A Pragmatic Idealist’s Guide to Caucus/Primary Season

Call me liberal, progressive, whatever you like. Parse it how you will, I occupy somewhere most of the way to the leftwards end of the political spectrum. If I had to self-label, I’d probably call myself a Social Democrat. My ideal economic arrangement would be using the productive capabilities of capitalism to achieve socialist-style ends (something along the lines of Iain Banks’ notions about the Culture in his novels, which can be summed up at the organizational level as ‘socialism within, capitalism without.’). Politically, I’d like to see a strong democracy in which participation by an informed citizenry with a liberal education, historical and scientific knowledge, and critical thinking skills ran the show. I’m in favor of single-payer universal healthcare, a guaranteed basic income, and top marginal tax rates approaching ninety percent (I’m also in favor of allowing folks to assign how their tax monies are spent, at least within a set of broad categories). I’m not against people becoming wealthy, but I think that option should only open up once the floor has been raised and guaranteed, for everybody.

So that’s where I’m coming from, in case any of the ten or fifteen people who read this blog didn’t already know. And I think there are lots of folks who’d agree with me, though the kinds of views I espouse don’t get a lot of play in the mainstream media.

So, given the rapid approach of primary and caucus season, what’s a pragmatic idealist to do? Continue reading “A Pragmatic Idealist’s Guide to Caucus/Primary Season” →

In Case You Missed It: Weekend Reading 10/23/15

Another eventful week, full of domestic terrorism, Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony, a new Star Wars Ep 7 trailer, some helpful life advice, and, for those in the know about how awesome she is, a new Kelly Link story for our Fk Yeah! finisher.

Short on time today, so let’s get down to it. Continue reading “In Case You Missed It: Weekend Reading 10/23/15” →

Calling a Spade a Spade: Why the Charleston Murders Were a Terrorist Act

Plenty of ink has been spilled in the wake of the blood spilled by DSR (whom I shan’t dignify by further promoting his name) Wednesday night at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and while it may be that I likely won’t say anything that hasn’t been said elsewhere, and likely better, I think it’s worth saying what I have to say, both to add to the general chorus and because I am a white man, which might (might) make other white men marginally likelier to listen, or will at least make it more difficult to discount what I say on the basis of any kind of identity politics.

So, let’s start by calling a spade a spade*: Wednesday night’s murders were an act of racially-motivated terrorism, premeditated, abetted by a culture expressly formulated to preserve and promote violent white supremacy, committed with the express intent of catalyzing a race war.

Harsh language, it’s true. But any honest, good-faith examination of the facts and circumstances leads inevitably to that conclusion, so far as I can tell. Don’t believe me? Let’s unpack, then. Continue reading “Calling a Spade a Spade: Why the Charleston Murders Were a Terrorist Act” →

Because Of Course They Did: Wall Street Psychopaths Sue Federal Government for Bailing Them Out

In two separate cases, the government now stands accused of overstepping its authority when it took extraordinary measures to prevent a financial meltdown in the fall of 2008. The Wall Street figures who are suing say their property was seized without compensation, in violation of the Constitution. One case was brought by Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the legendary former chief executive of AIG who built it into the world’s largest insurer. Filing the other case is a group of hedge funds that bought Fannie and Freddie stock for pennies per share after the companies were put in government conservatorship.

So begins a June 7 Washington Post article by Steven Pearlstein detailing a pair of lawsuits currently wending their way through the federal courts, in which Wall Street players and hedge funds are suing the federal government for bailing them out back in 2008, when they nearly detonated the world economy, a near extinction-level economic event from which the majority of regular folks are still recovering.

More than anything, I’m reminded of a character from one of my favorite movies, Bernie Bernbaum from the Coen Brothers’ gangster-movie masterpiece Miller’s Crossing. For those unfamiliar with the movie in question, Bernie is a minor bookie and grifter who, for reasons too complicated to get into here, finds himself in possession of some inside information about fights fixed by local gang-lords, and sells it to enough people it ruins the fix, leading said gang-lords to order his execution. In one of the greatest scenes in American cinema, the story’s hero, tasked with killing Bernie, shows mercy and lets him get away. “Somebody gives me an angle and I play it. It’s just my nature,” Bernie says. Later he shows back up to blackmail our hero. “You didn’t see the angle you gave me,” he says, echoing his earlier plea.

Now, I’m not qualified to speak to the merits of these cases (I’ll leave that to Pearlstein and his expert sources). But that’s not really what I’m about here. I don’t think I, or most folks I know, would find it surprising that some crazy high-priced lawyer might come up with some legal theory convincing enough to take this all the way to the Supreme Court (which I both expect, given the amounts of money involved, and fear, given the SCOTUS’ recent track record. But again, I’m not here to talk about the legal merits).

No, what I want to talk about is the mind-set behind lawsuits like this, because I think it provides a helpful illustration of the kind of behavior our current social and economic arrangements privilege and incentivize. Continue reading “Because Of Course They Did: Wall Street Psychopaths Sue Federal Government for Bailing Them Out” →

Why I Wouldn’t Kill Hitler with My Time Machine

So, it’s a pretty classic thought experiment: If you had a time machine, would you go back and kill Hitler before he had a chance to start WWII?

Thanks to my daily internet divagations, I found myself revisiting this classic hypothetical today, and, given my brain’s penchant for the road less traveled (and for giving concrete answers to rhetorical questions), I found myself answering the question with a pretty definitive ‘no,’ though for practical rather than the usual moral or ethical reasons. I offer my rationale below, not as any sort of definitive answer, but as food for thought for hungry thinkers.

It goes like this: Continue reading “Why I Wouldn’t Kill Hitler with My Time Machine” →