DEMOCRACY v. ANYTHING ELSE

 "Democracy is the worst form of government ever devised--except for all the other ways of government that have been tried and found wanting."  Sir Winston Churchill

As Winston Churchill was something of a historian, I for one am inclined to believe this quote of his.
The recent fascist thuggery at our Capitol, with large-scale abettance by individual police officers and/or departments, along with four years of Trumpery, has reactivated the debate about democracy v. anything else. Our democratic allies were watching in dismay and with bated breath while our autocratic traditional 'enemies' howled in thigh-slapping delight.
And commentators here have also remarked on how delightfully (to the autocrats) hypocritical our attempts to further 'democracy' over the globe look now and how the autocrats will be saying how democracy produces license and puts the least capable people into the seats of power. Not to mention the airy-fairy notions of Innate Human Goodness on which such 'nonsense' is based. First big mistake.
Democracy is based on exactly the opposite idea: we are all equally corruptible by power, including the economic power that is wealth. And this being the case, no individual nor small group of people can or should be trusted with too much power. And even no majority based on immutable but unimportant characteristics as skin shade or which way our hormones run can or should be trusted with power over those of smaller groups based on the same political trifles. And from this comes the observation that, the realer that equal rights for all becomes, the more secure everyone's rights are. Rights are not zero-sum; quite the contrary.
Such being the case, part of making democracy realer ought to be the limiting of privately-held wealth to, say, $500 million. This way, everyone can at least have enough with enough public goods for all including ecosystems. It might even re-introduce better ways of measuring societal happiness than said wealth. Besides, a study a few years ago showed, once the kids were educated, people protected against medical bankruptcy and people could retire in at least modest comfort, that was enough wealth for most people.
On the other hand, some autocrats might say, democracy, with its frequent elections, takes too little account of the future and of long-range necessities. I may be missing something, but I don't see any authoritarian or autocratic government taking more account of long-range needs than most democracies. Including today's Celestial Empire which now calls itself the People's Republic of China.
Democracy and Autocracy both have their weaknesses in inculcating the ethic of service necessary for and in any government. Democracies might offer more to the shifty cons than it should. But autocracy, and authoritarian regimes generally, tend to cultivate less of an ethic of service to the country at large than they encourage civil servants to kiss the Dear Leader's ass! It's a very bad idea to confuse Dear Leader's ample derriere with the country as a whole--even if said Leader voids on the country often enough! And non-democracies seem to encourage less seeing themselves as trustees than seeing the country as their private property, just as did Clovis, king of the Franks at the advanced age of fifteen (in 481 C.E.) and with about the same understanding of government as too many boys that age! Seems to me that this kind of setup produces at least as many Caligulas, Mad King Ludwigs and Bashar Assads as Marcus Aureliuses, Good King Wenceslases and Ataturks.
Democracy seems at least somewhat better in encouraging the necessary ethic of service to the country as a whole and all that is best in it. Its main drawback right now, fueled largely by white racism, seems to be a Dunning-Kruger effect which seems most pernicious in white males who come from inherited wealth and who, notwithstanding being mediocre students at their historic prep schools and colleges, often wind up in powerful and/or high-paying jobs in government and/or business.
Chances are good that we are in the threshold of making democracy realer than it's ever been here, and maybe anywhere else. I pray (literally) I may be right in perceiving this. Perhaps as we make democracy realer for more kinds of people, more creatures and living things generally, that Dunning-Kruger effect may evaporate and be replaced by respect for real but plainly-expressed (minimal shop talk, I mean) expertise. Another weakness of democracy is the idea that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge, to quote Isaac Asimov. Which it isn't, but autocrats have no reason to boast on this point! Authoritarian regimes by and large share this weakness in an aggravated form where Dear Leaders are concerned.
So long as we continue to strive to realize more and more of democracy, it will continue to have an edge on authoritarian and autocratic regimes. As true and as unflattering a knowledge of history is a very necessary part of this, as is ensuring that equal justice under law is real. As real for BLM as it is for pasty-faced fascist thugs, for example.

APPROACHING 'CRITICAL MASS'?

 The November election was both a mighty relief and a bitter revelation. The reason for the relief is obvious to anyone with an eighth of a brain; the bitter revelation was that a majority of my 'fellow' pasty-faces were quite willing to install a fascist regime! The Georgia runoffs which will probably conclude later today are something quite different: this is a revival of real hope in more ways than one!
First, it's a sign that many different racial groups, especially the African-American women who won the November election and thereby saved the country, have been organizing for real and their efforts are now bearing good fruit!
Second, (and may this be especially heartening to all my fellow 'race-traitors' who saw the same things I did in November and felt the same way), our pasty-faced minority (I mean, among the pasty-faces) might just be approaching 'critical mass' status. I'm not certain about this and anyone can think otherwise but if you do please tell us why. This second reason for hope is big because, if we 'race-traitors' are approaching 'critical mass', guess what that means. It means, from the march toward making equal justice a reality, there will be no turning back! It means that even a majority of our 'fellow' unbaked pasties will not be able to turn things back to the bad old days! Is it too much to hope for that, even those among us to whom racism and bigotry were not deal-breakers are now beginning to understand why they have to be seen as deal-breakers?! OK, I admit it: here's where I might be running away with this; better slow down and steady meself, right?
The Devil, or his most prominent current representative, went down to Georgia lookin' for some votes to steal--and it looks like there were enough of us in Georgia to whom 'equal justice' means all of us and not just those as pale as we, along with relatively new arrivals like Latinos and Asians (btw, Jews are also Asians, from the western end of that continent) led by the strong and beautiful women who have done such glorious organizational work (and who really have, unlike us, no choice but to keep on fighting) to LAY THAT DEVIL DOWN!!! HALLELUJAH!!!
With the Georgia runoff elections. the political future is taking shape! Maybe, just maybe, an all-races, all-faiths, all-sexualities coalition of working people who want a decent deal for themselves and others, including other creatures and ecosystems, is taking shape now! Maybe they will come to understand that rebuilding ecosystems is vital and not naturally opposed to a revived economy which will have enough for all needs but not for everyone's greed, as Gandhi once said!
After the November election, I took a long and relieved breath. Then I felt bitterness welling up as I looked to see who was serious or hypocritical about our country and its promise. Now, I feel both renewed hope for all of us! All us pasty-faced 'race traitors' who just might be approaching critical-mass status and the rainbow of good women and men who are now our leaders on the long march toward 'liberty and justice for all'! America may yet truly be America for us all--for the first time!! May it be so; let's keep on moving to that end, sisters and brothers!!
And let's do what urgently needs doing and waste no time trying to appease those who aren't interested in anything except power and more wealth for their political masters! We've tried that for forty years; has it really worked for the country at all? I suggest it hasn't. So let's drop it and use the power our voters have won for us all!

SAWING BRANCHES & CONSEQUENCES

 

As is often the case at the start of time periods, I was reflecting on some Biblical verses earlier this morning.

I was thinking about how The Message translates the passage about 'the sin against the Holy Spirit'. It gets to the main point that Jesus is making: that those who deny the power of the Spirit are, in the context of Jesus's message, sawing off the tree-branch on which they sit and, thus, set themselves up for a seriously great fall.

Then, I thought about that sort of wicked stupidity in some more earthly contexts as well. The application of this teaching to the current pandemic is SO obvious I hardly need mention it; am I not right? But far more than that is how we just go on devouring the earth and so much on and in it. AND how the counterfeit right-wingers who call themselves 'Christians' while daily insulting Jesus, eating away his message from within and making those of us who walk the walk look like hypocrites like themselves, say that we need to devour more and faster so as to hasten Jesus's return.

I got news for y'all: you're sawing off the branch on which all of us--all life on earth--sit and urging us to join you in doing so! But doing that will NOT hasten Jesus's return in glory. Why? I suggest to you and all my readers that, if we continue in such wicked and deliberate stupidity, there will only be forgiveness for us 1) after a probably lengthy period of time in which God allows us to taste the consequences of such evil in much fuller measure than has yet been the case and 2) showing some seriously real repentance! I say that God will NOT sweep down like Superman before we hit the ground!

No, I say He will allow us to hit the ground without a bounce and be there only when we moan and wail how 'we've fallen and we can't get up!' Then He will come to us not as Superman but as the Merciful Healer He is.

Remember the hymn 'Come Ye Sinners, Poor And Needy'? That's how God sent His Salvation to us all, as one of us. Not as a being from another planet with superpowers to swoop down and save us from our wicked and stupid greed! No, the Godhead will allow us to taste much more of the gall and wormwood we have made ourselves before He lifts us up after the cataclysm which will come if we don't change our greedy ways bigly, to borrow someone else's word. Think about it, all y'all fascist text-proofers without any grasp of God's Holy Spirit!

'CHOOSING LIFE', EARLY 21ST CENTURY

 Today, money has a negative interest rate.
This means that our current system is getting much too topheavy as regards how grossly unequally our society's wealth is apportioned. That can be seen because the dragon-heaps of wealth which the already-obscenely rich are accumulating have nowhere to be re-invested in the economy because demand is as low as it is. And the primary reason for that is that we of the 99.5% have very little discretionary income and growing debts. Many of us would be homeless and starving without credit; an alarmingly growing number of us are already in that state.
The place where all that money for which the economy currently has no place has to go--indeed, the only place it can fruitfully go--is down. That is, to the poor and working classes. Except for islands, the old middle class is no more in the USA. Only fully civilized places like Canada and Europe have a fully functional middle class anymore. And if that is to happen here, we need to expand the talk about systemic racism. We do need to remember that we are all sinners in need of Grace, so we can banish our anxieties about being Good People or not. Those anxieties seem to be a major stumbling block to discussing, analyzing and eventually dismantling systemic racism. And that dismantling needs to happen for us to regenerate our country and our society. That idle money is needed for daycare centers, upgrading of public education,  'greening' our society in ways such as switching to cleaner and renewable forms of energy, from extractive to regenerative agriculture, restoration and indeed strengthening of vital ecosystems. All these are reinvestments. Reinvestments in both human and biological 'capital' which, if past performance is anything to go on, will bear fruit which keeps on growing with time.
This is the 2020 version of 'choosing life'. Starting with such investments and proceeding to make our country much more of an economic democracy and thereby regenerating political democracy as well is how we will 'choose life' in our time. If we don't do this, this is what I see coming.
Never mind weather catastrophes becoming more frequent and more intense; societies as badly skewed as ours as regards who has what have a bad tendency to implode, to crumble from the top on down. No need to take my poor word for this; do the research! And what will that mean? It will mean that, for most of us, we'll need to scrape harder and expect to miss more meals. Which means our health will deteriorate. The worldwide death rates will spike far upwards. Are you still thinking, 'Not here. Not us'? Let me point something out and remind you of a related factor: in large regions of the earth, it may be that those left alive will not be enough to bury or otherwise dispose of the dead. That means large numbers of corpses will just rot where they've died. Now, wind currents circle the whole earth. Even if we ourselves are not faced with the situation I've just outlined, we will smell the rot. Literally. Imagine, say, ten years where the smell of rotting death is always in the air. Are you ready for that? Is that what you want for your children and/or grandchildren?! Think you can wear masks all the time?! I hope you don't want that!
And in order to 'choose life' I for one say we need to tax the billionaires' monies to the point where the largest fortunes are in the mere hundreds of millions as once they were, and keep those taxes operating for a good long time. Not only for revenue either but to keep privately-owned wealth and power within what I would call civically healthy limits. This means, no private wealth that can, to borrow Mr. Jefferson's words, 'bid defiance to the laws of our country' or lobby and propagandize as shamelessly as is currently the case.
So there it is: some significant changes or, at the very least, the omnipresent stench of death in the air. And what it will be is still, at this time, up to us. Choose life, that all of us and our children may live!

FOR ALL OF US WHO DEFEND DEMOCRACY AGAINST FASCISM

 I may yet owe an apology to some of those who, IMO, voted for fascism this election. Starting with Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Spaffenberger. Yes, he voted that way but he still put truth, and his country, above political partisanship, respected the numbers like the good engineer he is and for that he deserves creditable mention. And more state and local Republican officials appear to be emerging from the woodwork to stand beside him, for which they also deserve creditable mention. Because of all the noise made by those on the Right who are about to become open fascists, it's hardly even possible to tell whether the honest patriots among our opponents are a silent majority or a (let us hope) leavening minority in the 'Republican' party. They certainly are quite absent, with the exceptions of Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, Peter Shumlin and Charlie Baker, from the top rungs of leadership. But wherever they are, they are examples of something without which democracy cannot survive: they put truth, principle and country above political party and desire for wealth and power.
Of course I'm biased, but to me it looks like such a spirit is shared by nearly everyone who voted Democratic this past election. It's the Republican party that is seriously diseased by all-but-open fascism inside its ranks, perhaps especially within its inside-the-Beltway contingent and, most of all, inside its media wing of Faux News. There, I'd say the fascism is already open!
In our country, we are once more on the verge of creating something that, so far as we know, has never existed before: a genuinely multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democratic republic. Think about this. We have the opportunity to be a leader among the nations again in doing this. However, too many among us want to bar the gate and make our country into a hideous cross between Apartheid South Africa and a Shi'ite Baptist republic complete with its own ayatollahs! So long as they're on top, they don't care if what they're on top of is Fresh Kills as opposed to being on equal terms with those who are 'different' than they and building something unseen before in all of human history--together!
Which brings me to something else a democracy needs: citizens who understand what democracy, equal rule of law, and hearing out everyone means and who are willing to defend and fight for that against enemies foreign and domestic. Right now our biggest problem is with the latter on the Right: racists, fascists, oligarchs, wannabe Grand Inquisitors and other neo-feudal bad actors.
These are the groups who stand in the way of a democracy larger and more comprehensive than anything before in human history. And they will spout such things as how 'natural' it is to be tribal. And they'll be....partially right. But it is both possible and indeed urgently necessary to put precept, such as the one to hear as great a variety of voices as possible and to be zealous in making sure the rule of law is equally applied, before one's tribe or tribes. This is necessary for democracy to work. It is also necessary for civilization to work and endure. Finally and most importantly, it is commanded by God in both Old and New Testaments and in the Qur'an as well, if I'm not mistaken. We often misunderstand this as a command to impose our cultures upon the unwilling. No, that's not how it's supposed to go. Yes, I do think Sir Charles Napier was right in putting an end to suttee in the way he did, too. If you don't know the reference, google it and be enlightened.
Another thing necessary for democracy (and I must say we democrats and Democrats have been remiss in this) is the slapping down of behavior intended to stifle voices the speaker doesn't like. There's been a lot of noise made about such behavior on the far left but the Left does this much less than the Right. And one variety of 'free speech' that should never be tolerated is speech which says that, because of race, ethnicity, faith or lack thereof and/or sexuality, one group should have more rights and others less.
We cannot repeat this often enough: personal liberty is not zero-sum. The freer the least among us are, the freer we ALL are! Allied with this is that living creatures--humans, animals, biospheres-- and their necessities, must be considered of more importance than property and property rights, especially those of absentee landlords or other absentee 'owners'. Mom-and-Pop or even mid-size businesses are something very different from corporate oligarchs and the two have precious little, if anything really, in common. We can't repeat that often enough either.
Much has to be done with which the honest Republicans probably won't agree but, so long as they play by a democracy's rules, we can live with that--and with them. When they can see how much better progressive policies pay off for everyone, that will be the icing on a very sweet yet nourishing cake.
But we can hardly be too severe with our native neo-feudal fascisti. They need to be decisively beaten time and again. God give us the strength to do what is necessary, sez I.

DO DEMOCRACIES NEED MINORITIES?

 Do democracies need minorities?
I suggest strongly that they do. Why? We've only to look at one very grim statistic from the election just past to know why. An alarmingly 'healthy' majority of my 'fellow' (shudder!) palefaces voted to say that children in cages, babies being ripped from their mamas' very breasts, unarmed people of color being mowed down by uniformed thugs with only different uniforms from the SS and Gestapo, God only knows (I confess to not wanting to know) what other enormities crying out to God for vengeance, right along with inequality of wealth and income which have us lurching toward a downright feudal economy--were quite all right with them and that they wanted more of them!!
This past election saved our democracy from being extinguished, no thanks whatsoever to the majority of my 'fellow' palefaces! And the minority of palefaces to which I belong could never have saved our democracy alone. We could only do this together with our fellow citizens of color: African-Americans, Latinos, Asians of every national origin from Israel (yes, including Ashkenazim) to Korea and our Native brethren as well. If that doesn't convince you that democracies need minorities in order to stay democracies, I don't know what will.
Our homegrown fascists profess that being multi-racial and multi-ethnic are drawbacks and weaknesses for nations. I say no, it is the other way around. To be multi-racial, -ethnic and -religious as well are strengths, not weaknesses!
Let me ask any French, Dutch, German, Italian or Spaniard within their political mainstreams: with minorities, is it less or more likely that these countries will remain liberal democracies and, indeed, be strengthened in that? Wasn't it between the wars, with a relatively 'pure' population, that fascism became dangerous? Why does it seem that Canada and New Zealand seem to be immune from the insanity that has gripped us, England (not so much the UK as a whole) and Australia? Could being bi-lingual and at least bi-cultural have something to do with that? I'll venture it hath quite a lot to do with those countries' comparative (to the rest of the Anglophone world) sanity!
And, conversely, it is those nations which are mistakenly proud of being monocultural where democracy has all but gurgled down the toilet. Poland and Hungary, I'm looking straight at you! And at most Arab/Muslim nations as well! And look how both Russia and China now treat their minorities! Anyone ready to say 'Uighurs'?
It seems that in most countries with large racial/ethnic/religious majorities where minorities have little or no political power and where the majority is not clearly threatened tend toward dictatorship of one form or another. Often that dictatorship is religious or 'anointed' by the country's dominant religion. Israel should be glad of its Arabs, Druze and beauteous (?) Circassians, to name some of its minorities. Without them, who knows what The Cheltenham Kid (Bibi, I mean) would be up to by now!
Democracies need minorities because they are, willy-nilly, the coal-mine canaries for any country's democratic life. They, not usually any country's majority, are the best guarantors and guardians of real democracy and the law treating everyone equally, or as near to it as a country can get. They are the groups who need these things the most in order to prosper and flourish. And when they do, the nation as a whole is that much better off.
I'd like to conclude with a special, deep thanks to all the women of color who saved our country's democracy in this past election. I wish I could do more, but I'm working on it with posts like this. I think of a song about the Black girl from the 1960s and I can feel my eyes filling as I do. Who out there remembers this song?
Black Pearl, precious little girl
Let me put you up where you belong
Black Pearl, pretty little girl
You've been in the background much too long
That last verse is all too true. I wouldn't call y'all 'little', but 'precious' hardly begins to cover your value to our country! Not sure it's for an aging paleface like me to 'put you up where you belong' but rather to clear the way for all you beautiful, smart, strong women to come forward and be placed 'where you belong'. And this aging pale male says you definitely belong everywhere in our country! Again, many thanks that you are here!

TEARS AND TEARS

 Fascists savor our tears.
That is, the tears of liberals and progressives.
Nearly all of such tears are shed either for people, or other living creatures, less able to fend for themselves than are we. Or those trying to give us that impression. Fatah and Hamas, I'm looking right at you!
Or they are shed for the damage or ruin, realized or possible, of things much greater than ourselves but which we cherish. Such as singular landscapes, species or, indeed, the country we all love in a much deeper way than do the fascists. Too often those that love our country most are those whose love the country returns poorly if at all. And we weep and/or rage over that too. Some of our tears are tears of hope of fulfillment and/or joy at such full or partial fulfillment of such hopes. Our hopes are usually all-inclusive or almost that. We need to dump the Jew-haters hiding among us.
It is very, very rare for a liberal or progressive to weep for themselves. To us, it is not our feelings that matter much. By and large we try to follow the Biblical injunction to mind the feelings of others above our own. We even sometimes put the feelings of the fascists above our own, which is a serious strategic and spiritual mistake.
Fascists are the REAL 'snowflakes' and 'buttercups'. They're the ones who'll demand to know if any 'n***er' ever used the clean cutlery set at their plates and won't abide anyone of color swimming in their association's pool, for instance. And when they're called on their vicious bigotries, will whine, moan and wail about discrimination against them!!
Fascisti, I got news for you: our reactions against y'all have nothing to do with the color (or rather, lack of color) of your skin, hair or eyes. Nor do they have to do with any weird-ass belief you might hold Many if not most of us are also people of faith. I certainly am. I am a Christian, and it is because I am a Christian that I am so angry with you. I see routine violations of both the Third and Ninth Commandments as being part of your stock-in-trade, along with cherished hatreds on the grounds of race, religion and politics. And I say you desecrate God's House with such diabolical beliefs and, above all, by the actions arising from such diabolical heresy!
No, our dislikes of you arise from the content of your character. Or, I should probably say, your lack of character. You seek to do evil, but you usually do it when you can, or think you can, depend on backing from some powerful planter-type person and/or the police. Usually not otherwise.
We will often act without such backing with leaders rising up from their communities. And when you're caught, you beg and wail for mercy, how you were set up and pleasepleasePLEASE don't hurt you! Ever see or hear us do that? No, we stand for what is right and just and we know it! We're often not humble enough about it, but let that be between God and us.
Fellow libs and progs, we have to stop being merciful to the fascisti's snow-flaky feelings. They show no mercy when they have the upper hand; can anyone tell me credibly that their feelings deserve any? Or that they should not be permanently excluded from the corridors of power?
Still, let's not fire the first shot if it comes to that. No, the way to neutralize the fascists is: buy them a place, fix it up nicely as a bar and make sure the booze is good quality, if not necessarily top-shelf. Maybe put a piano in it so they can sing their songs as they get drunk.
Of course, as they do get drunk they will weep endlessly, but only for themselves. All their tears will be for themselves alone as they mangle Wae's Me For Prince Chairlie for the--oh, I don't know, the twenty-third time or whatever. But in any case, fellow liberals and progressives, let us not be deterred from executing justice on those who have tears only for themselves or whatever they may call 'their own'. Remember, there's tears and then there's tears. We weep largely for other things besides ourselves and, when we do, we're prone to remind ourselves in a generally rather scolding way, of how blessed we still are, so let's keep marching! The right wing weeps only for themselves and whatever they term 'their own' and cannot understand any biped weeping for anything but themselves!!
Does it remind you of anything? Here's what it reminds me of:
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:5, NIV) In their incomprehension of care for anyone but themselves, I suggest they show themselves as children of darkness. Even as they delude themselves that they have a monopoly on the Light!