide a quality product to the few, thereby rejecting others, or provide substandard services to the many. We’re seeing that now. Our public education system does not educate students, the VA does not provide adequate, timely care for veterans. Uneducated students can’t successfully operate their own businesses. They lack the qualifications needed to work for others, and there are few good middle-class jobs anyway. This leads directly to high rates of criminal activity and huge prison populations. As for the VA, veterans die while waiting for care.
Testing in schools highlights the system failure, but does nothing to solve the problem. And Mr. Trump plans to ‘reorganize’ the VA if he’s elected. It’s funding, not organization, that’s the real problem.
We can do better. We must, if we expect the American nation to endure.
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