Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude

enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

Ah, schadenfreude! How do I love thee, let me count the ways.

Ah, schadenfreude. What say you now residents of the Appalachian coal fields to the reports that it is none other than that ardent defender of King Coal, Senator Mitch McConnell, that is preventing funds from being used to prop up your pensions that are being abandoned by, you guessed it, King Coal. You may recall that it was Hillary Clinton who proposed that a billion dollars be set aside to assist the out of work miners but she made the error of saying that lots of coal miners are going to lose their jobs. Never mind that the phrase was taken out of context. Never mind that it is economic forces that are closing the mines. Never mind that all of the easy coal is gone.

Ah, schadenfreude. Now that the pensions are closing out medical care promised in the miner's contracts where will health care come from? Will it be from the stripped down, more economical system that our Governor Bevin is creating. Will the substitute for the ACA promised but not written be generous to the economically depressed? Will it cover pre-existing conditions in the way that the ACA required? But be joyous because County Clerk Kim Davis will not be required to do her job under the law and issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Was the vote worth the cost? You decide.

Ah, schadenfreude. All of you denizens of remote areas will likely now be able to get a voucher that will allow you to choose the best school for your children even if it is in Lexington or Louisville. No matter that charter schools will deprive public school systems of funding. You'll be doing your part by giving a superior education to those fortunate ones while your own children limp along without textbooks and technology.

Ah, schadenfreude. The throngs of disquieted voters so anxious to “drain the swamp” and rid

Washington, D.C. of the professional political class can now look forward to one of the most politicized administrations in memory. The news is that Elaine Chao, wife of our vaunted Senator Mitch McConnell, is now nominated to head Transportation. Dare we suppose it is a move to keep the Majority Leader in check, beholden to a Trump administration? Or, how about Mr. Establishment

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himself, the chair of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff? I suspect that the courting of Mitt Romney is a charade for the fans to see when he is rejected. Each Department is being headed by someone that comes with an agenda so disruptive that chaos is sure to follow. How will you respond when your favorite federal program comes under attack? Did you fall asleep during that part of the lecture?

Ah, schadenfreude. You, the average Joe, the everyday taxpayer who loudly cried out for the CEO who was going to lower the debt and deficit by cutting taxes for the rich (that's starting to sound like an echo) and growing the economy by negotiating all of those jobs back from Mexico, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, etc. Tell me again how that is supposed to happen.

Ah, schadenfreude. Those who have been so angry at the vultures on Wall Street, the only class to have survived the Great Recession without harm, will be able to be found sated when the regulations that were put in place to protect those who have a mortgage and who wish to purchase a new vehicle are stripped of their teeth and it's back to business as usual. Won't that be just what the doctor ordered?

Ah, schadenfreude. Not to forget you blue collar workers who have been treated so badly (and yes you have) when those manufacturing jobs return stateside to their former habitat along the Great

Lakes. How great will it be when those factories once again are pushing product but the hiring signs are still not up because the job you used to do is now done by a robot who will work harder, longer, cheaper and who never sleeps or goes on vacation or has babies. But you still have your union to protect you. Oh, never mind. No, you don't.

Ah, schadenfreude. Last but certainly not least are the politicians who allowed this beast to feed at the trough of resentment. You thought you could just throw it a bone and it would happily retreat to its den but it is apparent that you have miscalculated. The beast is now the master and you must either cow before it or join those who have been swept along by the tide. When you write your book you can proclaim your ingeniousness that was displayed when you neglected the nation's business to advance your political fortunes. How fortunate you are, perhaps you will not be made to suffer. Unless, of course, you have a conscience.

My Take is that there will be little pleasure taken from this exercise in self-destruction. The impact of the things that we are now compelled to face will not be limited to those who chose it but will also fall on those who did not choose it. Such is the nature of democracy.

Insanity Redux

Insanity Redux

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad

Euripides

I don't think Euripides was talking about really ticking people off. He was probably talking about making them insane. In some cases there may not be a lot of difference.

I had my own “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN” moment a day or so prior to the election when I tendered a column with Hillary Clinton as the President-elect. My editor was kind enough to suggest that it might take some reworking. I replied that I didn't think just a reworking would do the trick. Of course, being an opinion writer I have certainly held many opinions since the election but I hope that I have reached a stage of life where wisdom has overtaken youthful exuberance. Don't get me wrong. I would trade it all for another go at youthful exuberance but that's not the way it works so wisdom it is. I am acutely aware that many of you will laugh mirthfully at the idea of me having any wisdom and that my heart is broken because of the realities of the election. I'm going to try to put down a few of my thoughts and feelings and then I will move on.

After last Tuesday I couldn't bring myself to even watch the news because it was too painful to consider Donald Trump as President. After a few days Juanita expressed some concern at my quietude and said “you act like there's been a death in the family.” I told her that is exactly what my feelings were like. That I was mourning the likely death of all of the progress that we had fought so hard to achieve, tiny bits at a time, over the last 50 years of an active, politically aware life. Voting rights under attack not only in the south but in Wisconsin of all places. Civil rights being threatened by white supremacist rhetoric and hateful acts on display using Nazi symbols. Equal rights ignored with Muslims the focus of hate speech and hijabs being pulled off. Alliances built over 75 years given cause for fear of abrogation. The signature program of President Obama, the Affordable Care Act, threatened with instant repeal throwing 21 million people out of access to health care again. Mass deportation of people seeking the American Dream. Greater focus on militarism with more resources going into the war making machine. Promises to bring back coal mining and blue collar jobs, both of which are spurious promises because those jobs do not and cannot exist any longer. Automation has done them in and natural gas has pushed coal out of the market. Then to cap it off, a rejection of the science that supports climate change and a return to reliance on fossil fuels. Then I told her the kicker. I likely won't live long enough to see the return of these advances in our society.

Truthfully, I believe that it won't be long before Social Security and Medicare are under attack leaving the disabled and elderly in the place they were in 1932. These are the stated goals of the President-elect and the people who swept him into office. I don't think for a minute that the millions that voted for him considered the ramifications of their votes. I believe that they saw, correctly I might add, that their government had allowed the people's welfare to decline while more and more power and money rose to the top. Donald Trump promised to bring back the jobs and they said “what the hell” let's give him a shot.

I hope he does well. I hope he is able to proceed with the giant infrastructure programs that he has touted. I don't even care if it was President Obama's proposal and that the Republican Congress that promised to not allow him to do anything can take credit for it. I hope he is able to create middle class jobs by using the same tactics that Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 used. It bears mentioning that those tax plans and the Great Recession are what generated the multi-trillion dollar debt we now enjoy and that President-elect Trump's plans are projected to create another 10 trillion dollar hole. I hope that's wrong and I live long enough to see those fruits.

I understand the disenchantment with our government but I believe that it was largely caused by the refusal of Congress to work across the aisle to accomplish things our country needs. But what probably bothers me most is knowing that there are that many people that will endure the racist, misogynistic, threatening words of the President-elect and vote for him anyway.

My Take is that the best we can hope for is that he is as faithful to the truth in keeping his promises as he was truthful on the campaign trail. To steal a quote, “better buckle your seat belts, it's going to get a little bumpy.”

rmoore@somerset-kentucky.com

I thought that DT did much better as far as temperament and he actually engaged on policy although with a lack of depth.  His response to the question about accepting the validity of the election was a moment that could hurt him.  HRC was her usual stone cold self, absolutely prepared and able to ward off attacks that could have upset her.  She scored on the question of what she had been doing for the past 30 years compared to Trump.  Overall I don't think DT gained any support and could have lost a bit from the ranks of the disgruntled Republicans.  It is possible that HRC could have gained a little from those who were still undecided assuming there are any of those left.  There was plenty of fodder for DT to hurl at HRC from the recent events but he failed to take advantage of that by using his time to defend his honor.  DTs campaign is in free fall and his only hope of salvaging a possible landslide is to be the biggest and meanest dog on the block.  I expect HRC to go high and let him bark.

Duterte as Trump

Duterte as Trump (Trump as Duterte)

In recent news Donald Trump is reported to be be planning a trip to China taking 400 leaders from the business world with him to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He says make money, not war. This after rebuffing President Obama's overtures to strengthen alliances between the Philippines and the United States that were to be a response to Chinese assertion of property rights over the South China Sea. OK. You probably realized that this wasn't making much sense because Donald Trump doesn't have anything to do with the Philippines or China as far as we know. He might. We just don't know. Check the National Enquirer.

Rodrigo Duterte is the President of the Philippines and an avowed hater, well, maybe just a severe disliker, of the United States due to some CIA incident that happened while he was governor of Mindanao. I just noticed that the resemblance to our own Donald Trump was remarkable. Duterte has browbeat his way into the Filipino equivalent of the White House using tactics very much like what Trump has campaigned on. He has launched a campaign of terror against drug users and traffickers with thousands of them reportedly having been killed. In response to criticism he barked that he “didn't give a s**t about human rights which puts him squarely in line with Trump's pronouncements of what law enforcement would look like after his election. Also, he has called President Obama some derogatory names that can get your butt kicked in these parts if used. But, even at that they are short of what Trump's supporters are calling him.

As a part of the pivot toward Asia that President Obama has desired the strengthening of alliances with many of the Pacific Rim countries was central to its accomplishment. Part of the reason is to act as a deterrent to imperialistic aims of the Chinese to assert dominance over the South China Sea which abuts American allies Japan, Korea, The Philippines and Vietnam and some other smaller nations including Taiwan which China regards as a renegade province. If superiority of the seas is accomplished in the South China Sea it leaves all of those countries subject to Chinese domination and military adventurism. Especially Taiwan with which we are treaty bound to render aid. Of course, with Trump as President he would probably insist that the United States get a check before rendering aid.

The Philippine Islands have been central to American operations in the South Pacific since the Spanish-American war rendered them subject to the United States. Even after WWII the Philippines hosted our armed forces with Naval bases and facilities for conducting surveillance flights over China. It has been the aim of the United States to reopen some bases that were closed and to project power to a greater extent in the South China Sea and other waters around Southeast Asia. Duterte has thrown a pipe wrench into those plans but the United States asserts that the people of the Philippines have a long standing relationship with the United States and will not allow that to happen. Duterte thinks otherwise and seeks to form alliances with the elephant in the region by sticking a finger in the eye of the nation that he has a serious dislike for. I know, you thought everyone loved us and wanted to be us but that may not always be true. After all, we did prop up a dictator in the country for decades before he was toppled by a democratic movement and people have a way of not forgetting stuff like that. Just ask the Iranians.

So, here we are in the most developed nation in the world, envied by all and enduring a campaign that has as a major party candidate a person that can be favorably compared to a butt kicking President of what we refer to as a third world country. The only thing keeping us from tumbling into a similar stew is the couple of centuries of adherence to the rule of law and not of men however appealing that might be so some. In less than a month we will begin the peaceful transition of power from one person to another just as we have done dozens of times. We can count on that but it does not have to be true. Words do matter and irresponsible allegations of rigged elections and massive voter fraud do little to preserve that peace and instead encourage violent extremism if the vote doesn't go as desired. That, in and of itself, is enough to disqualify one from any opportunity to wield power in the name of the United States of America. If that were the only fault one could possibly excuse Trump. No. One couldn't. That is enough.

Less than 3 weeks to go. Hang on. We can do it.

Hard Rain

Hard Rain

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan

I know that I speak for most people when I say that I am weary of this Presidential campaign and anxiously await the remnants to pass.

I am amazed and dismayed at the number of people who have made the campaign of Donald Trump possible. I just was not aware there were that many people who approved of these kinds of actions and statements still around. Oh, our country has always had it's share of nativists (considering the plight of the original native Americans this may be an inaccurate characterization) but they were for the most part aware that the overt expression of their sympathies were unacceptable in most circles. Even the South has come to understand and acknowledge the deplorable nature of the offenses against those whose skin was a different color.

What this campaign has done is to provide a vehicle for those latent prejudices and give cover for them to be expressed publicly under the guise of political expression. They are still deplorable and they represent a step backwards on our march forward to realize what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” Things that previously would have been a death knell for a political campaign have become acceptable to people who would before have never allowed those words in their houses. They would never have allowed their children to hear them. I have seen interviews on television with political correspondents who say they won't allow their children to view the debates for fear of unacceptable behavior. People who preach the love of Jesus on Sunday preach the hate of exclusion and fear the rest of the week. Aren't we told that Jesus loves us all? How long will it be before we can restore civility of any amount to political discourse?

To be sure, there are actual issues in this campaign. They are numerous but only one candidate is talking about them. Well, three if you consider the few direct policy statements of Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein. Mr. Trump never proposes policy, he just rails against whomever speaks ill of him. He promises change but fails to say what kind. He says our jobs have fled and says he will begin trade wars to bring them back. The facts do not support that. Yes, jobs have gone overseas but manufacturing is up. The repetitive jobs that used to be done on the assembly line are now done by robots and will not return in any case. Diplomacy has, to a large degree, kept our armed forces from being put in harm's way even if we still engage in foreign wars from which we seem to be unable to extract ourselves. Radical terrorism can't be defeated on the battlefield because it is not a state or country or person. It is an idea and one that we feed by continuing to be at war with people who can say we are enemies of their faith. Mr. Trump says that he will bomb the s**t out of them on national television but aren't we already doing that? His is a campaign of anger unable and unwilling to engage in debates of substance because he doesn't have a clue what he will do if he attains the office of the most powerful person in the world. I ask you to consider what would happen if he orders the military to take some dreadful action and the military realizes the insanity of that order and refuses to obey which surely some would. It would precipitate a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never seen.

I have watched the career of Hillary Clinton ever since she showed up with Bill in 1991 I suppose. That is 35 years of me and a whole lot of other people paying attention to her every move. Why? Simply because she has done a lot of stuff. Senator from New York for 8 years, candidate for the Presidency in 2008 and she filled the role of Secretary of State when President Obama, who defeated her in the primaries, asked her to commit to that national service. Now she has spent the recent years preparing for another run at the Presidency. Stamina? Are you kidding me? The woman has more stamina than a marathon runner. But as a result of all that national service she has a long record of public performance to examine. I haven't always been pleased with her actions. She is a bit too militaristic to suit me and too chummy with Wall Street. But she is still the most qualified person to stand for the Presidency in my lifetime. I am confident that she will do some things that irritate me, maybe even make me angry. If she does I'll use this space to let you know. Right now there are some issues that need to be settled.

She has a history of being able to work across the aisle to get results. That means she is going to tick some hard core liberals off. Such is the price of compromise and governing. What matters is that she continues the demanding work of staying on course to a more equal and progressive future. In this neck of the woods that is looked upon with disfavor but you might be surprised at how attitudes are changing. We need to reach a balance with Russia and China in order that we can devote our energies to rebuilding our infrastructure. It is critical that we be more aggressive in developing green energy before China or Germany does and then sell it to the world. Climate change is the invisible elephant that has the potential to unsettle governments and societies all over the world and we have already wasted the time that we could have acted without too much pain. The pain is going to come and we must have a population and government ready to deal with it.

I have no illusions that Hillary Clinton will carry Pulaski County or even the state of Kentucky but that is to our detriment. Recent events have clarified the choice. Compare the Republican candidate with any President in your memory and he is not in that class.

My Take is we are less than a month away from a momentous election. One that Mr. Trump is already claiming to be rigged but you know better. You really do.

Think With Your Brain

Have you ever wondered what a candidate's proposal might look like in real life? I know I do. When one or the other says he or she will do something after being elected one must take that with a grain of salt because we don't yet live in a dictatorship. There is a cumbersome process of being debated (or not) in the House of Representatives and the Senate, coming up with some legislation that pleases both houses and then submission to the President for signature (or not).

Donald Trump says he has a secret plan to end the war in Syria (where have we heard that before)? When asked what he would do different from what we are doing he replied that he would bomb the s**t out of them. He has a way with words. Consider that we are already bombing them to death but in a way that minimizes deaths of innocent civilians. To just engage in a campaign of bombing that would reduce Raqaa to rubble would not destroy ISIL because you can't bomb an idea to death. What you can do is increase hatred of the United States to the point that recruitment to ISIL would explode and then what? Would we send in the 101st followed by a hundred thousand boots. Could we even win this war on the border of Russia without it getting out of hand? Seems we just tried that in the neighboring country and should have learned the lesson but, still, some persist in that demonstrably catastrophic thinking.

Hillary Clinton says that she would support those who are fighting against the Assad regime and ISIL. The problem is that most of those fighting Assad are aligned with either Al Nusra or ISIL. Even the cease fire weakly in place right now is dealing with those alliances. As the old Arab saying is quoted, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” What is so hard to understand about that? As with Iraq there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria which is driving refugees to emigrate anywhere that they stand a chance of not being killed. Once there they are vilified until they also begin to hate those in the countries they fled to.

One thing is clear. Unless we are willing to take on the Russians and the Iranians we can't engage in all out war and why would we even want to? Haven't we seen enough trillions of dollars and lives disappear into the maw of Middle Eastern conflict? Finding a path through negotiation is the only path that doesn't drag us down with with all the others. As much as I hate to concede to the dictatorial butcher that leads that country it may be that we have to leave him in power in order to pursue the path that is important to our national security. With any degree of luck maybe we will learn this oft repeated lesson for another 50 years.

Most of us tend to think simply. There's the enemy, go whoop him and come on back. Problem is that we can do that because another will rise in its place just as ISIL grew out of the persecution of the Sunnis in Iraq. The simple, blustery threats and answers are just implausible and will not work.

Turning to the economy. Figures released this week indicate that wages are up, poverty is down and the crises inflicted by the Great Recession are beginning to ease. Tell that to those ex-factory workers in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Or the ex-workers at Fruit of the Loom in Jamestown. There is still plenty of pain to go around. Stocks are way up but for those not invested in the stock market that makes little difference. The question is how do we get money into the hands of the middle class consumer? Donald Trump fires off the same old tired proposals of lower corporate taxation which will create jobs, etc. except that we've tried that multiple times since 1980 and the average worker hasn't had a raise in real income since then. However, lower corporate taxation may work if it is coupled with an elimination of corporate welfare in the form of loopholes. He swears that annual growth will be 3.5% but gives absolutely no indication of how he intends to get there. His proposals were going to create a 10 trillion dollar hole in the budget over the next 10 years so he cut back on some of the tax cuts and now it will only cost 2 trillion dollars. He says he's going to bring those manufacturing jobs back to America but can't tell us how. The days of a high school education being enough to land a good assembly line job are over. Robotics has replaced those monotonous task workers so that even if manufacturing comes back to these shores the jobs won't. Those former workers are obsolete but that does not diminish our responsibility to them. We owe them training for a new economy and support to replace those jobs lost in order to increase market share for our companies. We have failed at that because there are those who refuse to fund those programs. Instead they cling to failed ideology that the free market will mysteriously find the best way. Well, it has and that way does not include assembly line workers.

Hillary Clinton, to her credit, recognizes this and understands that we will need to train present and future workers to work in an economy that will be increasingly technological and service oriented. She understands that the economy has to create industry that can't be duplicated elsewhere such as energy generation and advanced industrial practices. She also understands that what would help more in the now is investment in our crumbling infrastructure which has gone neglected for over 30 years. The jobs there will include a lot of labor jobs for those who choose not to retrain or for those who do not see that advanced education is for them. Millions of jobs could be created almost instantly and the stimulating effect on the economy would be immense.

What are the candidate's proposing? Do their proposals make sense? Are they detailed or they just bluster? To me the answer is clear.

My Take on this one is that you may have to think with your brain on this one. Emotional considerations wont' get the job done.

The Evolutionary Path

Sometimes I feel like I am becoming cynical in my dotage. Fortunately there are still enough pleasant surprises to foil my falling into a cynicism laced miasma. Recently I was chewing the fat (which is maybe my best skill) with a Mennonite gentleman for whom I had done some work. When you do work for a Mennonite you can rest assured that he has already done everything he knows to do and only the hard stuff is left. Anyway, our conversation turned to matters more esoteric and I said to him that I had decided my true calling was to be a philosopher. He looked at me seriously and asked why I thought that and I told him that I thought about things a lot and that it didn't require a degree as far as I knew. He asked me what kind of things I thought about and I told him that my philosophical musings took me far and wide. He nodded sagely and said, “me, too.”

Many of you know that my musings often take a political tack. I don't think of them as overtly political but more of a social consciousness nature. Being of a certain philosophical mindset those dissonant thoughts often coalesce into a form that is misunderstood by many and ridiculed by quite a few too.

My entire life I have believed that humans are innately capable of being rational people and if one's arguments are cogent and persuasive enough that one's mind could be changed. I have begun to call that premise into question. I have encountered quite a number of people who refuse to accept rationality and instead cling to a notion and seem incapable of being swayed. When I present a premise or argument it is as if I have said nothing and when pressed for facts to support their premise they seem to be able to offer either nothing or something easily refuted. The percentage of minds I have been able to change is so small as to be infinitesimal. Now I know that you may say that I always think I am right and that is absolutely true. But I also believe that I am capable of changing my mind when faced with irrefutable facts that demand a different position.

There has been a lot written about the human mind and how our minds reach conclusions that are strongly held. Much of it is attributed to an ancient inclination to tribalism which was at one time an evolutionary survival trait. We banded together to increase our safety and to repel others who would endanger us. We are unaware of it usually but we still retain many of those traits it being that we simply have not had enough time to begin to lose those traits. The evolution of inherent traits can often take much longer than we have had time to change. Given that argument, and it seems reasonable, our notion of free will and our ability to make rational choices in self governance can be called into question. I suspect that in time our inclination to tribalism will wane and we will become evolutionarily more equipped to tasks that involve making decisions beyond those that affect us directly and which may require us to view benefits of a society as a whole.

I am faced with this dilemma in our current political discourse. To me one position is logical and supported by facts and the competing argument is ruled by emotion. It is never as simple as that but it seems that many are unable to bring cognition to bear and will reject any attempt to query them about their references.   Often only by asserting the falsity of the other. My lifelong assumption of innate rationality seems to be in error and if it is then what are we to make of our lauded ability to decide our own paths? Is it simply evidence of an evolutionary path that will eventually lead us either to a better existence or return us to a prior state? An evolutionary dead end so to speak.

Often I speculate on the FOUNDERS. I place that word in all caps to emphasize the reverence in which we hold them. They were mighty thinkers, products of the relatively new period of enlightenment but it should be remembered that much of their discourse took place in taverns over copious quantities of ale and that is fertile soil for grandiose thoughts. However, they led us to revolution which we celebrate as the throwing off the yoke of King George but which was in many cases just rattling over philosophy. It is estimated that at the beginning of the Revolutionary War only about a third of the people really wanted to separate from Great Britain. Most thought things were pretty good if the Brits would just let us ply our trade as we wished and have a little self governance. We all know how that turned out and the grand experiment in self governance began. No matter how we gussy it up it still comes down to opinions strongly held whether valid or not. We have made decent choices as often as not and I suspect it is the moribund state of bureaucracy that keeps the wheels from flying off. Self governance seems to be guided by the law of averages that allows us to be right as often as not. How I wish there existed a means of debating these great questions in order to winnow out the chaff and bring revelation to light but we have yet to develop the political will to do it.

My Take is that it takes great perseverance to pursue the path of vision and not succumb to the comfort of tribalism. What are your thoughts on this matter?