AMERICAN POLITICAL PARALYSIS; A EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

By  tom kando
  
    Okay, so it’s happened: The Republicans have shut down the government. In two weeks, they may  cause a much greater disaster, namely a  government default, as happens in  banana republics.

    Applying the cui bono principle, it’s obvious why the 1%-ers don’t mind shutting down the government. The plutocracy isn’t affected. It’s no skin off their nose if government services are shut down. The overwhelming majority of the federal government’s activities is for the benefit of the 99%-ers.
    Still,  I am amused at the thought of the old Tea Party  geezer on his way to Yellowstone in his $200,000 motor home, only to find out that he can’t enter the park.

    * * * * *

    As to the specific issue at hand:  The Republicans are holding the federal government hostage  in order to repeal Obamacare, even though it is  the law of the land, approved by majority vote and found constitutional by the Supreme Court.

    Most of us remember the moron a couple of years ago with the picket sign saying that he wanted the government to keep its hands off his Medicare. Similarly today, abysmal ignorance  remains the foundation of the Tea Party’s version of democracy: Jimmy Kimmel asked people which health insurance program they prefer: Obamacare or The Affordable Care Act? Every single respondent replied that they dislike Obamacare (it is socialistic) but like the Affordable Care Act (it is not socialistic).

    On the other hand, on October 1, the Republicans’ last excuse - that most Americans don’t want Obamacare/The Affordable Care Act  - was  demolished: nearly three million Americans inquired about how to sign up, on the FIRST DAY!

    * * * * *

    As to the shutdown and our government’s increasing dysfunctionality in general: I was thinking, what happens in European and other parliamentary democracies, when the government becomes deadlocked?

    I don’t know whether  a European government would shut down over something that has already been voted into law. I’m sure it’s happened.  The history of Europe is replete with revolutions that wiped out all previous legislation and re-started a country from scratch.

    However, there is one advantage which European-style, multi-party,  parliamentary democracies enjoy over our strong presidential democracy: In places  such as France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Scandinavia, and Canada too...), what tends to happen is that the premier or prime minister dissolves the parliament, resigns, and calls for new elections.  There is nothing sacrosanct about holding elections exactly every 2 or 4 years, and for terms of exactly 2, 4, 6 or 8 years. In many countries, when the composition of parliament brings the government to a halt, the recourse is to call for new elections so as to alter the parliament’s make-up.

    I am not saying that such a system is necessarily better. Historically, no country (in Europe or elsewhere) has been as stable as America. In France, Italy and elsewhere, governments have come and fallen with such frequency that there are many jokes about this. When I lived in France, the appointment and the collapse of new governments was daily news. Until the presidency of Charles De Gaulle, the country was ungovernable. The new system he introduced with France’s Fifth Republic was modeled  after the American system. As a  result, France became stable and prosperous.

    Italy has been worse: It has had 60 governments since World War Two. Today, its problems continue. With or without the buffoon Berlusconi, Italy continues to teeter.

    But what about us? Our vaunted political stability now seems to be biting back. Were we a  multiparty parliamentary democracy akin to most  European countries, here is what could happen at this point of paralysis: The government and Congress would be dissolved; there would be new elections. The outcome could be worse, or better. The Tea Party, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party could each gain or lose strength. President (prime minister)  Obama could be replaced by someone   from another party, or he could return to power with greater parliamentary support.
   
    In sum, the outcome could be disastrous, or it could be beneficial. One thing that would be different, for sure, is that the current deadlock would cease. But listen: I am not advocating this solution!

© Tom Kando 2014
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ARE THERE NO SOCIAL CLASSES IN AMERICA?

By Tom Kando
   

Until the 1930s, the prevailing myth was that unlike Europe -  from which America descended -  this country had no social classes. We were the land of opportunity, of the American Dream,  of Horatio Alger, of American exceptionalism.

Then, shortly before World War Two,  sociologists such as W. Lloyd Warner “discovered” social class in America. This was a first. Perhaps the sociological study of social class was one manifestation  of America’s  increased   social consciousness resulting from the Great Depression.

For the following half century, common sense prevailed:  The scholarly literature,  the  mainstream media, politicians  and public opinion all felt comfortable discussing social class.

The study of social stratification and social inequality  became  one of Sociology’s core areas.

There was no consensus as to how many social classes there are. There were many different models and approaches.  In his pioneering study “Yankee City” Lloyd Warner  divided the population into six social classes: Upper, Middle and Lower, and each of these further divided into upper and lower.
A different approach was Marx’s conflict theory, which recognized only two classes.  This perspective contributed to the great American sociologist  C. Wright Mills’s concept of the Power Elite.  Later, Edward Banfield proposed  four classes: Upper, Middle, Working and Lower. There was also the work of Michael Harrington (“The Other America: Poverty in the United States,” 1962).  More recently, Dennis Gilbert divides the population into “Capitalists,” “Upper Middle Class,” “Middle Class,” “Working Poor” and “Underclass.”

About one thing everyone agreed: Social classes are REAL.  Words such as “upper class,”  “working class” and “lower class” were in everyday usage among professionals and laymen alike. The most widespread conception was that there were three classes: upper, middle and lower.

* * * * * *

Strangely, the meaningful discussion of social class has now unraveled. There has been a concerted
effort by the plutocratic brainwashing machine to deny the existence of social class in America  and to suffocate its discussion. It is as if we were back to pre-Lloyd Warner days, a century ago.

It is at the level of our  VOCABULARY that the right-wing propaganda machine has fought the  battle and largely won it:

1. Today, if you raise the issue of  inequality, conservative and crypto-conservative people like George Will, David Brooks and Kathleen Parker accuse you of envy and  class warfare.

2. Words such as “redistribution” are viewed as evil.

3. So is “Socialism,” which is no longer distinguished from “Communism” and Marxism.

4. Many people are so ignorant that they  - absurdly -  equate Socialism  with Fascism, which is its very opposite. (See: Are Fascism and Socialism the Same? Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and Other Ignoramuses Believe so.)

5. Saddest of all is the fact that even the  media and the politicians who claim to be centrist or progressive - the Washington Post, MSNBC, Democrats, syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne, President Obama himself!   - have been intimidated.  They are simply AFRAID  to use words such as  “lower class,” “working class” or “social class.”

When was the last time you read or heard these words in public? Did you hear President Obama use them in his State of the Union address?  No. It is only permissible to speak of the “Middle Class.” The Right has succeeded in  making social class once again a taboo topic.
 
This is amazing, as it comes   at a time of unprecedented and growing inequality, a time when there is less upward mobility here than in Europe - a tragic reversal for the “land of opportunity.”

Not only are social classes, including a  working class and a lower class,   starker realities in America today than ever, but one could  go so far as to posit the existence of CASTES - that is, social classes from which it is impossible  to exit, even from one generation to the next;  social classes into which  you are  born and in which you die, social classes in which people are trapped, generation after generation. Ask the people in the South Bronx, in Appalachia and in the San Joaquin Valley!

Why does the President only speak of the Middle Class, when dozens of millions of Americans live
from hand to mouth, even though they work full time?  That is called, at best, the  WORKING class.
And what about the millions  below those - the people  who live on a monthly  $900 welfare check  for a family of four, the homeless, the migrant workers? This is called the LOWER class.

And then of course there are the other folks, the 1%. They can be called all sorts of things (Veblen called them  the Leisure Class), but the correct term is simple: UPPER class - another label rarely used any more.

So let me remind you of what the American class structure looks like:

Social Class:                      Percentage of all households:        Annual family income:
1. Capitalist  Upper Class:                        1%                          Over a million    
2. Middle class and Upper Middle Class:  40%                       $50,000 and up
3. Working Class and Working Poor:        44%                      $13,000 - $50,000
4. Lower class:                                       15%                       Under $13,000
                        (Partially based on Dennis Gilbert’s The American
                        Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality).

Do you know what your social class is? My guess is that most of you are in groups #2 and #3, and that none of you are in group #1.

© Tom Kando 2014
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THE SCHIZOPHRENIA OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: ANARCHO-LIBERTARIANISM OR POLICE STATE?

 By Tom Kando


Republicans (“Conservatives”) are torn by two extremisms, both equally baneful:

 On the one hand, there is the Rand Paul libertarian wing, loons such as Michelle Bachmann and much of the Tea Party.

 This group is the reductio ad absurdum of the seductive slogan launched by Ronald Reagan in 1980: “the government is the problem, not the solution.”

 By now, it is conceivable that this group has managed to brainwash and capture a majority of American public opinion. Judging by website comments, letters to the editor, audience reaction to Jay Leno’s jokes, and small talk by the water cooler, most Americans now seem, like zombies in a trance, to agree that

the best form of government is a non-existent government, 
all taxation is theft, 
national mandatory health insurance is fascism, 
dependence on food stamps and other government hand-outs is immoral, 
all public employees are corrupt, incompetent and overpaid, 
etc. 

Until recently, such Tea Party imbecility seemed to be limited mostly to the usual suspects - uneducated old timers, people whose calcified brains could explain a lot. Sadly, the Gen X and the Millennials are now also on the bandwagon.

It is now useless to ask a worker: “How about that road you take to work every day? Who built it and who maintains it?” or: “Don’t you want to land safely, next time you fly somewhere?” or: “Do you want to drink clean water, or poisoned water?”

No. The near unanimity is that we don’t need government. I call this anarcho-libertarianism. It is spreading dangerously. On November 1, there was another anarcho-libertarian terrorist attack, when Paul Ciancia murdered a federal employee and hurt several others at Los Angeles International Airport. His motive was the same as Tim McVeigh’s and Terry Nichol’s: blind hatred of the government. It was the same as that of thousands of gun-toting survivalists and white supremacists holing up in places like Idaho, Montana and elsewhere.

                                               * * * * *

Then there is the other side of Republican conservatism: Traditionally, the GOP has been the most vocal in advocating a strong military, an arms race with the Soviet Union, war against Communism, war against terrorism and other perceived threats, spying and torture. It has advocated government regulation of sexuality and marriage (the DOMA), the prohibition of abortion, the eviction of illegal immigrants and their children who grew up in the US, building more and more prisons and beefing up what is already the most punitive criminal justice system in the world.

In other words, it is the Republicans and the conservatives who have been the most favorable to an Orwellian police state, as long as that state protects a pure, nativistic, Christian, all-American society. They have been the most AUTHORITARIAN. The heck with liberty for all. Only liberty for some. *

                                                  * * * * *
So which is it? Republican conservatives are Anarcho-libertarians when they rant against government assistance programs. But they favor an authoritarian police state when they wish to impose their agenda and their cultural values on the rest of us.

They claim, absurdly, that the federal government is becoming a dictatorship, because it spends money on roads, on schools and on food stamps. They consider fixing roads evil.

On the other hand, they feel that the state must be allowed to profile, to stop and frisk innocent people, especially when they are black.

Nuts.

Listen up, you anarcho-libertarians and McVeigh-type survivalists and aspiring terrorists: America is NOT a dictatorship. It is a democracy.

And listen up, you authoritarian conservatives: We don’t need more of a police state, more spying, more warrantless stopping and frisking, more torture, more prisons, more punitive laws, more power to the NSA, more censorship. America enjoys enough policing and surveillance already. 

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RACE AND INCARCERATION IN AMERICA

By Tom Kando
  
In November 2012, the 47-year old  Michael Dunn murdered 17-year old Jordan Davis in Jacksonville, Florida.  Dunn is white, Davis was black. Dunn killed Davis because of loud  music. His defense claimed that he believed Davis to be armed. On February 15, 2014,  there was a verdict: A mistrial on the  murder  charge (hung jury)  and a  guilty verdict for attempted murder. This is clearly another Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman type case.  It is about the explosive mix of crime and race.

Once again many people are calling for “a discussion of race.” Of course. MSNBC and other progressives are in the forefront of this. And of course they are right. There is no way that this country is “post-racial” yet, even after electing a multi-racial  president.

The only problem I have is that there is a little bit of a cacophony on the Left. Let me give two examples of this:

#1. On Feb. 10, MSNBC complained that when Jordan Davis’ parents appeared  in court during Dunn’s trial, they had to show  that they had been good parents, which is shameful, considering that THEY are the victims. 

The argument is akin to the familiar (and correct) argument  that the court has no business delving into the sexual history of a  victim of rape who, after all, is NOT the one on trial.

At the same time, MSNBC complained that the prosecution in the Michael Dunn case  was NOT allowed to present evidence that Jordan had been a good boy (good student, etc.).

This is  inconsistent.   If it is demeaning for the court to examine whether or not Davis’ parents were “good parents,” then isn’t it the same with Davis himself? After all, Davis is truly the victim.

My position is that - unlike rape - in this case it would have been useful to present good character evidence on Davis’ behalf, along with the same for his parents.

    * * * * *

#2.  More importantly: There is the frequent allegation that America has  more  black men  in prison than in college. However, this is not  true, as guest speakers  on  MSNBC  recently reminded  us. We were told that this allegation is not only false, but that it is also racist, because it contributes to the media-induced false stereotype of the dangerous and criminal black male.

The allegation is indeed  incorrect, but if it is racist, then why did President Obama mention it in  a campaign speech in 2007?

To be sure, here are the facts: There  are about 740,000 black men incarcerated in America, vs. 1.4 million in college (see"Black Men in Prison and in College")

However, even though there are, thank God, more black male college students than prisoners (although certainly not in elite universities), that  figure of 740,000 is an outrage. Blacks make up 13% of the country’s population, and 36% of its prison population.  Non-Hispanic whites make up 66% of the country, and 34% of all prisoners - There are more black prisoners than white prisoners: 740,000 vs. 700,000.

Although the “more black men in prison than in college” claim is in error, the claim that there are FAR TOO MANY blacks behind bars is not.

Remember also that the US incarceration  rate is the highest in the world: We lock up 750 people  per  100,000, for a total of two and a half million prisoners. We are ahead  of  Rwanda, China, Iran, Russia and  EVERYBODY else. We lock up TEN TO TWENTY  times more people   than other civilized places  such as Canada, Japan and Europe.

“Harping” on our excessive prison population, especially prisoners of color, is a good thing to do. Some criminologists view our racial  incarceration policies as a form of genocide.

The  exaggeration comparing the black prison and college populations is not  important. What  IS important is (1) the fact  that far too many blacks get locked up, and (2) the REASONS  for this.

This is not the place to rehash the whole litany of well-know racist and discriminatory habits embedded in our institutions and  in our social fabric.  They include   the war on drugs and racist laws such as heavier penalties for blacks’ drugs of choice than other drugs;  racist law enforcement such as discriminatory surveillance practices (DWB - “driving while black”);   institutional racism in jury selection; a tremendously strong correlation between race and class, so that blacks are overwhelmingly among those who lack the resources to defend themselves.

Far from having achieved post-racialism, new hurdles are being erected as we speak, for example stand-your-ground laws such as Florida’s, which lead to cases such as Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis.

I merely wanted to  remind progressives that they must remain logical and not  use arguments in a pell-mell and flailing fashion.

© Tom Kando 2014
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DISNEYLAND AND OSAMA BIN LADEN

By Tom Kando


This year, we celebrated New Years’ Eve in Disneyland. That’s also where we were exactly 32 months ago, the day Osama Bin Laden was killed.

We flew to Disneyland to celebrate new years eve with my family - my wife and I, my daughters, my grandchildren, my son-in-law. Plus five million other people.

The attractions are varied: there is the old Disneyland park, the new part called “California Adventure,” “Downtown Disneyland,” which is a whole bunch of restaurants and shops, and more. You can buy single tickets, or get package deals, or the “one-day hopper,” or  the “two or three-day hopper,” etc. So a ticket to the rides can cost anywhere from about one hundred dollars to $400, $500 or more.  I asked whether they had discounts for senior left-handed citizens born in Hungary (me), but they didn’t.

Then, you try to get on some of  the rides. You can try to get “fast track” tickets, or you can stand in line. On December 31, a popular ride such as Space Mountain or Indiana Jones could require you to stand in line for 3 hours.  That way, if you hit the park in late morning, you can get at least two rides in before dinner.

Is this a problem? Nah. We had  a good time. My children and grandchildren are smarter than me. They got fast-track tickets, multiple days, etc. From their hotel, they had quick access to the park via the monorail.

My grandson and I did Autopia together, with him at the wheel. That’s where you drive a gasoline car around an enclosed track, with no possibility of derailing. I noticed a fellow right behind us, he must have been in his fifties. He was by himself, focusing real hard and concentrating on driving  his car as carefully as possible. He probably didn’t have a valid drivers license, maybe he lost it because of a DUI, and he was taking the Disney Autopia ride out of nostalgia for real car driving...

We managed  to do the Pirates of the Caribbean. Little Sadie was petrified. She spent nearly the entire ride hiding her head in her dad’s lap.

There were fire works early in the evening already, and again at midnight of course, for the new year.  Between 9:00 PM and midnight, Disneyland’s total population put it temporarily ahead of Tokyo as the world’s largest conglomeration of people. 

We went to a relatively early dinner at the Naples Pizzeria in Downtown Disney.

Uncannily, we were in  the very same restaurant, at just about the same time, with just about the same members of my family. On May 1, 2011:

We had just sat down and we were perusing the menu and the wine list. My youngest daughter arrived and joined  us  ten minutes late. She had been shopping for a purse or something. She hugged us and then she said, in an agitated voice: 

    “Have you heard, dad? Tomorrow, we will capture and kill Osama Bin Laden!”

    “Wow!” I replied. “How do you know this?”

    “I just walked by one of those electronic  billboards, you know, up on top of a department store, and it was flashing  a news message which said that American Navy Seals had captured and killed Osama Bin Laden. The official date and time of death, it said, was: May 2, 2012, 1:10 AM...”

    “That’s good news,” I said, then adding: “I assume that he was killed somewhere in the Middle East, where it’s already May 2, right?”

    “Right, but dad, he died tomorrow!” my witty daughter replied. “Over in Pakistan, he is already dead, but here in California, it’s still May 1, and since the official date of his death will go down in history as May 2,  he is not yet dead, at least not for us here in California...”

    “I love it!” I said. “You’re spinning a science fiction yarn. So if Osama Bin Laden is still alive as far as California is concerned, could he escape death by quickly moving here?”

    “I suppose he could,” she said, playing along. “But I’m not sure we want him to escape death. He is a very bad man...”
    “I agree. But for now, you are just PREDICTING  his death, right?”

    “Right.”

    “But what about all the Internet chatter saying that he is already  dead? Plus: have we heard anything from President  Obama  yet?”

    “Not that I know. All I know is that it would be a mistake for the President to announce Bin Laden’s death today, since he is not dead until tomorrow...”

    No, we weren’t smoking anything weird during our conversation.

© Tom Kando 2014

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WHO ARE THE FOLKS MOST EAGER TO EMBRACE NEO-FASCISM?

By Tom Kando
   

    Preface:
    It happens more and more often: I read  the news, and once again I come across a shocking  example of  the ever more insane extremism of some people. Recent examples include (1) Ted Nugent calling the President a subhuman mongrel . (2) Cliven Bundy, the  tax cheat who got in a fight with the federal government and who also explained  why “Negroes”  were better off being  slaves. (3) The recently adopted Georgia gun law, which might as well be called a “guns-everywhere” law.

    Some context about these examples:
    Ted Nugent? No need to add much. He is a famous mediocrity, popular with the political right, obviously an extreme racist.

    Cliven Bundy? A Nevada cowboy who  refuses to pay his taxes. Because of his stance, Fox News and right-wing armed   militias have gathered around him and made him a  folk hero.  Enjoying his new celebrity status, Bundy has gone on to pontificate about  sociological issues. He said, for example, that  “Negroes,” who never learned to pick cotton,  were better off being slaves, thus revealing the root cause of his problems with the authorities: An IQ that cannot possibly exceed 75.

    The new Georgia gun law? Basically, Georgians are now allowed to carry (concealed) weapons in schools, churches, bars, restaurants, airports, just about everywhere.  And the frenzy to liberalize gun laws has spread across the  country like wildfire. Stand-your-ground laws, beginning in Florida in 2005, have  been adopted by nearly half the states.

    Elements of Neo-Fascism:
    1. Under the code words “States’ Rights,” more and more people have challenged and questioned the legitimacy of the central government. Bundy is one example of this centrifugal tendency. Anarcho-separatists are sprouting in Texas, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

    2. To many people, the 2nd amendment is sacrosanct. Americans’ love affair with guns is unwavering. Some would call it mass lunacy. It is not clear to what extent the NRA is responsible for this. But it is clear that the NRA will not relent until the country has regressed  to Old West and OK Coral conditions.

    The combination of elements #1 and #2, above, is very combustible. Who is to say that the United States will not  experience armed insurrection in the future?  It happened in 1861 and it could happen again.

    3.”Nativism,” like “States’ Rights,” is a euphemism. It is a euphemism for racism and for white power. The traditionally dominant power group is losing demographic ground. By the year 2048, whites will no longer be a majority in America. Only a plurality. This sticks in their craw.

    4. Maintenance of privilege and of  the status quo: One doesn’t have to be a Marxist to see that the current  conflict in this country is a class conflict. When have the “haves” ever relinquished  their privileges to the "have-nots" voluntarily?

    5. Hostility to all other “others,” including gays, foreigners, intellectuals  and weirdos.

    Who are the Neo-Fascists?
    News such as the three examples in my preface is shocking. However, it is understandable if you look at the folks responsible for it. Here are seven VARIABLES which correlate strongly with reactionary attitudes: (1) race; (2) economic privilege; (3) region; (4) rural status; (5) gender; (6) age; and (7) senility.

    1. Race: As already mentioned, whites feel the most threatened by their dwindling numbers and their dwindling power, and they are therefore  the most frequent participants in reactionary politics.

    2. Social Class: Obviously, those who are financially  secure, and who have no inclination to  let go of their advantage.

    3. Region:  The South has always been America’s most “feudal” part - desperate to hold on to slavery, and failing that, Jim Crow and segregation forever. Additionally, vast segments of the Rocky Mountain States, the Southwest and the Midwest share some of the South’s retrograde views. Texas, which is both a Southern and a Western State, combines the worst features of both.

    4. Rural status: Variables #3 (Region) and #4 (Rural status) intertwine: The regions identified in the previous paragraph also happen to be less urban. Rural populations are more reactionary.

    5. Gender: Every poll shows that men are more rabid and extreme in their conservatism than  women. Men are more hateful, violent and stubbornly bigoted.

    6. Age: The older you are, the more likely you are to be a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, sexist, and a xenophobe.

    7. Incipient senility: Dementia and Alzheimer’s set in gradually. Even those of us who are spared the most severe manifestations of these  afflictions are not exempt from a deteriorating brain  structure.  We find  it gradually  easier  to remember and stick with familiar habits and attitudes. It becomes increasingly difficult to grasp new ideas. Long-term memory stays  good for much longer than short-term memory. We stick with the distant past. Hence, we become reactionary.

    Conclusion:
    The reaction against progress and social change  by those who benefitted the most from the status quo is accelerating, as those beneficiaries are losing  ground.

    Hostility to the central government is understandable:  Ever since Abraham Lincoln, the federal government has represented  progress in American  history. “States’ Rights” have  been  code words  for reactionary politics, including the perpetuation of slavery and of Jim Crow, and  opposition to civil rights and to other progressive steps.

    The realignment is nearly complete: Think of  a white, well-off, Southern, small town older man whose brain has begun to calcify. This is your new Republican, your “Red State” voter, your  Fox News addict, your campaign contributor. 

    Unfortunately, this demographic group will  remain large, powerful and cunning for a long time to come.
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HOW BAD IS AMERICA? CRITIQUE OF A EUROPEAN VIEW

By Tom Kando
  
Some Europeans deeply dislike this country. I am also a frequent and vociferous critic of America, but let’s be fair: Only half of us are imbeciles. The rest of us are  reasonable people.

In this post, I want to rebut some of the excessively negative views of America held by some Dutchmen. 

Recently, a Dutch friend sent me an article about guns and racism in the United States. The gist of the article was that whites are far more opposed to gun control than blacks; whites feel that they must arm themselves to defend themselves against crime, which is often associated with race. In other words, white opposition to gun control is another manifestation of American racism.

However, this article fails to see the whole picture: even though Americans  have become more  pro-gun in recent years, poll after poll shows that a majority  still favors gun control. What prevents gun control from ever becoming reality is the stranglehold which  the gun lobby (the National Rifle Association) has on Congress.

My friend did acknowledge  that there are two kinds of Americans. He quoted  Maarten van Rossem, a well-known Dutch expert on America who publishes a widely  read  monthly magazine.  Van Rossem illustrates the problem with the contrast between his two nephews: If they hear something rustle in their backyard,  one nephew, who lives in Boston, takes a careful look to see if some animal might need care. The other nephew, who lives in the Midwest, grabs his rifle so as to shoot the animal.

So according to my Dutch friend, America  as a whole is problematic: he says that “this is due, for one thing, to a number of institutional peculiarities (for example your electoral system), and for another thing to the impact of the country’s “bad” part. Obama’s policies suffer as a consequence. Furthermore,  some of his actions  are themselves questionable, including some of his foreign policies (e.g. drones).”

My friend continues:
“But back to the topic of racism: every country probably has its own degrees and types of racism.  In the US, it is clearer than in the Netherlands.  in America all sorts of statistics are collected about race. in Holland this doesn’t happen explicitly. At the most, sometimes indirectly, for example when the birthplace of your parents or grandparents is recorded. demographic statistics and surveys are based on characteristics such as age, gender, education, sometimes  income.  I have occasionally come across an American questionnaire where I had to enter my race. I found this shocking.”

Well, I must demure on several counts:
Regarding America’s “good” and “bad” parts/regions: Generalizations are always hazardous, but if I were to single out a region whose culture is generally dysfunctional, because it clings to feudal values, it would be the South, not the Midwest. One could argue that if the South had managed to  secede, the remaining United States today would be a more civilized country, comparable to, say, Canada.

More importantly: the US is a vast and  diverse continent, better compared to all of Europe, not to a small country such as the Netherlands. I live in the state of  California, a place as large and nearly as populous as France. Our policies and our public opinion are as progressive as those in Holland. To hold me accountable for what people do and think in Texas is like holding a Dutchman  responsible for gypsy killings in Hungary and the economic conditions in Rumania.
I realize that my analysis doesn’t work altogether, because America is one country. Perhaps my friend  is right about some “institutional peculiarities.” Granted, our electoral system is a bit odd, for example our winner-take-all electoral college  is undemocratic, and so is our Senate.  But then, most European countries, including the Netherlands, also have bicameral systems which include an undemocratic upper house/senate.

As to the collection of racial statistics: In the first place, without such statistics, affirmative action would have been an impossibility. For better or worse, it is through such ameliorative policies that the country has tried, for half a century, to redress severe racial imbalances in the job market, school admissions, etc. I have written critically about affirmative action in the past, advocating color-blindness instead. But there can be no doubt that, whether misguided or not, affirmative action was  intended to increase racial justice, and that for this, racial statistics were essential.

More generally, how are the fields of ethnic studies, race relations, etc. to go forward without collecting racial and ethnic information? Indeed, practically half of all sociological research is about race, ethnicity and  race rations.

There is no doubt that America  has problems. Today’s Tea Party reminds me of the McCarthy era.  Could  America “go fascist”? I suppose it could, but so could any country. Currently, the racist, reactionary right is on the rise everywhere, including Hungarian gypsy killers,  Dutch right-winger  Geert Wilders and France’s Le Pen family.  And don’t forget the Dutch historical  record: You had your NSB Nazi collaborators, “Apartheid” was a Dutch invention, and  you were not very nice to the Indonesians.

In conclusion, let me quote Maarten van Rossem back: “America is just another European country. The only difference is that it happens to be on the other side if the Atlantic.”

© Tom Kando 2014

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UKRAINE

By Tom Kando

I suppose I should write something about Ukraine. It’s been in the news so much. Plus, our blog is called “European-American” and I come from Hungary. Ukraine borders on Hungary. I have been in Ukraine.

What is there to say? Is Putin  an asshole? Yes. Is Russia misbehaving? Yes. Should we go to war over Russia’s  annexation of Crimea? Don’t be ridiculous. And if Russia invades the rest of Ukraine? Same thing.

Analysis:
Putin’s actions are reminiscent of Hitler’s in the 1930s: It is called IRRIDENTISM. Look it up:

First, you have  country A, whose ethnicity “overflows” across its borders into adjacent country B. This may be the result of war, of redrawn borders,  or of  some other cause. Country A then uses this as an excuse to annex parts of country B, the parts which are  allegedly populated by  people of the same ethnicity as country A.

This is exactly what Russia just did with Crimea. It may yet annex Eastern Ukraine, which also has many Russians.

Hitler provides the most classic examples of irridentism: First he re-occupies the Rhineland (1936), which was part of Germany but which was occupied and administered by France after World War One. Then he accomplishes the “Anschluss” (1938), i.e. the unification of Austria and Germany, on the grounds that Austrians are basically Germans. Then he annexes parts of Czechoslovakia (1938), namely Sudetentland/Bohemia, on the grounds that it is populated largely by Germans. Finally he attacks Poland (1939). This is not a case of irridentism, although here too, Hitler made the ludicrous argument that he was invading Poland  in order to “defend” and “protect” Germans.

There are dozens of areas in the world where irridentism could manifest itself. Hungary, my birth country, could lay claim to several  regions outside its borders. There are about two million ethnic Hungarians living in Romania, and several hundred thousand in Slovakia.

A few years ago I was visiting the President of Hungary. I told him, as a joke, that he should consider invading Romania and Slovakia and take back the Hungarian territories. He had a good sense of humor and promised that he would think about it.

What about the US Southwest? Shouldn’t Mexico consider  re-taking Arizona, New Mexico and large swaths of Texas and California? And then you have Ireland/Ulster, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan/Kashmir, etc... etc...

Irridentism, ethnic unification and ethnic cleansing are stupid 19th and 20th century ideas.  Russia lives in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But the similarity between Putin and Hitler stops there. Look at it from the Russian point of view: When the USSR dissolved  in 1991, it let go of vast areas. Ukraine was one of them.  Then, from 1999 to 2004, NATO (the Western anti-Russian military alliance) expanded and added TEN Eastern European countries to its membership, many of them bordering on Russia! If this isn’t a provocation, I don’t know what is.

Ukraine is not one of NATO’s new Eastern European members, nor should it be. If it were, the current crisis could soon escalate into a second Cuban Missile crisis.

I propose the following reasonable solution for the Ukrainian crisis: Simply Finlandize Ukraine. That is, make it a neutral state that owes no more allegiance to the West than to Russia, just as was decided for Finland after World War Two.

Is Obama doing the right thing?
You bet.
Republican carping is just political gamesmanship. In 2008, Russia did exactly the same thing in Georgia, and George W. Bush didn’t raise a finger.

Of course Putin’s annexation of part of Ukraine is a gross violation of international law. But what else
are  America and Western Europe to do, besides economic sanctions?

In any event, this whole focus on foreign issues and a revival of the Cold War  is a distraction - for us as well as for Russia: For Putin  awakening/exploiting Russian jingoism through  foreign adventures is a classic case of diverting  public attention from domestic problems. 

And the same can be said of  America. What business do we have trying to fix Ukraine, Syria and all the other hot spots, when we can’t even fix Detroit, Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino?

Obama’s instincts are correct. Our attention must be on the gradual  impoverishment of more and more Americans, the horrible state of our infrastructure, our decrepit educational system, the disappearance of the middle class, universal health care under continued attack by the retrograde Republicans, the continued rape of the country through such things as fracking. It’s THIS country that we need to fix.

© Tom Kando 2014

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BILLIONAIRES

By Tom Kando

            We learned from the news recently that  in 2013  the  richest 85 individuals in the world have as much wealth as the poorest half of mankind combined.  This is so interesting that even Fox News reported  it, even though they usually hate to talk about  inequality, accusing anyone who does  of envy and class warfare. (See the Forbes  article: http://www.forbes.com/billionaires)

Factoids:

!           There are now 1,426 billionaires in the world.  Together their worth is $5.4 trillion. That’s

roughly one third of the US  GDP. This amount is up from $4.6 trillion a year earlier, i.e. up 17%. There are 210 new billionaires.

!           442 of the 1,426 billionaires  (=31%) are in the US, 386 are in the Asia-Pacific region, 366

in Europe, 129 in  the Americas  and 103 in the  Middle East and Africa.

!           I totaled the wealth of the top 85 billionaires and  came up with  $1.73 trillion.  This is the

same amount as the total wealth of  the bottom 3.5 billion people on earth.  In other words, the 85

super-rich are worth $20.3  billion per person, whereas the bottom 3.6 billion  people in the  world

are worth $4,700 per individual. Or put another way, each of the super-rich is worth as much  as

FOUR AND A HALF MILLION people in the world’s bottom half, a  population larger than that

of many countries.

!            !           Here are some of the better known celebrities on the list:

Rank	Name	Business	fortune	country
# 1	Carlos Slim Helu	Telecom	73 billion	Mexico
# 2	Bill Gates	Microsoft	67 billion	US
# 4	Warren Buffett	Misc.	53.5 billion	US
#6, 6, 329	Koch brothers	Misc.	72 billion	US
#9	Liliane Bettencourt	L’Oreal	30 billion	France
#11,14,1617,346	Walton family	Wal-Mart	111.3 billion	US
# 13	Michael Bloomberg	Misc.	27 billion	US
#15	Sheldon Adelson	Casinoa	26.5 billion	US
#23	Michele Ferrero	Chocolates	20.4 billion	Italy
# 26	Carl Icahn	Leveraged buyouts	20 billion	US
# 30	George Soros	Hedge Funds	19.2 billion	US/ Hungary
# 36,37,38	Mars family	Mars candy	51 billion	US
# 66	Mark Zuckerberg (29 years old)	Facebook	13.3 billion	US
# 94	Charlene Heineken	Heineken beer	11 billion	Holland
# 131	Georgio Armani	Fashion	8.5 billion	Italy
# 166	Ralph Lauren	Fashion	7 billion	US
# 346	George Lucas	Star Wars	3.9 billion	US
# 423	Donald Trump	Real Estate	3.2 billion	US
# 1,175	Bruce Nordstrom	Nordstrom	1.2 billion	US

 Number of top 85 Billionaires by Countries:                                                                                                                                                           

Countries	Number of billionaires
US	32
Russia	10
Germany	6
France	5
Hong Kong	4
Mexico, Brazil	3 each
Italy, India, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia	2 each
Spain, Sweden, India,Canada, Chile, Thailand, Australia, Nigeria, Ukraine, Japan, Philippines, South Korea	1 each
total	85

!           Sources of wealth: The usual suspects:

Many:   Electronics, Amazon, Google, Dell, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung, Telecom, etc.

Many: Oil, gas, cement, petrochemicals, mining, steel, coal, metals.

Many : Banking, hedge funds, leveraged buyouts, etc

Many: Real Estate

Some: Chain stores (Wal-Mart, Aldi, Trader Joe,)

Some: Fashion, cosmetics (Prada, L’Oreal)

Some: Beverages, candy, chocolate.

!         Gender: 10 women, 75 men.

!         In 2013, Amancio Ortega, Spain, gained $19.5 billion and moved  up to third position.

Warren Buffett gained $9.5 billion, yet dropped to #4. The biggest loser was the  Brazilian Eike Batista, who lost $19.4 billion in one year,  =  $50 million per day, and thus fell from #7 to #100. Not included in Forbes’ list are Royal families  and dictators.

Conclusions:

Of course, I  have to insert a few socialist comments:

!         The US’ 442 billionaires make up 31% of the total, and  we  only make up 4% of the 

world’s population. But this is no cause for joy. The US is also experiencing the greatest polarization of income of ANY developed country. Furthermore, contrary to the stereotype (“the American Dream,” “the land of opportunity,” etc.) upward mobility is more limited in the US than  in Europe. In other words, there is more poverty and there are fewer opportunities here than elsewhere. I doubt that THIS is the sort of “exception” flag waving Republicans have in mind when they harp on that tired old theme -  “American exceptionalism.”

!         And another thing: most people learn exactly the wrong lesson from data such as these. 

Many folks come to the idiotic conclusion that such information shows us the individual characteristics it takes to become successful. Hard work, talent, dedication, etc.

            In other words, most people believe that these 85 top billionaires, and the other 1,341 too,  are somehow BETTER than the rest of us - more talented, with more work ethic, more genius of one sort or another...

             Hogwash. The list teaches  us nothing  at the individual level. Were you to meet these people, you would see that they are not smarter, funnier, better looking, more intelligent, more talented, or more anything than your average neighbor. They have more of only one thing: Money.

            Individual characteristics don’t explain who becomes a billionaire. Only one thing explains who becomes a billionaire: ADVANTAGE.

            And where does advantage come from? CIRCUMSTANCE. In other words: your location in time and (social)  space. Put another way: LUCK.

            If you happen to be born in Africa or in the South Bronx, or in the middle of  World War Two, bad luck for you. If you are born the son of the President of American Motors, or the governor of Michigan, you luck out. Is it a coincidence that only ONE of the top 85 billionaires is from Africa?

            This is called Sociology, folks. And it’s correct. Get used to it. We are all billiard balls. We are   volleys of  molecules shot into space, or  swarms of mosquitoes.  A few end up on top, a few at the bottom, some on  the far left, some on the far right, and most somewhere in the middle. It’s all about probabilities, randomness, the normal distribution, (the “bell curve”), regression towards the mean. Individual characteristics have very little to do with success or failure. Sorry.

© Tom Kando 2014

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