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.