The Myth of Private Enterprise

What? You want to eat at MY lunch counter?

Recently, Rand Paul, the son of Libertarian Ron Paul, won the Republican primary for Senate in Kentucky. Being a Tea Party darling, this was trumpeted as a significant event. In his acceptance speech, he said "We've come to take our government back." What does he mean? Who is the 'we' in this?

I'm sorry, but quite simply I think this is code for "We've come to take our country back from these non-white people."

But here's why I'm writing this piece. Rachel Maddow interviewed him after his victory, and tried repeatedly to ask him if he supported the rights of business owners to discriminate based on race. Over and over again, Rand said it was right to bar discrimination by the government, but skirted the issue of directly answering her questions. For some reason, Libertarians seem to think Freedom (yes Freedom with a capital 'F') is at risk if you tell an individual businessman he can't discriminate in his own place of business!

Here's the rub: This is all based on some sophomoric view of what constitutes 'private enterprise.' It's kind of like the old phrase "a man's home is his castle." Whatever goes on inside a private business is beyond the reach of law, beyond the dictates of society. I think on one level that sounds reasonable. After all, who doesn't like freedom? Who likes being told what to do? I know I don't like it when I'm told what to do, even it it makes sense!

But really, how can business ever be truly private? By its very nature it involves the interrelationship between people and the support of the common infrastructure. How can you run a business without the support of public safety, banking, utilities, and so on. The very fabric of public society is the lifeblood of any 'private enterprise.'

To equate the sanctity of the First Amendment with the right to bar people from your 'private business' is silly at best, and sociopathic at least.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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Race Against Time

The line it is drawn The curse it is cast
With the election of Barack Obama, a major battle has been set up. Obama's victory was never accepted by the corporate forces who have done such a great job of locking up the game that is called The United States. Rather than wait for the mandate to be given a chance, the strategy has been to simply stall and obstruct. The U. S. Treasury was so heavily looted, there's very little money, if any, left for creative social justice programs, which suits the right just fine. The GOP's seditious strategy cares not for the general welfare of the country (or the world for that matter), but only serves at the pleasure of moneyed interests. The demons of racism, sexism, and xenophobia have all been unleashed in support of the attacks on the new Federal government. FauxNews' Glenn Beck and his ilk continually stir up these forces, in a thinly veiled hope that some wacko will take Obama out of the picture.

What is happening is a race between the country becoming aware of the good works of Obama's plans, and the heavy indoctrination/disinformation program of the right wing. Normally, this would have been hard enough, but with the Supreme Court's recent decision to allow corporations unlimited 'free speech,' the stakes have gotten higher.

The Bizarro World of California Voter Democracy - 1984-style
California's initiative process has been flawed for years, with corporations able to hire professional signature gatherers for self-serving propositions. But it seems as if the 'gloves are off' now. I have noticed a few propositions that seem particularly obvious examples of corporate self-interest:

Prop 16 "Taxpayers Right to Vote"
Perhaps you've seen the ad on TV, telling you how this will give taxpayers the right to approve any public involvement in power generation. Watch closely, in the middle of the ad, the voice0ver says it "requires voter approval" while on screen the truth is highlighted; it would require 2/3 majority to approve any such move. Anyone familiar with the budget process in California since the 2/3 majority has been needed to pass a budget knows this is just a big roadblock. The only funding for this awful proposition comes from PG&E. Surprised? Somehow we are supposed to forget the whole concept of representative government. We elected people to do that job, but for some reason, we are expected to micromanage everything with a ballot proposition? We have a right to vote, we elect representatives. Why can't they do their jobs without the corporations always stepping in and paying for so-called 'voter initiatives' to get their way?

Prop 17 The Continuous Coverage Auto Insurance Discount Act

The Good Side: Motorists can get 'continuous coverage discounts' even when they switch from one insurance company to another.
The Bad Side: If for some reason, a motorist lets coverage lapse, then the next time they need insurance, no discount. This would not just be for people who didn't pay their bills. What about someone who sold their car because they didn't need it? Why should they be penalized?
Who's paying for this 'voter initiative?': The primary sponsor of Prop 17 is Mercury Insurance. Surprised?

So, in the whole health care reform process, we found that lots of congressmen and senators were basically on the take from corporate interests. And on a certain level, who can blame them? They can't get re-elected without financial support. So, even though the majority of the American people wanted relief from the onerous mess that is our current health care system, we hear all about 'socialism' and 'government takeover,' 'death panels,' and blah blah blah. Now we're hearing about how the GOP will win a lot of seats back in congress. What sort of disconnect is that?

The race against time that I'm referring to is trying to hold on to the effort to clean up our power structures before they become totally corrupted. George W. Bush has already appointed relatively young Supreme Court justices who will tow the corporate line; they won't be replaced for another 20 years! We need leaders like Obama to stay in power long enough to turn this rotten ship around.

Keep your eyes on the prize, and don't be distracted by flashy baubles!



Tyree and Geoff discussing politics!

Just How Crazy Is It?

Should We Arm Bears?

Just to show you how out of touch I am with what I am told are ordinary patriotic Americans, I wanted to spend a little of my blog space to comment on the current "Open Carry" movement.

Lately these people have been wandering into coffee shops, with permitted holstered weapons, as they order their mochas.

Yeah, I guess it's legal, but when I see someone with a gun in the open, even a cop who's there to protect the public, I get a little nervous. I get very nervous when I see right-wingers showing up at public demonstrations packing heat.


This summer, some nutcases famously displayed their weapons very near an event that Obama was at. If you go to the open carry website, they actually point to that as an example of how twisted the gun-control crowd is!:

"The anti-gun rights lobby's furor over the presence of guns
near the president . . . is an attempt to somehow reverse the normalization of guns."
Professor Brandon Denning, Cumberland School of Law (Birmingham, AL),
Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2009

I don't have much more to say, but I don't want to hang out in a coffee shop where some insecure, overcompensating dude is showing off his new Glock!

The Search for Reality

I think many of us are battle-weary about the health care debate. I would guess this is partly due to our modern lack of an attention span, but it has also been the result of a deliberate stalling strategy that defies reason and believability, and yet it continues to work. I never realized before this last year how incredibly broken our American system of health insurance was, at least for most of us. You might notice I didn't use the term health care, as the care itself is way down on the list of priorities. It's not that the insurance companies are evil just for evil's sake; after all, it's "just business."

It's only logical that a business must do whatever it can to make a profit. That is the nature of business, and the law of survival. So, of course a for-profit insurance model would use the following tactics to maximize a high rate of return:

Deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Drop coverage as soon as possible for people that need to actually use it.
Raise rates as much as possible.

Especially if you can manipulate a non-competitive environment.

This is simply what you would expect in a system designed to protect the concept of profit in a world where health is needed.

And this is simply what the fight is all about. All the talk about cost containment, 'government-run' healthcare, 'death panels,' and fraud is just a smoke screen. It is purely and simply a struggle to maintain a system unlike any other developed country.

The fact that we treat health care as a sacrosanct source of profit, instead of a human right is the problem. Don't be distracted away from that. Just try to imagine what kind of world it would be like if your local fire department was run like a for-profit health insurance company: Your house is on fire, but if you can't pay COD, too bad for you.

There are so many lies around, I made an effort to find just a couple of facts I could confirm at the source. I didn't want to quote some political web site. I think if you can hang on to just these two things, it would put the issues in perspective.
First, let's put the magnitude of the crisis in perspective.

The world was aghast when 3,000 people were killed on 9/11. Over 5300 Americans service men and women have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since they began, to say nothing of the civilian casualties.

OK, have we all absorbed that? Well here's something I think we should never forget:

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance

Maybe you've heard this before, but perhaps it just fades into all the other screaming about the issues of the day. This is not something the Huffington Post invented. This was a study conducted by the Harvard Medical School.

Here is a link to the Harvard site

Don't let anyone tell you this is a made-up number.
45,000 people a year.
Is that enough to notice?

Let's move on to the money.

Putting aside the obvious morality of just declaring access to health care a right, let's quit talking about how we can't afford it.

I've just got three words to say:

Bush Tax Cuts!

According to an article I found written in September 2004 from the Brookings Institute, well before Obama entered the race. At that point in time, there were "$1.7 trillion of revenue losses already locked into law."

There has basically been a campaign to cast modern progressive taxation as "Socialism.' And you thought Joe McCarthy was dead!

We are letting people die just so rich people can get a couple of extra percentage points off their income tax.

For Shame.

In closing, I'd like to quote a few lines about our health care system from an article on the PBS Frontline web site about how different countries finance their health care systems. I recommend reading the short article about the 4 basic models different countries use.

These four models should be fairly easy for Americans to understand because we have elements of all of them in our fragmented national health care apparatus. When it comes to treating veterans, we're Britain or Cuba. For Americans over the age of 65 on Medicare, we're Canada. For working Americans who get insurance on the job, we're Germany.

For the 15 percent of the population who have no health insurance, the United States is Cambodia or Burkina Faso or rural India, with access to a doctor available if you can pay the bill out-of-pocket at the time of treatment or if you're sick enough to be admitted to the emergency ward at the public hospital.

The United States is unlike every other country because it maintains so many separate systems for separate classes of people. All the other countries have settled on one model for everybody. This is much simpler than the U.S. system; it's fairer and cheaper, too.

Review: Avatar

What a Trip!

If there are any of you left who haven't seen Avatar yet, let me just offer a few words of advice:

1. Yes, get a ticket and see it.
2. You should see it in 3D
   
3. You should prepare a bit first

Why see it?

It may not be the most thrilling plot you've ever encountered in a movie theater, but this is the reason you go to movie theaters, and not 'just wait for the DVD.' I have heard the plot described as Dances With Wolves with blue people. I never saw that movie, but I get the joke. I tend to watch Star Trek TNG reruns every weeknight at 10 for the same reason; good film or video should take you some place. Avatar definitely takes you to another place. It is money well spent as far as I'm concerned.

Why see it in 3D?

I haven't seen it in 2D, and I'm sure it's still pretty cool, but the total immersion experience of 3D just really puts this experience over the edge. These aren't just cheesy effects either.

Prepare? To see a movie?

I didn't know much about the movie outside of the basic plot. I usually like to see a movie before it gets ruined by modern day teasers and trailers which seem to spoil all the good parts! I'm not saying you need to attend a language class to speak the Na'vi language, but I would at least recommend you see the trailer that has been produced which includes background material. The main Apple trailer page for Avatar is a good place to start. I wish I had seen the trailer listed as "Experience the World of Pandora" before I'd seen the movie. The 'Featurette' is a short primer on Pandora, and some basic facts about the world you'll be spending over two hours inhabiting!

One More Thing

Go to the bathroom before the movie! At 162 minutes, try not to buy the big soda before you go inside!

Obamapologist?

A Science Nerd's Analogy
Back in 1909, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, under the direction of Ernest Rutherford at the Physical Laboratories of the University of Manchester, performed an historic experiment. In an effort to deduce what the inside of an atom 'looked like,' they fired small helium nuclei, alpha particles, at a thin layer of gold foil. Up until this point, it was thought that the atom had a similar structure to plum pudding. Negatively charged electrons were suspended in a positively charged matrix, and it was expected that the alpha particles would just zip through the atom, like a bullet through a cake.

But things didn't turn out this way.

What happened was that most of the particles did indeed travel right through, as if nothing was there. But...a few of the particles were deflected at an angle, and some of them simply bounced back, as if bouncing off a brick wall!

This is not the place for another of my boring science lectures, but I'm simply trying to illustrate how we do our best to infer what the hidden looks like, even if we can't see it. Which leads me to one way to look at Obama's recent decisions on the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. I am reticent to do this, knowing I might be on the wrong side of an issue many of my friends I respect feel deeply about. But, since I've never been that smart about keeping my mouth shut, I'm going to try and explain why I continue to support Obama, and give him the benefit of the doubt, even as so many on the left despair.

Many people have a general distrust of all politicians, and for some valid reasons. Congress members and Senators cannot expect to get re-elected to continue doing the 'people's work' unless they get up every morning and raise tens of thousands of dollars in re-election funds. All that money probably doesn't come with unconditional love. As we've seen lately in the health care debate, the GOP is essentially a wholly-owned subsidiary of trans-national corporations, and many Democrats are in pretty deep too. How else do you explain the public's support for a public option, while at the same time the Senate seems so willing to kill it? Most of them are bought and sold, that much seems true. But without meaningful campaign finance reform, how likely are any significant changes? I'm totally opposed to term limits, as all that does is weaken the public's representatives compared to the lobbyists, who never get termed out, and just get stronger and stronger.

I've also heard lots of people complain about plumbers, and how much money they make. Do you really want to hire a gardener to fix your broken toilet? In San Francisco, we elected a mayor, Frank Jordan, whose shtick was that he wasn't a politician, and that's exactly what we got. A politician that knew nothing about the plumbing of the political machinery, and we had to live through it. If you lived in California the last 40 years, you had to live through 16 years of Ronald Reagan, whose charm was also being cast outside of the normal politician mold, first as Governor, then as President. What a national tragedy.

So it turns out Obama is a politician. What a surprise. Anyone who thinks they can just drop into the job of President, and instantly turn the ship of state on a dime will be disappointed. The entrenched power interests who fight Obama at every turn are venal and corrupt beyond belief. Out here in commie-pinko San Francisco, we don't live around such cretins as Senator James "no such thing as global warming" Inhofe, and all those other cult members of "The Family" who live in the house on C Street.

The euphoria over Obama's election was short-lived, once it became apparent that the right wingers would not roll over, and would fight tooth and nail, and lie, anything to blunt Obama's pull with the American people. Even with 60 Senators, every piece of legislation is WWIII.

So, what's the deal with Afghanistan? There's only supposed to be about 100 al-Qaeda in that fractured country. The Karzai government is corrupt, and the civilians there don't seem to appreciate having Predators drop bombs on them. We need 30,000 more troops for that?

So, what does this have to do with alpha particles?

Today, Obama gave a speech in acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. In many ways, he sounded themes George W. Bush might have mined, but did it in a real, complex way:

I face the world as it is

This is reality. I think what's hidden is what's in Pakistan. Pakistan has nukes. Pakistan has al-Qaeda, probably bin Laden too. The government of Pakistan is anything but stable, and will not officially allow US troops to press al-Qaeda there. Currently the CIA, with those mercenary contractors, is in charge of what goes on in Pakistan, but now it seems like the Air Force is also involved. The real story is in Pakistan, but it cannot be viewed or acknowledged directly.

Obama is straddling the dangers of the world, with the quest for peace. Most politicians give us an either/or fantasy. This is hard.

For the moment, I'm still thinking Obama is playing chess, while the rest of us are playing checkers. But I'm still proud that an American President shares these kind of words with the world:

Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he's outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's dreams.

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.

Review: Pirate Radio

Pirate Radio (US)
The Boat That Rocked (UK)
Good Morning England (France)
Radio Rock Revolution (Germany)
<--Phillip Seymour Hoffman as "The Count"

It's Only Rock and Roll, but I liked it!

I'll be brief; I liked the movie. I'm glad I went to a theater to see it, and I would recommend it to people who remember what it was like, when listening to the radio late at night held some sort of magical power.

This film will not win any Oscars, nor should it. It is filled with technical inaccuracies, and at times is clichéd and predictable. I personally do not believe that it will ever be possible for people to be 'transported' or 'beamed' from place to place, but I still enjoy watching Star Trek.

What is true is that at the height of the 'British Invasion,' the BBC barely allowed any broadcast of rock 'n' roll. It is this spirit of liberation that infuses the music, and the experience of watching the movie in a theater with other fans of rock.

This is not a movie for cynics; save your money and don't go!

Bushel of Lies

Where to Begin?

Lately, the whole effort to reform America's health care system has exposed a corrupting power structure whose size has been hidden from most of us. The magnitude of the power and money involved in propping up the status quo for the insurance companies, big pharmaceutical firms, and the for-profit hospital systems has been revealed to be as massive as any industry there is. The talking points have been distributed, and people are parroting the propaganda from sea to shining sea. (Quick, put Z on your Netflix list of movies to watch!)

I have received emails from people I know, with outrageous lies. How is it that ordinarily good people have taken the bait so easily? Are we that easy to manipulate with racist ideas, fears of immigrants, and general socialist bogeymen? Can our synapses be so easily accessed with massive advertising slogans? It's 2009 for pete's sake! Why is this happening?

Today, in "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire, a gun-toting protester stood outside a town hall appearance by Obama, standing with permission on church property. This is nuts!

Here is a list of some of the most frequent lies that you will hear over and over (so it must be true!), which are all easily refuted. But does that stop people?

1. President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!
2. Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!
3. President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!
4. Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!
5. Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

I know many of you work or have worked in the healthcare arena, so I'd like to hear from you. In the words of Rachel Maddow: Talk Me Down! Tell me I'm hallucinating. Tell me a rational reason we cannot join the rest of the developed world in how our citizens access healthcare.

Here is the video I was telling you about. I'll bet you can't stomach the whole thing! I practically hit the "I can't take it anymore" wall around one minute into it. When you Google this ad, there's very little info about who's behind it, just a lot of right-wing websites telling you how cool it is!

Inconvenient Science

The Request Line is Open!
Yesterday I went to the Exploratorium to visit some old friends and check out some teaching resources, and posted in my FaceBook status "getting ready to go to Exploratorium." Tyree asked that I report about this in my next blog post!

Now, one one hand, my trip itself was not really newsworthy, outside of some weird pictures I took of myself in the new exhibit. But on the other hand, my blog doesn't have that many readers, and who am I to ignore such a request! Perhaps I can weave something about the Exploratorium's approach to science with something that's really concerned me lately.

The Exploratorium is the original 'hands-on' science museum for the general public. No longer just the province of nerds and geeks (not that there's anything wrong with nerds and geeks!) The Exploratorium is just downright fun, and if you're not careful, educational too! And if you've ever visited, and wondered what was going on in those classrooms in the middle of the building, the museum also runs a Teacher Institute to help with the professional development of science teachers. Their goal is to support teachers in their first years, when most teachers quit. I went through a two-year induction program with them, and found it very important to my survival, as well as making good friends that are going through the same struggles I am.

What the Exploratorium represents to me is the intersection between high science and personal experience. Many exhibits may just appear to be fun optical illusions, but if you want to know, there is much deeper science involved. You can just enjoy the beauty of the rainbow streaming into the building through the diffraction gratings installed on the roof, and if you want, you can dig deeper, to the 'why' of it all. If you haven't been there in a while, check it out again; new exhibits are built all the time.

This brings me to something that has been on my mind lately, and focused by and a recent survey published in the New York Times. There seems to be a large disconnect between what the public believes, and what scientists believe, even as far as what the public believes the scientists believe! More specifically:

...while almost all of the scientists surveyed accept that human beings evolved by natural processes and that human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming, general public is far less sure.

Almost a third of ordinary Americans say human beings have existed in their current form since the beginning of time, a view held by only 2 percent of the scientists. Only about half of the public agrees that people are behind climate change, and 11 percent does not believe there is any warming at all.

According to the survey, about a third of Americans think there is lively scientific debate on both topics; in fact, there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution and there is little doubt that human activity is altering the chemistry of the atmosphere in ways that threaten global climate.

Plainly put, there is no actual debate among scientists about evolution or global warming, yet one can frequently find references to such a debate.

What seems to be going on here is a large denial on the part of the public about science, and I wonder why this is. I would really like to get your two bits on this.

I tend to believe that those who try to control society favor a populace that is as scientifically-illiterate as possible. That makes it easier to control people, since you don't have to be logical.

There is another train of thought that says people themselves avoid freedom, and choose to be scientifically illiterate for that very reason. They don't need any deep conspiracy to believe in superstitions.

I would really be interested to hear from you as to why this disconnect exists. What other factors might be at play here? Religion? Schools? Social customs?

Wedding Reflections and Flashbacks

It's All a Dream We Dreamed One Afternoon, Long Ago

Since our daughter Grace's wedding, people ask me how it feels. I don't quite know what to say. Certainly Grace and Peter have been together for years, so there's no change in location. Mainly I felt swept up in the moment, and felt very blessed to be alive, and dancing (somewhat clumsily) at my daughter's wedding. There were regrets that our parents (both dads gone, and our moms not well enough to attend) couldn't be there, but the heavens smiled, the weather was perfect, and who can beat redwood trees for a natural setting?

I have been thinking about our own wedding, at the Los Gatos History Club on the Winter Solstice of 1975, and just looked at our photo album for the first time in years. The colors are fading a bit from the prints, and there are many faces in the pictures no longer with us. In the picture above (we were playing "Attics of My Life") David and Chris (3rd and 5th from the left) left us way too young.

Not to make too fine a point of it, this is indeed a passage, even if there are no major changes on either side of the time demarcation.

1. I'm very happy for my daughter and her new husband
2. This has caused me to reflect on our own wedding
3. Which led to the picture book
4. Who are all those young people in the pictures?

And now for the T. S. Eliot I didn't quote at the wedding:

I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.
And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.
You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
When the train starts, and the passengers are settled
To fruit, periodicals and business letters
(And those who saw them off have left the platform)
Their faces relax from grief into relief,
To the sleepy rhythm of a hundred hours.
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)
'Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.