#302 / I'm Going, I'm Going, I'm Gone

I am a big Bob Dylan fan, and if you didn't already know that, you should probably be reading this blog more often! At any rate, I have always liked Dylan's song, "Going, Going, Gone," which is on his Planet Waves album. Just in case you are not familiar with the song, I'll include the lyrics at the end of this posting, but what you should really do, of course, is to listen to the song.

While I have captured my headline from Bob Dylan, I am not actually commenting on his song, but on a book reviewed in The Wall Street Journal, way back in June. The title of the book is The Paper Trail, authored by Alexander Monro. The book discusses the history of paper, starting with its "dim origins" in China, and continuing to the present day. You can read the review by clicking this link.

Here's a quote from the review (by Howard W. French) that caught my eye:

Mr. Monro concludes his lively story on a meditative note, saying that one definition of civilization “is an attempt at permanence.”

Digital, online media are challenging paper, but they are definitely not "permanent," and there is a lot of reason to worry that Monro is right, and that when we lose the permanence of paper we may lose civilization itself.

I am not a big fan of "tech disruption," sometimes called "Creative Disruption," which makes the disturbance and destruction of what already exists a major objective of every high-tech enterprise. In fact, to my mind, that whole "disruption" idea, as a positive goal of high-tech activity, is arrogant in the extreme. I completely agree with Daniel Gelernter, who has written a very brief polemic in The Wall Street Journal under this headline: "A Little Less Disruption, Please."

Anyway, that's what I think about paper. And that's what I think about books!

Here's French, quoting Monro on the topic:

The paper book is under pressure like never before, but because of its palpable qualities, [Monro says] nothing yet has unseated it. For now, it still towers above its electronic rivals as “a handheld extended piece of writing that can be physically owned.”

I, personally, hope that Monro is right about books. But I'm not sure.

I have a lot of books in my house, but what happens next? I'm going... I'm going...

When I'm gone?

oooooOOOooooo

Going, Going, Gone

Bob Dylan

I’ve just reached a place

Where the willow don’t bend

There’s not much more to be said

It’s the top of the end

I’m going

I’m going

I’m gone

I’m closin’ the book

On the pages and the text

And I don’t really care

What happens next

I’m just going

I’m going

I’m gone

I been hangin’ on threads

I been playin’ it straight

Now, I’ve just got to cut loose

Before it gets late

So I’m going

I’m going

I’m gone

Grandma said, “Boy, go and follow your heart

And you’ll be fine at the end of the line

All that’s gold isn’t meant to shine

Don’t you and your one true love ever part”

I been walkin’ the road

I been livin’ on the edge

Now, I’ve just got to go

Before I get to the ledge

So I’m going

I’m just going

I’m gone

Image Credits:

(1) - http://bobdylan.com/songs/going-going-gone/

(2) - Gary A. Patton Personal Photo

#301 / Some Good Advice From Tom

Tom Hayden died on Sunday, October 23rd. In the obituary published in the Tuesday, October 25th edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, Tom was quoted as offering the following advice:

Mr. Hayden maintained that a citizen was obliged not only to vote, but also to disagree with those he had voted for. "Dissent has been crucial to positive social change throughout our history,” Mr. Hayden said. “The American Revolution, abolition, women’s suffrage, the labor movement, the environmental movement. Where would we be as a country without that kind of dissent?” 

I think Tom is dispensing some very good advice here, with his observation that we may well need to disagree with those politicians for whom we have voted. In that spirit, and having already voted for Hillary Clinton, let me suggest that there is some wisdom to be gleaned from a commentary published in the October 22, 2016 edition of The New York Times, and republished in my hometown newspaper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, on October 25th, the date I read that Hayden obituary in the Chronicle.

The commentary I am citing, titled "The Dangers of Hillary Clinton," was written by Ross Douthat, a columnist whom Wikipedia properly characterizes as a "conservative voice."

Below, I am providing a lengthy excerpt from Douthat's commentary, providing a warning that I believe is consistent with what Tom Hayden has said about disagreeing with those candidates for whom we have voted.

In the Democratic Primary Election, Hayden did support Clinton over Bernie Sanders, to the distress of people like me, who were hoping that Sanders would be the candidate to go up against Mr. Trump. I think it's important, after Hillary Clinton is elected, as it seems ever more likely that she will be, not to lose sight of Hayden's warning. We may well need to disagree with Clinton as President, and to oppose her policies, particularly on the issues of war and peace.

Here is Douthat (with my running commentary inserted):

A VOTE for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, the Clinton campaign has suggested ... isn’t just a vote for a Democrat over a Republican: It’s a vote for safety over risk, steady competence over boastful recklessness, psychological stability in the White House over ungovernable passions. [There is no doubt that this comparison is totally fair! This is definitely why I voted for Hillary Clinton.]

This theme has been a winning one for Hillary, in her debates and in the wider campaign, and for good reason. The perils of a Trump presidency are as distinctive as the candidate himself, and a vote for Trump makes a long list of worst cases — the Western alliance system’s unraveling, a cycle of domestic radicalization, an accidental economic meltdown, a civilian-military crisis — more likely than with any normal administration.

Indeed, Trump and his supporters almost admit as much. “We’ve tried sane, now let’s try crazy,” is basically his campaign’s working motto. The promise to be a bull in a china shop is part of his demagogue’s appeal. Some of his more eloquent supporters have analogized a vote for Trump to storming the cockpit of a hijacked plane, with the likelihood of a plane crash entirely factored in.

But passing on the plane-crash candidate doesn’t mean ignoring the dangers of his rival.

The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump’s authoritarian unknowns, because we live with them in our politics already. They’re the dangers of elite groupthink, of Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They’re the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn’t recognize itself as either, because it’s convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it cannot possibly be folly. [This is the paragraph that I suggest gets at a real truth about our current politics, and that may well mean that "non-conservative" voices will have to be raised, and loudly, after Clinton's election.]

Almost every crisis that has come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this establishmentarian type of folly. The Iraq War, which liberals prefer to remember as a conflict conjured by a neoconservative cabal, was actually the work of a bipartisan interventionist consensus, pushed hard by George W. Bush but embraced as well by a large slice of center-left opinion that included Tony Blair and more than half of Senate Democrats.

Likewise the financial crisis...  

One can look at Trump himself and see too much danger of still-deeper disaster, too much temperamental risk and moral turpitude, to be an acceptable alternative to this blunder-ridden status quo ... while also looking at Hillary Clinton and seeing a woman whose record embodies the tendencies that gave rise to Trumpism in the first place...

She was for the Iraq War when everyone was for it, against the surge when everyone had given up on Iraq, and then an unchastened liberal hawk again in Libya just a few short years later.

She was a Russia dove when the media mocked Mitt Romney for being a Russia hawk; now she’s a Russia hawk along with everyone else in Washington in a moment that might require deescalation.

She cites Merkel as a model leader, she’s surrounded by a bipartisan foreign policy cadre that’s eager for a Details To Be Determined escalation in Syria, and she seems — like her Goldman Sachs audiences — intent on sailing serenely above the storm of nationalism rather than reconsidering any of the assumptions of her class...

But in those cases where the cosmopolitan position isn’t necessarily reasonable or safe, in those instances where the Western elite can go half-mad without realizing it, Hillary Clinton shows every sign of being just as ready to march into folly as her peers.

I supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary because I am quite concerned about the failure of our national government to do anything about a financial arrangement that pipes almost all the benefits of our economic successes to those extremely wealthy "billionaires" at the top of the pyramid, and that continues to pursue military adventurism around the globe.

Choosing Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in our current election is the right choice. However, let's not forget Tom Hayden's good advice:

A citizen [is] obliged not only to vote, but also to disagree with those [whom] he [or she has] voted for. Dissent has been crucial to positive social change.

Image Credit:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/24/us/tom-hayden-dies/

#300 / It's Now Or Never

I was delighted when I heard that Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Today, on October 26th, that is not really "news" anymore, though I guess that some people might still want to debate whether or not this award to Dylan, in the "literature" category, was really appropriate, and/or the significance of Dylan's non-recognition of the award. 

According to Wikipedia, the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme (1839–1907) was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect." I think Dylan's designation pretty much fits that same description, with the added plus of music! Thus, I don't see much reason to debate the award. Rather, like many others, I am spending my time remembering some of my  favorite lyrics.

There is a lot to remember! For more than fifty years, Dylan's lines have helped me both discover and define the truths that have shaped my life, and his lyrics have appealed to both my heart and intellect. Dylan's release of "Soon After Midnight," on his Tempest album, in 2012, helped me resolve, in my own mind, a kind of running argument with my father, which I carried on for years, while my father was still alive. 

My father consistently sought to calm my anxieties about our historic situation by telling me that things have pretty much "always" been the way they are. "Don't hyperventilate, Gary," was his short message. My own contention has always been that we are facing a real turning point in human history, right now, and are pushing forward at unprecedented speed towards the Apocalypse. 

Could it be that we were both right? That's what Bob Dylan seems to suggest, in what may currently may be my favorite Bob Dylan line. I commend "Soon After Midnight" to you. You can listen to Dylan perform the song by clicking the link.  

Dylan's last verse sums up and resolves, succinctly, or so I see it, my argument with my father. Dylan tells us, in a statement that is at least as paradoxically full of truth as any Buddhist koan: 

It's now or never  

More than ever

We are, inevitably, and always, facing the end, and death; there is nothing new there, for such is our fate, and that is our continuing condition. Things have "always" been that way. It has ever been thus. We are "always" on the precipice of disaster and decision. That's what my Dad contended, I guess. I know he is right. That is our existential truth. 

But what about my point? What about right now? What about my sense that we are at some special place of existential choice?

As I listen to "Soon After Midnight," I hear Dylan confirm this truth. It's always been like that, he says; we are always at a point of existential choice, but now it's more than ever true! We'd better know: 

It's now or never  More than ever

More.

Than Ever.

Before.

Image Credits:

(1) - http://art-sheep.com/7-interesting-facts-about-bob-dylan/

(2) - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/books/bob-dylan-on-the-page-poetry-and-prose-to-match-any-american-writer.html

#299 / Climate Apocalypse And/Or Democracy

On September 13, 2015, a little over a year ago, The Huffington Post published an article by Jedediah Purdy, who is a professor at Duke Law School. Purdy's article, which has only recently come to my attention, was titled, "Climate Apocalypse And/Or Democracy." Among other things, Purdy had this to say: 

In the last week, a group of scientists and a prominent historian each predicted a climate apocalypse. The scientists, led by Ricarda Winkelmann of Germany’s Potsdam University, issued a paper finding that, if humans burn the rest of the world’s estimated fossil fuel reserves — which might take only another 140 years at current rates of increase — effectively all of the world’s ice will melt, and sea levels will rise some 160 feet, enough to change the surface of the planet and drown, among others, New York, London, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Tokyo, and all of Bangladesh.

Historian Timothy Snyder of Yale argued in the New York Times that climate change may bring us the next Hitler. If we ignore the warnings of science and don’t start investing in clean technologies, climate shocks will push countries into panic-inducing scarcity, inspiring everything from ethnic and religious conflict in Africa and the Middle East to imperial land grabs by a hungry and worried China. The Nazi precedent is at the heart of Snyder’s essay, which is titled “The Next Genocide.” For him, Hitler’s genocidal war for “lebensraum,” or “living space” for Germans, is a paradigm of an anti-scientific response to an ecological crisis. Snyder emphasizes that Hitler rejected scientific measures to increase crop yields and called for Germans to colonize Ukraine and the rest of Europe’s grain belt as protection against a food-poor future.

Taken together, these two warnings underscore the discomforting fact that the future of the planet is a political problem. 

I have no quarrel with Purdy's claim that we are facing a climate-related "apocalypse." I think he is right about that. I do take exception, though, to Purdy's statement that "the future of the planet is a political problem."

Despite the incredible damage that human beings can do, and are doing, to the Natural World, to "Planet Earth," and to "Mother Nature," the future of the planet, and of Nature itself, is not ultimately threatened by what we do. The future of the World of Nature may be affected by what we do, but it will not ultimately be determined by what we do. "The planet" will survive even the worst sort of damage we can visit upon it. 

Listen to what Julia Roberts says, portraying "Mother Nature" in the "Nature Is Speaking" series, presented by Conservation International:

I've been here for over 4.5 billion years, 22,500 times longer than you. I don't really need people.... I am Nature. I will go on...

The "political" problem we face is the future of our world, the human world, the world that human beings create, and that is most often called "civilization." 

Our human world depends on the World of Nature, and the future of the human world is, indeed, a political problem. We live in a "political world."

If we don't promptly come to understand our radical dependence on the Natural World, and forge our politics accordingly, it is the future of the human world that will be extinguished. 

Even the most casual reference to the World of Nature as a realm dependent on us (rather than the opposite, which is the actual truth) can distract us from our real situation. That kind of misunderstanding can mislead us...

To our doom. 

Listen to the voices of the World of Nature in the "Nature is Speaking" series:

NATURE DOESN'T NEED PEOPLE. PEOPLE NEED NATURE.

Image Credit:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jedediah-purdy/climate-apocalypse-andor_b_8131368.html?

#298 / The World Resumes At The Airport

Pictured is Emily St. John Mandel, author of a bestselling novel, Station Eleven. I read this book on my recent trip to Europe, and I do have to agree with the various (and many) laudatory comments found on the cover of the book (and also within). It's recommended! Here is a link to a nice review from Greenwich Time.

The premise of the book is that an amazingly powerful flu sweeps the world, with this pandemic killing over 99% of the entire population of Planet Earth within about two weeks. Here's one observation, found on Page 178 of the Vintage paperback edition that I read:

On silent afternoons in his brother's apartment, Jeevan found himself thinking about how human the city is, how human everything is. We bemoaned the impersonality of the modern world, but that that was a lie, it seemed to him; it had never been impersonal at all. There had always been a massive delicate infrastructure of people, all of them working unnoticed around us, and when people stop going to work, the entire operation grinds to a halt. 

We live, in other words, in a "human" world, and we are "all in this together." These are two of the themes that I promote, relentlessly, here on my Two Worlds blog, so you can see how I'd like the book. Good premises, and a great story, too! 

If things are looking up, by the end, it's at least partly thanks to the fact that one of the main characters establishes a Museum of Civilization at a former airport near Detroit. History matters! Libraries and books matter!

They do!

Let me repeat: recommended!

Image Credit:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/porter-anderson/2014/08/who-says-book-marketing-is-dead-picador-champions-station-eleven/

#297 / Utopia Makes A Comeback

The October 3, 2016 edition of The New Yorker has an article by Akash Kapur that is titled, "The Return Of The Utopians." I commend it to your attention. Just click the link.

Kapur is not, really, a big supporter of utopian thinking, stating that "contradiction and hypocrisy have always hovered over the utopian project." Kapur aligns himself with French philosopher and political economist Bertrand de Jouvenel, whom he quotes as follows:  

There is a tyranny in the womb of every utopia.

That is probably true, but I personally believe that contradiction and hypocrisy are inherent possibilities in just about everything that human beings do. I'd make de Jouvenel's statement a bit more general: "There is the possibility of a tyranny in the womb of every human project." 

Just consider, for example, our current presidential campaign. This year's presidential contest is certainly a non-utopian project, but one with some very dangerous indications that a tyranny may be hatching inside of what purports to be a democratic election.

I have, on several occasions, published my own view of utopia in this Two Worlds blog, and my conclusion is different from Kapur's. It is our task, always, to brave the danger that hypocrisy, contradiction, tyranny, and similar afflictions may be associated with any of the actions we take, as we construct the human world in which we most immediately live. Such dangers are the inevitabilities of our human situation. In a world that makes such possibilities an almost routine result of human action and error (and what religious thinkers call "sin"), utopian thinking can be a remedy, not a cause. To restate my earlier observation: 

I have always believed in "utopian" thinking; that is, I have believed in it since my undergraduate days, when I studied "Utopia" for two years, as a participant in an Honors Program in Social Thought and Institutions. 

The Honors Program was headed by Charles Drekmeier, and it was a life-changing experience for me. The lesson I took away was that the world we inhabit is not, truly, a "given," and that our individual and collective actions can transform reality.

Seeking to transform our human-created reality into something worthy of our highest aspirations is what utopia means to me.

If Kapur is right, and if the "return of the utopians" is at hand, that may mean that my kind of utopian thinking is making a comeback. 

That could be good news!

Image Credit:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/03/the-return-of-the-utopians

#296 / Nothing Is More Important

I finished this book in London on August 26th. It's a powerful book. I am still thinking about it. 

"What is more precious than independence and freedom?" That's a question in the book. That is the question that the Sympathizer has to answer, on pain of death.

"Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom." That's a statement that Viet Thanh Nguyen says is "almost the same [as the question] but not quite."

Read the book to solve the puzzle. Well, read the book and solve the puzzle if you can. I am still thinking about it.

And when the story is done (the story ends on Page 382) read on:

Some may see our family of refugees as living proof of the American dream - my parents are prosperous, my brother is a doctor who leads a White House advisory committee, and I am a professor and novelist. But our family story is a story of loss and death, for we are here only because the United States fought a war that killed three million of our countrymen (not counting over two million others who died in neighboring Laos and Cambodia). Filipinos are here largely because of the Philippine-American War, which killed more than 200,000. Many Koreans are here because of a chain of events set off by a war that killed over two million.

We can argue about the causes for these wars and the apportioning of  blame, but the fact is that war begins, and ends, over here, with the support of citizens for the war machine ... Telling these kinds of stories, or learning to read, see and hear family stories as war stories, is an important way to treat the disorder of our military-industrial complex. For rather than being disturbed by the idea that war is hell, this complex thrives on it. 

Image Credit:

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Sympathizer.html?id=-u0aswEACAAJ&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y&hl=en

#295 / Small Talk

In an article published in the October 1-2 edition of The Wall Street Journal, freelance writer Jennifer Breheny Wallace says there are "big benefits" to a little small talk. The illustration above outlines her concept. We can grow our understanding by appropriating ideas and information we get from others, from others who are different from us.

According to Wallace, we miss our opportunity to expand the world in which we live if we focus in on what our cell phones are telling us. Almost always, the media and information sources we most frequently consult tell us things we already know, or give us information that reinforces our current understandings of the world. 

Successful "small talk," with those with whom we have "weak ties," will actually strengthen our own sense of well being. 

That's what Wallace says, and that's a "big benefit."

She's got some hints in her article. 

I think she's right!

Image Credit:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-benefits-of-a-little-small-talk-1475249737

#294 / Do Unto Others

I was stunned by the editorial that appeared in the October 19, 2016 edition of The Mercury News. I was particularly amazed by its headline and the editorial's first couple of paragraphs: 

U.S. must work to stop drone threats 

The news that the Islamic State utilized a drone with explosives to kill two Kurdish fighters should send chills down the spine of America. Terrorists must be salivating at the notion of suicide bombing without suicide.

The Islamic State has deployed drones for reconnaissance missions in the battlefields of northern Iraq, but last week’s attack marks its first documented use of a drone as a weapon in combat. 

Please note the use of the word "its" in paragraph two. The recent attack was the first documented use of a drone by the Islamic State as a weapon in combat. 

Where, I wonder, did the Islamic State get the idea that they could use drones as a weapon in combat? Maybe the fact that the United States has killed thousands of people using drones gave the Islamic State that idea. Could that be it? 

Click this link for a graphic representation of the deaths caused by U.S. drones in Pakistan. The estimate from this website is 3,341 deaths. The photo at the top of the page, from the Center For The Study of the Drone, at Bard College, indicates that drone victims in Pakistan have been begging the United States to stop the killing (with no positive response from our country).

How nice, then, for The Mercury News to advocate for the development of "international standards for use of lethal force outside traditional battlefields." It would certainly be a good thing to establish such standards, and to stop the use of drones as weapons. But let's be honest; the Mercury's outrage should be directed against the United States government, not the Islamic State.

We all know about the Golden Rule, right? The Golden Rule is most often articulated using words from the New Testament (Matt. 7:12):

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

There is a corollary to the Golden Rule, the sad truth of which is demonstrated by our historical experience through centuries of wars and depredations: 

When you do something to others, they're going to do it right back.

The Mercury got its headline wrong. The right way to put it is this way:

 

U.S. must work to stop drone threats 

Image Credit:

 http://dronecenter.bard.edu/multimedia-portals/laws-of-war/

#293 / A Lesson From Abroad

Here is what The New York Times said in an editorial published on Saturday, October 15th:

The one lesson America should have learned in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years is that unless governments reduce corruption, calm sectarian divisions, integrate all groups into the political process and deliver services to their citizens, extremists are sure to rise again.

The Times was talking about "The Coming Battle for Mosul." The comments are certainly appropriate in that context, but I think this is a lesson that should inform our own politics, too. 

Image Credit:

http://www.alliance4usefulevidence.org/publication/lessonsfromabroad/

#292 / On Voting

"One of the things I always try to tell people is when you vote, your vote doesn’t count for anything..."

I am quoting, above, from an article that appeared in the October 16, 2016 edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The article reported on a meeting at which John Laird, California Secretary of Resources, and formerly Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, provided information on the many ballot measures facing California voters on November 8th. 

And who was it who said, "your vote doesn't count...?" That would be Morgan Smith, "a 20-year-old Santa Cruz resident and recent political science graduate at UC Santa Cruz." While saying that "your vote doesn't count for anything," Smith does, I gather, advise voting nonetheless. It is Smith's contention that a person's vote "counts as a statistic," and that "the more statistics you generate, the bigger an impact it has on politicians when they're deciding what to do."

Please let me correct the record. Voting counts! It happens that I teach in the Politics Department at UC Santa Cruz, though I don't think I ever ran across Morgan Smith. I was also elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors five times, and lost an election to the California State Assembly, so I have some practical experience. Believe me, when I campaigned for office, in elections that were always quite close, it became obvious to me that voting "counts."

In fact, voting can be seen as an amazing kind of "trick," by which we, as a collective group of individuals, mobilize our small increments of individual power (our individual ability to do work) into the kind of massive power that builds dams and bridges, goes to war, and determines what the rules will be that govern our common life. 

Each of us has the ability to do work and to accomplish things. We mobilize our personal power, individually, in all of our daily activities; none of us, however, using only our individual power, has the ability to accomplish any large project. If we, collectively, want to build a dam or a highway, to go to war or to make the peace, we need to act in common. And how do we actually do that, in fact?

Here's how. We agree that we will transfer most of our individual power, subject to the limitations imposed by the Constitution, to elected representatives, who will then be granted the right to "govern" us. Political science students and professors sometimes call this the "social contract." It's a bargain we make with each other. We give up a large part of our "personal" and "individual" power so as to be able to conjoin our individual power with the individual power of others, and by doing so, we achieve a larger, common power, capable of doing great things, and accomplishing large projects, collectively.

The money we individually earn can be collected from us, as our elected representatives set taxes, high or low, and specify from where the revenue comes. That money will be spent on the projects that our elected representatives determine are worthy, and that they decide will benefit us all. Our physical labor, in fact, can actually be "conscripted," because we have given our elected representatives the right to send us out to kill for our country. And to die for it, too, of course. The rules that govern our personal relationships (like what does "marriage" actually mean?) are also established by the elected representatives who govern us. 

As I pointed out, yesterday, the future growth and development of the City of Santa Cruz, the kind of community we will collectively create, will largely be determined by the City Council representatives we select on November 8th. Those representatives will be selected by counting the "votes" that each one receives. The four candidates with the most votes will win; they will then have access to governmental power, as delegated to them by the voters, and that means the persons we elect will have the power to make decisions in our name. When important decisions are made by counting up votes (and that's how elections work), it ought to be obvious that every vote "counts." In Santa Cruz, no individual person will decide the future of our City. WE will decide its future, and we will decide it by "voting."

Thinking that our vote is only valuable as some sort of "statistic" is profoundly to misunderstand the immense power that we, collectively, have at our command, and that we mobilize and direct through the representatives we select. 

Whether at the local level, or the national level - and in terms of all those state propositions - voting "counts."

So, cast your own vote. Put your power to work. And...

Tell your friends. That's really what politics is all about. We tell our friends what we think, and seek to persuade them to our point of view. The more persuasive we are, the more votes we will have for what we want.

We vote. Our friends vote. Other people vote. Everyone who is eligible can vote. And when that's done, we "count" the vote.

Make no mistake. Voting "counts!"

Image Credits:

(1) - http://www.liberalamerica.org/tag/voting-rights/

(2) - https://twitter.com/thedemocrats/status/529687205829439488

#291 / Slates In The City

Voters in the City of Santa Cruz, who will be voting for a new City Council this November, are being presented with two different "slates." One of them is the "Brand New Council" slate (Chris Krohn, Steve Schnaar, Drew Glover, and Sandy Brown). That is the more "liberal" or "progressive" of the two slates, and is associated with the ongoing efforts of Bernie Sanders' supporters to bring a Sanders' style of progressive politics to electoral issues at the local level. A recent Opinion Editorial by Michael Urban, an emeritus politics professor at UCSC, outlines the case for the Brand New Council.

The other slate is supported by the Santa Cruz Sentinel and by The Democratic Women's Club (see the picture below). Just to be clear about the Democrats, The People's Democratic Club, the more liberal of the two local Democratic clubs, is supporting the "Brand New Council" candidates. 

The "Sentinel/DWC slate" is more or less the "establishment" slate. It is headed up by well-respected and longtime Mayor Cynthia Mathews, and includes a former Sentinel reporter, J.M. Brown. Click the link for the Sentinel's editorial, which makes the case for its four chosen candidates. 

The Sentinel/DWC Slate: Cynthia Mathews, J.M. Brown,
Martine Watkins, and Robert Singleton

On last Friday evening, October 14th, I attended an "East Of The River Santa Cruz City Council Forum, to see the candidates in person. The forum was extremely well run, and was sponsored by the Branciforte Business Association and the Branciforte Action Committee. The forum started at dinnertime, 5:00 p.m., and the day was rainy. Frankly, I wasn't expecting much of a turnout, but I was surprised. There was a huge crowd, with I think close to 300 persons in attendance. That told me that voters "East Of The River" are taking the upcoming election very seriously. All the members of the audience were obviously quite engaged with and familiar with the issues, and audience members were both polite and attentive. Unfortunately, Martine Watkins from the Sentinel slate was not in attendance, and neither was Drew Glover, from the Brand New Council slate, whose mother had just passed away a day or two before the forum.

A discussion of crime and public safety started off the forum, but the real debate focused on land use and planning issues. The City's current plans are steering the City towards a future that is distinctly different from the City's past and present. Specifically, the current City Council is moving plans along that will result in huge high-rise buildings on Pacific Avenue (up to 95-feet high), with high-rise development planned for Front Street, too. Current proposals are for a high-rise reconstruction of our historic Wharf, and the City's proposed "Corridors Plan" is aiming for dense, high-rise development on all of the City's major transportation corridors, including Mission Street, Water Street, Ocean Street, and Soquel Avenue. 

On the Eastside, particularly, the impacts of the City's current planning policies are already obvious. They are already being implemented. The current policies facilitate development over preservation, and place a low priority on maintaining the integrity and character of our existing neighborhoods. Check the photos below for a couple of examples (the high-rise hotel approved on residentially-zoned land on Broadway, where the traffic is already at gridlock, and a large development next door to modest single family homes on Seabright Avenue):

I served on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors from 1975 to 1995, and when I ran for office, which I did five times, the key issues were always about growth and development. It seems to me that we are now at a time when those issues are, again, the most critical ones for the local community.

"Affordable housing" issues, of overwhelming importance, are directly related to the kind of growth and development that Santa Cruz is experiencing. The City Council makes the final decision on all significant new development proposals, and the developments currently being approved are NOT designed to serve the working families already living in our community. Thinking that the "market" will solve our affordable housing crisis, and that we can "build our way out" of the current crisis, is a common mistake. Increasing "supplies" will not, in fact, lead to lower prices. New "supplies" of housing, if prices are set by the "market," follow the "Golden Rule" of politics: "those with the gold make the rules, and "those with the gold get the goods." The kind of housing currently being built in Santa Cruz, and the kind of housing currently planned, will definitely not fill the genuine "demand" in our community for housing that can be afforded by an average or below average income person.

I never had to run on a "slate," and I'm glad I didn't. Voters either voted for me, or my opponent, and the choices were clear. The current election for the Santa Cruz City Council, though, is different. Each voter can vote for up to "four" candidates, and they can "pick and choose." That "pick and choose" strategy will work for voters if they are generally happy with the direction that the City is taking, since the current Council has seven members, and three of them are going to be continuing. Four members of a seven-person Council is a majority, so even if only one of the "establishment" slate wins, voters should expect that not much will change. If voters want to change the City's direction, it's probably true that a "Brand New Council" is needed. 

My advice to the voters? Figure out if you are, or are not, basically satisfied with the current planning and development policies of the City. Then, vote accordingly!

The stakes are at least as high as those 95-foot high buildings that are being proposed for Pacific Avenue downtown.

Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fSrWLN0nv0&feature=youtu.be

(2) - https://www.facebook.com/Democratic-Womens-Club-of-Santa-Cruz-County-DWC-124563363490/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE&fref=nf

(3) - Gary A. Patton, personal photo

(4) - Gary A. Patton, personal photo

(5) - http://brattononline.com/ (DeCinzo archive cartoon; October 10-16 Edition)

#290 / Subscribe

In These Times has now been publishing for forty years. It is a magazine for democratic socialists, devoted to the support of movements for democratic political change. A most notable example of the democratic socialist species is pictured on the cover photo, above. Reportedly, Bernie Sanders may be the "most popular politician in America."

In These Times is modeled on the Appeal To Reason, a weekly newspaper published in the Midwest from 1895 to 1922, a publication that helped support and bring about many of the political successes of the Progressive Era. 

I just read the 40th Anniversary issue of In These Times, the November 2016 issue, and I say, click this link: Subscribe!

"Subscribe" means, literally, to "sign up." 

"Signing up" means getting engaged.

Unless you think that the outcome of this year's presidential election is going to solve this nation's problems (and I sure don't), then you will have to conclude that there is a lot more work to be done before we can achieve the kind of "political revolution" that is absolutely necessary if democracy is to survive, if income and racial inequalities are to be overcome, if we are to stop our destructive addiction to perpetual war, and if we are to terminate our blind assault on the Natural World, which is now a most clear and present danger to the continued existence of human civilization.

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize. 

I'm feeling optimistic.

Times are changing, and it's time for us to make the political changes we need, instead of letting the momentum of past political mistakes "make us" (miserable, poor, dumb, and downtrodden).

To coordinate our efforts, we need to "read all about it," even as we work to "just do it."

I am feeling really optimistic.

Subscribe!

Image Credit:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/in-these-times/id905105072?mt=8

#289 / Step This Way For Freedom

Candidate Obama promised voters that he would close the Guantánamo prison. President Obama is finally getting around to that job, during his last few months in office. The picture above is from a New York Times article published on August 16th. The article documents the transfer of fifteen Guantánamo detainees to the United Arab Emirates, the single largest transfer of the entire Obama administration. If you'd like more background, I recommend an article in The New Yorker, published on August 1st. That article, by Connie Bruck, is titled, "Why Obama Has Failed To Close Guantánamo."

I am referencing the article from The Times because I wanted to share the picture. I don't think I had previously seen what the gate to "Camp America" looks like. If I had previously seen a picture, it hadn't made an impression. This picture did make an impression.

In Guantánamo, the United States government has incarcerated persons that the government says are "terrorists." However, the government has never revealed the basis upon which it has made these charges, and have never given those locked up the chance to be confronted by their accusers or to contradict what evidence, if any, the government may have against them. Moreover, it is well known that at least some of the prisoners in Guantánamo have been subjected to torture. Torture above and beyond the years-long indefinite imprisonment that is the basic condition of all those who are detained there.

A government that does this is not "defending freedom." It's doing the opposite.

If the people of the United States want freedom for themselves, and for their posterity, they must demand that the principles of freedom be applied in every case. Those who can walk in and out of "Camp America," under that sign, are operating in our name. It's unconscionable. It's intolerable. No imprisonment without a trial! That's a basic requirement of freedom.

Shame on the United States government!

Image Credits:

(1) - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/politics/guantanamo-detainees-emirates-transfer.html

(2) - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-to-close-guantanamo

#288 / Unnatural Capital

My purpose today is to refer readers to an article that appeared on the Resilience website. Just click this link. 

The article, by Sian Sullivan, was originally published by The Conversation on September 13th. It is titled, "Nature is Being Renamed ‘Natural Capital’ – But is it Really the Planet that will Profit?"

Sullivan notes that "Nature" is now frequently being characterized as "Natural Capital." This is an attempt to reconfigure reality to suggest, linguistically, that "Nature" is a category within the human realm, whereas the truth of our situation is exactly the opposite: our civilization, and the "human world" that we create, is located within, and depends upon, the World of Nature, which we did not create, and which sustains our existence. 

Trying to make the Natural World a subset of economics is definitely not going to "profit" the Planet. It is also not going to profit human beings, because no matter what sort of linguistic tricks we might employ to pretend otherwise, the economic realities of the human world are that we depend on Nature. Nature does not depend upon us. 

If you think that words don't matter...

Read the article, and think again!

Image Credit:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-09-14/nature-is-being-renamed-natural-capital-but-is-it-really-the-planet-that-will-profit

#287 / A Nice Question In A Nasty Debate

The second of this year's presidential debates, which was held on Sunday, October 9th, was properly called "nasty." Here's a place you can watch the entire thing, if you missed it in real time. Here's a link to the debate transcript, if you'd like to read through the various (nasty) exchanges and nail down the details.

I want to point out what I thought was an important question posed to the two candidates. It was the last question, and it came from one of the citizen participants, a Mr. Becker. His question was the opposite of "nasty," because it called for a non-nasty response. Here it is:

RADDATZ: We’ve sneaked in one more question, and it comes from Karl Becker. 

QUESTION: Good evening. My question to both of you is, regardless of the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another? 

(APPLAUSE)

I think that this is an important question, because it goes to the essence of what our democratic politics is supposed to be all about. We have differences, and very profound differences, and yet we are "one nation." We think so, at least. We hope so. As the Pledge of Allegiance says, citing to the "original" version of the Pledge, before "God" got imported into it, we are "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

This text is not about the "facts," that's for sure. The statement about "liberty and justice for all" is clearly aspirational, not descriptive. However, Americans have believed that we are "one nation," and that we are "indivisible."

Frankly, these two points of traditional agreement about our nation (post Civil War) are being called into question during this election. IF we are to survive this election as "one nation, indivisible," we must have "respect" for those with whom we have contended on the electoral and policy battlefield. 

Yes, for Hillary supporters, of whom I am now one, that even includes having respect for those voters who support Donald Trump, however much a person might disagree with Donald Trump and think of Mr. Trump as having "deplorable" personal characteristics and/or a "deplorable" set of policy positions. 

Mr. Becker's question invited the candidates to say something that could let their own supporters know that however divisive the contest might be now, amidst the "current rhetoric," we are still "one nation," trying to make up its mind about difficult questions, and still committed, together, to achieving "liberty and justice for all."

Mr. Becker's question asked for a statement naming "one positive thing" that the candidates respect "in one another."

Hillary Clinton said, "Look, I respect his children. His children are incredibly able and devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald."

Donald Trump, actually answering the question posed, said, "I will say this about Hillary. She doesn’t quit. She doesn’t give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She’s a fighter."

In other words, Donald Trump did note (and quite accurately) one of the greatest strengths of Hillary Clinton, and thus let his supporters know that his opponent was worthy of respect. Hillary Clinton didn't have such a response. She could not say one thing about what she respected in her opponent, or in his campaign, and I think that bodes very ill for all of us. 

I think Donald Trump's behavior, statements, and policy positions are, for the most part, "deplorable." I am definitely planning to vote for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming election. However, those who support Donald Trump are not all "deplorables," as Clinton once said. We all need to understand that we are "one nation," and that that this needs to be the firm ground on which we battle about how to provide "liberty and justice for all."

I respect the fact that Donald Trump has galvanized huge numbers of voters to care about this election, and to demand some kind of change that will make our government responsive to the ordinary people of this nation. I wish Hillary had said that, indicating that she will respect the concerns of those who now are supporting her opponent.

I supported Bernie Sanders in the primary because it was clear to me that he was demanding real change of a kind that I believe is the right way to turn this country around. A demand for real change is a demand we should all respect.

Let us respect our common project. All of us. There is a lot to do to achieve "liberty and justice for all," and we won't be successful if we can't work together, after the "current rhetoric" has been resolved in the election in November.

The problems and challenges we face as a nation are real, and a divided nation, leading to a divided government that can't act, will never solve them.*

*PS: The Nation has an article that explores this very topic.

Image Credit:

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wired-live-blog-fact-checking-second-presidential-debate/

#286 / Self-Insurance

Speaking of The New Yorker (as I was in my posting yesterday), that September 5th issue had a lot of good articles, including one on our emerging health care crisis. 

As James Surowiecki noted in the September 5th edition of "The Financial Page," our current health care system is being threatened by the decision of major insurance companies to withdraw from participation in the Obamacare exchanges. 

I recommend the full article, but here is what I think is the essence of Surowiecki's message. He "defends," in one way of looking at it, the insurance companies that liberals like to blame for their greediness and rapacity: 

Conservatives point to Obamacare’s marketplace woes as evidence that government should stop mucking around with health insurance. In fact, government hasn’t mucked around enough: if we want to make universal health insurance a reality, the government needs to do more, not less. That doesn’t require scrapping the current system: the Netherlands and Switzerland both demonstrate that you can get universal coverage through private insurers. But their examples also show that to do so we’d need to make it much harder to avoid buying insurance, and we’d need to expand subsidies to consumers.

Alternatively, we could implement the public option, which Obama himself called for in that 2009 speech: a federal program, modelled on Medicare, open to anyone on the individual market. The public option would guarantee that there was always at least one good choice available in the marketplace, and would provide competition for private insurers. If it used the government’s bargaining power to hold down costs and expand access, it could offer good benefits at a low enough price to attract younger, healthier patients.

There are solid arguments for both of these models. Either would work, if there were a shift in the political mood and it were given a shot. Even if nothing is done, Obamacare will continue to limp along, probably turning into something akin to Medicaid. But the departure of big insurers like Aetna has made it clear that, if we don’t do more to help cover people in the individual market, the program will never make good on its original promise of truly comprehensive reform. So don’t hate the players; fix the game.

Of the two solutions that Surowiecki suggests, I personally prefer the "public option," which simply means that we, acting collectively, decide that we will insure ourselves. Large organizations self-insure all the time, because it just makes economic sense. If we choose to do so, our nation can well afford to make sure that everyone has the kind of health care that only those who are on certain employer-financed plans, and those on Medicare, are blessed with now. 

Image Credit:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/obamacare-and-aetnas-withdrawal

#285 / Yes, And...

The September 5, 2016 issue of The New Yorker has an engaging article on the "Upright Citizens Brigade," which is a training center for those wanting to learn how to do improvisational comedy. The article was written by Emma Allen, who actually took the course. It is titled, "How The Upright Citizens Brigade Improvised A Comedy Empire," and is subtitled, "The art of making it up as you go along." It's a fun (and informative) article, which I definitely recommend. 

Life, in general, is largely about "making it up as you go along," and Allen's article thus provides some good advice that can benefit all of us, even if we're not trying to make it big in comedy. 

According to the Upright Citizens Brigade, the key to "making it up as you go along" is always to say, "Yes AND," as opposed to "Yes, BUT." Only in that way can you make something worthwhile out of what may seem to be an unpromising beginning. 

As I say, I think that's good advice in general!

Image Credit:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/upright-citizens-brigades-comedy-empire