As promised this is another decade of my life I promised for my Great Grandson Soren.
The fifties, sometimes called the Golden Age.
For lefties like us, the Hell on Earth Age.
The joy of defeating fascism was swamped,
War in Korea, at home witch hunt for lefties.
Senator McCarthy, red scared the country hysterical.
Korea a “domino war.” It held,
One country fell to communists the next one would.
Until the whole world a colony of Russia,
People would lose their jobs for thinking.
Hollywood actors. Name names of reds or blacklisted.
Fear sends some friends out of the US.
GG (Great Grandpa) Working for Miners Union
In the dead of winter sent off to Butte Montana.
Mission, Save the Union. This was IWW country.
Frank Little IWW Organizer hung from a railroad trestle
One of my Papa’s great heroes.
Learned about mining and freezing 20-30 below zero.
“Don’t feel the cold when it’s dry.’
Soren, don;t ever believe that bullshit.”
It’s cold enough to freeze your lungs.
We won the union back. I learned about mining.
We humans are using up our planet.
Butte, now the just a contaminated lake.
Rock and roll music helped us through it all.
Our family blessed with our boy, your Uncle Fred.
Under the dark clouds of fascism a ray of light.
A giggling baby tickled by his sister Liz.
Salk Anti Polio vaccine, an end to crippled kids.
Watson Crick discover DNA. They forget Rosalind Franklyn
Without her they would be nobodies.
She never got a mention. That will change.
General Eisenhower elected President.
Ends the Korean War. North South still divided.
Why? I don’t know.
Hillary and Tenzing make it to the top of Everest,
Hillary a true Englishmen, “I made it first.”
Tenzing just a Nepalese Sherpa.
A giggling baby tickled by Liz.
Television breaking into every home.
I’m up on the roof turning the aerial.
“How is it now” I yell, “It’s still snowy” Edith replies.
French are pulling out of Dein Biem Phu, Viet NaM
Domino idea about to suck us in again.
“When will they ever learn?” Song we’ll soon be singing.
The Russian rocket Sputnick into space.
We have to catch up with NASA. Maybe a war in Space?
My Papa died, I had to help his way out. So sad.
He said “Never knew what mother was going to do?”
She dies from a back-street abortion.
The best of the fifties. The arrival of Uncle Fred.
Tickled and giggling.
Like you, he gave us so much fun and reassurance.
That someway somehow life near the Bronx Zoo.
Goes on and on and on as we kept singing.
.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
"Not My field" Are We Over Experted?
It was at a dinner in New York City some years ago. Nor sure of the occasion. There were about 8-10 of us around a dinner table. There was an ongoing conversation about a variety of world problems including Israeli, the Balkans and the Bush administration. Amongst the guests was an Editor for one of the New York Times sections. As we talked around the Balkans I asked the Times guy his opinion re. the Kosovo problem. He thought for a moment, replied “Thats not my field.” I said, “well, it’s not mine either but that doesn’t say I can’t have an opinion.” That went over like a dead mackerel. Somebody hastened to explain that his job was “editing. We just went on to something else. That statement, “That’s not my field” has really haunted me.
Here was a pretty smart guy working for the Times at a very informal dinner who could not express an opinion because it wasn’t “his field.” I thought is this where the experteeism of TV brought us? All those pundits who are endlessly explaining to all us dunderheads what is going on in the world. Supposedly the TV pundits are experts in the politics of Washington. Of course that primarily has to do with “hot air” or better still very heavy doses of bullshit. Being an expert in that stuff is relatively easy as one doesn’t have to know much about anything except perhaps gossip
.
A few nights ago I was treated to a good example of where that expertism has gotten us. Charlie Rose had an interesting group of people responding to Obam’s speech on the “oil crisis in the Gulf.” There was Al Hunt, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mark Halpren. Kevin Sheekly, James Leilman John Hoffmiester and maybe a few others. These are people who I like to think are a cut above the usual blowhards that give opinions following a Presidential talk. It’s a sort of a report card that tells us how we should score the speech.
Here’s what got me thinking. John Hoffmiester is the former CEO of Shell Oil. Of all the folks in that world, I have often found him a cut above the rest, in his ability to understand our love affair with oil. In the course of discussing the consequences of the Gulf oil spill he says. I’m paraphrasing.” Yes there are many ways to use oil tankers to scoop up that oil that is contaminating the Gulf. A major problem is the Jones Act. But the President can get around that.” I jump out of the chair as I am anxious to hear what he has to say. (Remember I wrote a blog about this very subject a few weeks back,)
I did not believe it then and as I write this I don’t believe it now but not one of that group of ostensibly smart people stopped Hoffmiester in his tracks to say, “yes tell us how does the President get to do that?” No, you see that was a technical issue and that was just another example of “thats not my field.” Those folks sitting around Charlie’s table don’t know beans from sauerkraut about how ships with vacuum suction ability could scoop up millions of gallons of that oil before it left the water. But it wasn’t their field. This is how the disease of expertism is effecting everything we are trying to do that might get us out of the dependence on oil rut that we have been stuck in for decades.
If you look at what is going on right now in the Gulf you would see a lot of local folks doing their best to clean up the oil. That’s the gap I have been complaining about. There just don’t seem to be anybody in that White House crowd who have a clue as to how one goes about getting the technology required to begin to deal with the mess. Even when some Middle Eastern folks offered to help there was no one smart enough about technology to say, “yes tell us how do we do this?”
We are in critical need of people who are able to think across specialized fields because we live in a complex world. It’s a world in which technology, morality and simply to know what to do will constantly cross our decision making paths. With an absence of some rudimentary knowledge of technology we are the blind leading the illiterate. A recipe for disaster in a world hurdling into the era where technology is king.
Here was a pretty smart guy working for the Times at a very informal dinner who could not express an opinion because it wasn’t “his field.” I thought is this where the experteeism of TV brought us? All those pundits who are endlessly explaining to all us dunderheads what is going on in the world. Supposedly the TV pundits are experts in the politics of Washington. Of course that primarily has to do with “hot air” or better still very heavy doses of bullshit. Being an expert in that stuff is relatively easy as one doesn’t have to know much about anything except perhaps gossip
.
A few nights ago I was treated to a good example of where that expertism has gotten us. Charlie Rose had an interesting group of people responding to Obam’s speech on the “oil crisis in the Gulf.” There was Al Hunt, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mark Halpren. Kevin Sheekly, James Leilman John Hoffmiester and maybe a few others. These are people who I like to think are a cut above the usual blowhards that give opinions following a Presidential talk. It’s a sort of a report card that tells us how we should score the speech.
Here’s what got me thinking. John Hoffmiester is the former CEO of Shell Oil. Of all the folks in that world, I have often found him a cut above the rest, in his ability to understand our love affair with oil. In the course of discussing the consequences of the Gulf oil spill he says. I’m paraphrasing.” Yes there are many ways to use oil tankers to scoop up that oil that is contaminating the Gulf. A major problem is the Jones Act. But the President can get around that.” I jump out of the chair as I am anxious to hear what he has to say. (Remember I wrote a blog about this very subject a few weeks back,)
I did not believe it then and as I write this I don’t believe it now but not one of that group of ostensibly smart people stopped Hoffmiester in his tracks to say, “yes tell us how does the President get to do that?” No, you see that was a technical issue and that was just another example of “thats not my field.” Those folks sitting around Charlie’s table don’t know beans from sauerkraut about how ships with vacuum suction ability could scoop up millions of gallons of that oil before it left the water. But it wasn’t their field. This is how the disease of expertism is effecting everything we are trying to do that might get us out of the dependence on oil rut that we have been stuck in for decades.
If you look at what is going on right now in the Gulf you would see a lot of local folks doing their best to clean up the oil. That’s the gap I have been complaining about. There just don’t seem to be anybody in that White House crowd who have a clue as to how one goes about getting the technology required to begin to deal with the mess. Even when some Middle Eastern folks offered to help there was no one smart enough about technology to say, “yes tell us how do we do this?”
We are in critical need of people who are able to think across specialized fields because we live in a complex world. It’s a world in which technology, morality and simply to know what to do will constantly cross our decision making paths. With an absence of some rudimentary knowledge of technology we are the blind leading the illiterate. A recipe for disaster in a world hurdling into the era where technology is king.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Mexico A Failed State?
I have been gathering data on the impact of the illegal drug business in Mexico. In today's paper there is another report of the ongoing killings that this time left 85 people dead in the last 24 hours. President Calderon keeps insisting that the “war” is the only way to go. This “war” is destroying Mexico. Back in the sixties I did two stints in Mexico evaluating the Vocational Training Programs of the Instituto Nacional La Juventud. Though I had some problems with the programs I had none with the country. I drove freely from one small mountain town to another. Sometimes lost in unmarked mountain roads but never feeling any danger. I would often rush back to Mexico City so I could hangout at Garibaldi square with the Mariachi Bands. After their gigs at the clubs they would come there to play for each other. One night even played with them. As people yelled “Come see the Gringo playing with the Mariachi.” I just loved that country.
From what I hear and what I read all that is gone. The Country is being taken over by the drug Mafia. Kidnapping is now an everyday occurrence. Doesn’t matter either for a few thousand or a million, whatever the family can afford to pay. But pay you must. Of the 31 States that make up the Republic I figure that close to half are being run by the drug Cartels. In many of the States if you want to get anything done you don’t bother with the government. You go directly to the Cartel bosses and you cut a deal with them. it’s a quid pro co. They do for you and soon you will do for them.
You ask, “how did this happen?” When Philipe Calderon took office as the President of Mexico in 2006 one of the first promises he made was to eradicate the Drug Cartels. Another dreamer going to “war” with the drug trade, Fifty thousand soldiers and twenty thousand Federal Police are assigned to this war and so far mostly what has happened is an increase in the blood letting in the streets. More than 25 thousand people have died in Mexico’s drug war since Calderon’s declaration. About 3500 so far this year. Things have gotten decidedly worse.
The crime syndicates that run the Cartels earn billions from production to the marketing of the drugs. Where is the biggest consumer demand coming from? Of course you guessed it. The good old USA. In the State of Michocan a recent estimate indicated that 85 percent of legitimate businesses are in one way or another connected to the Drug Cartels. Some years ago when the heat was on the Mafia here in New York there was a movement into legitimate business. Today it is very difficult to disagregate the Mafia or La Familia, as it is known in Mexico, from business activity that is legal to the criminal.
Recently, Robert Mueller director of the FBI said, “We have dealt a substantial blow to a group that has polluted our neighborhoods with illicit drugs and has terrorized Mexico with unimaginable violence.” This has got to be the umpteenth time in my life that I have heard that indignant self righteous crap in response to the drug trade, There have been an endless number of announcements about how we “have dealt a major blow. It is all bullshit.
The fact is that the drug trade in Mexico has infiltrated major parts of the government both locally and nationally. The country is reaching a point where the people no longer trust the local police anymore than they do the Federalies. That leaves a vacuum of authority.In many of the 31 States in Mexico that vacuum is being filled by LaFamilia.
In a small way this was already beginning to happen when I worked in Mexico back in the 60ies. I was given a phone number by the wife of the Deputy Police Chief in Mexico City. She explained saying, “Roberto if you get in any kind of trouble out there in those mountain towns you are not to try to deal with the locals. You are just to call this number.” “Whose number is this?” I asked. Never mind these are the people who really run this country.”
In a small mountain town, sure enough, I got clobbered. Well, not exactly me but the car I was driving. I had spent the afternoon observing some training programs, had dinner with some of the locals. Went to go back to Mexico City. Turned the key. Nothing nada. Picked up the hood and low and behold. Carburetor, distributer, battery, starter, alternator etc. all gone. Ahaa, the phone number, Made the call asked for english por favor, explained my predicament. Was instructed to stay right there with the car and it would be taken care of. Sure enough within minutes a guy pulls up in a pick up gets the parts out of the truck and puts them all back. I offer a tip. Absolutely not, no nessarrio. Wouldn’t take it. Unheard of in my experience down there. It was explained to me that this was the shadow organization that was already springing up as an alternative to a dysfunctional government.
This whole story of the drug Cartels tells me that Mexico is on the threshold of becoming a Failed State. Daily it is becoming clear that the agencies of government that are there to service its citizens are increasingly unable to do so. That is the definition of a Failed State, What’s Calderon to do? As I write the US is busy giving Mexico more helicopters as well as “training” on how to fight the drug cartels. Oh yes, this is like hiring the weasels to teach the fox to stay out of the chicken coop. Maybe when we figure out how to reduce the demand for the drugs in the US we might be in a position to help. Until then we should shutup and mind our own business of how to reduce the demand for drugs in this country.
President Calderon does have a golden opportunity to really change this whole Kabuki called “The War Against Drugs.” Please Mr. President just go ahead and LEGALIZE IT. That would be world shaking. It would put the responsibility squarely where it belongs on the user market where the demand comes from. Mexico could make a major step toward financial stability by taxing the hell out of the legalized drug. Not unlike alcohol and cigarettes. It would be equal to our repeal of Prohibition back in the 30ies. It works in Turkey where they sell Morphine to the US pharmaceutical companies to make pain killers like Oxycodone. The third biggest selling prescription drug in the US. President Calderon once and for all stop this Kabuki called the “War on drugs” Good luck, you will need it.
From what I hear and what I read all that is gone. The Country is being taken over by the drug Mafia. Kidnapping is now an everyday occurrence. Doesn’t matter either for a few thousand or a million, whatever the family can afford to pay. But pay you must. Of the 31 States that make up the Republic I figure that close to half are being run by the drug Cartels. In many of the States if you want to get anything done you don’t bother with the government. You go directly to the Cartel bosses and you cut a deal with them. it’s a quid pro co. They do for you and soon you will do for them.
You ask, “how did this happen?” When Philipe Calderon took office as the President of Mexico in 2006 one of the first promises he made was to eradicate the Drug Cartels. Another dreamer going to “war” with the drug trade, Fifty thousand soldiers and twenty thousand Federal Police are assigned to this war and so far mostly what has happened is an increase in the blood letting in the streets. More than 25 thousand people have died in Mexico’s drug war since Calderon’s declaration. About 3500 so far this year. Things have gotten decidedly worse.
The crime syndicates that run the Cartels earn billions from production to the marketing of the drugs. Where is the biggest consumer demand coming from? Of course you guessed it. The good old USA. In the State of Michocan a recent estimate indicated that 85 percent of legitimate businesses are in one way or another connected to the Drug Cartels. Some years ago when the heat was on the Mafia here in New York there was a movement into legitimate business. Today it is very difficult to disagregate the Mafia or La Familia, as it is known in Mexico, from business activity that is legal to the criminal.
Recently, Robert Mueller director of the FBI said, “We have dealt a substantial blow to a group that has polluted our neighborhoods with illicit drugs and has terrorized Mexico with unimaginable violence.” This has got to be the umpteenth time in my life that I have heard that indignant self righteous crap in response to the drug trade, There have been an endless number of announcements about how we “have dealt a major blow. It is all bullshit.
The fact is that the drug trade in Mexico has infiltrated major parts of the government both locally and nationally. The country is reaching a point where the people no longer trust the local police anymore than they do the Federalies. That leaves a vacuum of authority.In many of the 31 States in Mexico that vacuum is being filled by LaFamilia.
In a small way this was already beginning to happen when I worked in Mexico back in the 60ies. I was given a phone number by the wife of the Deputy Police Chief in Mexico City. She explained saying, “Roberto if you get in any kind of trouble out there in those mountain towns you are not to try to deal with the locals. You are just to call this number.” “Whose number is this?” I asked. Never mind these are the people who really run this country.”
In a small mountain town, sure enough, I got clobbered. Well, not exactly me but the car I was driving. I had spent the afternoon observing some training programs, had dinner with some of the locals. Went to go back to Mexico City. Turned the key. Nothing nada. Picked up the hood and low and behold. Carburetor, distributer, battery, starter, alternator etc. all gone. Ahaa, the phone number, Made the call asked for english por favor, explained my predicament. Was instructed to stay right there with the car and it would be taken care of. Sure enough within minutes a guy pulls up in a pick up gets the parts out of the truck and puts them all back. I offer a tip. Absolutely not, no nessarrio. Wouldn’t take it. Unheard of in my experience down there. It was explained to me that this was the shadow organization that was already springing up as an alternative to a dysfunctional government.
This whole story of the drug Cartels tells me that Mexico is on the threshold of becoming a Failed State. Daily it is becoming clear that the agencies of government that are there to service its citizens are increasingly unable to do so. That is the definition of a Failed State, What’s Calderon to do? As I write the US is busy giving Mexico more helicopters as well as “training” on how to fight the drug cartels. Oh yes, this is like hiring the weasels to teach the fox to stay out of the chicken coop. Maybe when we figure out how to reduce the demand for the drugs in the US we might be in a position to help. Until then we should shutup and mind our own business of how to reduce the demand for drugs in this country.
President Calderon does have a golden opportunity to really change this whole Kabuki called “The War Against Drugs.” Please Mr. President just go ahead and LEGALIZE IT. That would be world shaking. It would put the responsibility squarely where it belongs on the user market where the demand comes from. Mexico could make a major step toward financial stability by taxing the hell out of the legalized drug. Not unlike alcohol and cigarettes. It would be equal to our repeal of Prohibition back in the 30ies. It works in Turkey where they sell Morphine to the US pharmaceutical companies to make pain killers like Oxycodone. The third biggest selling prescription drug in the US. President Calderon once and for all stop this Kabuki called the “War on drugs” Good luck, you will need it.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Just Another Saturday?
Oh! what a day
Just another Saturday?
Mama, Papa, Great grandson Soren
Dropped in for a visit.
Just another Saturday?
The Rocking Horse was finished.
Soren went straight for it,
Howed he know? “this is mine.”
Grandpabob in tears of joy,
All the hours of “no more of these, never again.”
Swept away, as Mama Amritta
Daddy Robert, proudly put him in the saddle.
Rockin to the plains of Abraham
It does make it all worth it.
A long haired little boy
A happy great grandpa
A family overflowing with joy.
Also part of the human condition.
Just another Saturday?
Just another Saturday?
Mama, Papa, Great grandson Soren
Dropped in for a visit.
Just another Saturday?
The Rocking Horse was finished.
Soren went straight for it,
Howed he know? “this is mine.”
Grandpabob in tears of joy,
All the hours of “no more of these, never again.”
Swept away, as Mama Amritta
Daddy Robert, proudly put him in the saddle.
Rockin to the plains of Abraham
It does make it all worth it.
A long haired little boy
A happy great grandpa
A family overflowing with joy.
Also part of the human condition.
Just another Saturday?
Saturday, May 29, 2010
"The Oil Spill" Sorry I can't Resist
I had planned to get on with some of the really grave environmental issues facing us but then I get derailed by other stuff. How did I get worked up over the oil crisis in the Gulf? I started by looking at the folks in the White House who are supposed to know something about off shore drilling. Oh dear, it turns out there ain’t nobody. Start with Mr. Salazar Interior Secretary. I wouldn’t put him in charge of my cat Aldo. He doesn’t know sheeeit from shinola about oil well drilling.
So what do we expect from him? Nothing. And you can go through that whole panoply of Washington folks including Nobel Laureate, also a Cabinet member Mr Chu and none of them would know a deep sea drilling platform from a health spa. So what’s the point of either or all of them visiting what BP is doing? Nor would they know what to do about a clean up and even if they did they would not know HOW TO MANGE THE EFFORT.
As a result of recent Internet research I have learned the following. Big ocean going oil carriers now have a vacuum cleaner ability to pick up oil spills. I thought I had discovered a great idea of picking up the oil with a vacuum types suction system. Sucking into a tank where the oil will float and the water will sink. You drain off the water and ipsfacto you got the oil that you can then sell to the refineries. Like so many of my inventions it is already invented. So, why isn’t it being done? It turns out that the worlds tanker fleets are all loaded to the gunnels with oil waiting for the price to go up. Does anybody in Washington know about all this? I doubt it.
Now why is it that? Washington politicians are not good at solving catastrophe problems. Remember Katrina. No, I don’t think this Administration is doing much better than the previous one. Or the previous one to that one going all the way back to Herbert Hoover who also didn’t have a clue what to do in face of the the great depression. There is nothing in learning to be a politician that helps a person to learn HOW TO MANAGE.
The oil problems in the Gulf are in dire need of a manager and I’m afraid that our President simply doesn’t know beans about managing. Now why should he? He was a Professor of Constitutional Law. That is not particularly helpful in trying to understand and manage an enormous oil spill.
My point is about the failure of the Administration to get out there and find some folks, maybe in Saudi Arabia who in fact do have some knowledge of how to handle “well blowouts” as well as clean ups. For God sakes don;t send in Cabinet people like Salazar, Napolitano, Sebilious or Dr. Chu to reassure the Gulf folks fishermen who are watching their livelihood go up in the oil bath that is engulfing the Gulf. A special decommetdanion should go to Elizabeth Birnbaum head of the Minerals Management Department at Interior. She, poor thing has resigned. But why was she put there in the first place? The whole department has clearly let the extraction industry folks run it. Man. did I ever learn my lesson about those folks.
In the 50ies I did a stint for the Miners Union in Butte Montana. Anaconda Copper had one single agenda. How to make more money on extracting copper from the Butte hills. They didn’t give a damm about the safety of the miners or the destruction of the land they left behind. There is now a lake in Butte that is the largest super-fund sight in the country. That reflects the history of all the extraction companies in the world. They have a very singular intention. That is dig for the profits period. Nobody at Interior seemed to understand that simple historical fact. FDR was the exception when he hired a farmer, Henry Wallace to look over Agriculture and Harold Ickes to go after the Utilities at Interior.
One of the biggest failures so far in the Obama Administration has been his appointments. As I think back over the various administrations in my lifetime this crowd turns out to be one of the weakest, The single ability that seems to be lacking in all of them is how to think about making things work. That quality has nothing to do with the political ability to sound good and make people like you. It has to do with being able to figure out how to get things done. Kate, who spent many years as a consultant working for major “500 companies” often will remark. “that so and so
from GE or Xerox could figure out how to manage that mess in the Gulf within a week.”
Therein lies the problem. The government in Washington has simply lost, or never had that ability to do any real problem solving because they lack any experience in the management of everyday disasters. If you need more evidence for my argument just look at the mess in Haiti. Millions upon millions of relief money. Who is thinking about how to rebuild the country so when the next disaster strikes, and it will soon, as we get into the Hurricane season. What will help create a stable state in that very poor ravaged place?
Does our problem start with our young who seemed to want only to get into Goldman Sachs and make huge bonuses by knowing how to shuffle the money around in derivatives? That may be attractive but it certainly isn’t what the world will need as we get further into the coming planetary catastrophes resulting from global warming. How about incentives to help future generations learn how to Manage in a Crisis?
So what do we expect from him? Nothing. And you can go through that whole panoply of Washington folks including Nobel Laureate, also a Cabinet member Mr Chu and none of them would know a deep sea drilling platform from a health spa. So what’s the point of either or all of them visiting what BP is doing? Nor would they know what to do about a clean up and even if they did they would not know HOW TO MANGE THE EFFORT.
As a result of recent Internet research I have learned the following. Big ocean going oil carriers now have a vacuum cleaner ability to pick up oil spills. I thought I had discovered a great idea of picking up the oil with a vacuum types suction system. Sucking into a tank where the oil will float and the water will sink. You drain off the water and ipsfacto you got the oil that you can then sell to the refineries. Like so many of my inventions it is already invented. So, why isn’t it being done? It turns out that the worlds tanker fleets are all loaded to the gunnels with oil waiting for the price to go up. Does anybody in Washington know about all this? I doubt it.
Now why is it that? Washington politicians are not good at solving catastrophe problems. Remember Katrina. No, I don’t think this Administration is doing much better than the previous one. Or the previous one to that one going all the way back to Herbert Hoover who also didn’t have a clue what to do in face of the the great depression. There is nothing in learning to be a politician that helps a person to learn HOW TO MANAGE.
The oil problems in the Gulf are in dire need of a manager and I’m afraid that our President simply doesn’t know beans about managing. Now why should he? He was a Professor of Constitutional Law. That is not particularly helpful in trying to understand and manage an enormous oil spill.
My point is about the failure of the Administration to get out there and find some folks, maybe in Saudi Arabia who in fact do have some knowledge of how to handle “well blowouts” as well as clean ups. For God sakes don;t send in Cabinet people like Salazar, Napolitano, Sebilious or Dr. Chu to reassure the Gulf folks fishermen who are watching their livelihood go up in the oil bath that is engulfing the Gulf. A special decommetdanion should go to Elizabeth Birnbaum head of the Minerals Management Department at Interior. She, poor thing has resigned. But why was she put there in the first place? The whole department has clearly let the extraction industry folks run it. Man. did I ever learn my lesson about those folks.
In the 50ies I did a stint for the Miners Union in Butte Montana. Anaconda Copper had one single agenda. How to make more money on extracting copper from the Butte hills. They didn’t give a damm about the safety of the miners or the destruction of the land they left behind. There is now a lake in Butte that is the largest super-fund sight in the country. That reflects the history of all the extraction companies in the world. They have a very singular intention. That is dig for the profits period. Nobody at Interior seemed to understand that simple historical fact. FDR was the exception when he hired a farmer, Henry Wallace to look over Agriculture and Harold Ickes to go after the Utilities at Interior.
One of the biggest failures so far in the Obama Administration has been his appointments. As I think back over the various administrations in my lifetime this crowd turns out to be one of the weakest, The single ability that seems to be lacking in all of them is how to think about making things work. That quality has nothing to do with the political ability to sound good and make people like you. It has to do with being able to figure out how to get things done. Kate, who spent many years as a consultant working for major “500 companies” often will remark. “that so and so
from GE or Xerox could figure out how to manage that mess in the Gulf within a week.”
Therein lies the problem. The government in Washington has simply lost, or never had that ability to do any real problem solving because they lack any experience in the management of everyday disasters. If you need more evidence for my argument just look at the mess in Haiti. Millions upon millions of relief money. Who is thinking about how to rebuild the country so when the next disaster strikes, and it will soon, as we get into the Hurricane season. What will help create a stable state in that very poor ravaged place?
Does our problem start with our young who seemed to want only to get into Goldman Sachs and make huge bonuses by knowing how to shuffle the money around in derivatives? That may be attractive but it certainly isn’t what the world will need as we get further into the coming planetary catastrophes resulting from global warming. How about incentives to help future generations learn how to Manage in a Crisis?
Monday, May 24, 2010
The "Tea Party"
A recent blog discussed how “The Party” was over. Of course I was referring to the economic bash that had been going on for a couple of decades not the ‘Tea Party.” That name was chosen to connect it to the Boston Harbor Tea Party back in 1773 to the newly founded Tea Party crowd. That 1773 Party was a way for the Colonists to tell the colonial powers in London that there would be “No Taxation Without Representation.” So there’s the first fallacy. In fact the present Tea Partiers have representation. Strangely enough they don’t seem to want it.
There may be a very universal, “underneath sort of feeling” that is bothering the country, At the present time a number of issues have have come together to create a crisis. The economic crisis that threatened and maybe still does, could put us back into the great depression that I grew up in. As the banks started to fail, learning from the Great Depression, the government decided to rescue them. At the same time what was also failing was the housing market and still is. Millions of people were coaxed, seduced, into buying homes they couldn’t possibly afford. Like in the thirties they were rapidly losing them to the banks. The government has done little or nothing for these folks compared with what they did for the banks. The number of people who can’t find jobs is adding to our present malaise.The oil spill in the Gulf has also added to the sense that “we” the country have lost control. According to the Tea Partiers it’s all the fault of Washington and big government.
(While this was going on I was pacing the house telling Kate, “if we only had some kind of an organized left in this country I would go out west and organize people to defend their homes the way we stopped evictions back in the 30ies.” But alas there was nobody to do that. Hence the Tea Party folks are filling the vacuum by giving the angry citizens a place to express that anger. The Wobblies used to call that, (“Fan the Flames of the Discontent.”)
The Tea Party is already having trouble with the controlling conservative wing of the Republican Party. You see. it was assumed that they would be natural allies. Well not so fast. The Republicans don’t want any one to mess with the Wall Street crowd who would just love to pick right up and go on with the derivative party. The Tea Partiers don’t like the bankers and Wall Street. That’s who they are ostensibly protesting. So the “trust the market” crowd just want the government out of the way.
Now the tea party slogan of “Take Back our Country” is a horse of a different color. It has always been crystal clear to me that what that slogan refers to is that “Black man in the White House.” Now that resonates well with the Republican right wing.
Since all of our politics now is acted out in the election process all we are hearing about is “Comes November, we’ll throw the bums out.” That’s both Dems. and GOP. It reflects a traditional populist response to a frustrated citenzery. The sad part of all this is the tweedle dum tweedle dee nature of the two parties. Back in the 30ies we used to sing a song went like this.
“Take the two old parties mister. There’s no difference I can see.
But with a Farmer Labor Party We could set the people free.”
Of course I’m not so sure of the sentiments expressed therein but it was at least a recognition that the two parties we have are just to much alike. In the present,that felt sense on the part of a large section of the population is an expression of the populism now sweeping the country.
This is a very complex issue as it can resonate both on the left and the right. The idea that the Government has no business messing with our lives was a major theme of the left back in the 60ies. I remember well the demonstrations declaring “I am not an IBM card.” Students burned their draft cards to protest the Vi-et Nam war. That was a very individual protest against the government interference in our everyday lives.
On the other hand there are all the benefits that, yes we the left helped pile up on the way to fighting for better living conditions. Back in the 30ies we got welfare, unemployment insurance, wage and hours act, rights of worker to join unions, Social Security and later Medicare etc. etc. Those programs saved the system from massive social unrest.
Yet there are some folks who truly believe we screwed things up because we interfered with the Free Market. It’s that notion that underlies so much of what the Tea Partiers are talking about. They would really like the free market to do what it promised. The free market just leads us from one crisis to the next and there are people who just can ‘t give up the idea that all of us should be able to do well enough on our own so we are free of government interference. That’s a utopian myth but for some reason it has always attracted a sizable following. But then utopias always have.
There may be a very universal, “underneath sort of feeling” that is bothering the country, At the present time a number of issues have have come together to create a crisis. The economic crisis that threatened and maybe still does, could put us back into the great depression that I grew up in. As the banks started to fail, learning from the Great Depression, the government decided to rescue them. At the same time what was also failing was the housing market and still is. Millions of people were coaxed, seduced, into buying homes they couldn’t possibly afford. Like in the thirties they were rapidly losing them to the banks. The government has done little or nothing for these folks compared with what they did for the banks. The number of people who can’t find jobs is adding to our present malaise.The oil spill in the Gulf has also added to the sense that “we” the country have lost control. According to the Tea Partiers it’s all the fault of Washington and big government.
(While this was going on I was pacing the house telling Kate, “if we only had some kind of an organized left in this country I would go out west and organize people to defend their homes the way we stopped evictions back in the 30ies.” But alas there was nobody to do that. Hence the Tea Party folks are filling the vacuum by giving the angry citizens a place to express that anger. The Wobblies used to call that, (“Fan the Flames of the Discontent.”)
The Tea Party is already having trouble with the controlling conservative wing of the Republican Party. You see. it was assumed that they would be natural allies. Well not so fast. The Republicans don’t want any one to mess with the Wall Street crowd who would just love to pick right up and go on with the derivative party. The Tea Partiers don’t like the bankers and Wall Street. That’s who they are ostensibly protesting. So the “trust the market” crowd just want the government out of the way.
Now the tea party slogan of “Take Back our Country” is a horse of a different color. It has always been crystal clear to me that what that slogan refers to is that “Black man in the White House.” Now that resonates well with the Republican right wing.
Since all of our politics now is acted out in the election process all we are hearing about is “Comes November, we’ll throw the bums out.” That’s both Dems. and GOP. It reflects a traditional populist response to a frustrated citenzery. The sad part of all this is the tweedle dum tweedle dee nature of the two parties. Back in the 30ies we used to sing a song went like this.
“Take the two old parties mister. There’s no difference I can see.
But with a Farmer Labor Party We could set the people free.”
Of course I’m not so sure of the sentiments expressed therein but it was at least a recognition that the two parties we have are just to much alike. In the present,that felt sense on the part of a large section of the population is an expression of the populism now sweeping the country.
This is a very complex issue as it can resonate both on the left and the right. The idea that the Government has no business messing with our lives was a major theme of the left back in the 60ies. I remember well the demonstrations declaring “I am not an IBM card.” Students burned their draft cards to protest the Vi-et Nam war. That was a very individual protest against the government interference in our everyday lives.
On the other hand there are all the benefits that, yes we the left helped pile up on the way to fighting for better living conditions. Back in the 30ies we got welfare, unemployment insurance, wage and hours act, rights of worker to join unions, Social Security and later Medicare etc. etc. Those programs saved the system from massive social unrest.
Yet there are some folks who truly believe we screwed things up because we interfered with the Free Market. It’s that notion that underlies so much of what the Tea Partiers are talking about. They would really like the free market to do what it promised. The free market just leads us from one crisis to the next and there are people who just can ‘t give up the idea that all of us should be able to do well enough on our own so we are free of government interference. That’s a utopian myth but for some reason it has always attracted a sizable following. But then utopias always have.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Environment 101
As I have been promising I am about to start on the environment crisis. Yes I said “crisis” as that is exactly what I mean. I consider the environmental issue far more serious than the economic one. Why? The periodic economic mess has been with us far longer than the environmental one. The latter started some time around the invention of the steam engine, 1775. The coming years saw the enormous increase in the use of powered machinery that began dumping its waste into the atmosphere.The sauce of global warming.
The periodic economic crisis can probably be dated much further back to Mercantile Capitalism around 1500. Some time in the fifteen hundreds when the first ships left Europe for Asia to bring back stuff for purchase in Europe. These ships were funded by bankers who lent them money and then took a percentage of there sales as part of the deal.
The thing about the periodic economic crisis, as predicted by Karl Marx, is that somehow we grow out of them until the next one. What we do in the meantime is make “imperfect adjustments.” Like The Poor Laws, Welfare, Medicare, Social Security etc. Then we fiddle with the imperfect adjustments until the next crisis and the process goes on adum finitum.
I am indebted to my friend Arron Wolf, a hydrologist, whose life's work is devoted to the problem of our shrinking water supply as the inspiration for this blog. I will primarily deal with the issue of water as it relates to the warming of the Planet. Water, I am referring to sweet not salt water. Sweet water is an absolute essential for all land living creatures. With the warming of the Planet it will increasingly be a life or death issue. Add to this the projected population increases in the poorest parts of the planet and there you have the recipe for a catastrophe of unheard of proportion. (Today we are 6.5 billion people. By 2025 we will be 8.5 billion and all needing fresh water to survive.) Where’s the crisis?
Well, consider the largest ice sheet in the world in Asia that is melting at an ever increasing rate. This highest ice sheet in the world covers an area as big as Europe. With nearly 37,000 glaciers on the China side alone. This ice give birth to the Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, to the Mekong rivers. Some 2 billion people in more than a dozen countries are dependent on these rivers for their water supplies. Nearly a third of the worlds population. This has been called Asia's “fresh water bank account.”
Now here comes the crisis. This glacial plateau has been heating up 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit for the last century and in some parts even faster. This slight temperature rise has been devastating for the glacier. 95 percent are shedding more ice than they are adding. There may be some argument about how fast the glaciers are shrinking. There is none about the fact that it is happening. Delhi India’s water demand already exceeds its daily usage by over 300 million gallons a day. A Delhi environmentalist predicts that within ten years there will be a massive exodus as people move to other places looking for water.
We are going to see rising tensions over shared water resources including between farmers and cities. As is already happening in California’s Sacramento Valley. How about the struggle for water in our very own Southwest where golf course become a priority for their greens. Of course the developers out there for a long time have been eyeing the Great Lakes. The Great lakes folks have been saying, and “the pigs eye you do and we shoot you.” The Colorado river that is also very dependent on the ice melt has been constantly shrinking and at some times of the year it becomes a stream.
It is in Africa and Asia that the first full impact of the global warming will show up with severe water shortages, These shortages already exist with women in many parts of Africa walking as much as 8 miles every day in order to gather enough water for simple survival. In some ways the coming water crisis may be the “Canary in the coal mine” warning us about the catastrophe that Global Warming will wish on our planet.
What scares the hell out of me is a simple fact. Once the overheating of the planet takes its terrible toll there will not be any simple adjustments that might fix it. We will not be able to fix the Planets warming problem with some “imperfect adjustments.” (Forget desalinization. It’s very expensive and needs to be close to the oceans.) There simply will be no “imperfect adjustments.” What there will be is terrible conflicts between the haves and the have knots for resources essential for survival. If you think we got border problems now just try to imagine what happens when whole areas of the Planet turn into desserts while others are inundated by rising salt water floods.
So what’s to be done? What I learned in science 101 was, step one in finding solutions to a problem is to agree on the problem. We aren’t even close on that one. Why? Two reasons. First human nature is such that people don’t want to hear about problems that might cause them to reduce their own desires for fulfillment. Yes I believe we are basically selfish. Second, there are far to many stake-holders in the status qou world like the oil companies. BP comes to mind, who fight any effort to change human behavior that might have a negative effect on their earning power.
Finally, as I think about the shift in the poles of the declining number of people who believe the Planet is warming. I wonder if the movement for change beginning way back with “The Silent Spring” just peaked to early? Now people who would love to deny that it is happening at all are getting their reassurance. People like me are just a bunch of “Chicken Littles” worrying that the sky is falling. No it’s not the sky I’m worrying about it’s the Planet my great grandson Soren will inherit.
The periodic economic crisis can probably be dated much further back to Mercantile Capitalism around 1500. Some time in the fifteen hundreds when the first ships left Europe for Asia to bring back stuff for purchase in Europe. These ships were funded by bankers who lent them money and then took a percentage of there sales as part of the deal.
The thing about the periodic economic crisis, as predicted by Karl Marx, is that somehow we grow out of them until the next one. What we do in the meantime is make “imperfect adjustments.” Like The Poor Laws, Welfare, Medicare, Social Security etc. Then we fiddle with the imperfect adjustments until the next crisis and the process goes on adum finitum.
I am indebted to my friend Arron Wolf, a hydrologist, whose life's work is devoted to the problem of our shrinking water supply as the inspiration for this blog. I will primarily deal with the issue of water as it relates to the warming of the Planet. Water, I am referring to sweet not salt water. Sweet water is an absolute essential for all land living creatures. With the warming of the Planet it will increasingly be a life or death issue. Add to this the projected population increases in the poorest parts of the planet and there you have the recipe for a catastrophe of unheard of proportion. (Today we are 6.5 billion people. By 2025 we will be 8.5 billion and all needing fresh water to survive.) Where’s the crisis?
Well, consider the largest ice sheet in the world in Asia that is melting at an ever increasing rate. This highest ice sheet in the world covers an area as big as Europe. With nearly 37,000 glaciers on the China side alone. This ice give birth to the Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, to the Mekong rivers. Some 2 billion people in more than a dozen countries are dependent on these rivers for their water supplies. Nearly a third of the worlds population. This has been called Asia's “fresh water bank account.”
Now here comes the crisis. This glacial plateau has been heating up 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit for the last century and in some parts even faster. This slight temperature rise has been devastating for the glacier. 95 percent are shedding more ice than they are adding. There may be some argument about how fast the glaciers are shrinking. There is none about the fact that it is happening. Delhi India’s water demand already exceeds its daily usage by over 300 million gallons a day. A Delhi environmentalist predicts that within ten years there will be a massive exodus as people move to other places looking for water.
We are going to see rising tensions over shared water resources including between farmers and cities. As is already happening in California’s Sacramento Valley. How about the struggle for water in our very own Southwest where golf course become a priority for their greens. Of course the developers out there for a long time have been eyeing the Great Lakes. The Great lakes folks have been saying, and “the pigs eye you do and we shoot you.” The Colorado river that is also very dependent on the ice melt has been constantly shrinking and at some times of the year it becomes a stream.
It is in Africa and Asia that the first full impact of the global warming will show up with severe water shortages, These shortages already exist with women in many parts of Africa walking as much as 8 miles every day in order to gather enough water for simple survival. In some ways the coming water crisis may be the “Canary in the coal mine” warning us about the catastrophe that Global Warming will wish on our planet.
What scares the hell out of me is a simple fact. Once the overheating of the planet takes its terrible toll there will not be any simple adjustments that might fix it. We will not be able to fix the Planets warming problem with some “imperfect adjustments.” (Forget desalinization. It’s very expensive and needs to be close to the oceans.) There simply will be no “imperfect adjustments.” What there will be is terrible conflicts between the haves and the have knots for resources essential for survival. If you think we got border problems now just try to imagine what happens when whole areas of the Planet turn into desserts while others are inundated by rising salt water floods.
So what’s to be done? What I learned in science 101 was, step one in finding solutions to a problem is to agree on the problem. We aren’t even close on that one. Why? Two reasons. First human nature is such that people don’t want to hear about problems that might cause them to reduce their own desires for fulfillment. Yes I believe we are basically selfish. Second, there are far to many stake-holders in the status qou world like the oil companies. BP comes to mind, who fight any effort to change human behavior that might have a negative effect on their earning power.
Finally, as I think about the shift in the poles of the declining number of people who believe the Planet is warming. I wonder if the movement for change beginning way back with “The Silent Spring” just peaked to early? Now people who would love to deny that it is happening at all are getting their reassurance. People like me are just a bunch of “Chicken Littles” worrying that the sky is falling. No it’s not the sky I’m worrying about it’s the Planet my great grandson Soren will inherit.
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