Adapt or Die

“The gap between how the economy actually works and how we’d like it to work is a breeding ground for discontent and desperate policy agendas. For our economic ills, Trump blames foreigners — immigrants and imports — along with the American officials who, over the years and according to Trump, engineered disastrous policies.”  (Washington Post Opinion Page July 23, 2018).  

This is the basic paradigm problem.  Baby boomers and their children, all now in middle age, remember the “good ole days” when the economy boomed.  I remember In Redding California, my home town, lumber was king, salaries went up, people traded up houses, constantly getting bigger (which was supposedly better) 

The country embarked on a gluttony of spending that used up resources at a record rate.

Taxes went up, but people made enough money in raises to offset them.  Nobody told us that the high tax rate on the rich was to help pay off WWII and pay for the defense spending of the Cold War, the rich were making so much money that it didn’t matter.

It took Europe and Asia about forty years to rebuild their industries.  When they did, in the mid seventies, the growth in America started to slow, as cheaper imports took over the market place.  One recession after another started, upending the political process as the party not in party used the economy to win elections.  A cycle of failure with brief successes ensued that continues to this day.  

And America swung right, into fascism, from this cycle of boom and bust (mostly bust).  And the cause, the WAR of course, it, just like WWI before it, which caused WWII.  The dislocations of war, that America had missed, was vested on it after the European and Asians economies were rebuilt.  Suddenly the shoe was on the other foot, as cheap products from Asia flooded American markets.  I remember when refrigerators were outsourced to Mexico shutting down factories in the mid-west.  

And Trump was elected to Make America Great Again.  That is impossible since the paradigm has changed.  The global economy has put America in its place, not the top dog anymore, still a powerful economic engine, but not alone.  

It’s 1970 all over again, when Reagan used this simple paradigm change to come to power, overturn high taxes, raise defense spending, and sparking yet another recession and a huge budget deficit.

And still nobody tells the American People the truth:  It’s the damn wars and their aftermath that cause economic problems.  It take years to get over it, and the distribution of global wealth is redistributed when countries rebuild, with new infrastructure and new ideas.

For example, health care;  after WWII Europe and Asia’s health care systems were in shambles...Doctors had been killed in the war, hospitals destroyed (sometimes on purpose).

To deal with this crisis, most European countries experimented with socialized medicine, or single payer systems, that spread a cheaper and more manageable system of universal health care to the population.   In many cases, like Japan for example, this was necessary to deal with widespread burns and even radiation sickness.  

America meanwhile, whose infrastructure was complete intact, stayed with the private medical system, that worked for awhile, until the inflation of post-war America drove health care and pharmaceutical prices through the roof.

So now, America’s economy is stifled by high health care costs in a system that literally rations health care toward the rich.  

Moreover, a deep and resistant poverty hit America, with rampant homelessness recently, reducing the once “shining city on the hill” to a land of panhandling.

And of course, a politician was ready to take advantage of it:  Donald Trump and the Republicans.  

First thing they did was to pass a tax cut, claiming high corporate taxes were the problem of equal distribution of wealth.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  And this will only exacerbate the inequities that are causing the widespread poverty in the first place.

Meanwhile the rest of the world, who are lengthening the lead they have over United States in the critical area of efficient use of renewable resources, are distancing themselves from the “sick giant of America”.

And the quick fix, the momentary solution, that gets demagogues elected works, putting Republicans (the party of Depression by the way) into power yet again, and like the 1920s, overspending, setting the economy up on bets and gambles, and setting us up for yet another  Depression.

And the cycle continues because nobody will tell the American People the truth and if they do tell the truth they are punished by the voters, who keep looking for the “good ole days”.

The good ole days don’t exist anymore.  The world has created a climate change situation, that is the number one threat to survival.  And many countries, especially those who had to rebuild after WWII, get it and are installing more and more renewable energy sources and using cars less and less.

The United States: well we are stuck in the past, still gauging our leaderships by gasoline prices and refusing to adapt to the new paradigm:  global economy competition, new health care paradigm, and finally the need to spread the wealth and adopt policies that help not hurt the “losers” in the new world economy.  Moreover, those countries that adapt to global climate change and the peak oil, that is hitting us right now, will at least survive; those that don’t adapt (the United States is the biggest denier) will NOT SURVIVE!

The solution is there, but it involves telling the American People the truth (true leadership is telling people what they DON’T WANT TO HEAR).  Until we do that we will be stuck in failure.  

The Great Switch

Ok, you trolls out there, her is political analysis to consider but you will have to dig out your old U.S. History books you never looked at before and READ.  Of course you won’t and I will get a bunch of half WITS with Fox News crap in response.

YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.  YOUR LACK OF READING AND SMUG ME FIRST IS BEING USED AGAINST YOU AND YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS WILL HAVE TO FIGHT THE WAR THAT WILL KILL US ALL!
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Let me get this straight...the anti-Communist Red hating party of the past, who still stands for a tough foreign policy, lots of Defense Spending, break treaties with Iran etc., is now warming up to Russia; following their fuhrer’s lead the Republicans now like Russia?

Now this is the Russia that has invaded the Ukraine, recently poisoned British nationals and directly tampered with our elections (and has done the same in several democracies).   Russia is consistent, it always attacks democracies and never attacks autocracies.

Why. Because it is an autocracy having shed its brief experiment with democracy a few years ago.

Russia is a fascist plutocracy, with socialist organization of several functions (like health care).  It is no democracy, is a single party state essentially, with a small group of men running things..

It is homophobic to the max, racist to the core, and getting poorer due to its lack of inclusion and diversity.

That’s right inclusion and diversity is a positive thing in governments. IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

Immigrants from Europe, Africa, Asia; etc., helped enormously to win WWI and WWII, wars essentially against plutocracy, aristocracy and fascism.

Wilson and Roosevelt after him, depicted the wars as crusades for liberal democracy, for a chance for the common man; etc.

Did it happen:  to some degree yes.  After WWII, which cost over 50 million deaths and untold damage, the world turned to democracy and freedom as it rebuilt.  Fascism was actually outlawed, racism as well,  in Germany and other fascist states.

The most radical “fix” was used on Germany and Japan, dividing Germany up for over twenty years to educate the fascism of of them.  Japan took a pledge that they still adhere to, to not militarize again.

The world saw unparalleled wealth, as the post war baby boom made America into the world’s  only super power and rebuilt Europe and Asia.  Europe and Asia benefitted from the destruction of their infrastructure with an  economic boom, rebuilding the cities destroyed by American  bombers  in record time.

The world was basically rebuilt in thirty years, making a lot of people very rich.  And the Soviet Union, who as the second strongest nation to emerge from WWII in spite of high damage and many deaths, became a rival of the United States in a Cold War, that threatened the atomic destruction of the world.

But that changed when the United States, that had waged a consistent and well thought out policy of containment of Communism (that cost the mistake of Vietnam) stuck to a bi-partisan policy that ultimately broke the Soviet Union and turned it to an experiment of democracy.

Both parties in America had a mutual enemy of Communism, that clashed with their capitalism, and continued for years to oppose Soviet aggression everywhere.  And finally, under a very conservative President, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union amazingly broke apart into several states, and atomic threats even were reduced.

But then an amazing thing happened.  A right wing movement began in America fueled by the opposition to  Civil Rights advancements of African Americans and other people of color.  A backlash is now in effect in the United States to the election of the first African American President.  Long latent fascist authoritarian tendencies have been reborn under a failed plutocrat, whose racism and fascism is flaunted not hidden.

And the white lower middle class has embraced him as a savior, as someone who will “Make America Great Again.

They are too uneducated and yes stupid, to understand that the diversity of immigrants is what saved the word TWICE during WWI and WWII.  It was America’s immigrants who returned to their home countries to stop the madness that was tearing the word apart.  It was this strength of the United States that rebuilt the world after WWII in the image of liberal democracies that stressed for a time, the well being of their people over preparations for war.

Europe was very sick from 1914 to 1945.  The illness of fascism and autocracy killed 50 million people and almost pushed the world into the abyss.

But the dream of America and democracy saved us.

Now the nightmare of America threatens to kill us all.....

The North State

Right...understand Northern California?  How about understanding tragedy?  As a Native Son of Redding here are things you should  understand:

1.  Redding has a hard glint to it, a meanness that many “newcomers” comment on.  It goes back to the gold rush days, when Old Shasta was the Queen City, where the gold was and Redding was called poverty flats.  The reason for its current  name  was when the railroad came through and the clerk at the train station was a  guy named Redding,  and he got credit for the town that was originally called Poverty Flats.  That’s right, Poverty Flats!

2.  And Poverty Flats is the core of Redding and of Northern California.  Northern California was where the gold ran out, where miners went to find more, and ran straight into the Native Americans who were not welcoming.  The miners turned to cattle ranching instead, clashed with the Natives and a genocide ensued.  And the killings were paid for with bounties.  Killing people for money is a hell of a way to start a town but that is in fact what started it.

3.  My mother was a dirt farmer.  Now there is nothing wrong with that, but every one was.  And there was no money in Redding once the gold rush petered out; after destroying the watershed and leaving a environment disaster the gold mining corporations (who really mined the gold) simply left the streams and rivers and the mounds of rocks where they had blasted them with hydrological mining and took off.  The North State was an ecological disaster; punctuated with a copper mining boom around what is now Shasta Lake that gave off such toxic fumes that it turned residents hair green; and killed hundreds.  The economy of Redding in the early twentieth century was truly victimized by corporate mining that destroyed it.

4.  Logging became a mainstay after WWII and the completion of the Dam.  Redding became a economic opportunity and the population rose for about 8 thousand to 90 thousand over the decades.   The Dam, its called “The Dam” by locals, had provided thousands of jobs during the Great Depression and literally saved the town.  It also created a conflict between the Dam “Busters” workers who followed the Federal Dam Projects and the locals.  This often resulted in violence, locals fighting the “aliens” in the gutters of California Street, known for its prostitution, gambling and sin.

5.  Then the logging ran out.  Many blamed the “spotted owl” and the “feds” for the economic  catastrophe the run down of logging brought to the north state.  At about the same time, the Cold War stopped and thousands of “immigrants” from the L.A. Basin moved into Shasta County, bringing with them two things:  conservatism and evangelical belief.

Now, Redding had never been a particularly religious town, but in the span of a few years became home to the North Valley Baptist Church, a conservative dynamo that displaced the former New Deal liberal Democrats who ran the town from the 30s to the 70s.  The south state’s  religious conservatism rushed into take the place of the loggers who moved or retired as the wood products industry died.  Union members were replaced with church members.

6.  The last Democrat to win the Congressional Seat was Bizz Johnson who retired in the late 1970s leaving a long string of increasingly conservative representatives that endures to this day.  While the rest of the state reveled in the digital revolution, growing into the fifth largest economy in the world, Redding stayed in the Poverty Flats stage, in fact shrinking in size as thousands of Bay Area residents look for cheaper housing.  They avoid Redding because the economy and political atmosphere is toxic!

7.  And the State of Jefferson madness developed out of this; the evangelicals who once again are trying to run the town, taking the place of the Baptists with the Bethel “movement” that promises redemption if you believe in spirits and particularly white straight people.

8.  Redding always was suspicious of “outsiders”.  But it has got worse.  The “boat people” from Vietnam came to Redding in the late 70s and met with a white supremacy racism that was  very ugly.  The Orange County refugees we called the white ex-defense industry workers, who had fled the south state because of “those people” now had “those people” going to school with their kids and did not like it.  The hard edge on Redding citizens turned into white backlash, as once again the “feds” were blamed for the intruders.

9.  And now Redding sits as a conservative bastion in a North State that is a mix of marijuana farmers, a small liberal faction and the rest wack nut conservatives.  

10.  And global warming, that the conservative faction thinks is bunk, will literally melt the North State away in the coming years with fires and heat that is impossible to live in.  Even with air conditioning you can’t work and live in 120 degree heat.  And solar power, a few have it, but the city who owns its power company refuses to use it, again caught in the conservative malaise.

I finally had my fill of it, my family is a Pioneer Family, my father an ex President of the Shasta County Historical Society.  I taught Shasta Country History.  But when the town twice  turned down a much needed small tax increase to replenish the recession ravaged police and fire departments, the opioid epidemic has turned Redding into a crime ridden zone where no home is safe, I had it.  I had attended Sac State for my credential and Masters and we relocated to Sacramento.  It is my second time here, but the atmosphere, even though a “Big City” was like a breath of fresh air.  The diversity is startling, but refreshing.  And Sacramento has its problems as well.  But there is a strong commitment to governing, to working for diversity and yes the American Dream that Redding once had, when I was a poor kid growing up in a town that had “money” from logging and provided me with the opportunity to rise and attend Stanford University.

And the State of Jefferson?  The lunacy of this movement is beyond belief, it would in one move reduce Redding to the Poverty Flats it used to be.  Redding has already turned its back on the state of California politically but to actually do it economically would end the town.

Finally, a small mention in this article tells it all, the population in Redding is in the low 90,000s.  It was projected to be well over 100,000 ten years ago.  That tells it all...Redding is starving itself to death with in its conservative malaise, the global warming it refuses to acknowledge and the poverty flats designation it can’t or won’t escape is a death sentence.