Barrack Obama looks back for inspiration to Abraham Lincoln. Fair enough: the Great Emancipator and our first black president. So why doesn’t Obama take up the issue that so bedeviled Mr. Lincoln’s presidency—the issue of human slavery. After all, the Associated Press reports, there are still approximately 10,000 human slaves working in bondage in the United States.
The AP goes on to say that the State Department reports that children from 33 of Africa’s 53 countries were sent out to work as slaves just last year. Slaves from ten or more African countries were sent to work in either Europe or the US. Nobody knows exactly how many.
The United Nations, Interpol and American intelligence sources are unable to come up with a figure for exactly how large it might be. The slave dealing is done very secretively. A poor father approaches a wealthy member of his society and offers them the services of a daughter he can no longer afford to feed.
At nine or ten, the girl becomes a house slave. She may work for up to twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Her family may even be paid a pittance for her services. But she has no freedom, no education; she sometimes may not even use the same spoons her masters eat with.
She wears old castoffs, is often made to sleep in the garage with the family vehicles; the families do not even call her by name. She is simply the servant, the girl, or “stupid”. If, like a nine-year-old she makes a blunder, she will likely be beaten.
When the enslaving family moves to a western nation like the United States, she is simply brought along to do the vacuuming, washing, dish washing and cleaning in the new home. Now she will not be able to see or communicate with her real family—which stays back in Africa.
This African slave trade goes back thousands of years. The ancient Greeks had black slaves—and copied down the stories the slaves told their children. The called them Black Fables—or Aesop’s Fables. In the Eighth Century, Muslim slavers sailed down the East Coast of Africa and began the slave trade that Europeans bought into for labor in the Americas.
The French invaded North Africa to stop piracy; the British occupied the Sudan and East Africa to stop the slave trade once and for all. By 1900 they had defeated the Mahdi’s forces and his slaver allies and ended the last vestiges of African slavery—so they thought.
It didn’t stay stopped. Britain was finally forced out of its East African colonies by 1960, and slavery immediately resumed. There was an insatiable thirst among the wealthy in the Arab world for house slaves. An African Muslim parent could often pay for the family’s pilgrimage to Mecca by leaving a child behind as a slave.
Africa and the Middle East aren’t the only places where slavery is still practiced. Young girls are routinely sold as sex slaves for the tourist trade in places like Bangkok. Young children regularly work making soccer balls and other goods for the West in conditions that can only be described as slavery throughout eastern Asia.
The United Nations tried to create a legal code requiring decent treatment for slaves in the 1950s. No one seemed able to come up with a solution that pleased both master and slave. By 1956, the UN gave up on the job—and did all but nothing more about the problem.
It’s an invisible problem—when a house slave was rescued (and sent to school and given a decent home in California) the neighbors professed not to have suspected a thing. The owners simply said the girl was one of their own children doing chores. When someone realized that this girl was living in the garage, without lights or plumbing, someone called the authorities—but this was after years.
In Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain—as well as Maryland, California and Michigan, Africans have been arrested for smuggling in slaves, all in recent years. I recall a New York case of a Saudi Princess who had a domestic slave with her about ten years ago.
Obama can’t invade Thailand to stop the sex trade, he cannot send troops into Africa or patrol the borders of France and Germany—but he can put out the word on American borders. For starters, when a wealthy African or Middle Eastern family enters the country, COUNT.
If they say they have four children and five are present, pull everybody into a separate room and start asking probing questions. These slaves are smuggled into the US in panel trucks. They come in with the families that own them. If one of the children is dressed differently or has calluses the others don’t, or seems unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes—check into it.
With the coming of “the second Lincoln”, it might be a ripe moment in American history to end slavery (at least in this nation) for good.
[Bits and pieces of this blog were taken from an AP report sent to AOL News, 12/29/08]
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Christmas--The Dialog Killer
Pope Benedict XVI is one of the more scholarly popes we’ve seen in decades. He is also a man of reasonably good will. He began his papacy by seeking to dialog with other religions around the world. The Roman Church has been good at that during several periods of its history, for good or for ill.
About a month ago, the Pontiff (an interesting title that goes back to pagan times in ancient Rome—the Caesars carried it, it means High Priest of Rome; it predates the birth of Christ) made the statement that no meaningful dialog was possible with adherents of non-Christian faiths.
This does not mean we cannot talk to them, make a common cause in limited areas or that we ought to view them with hostility. It should be noted that the first great Christian missionary, the Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, was never guilty of talking down anyone else’s faith—he merely talked up his own.
What the Pope was finally forced to conclude is that, in the end, Christianity—like Islam and Judaism—is a highly exclusive faith. There is no way you can stretch it into a “big tent” with room for people of all faiths and beliefs. There is no way, as Bush and Obama have both said recently, that you can say, “We all pray to the same God.”
The Christmas Season highlights that fact. This may partially be why Americans of other faiths or of no faith at all are so interested in dropping the name Christmas from the season. Christmas, as the account related in the second chapter of Luke says—and as it is defined by the Nicene Creed of AD 325—is the historical moment in which God became man (the incarnation).
It is the moment in which the Second Person of the Trinity is introduced—in human form. A human mother; God himself as father. The reason for this in Christian theology is that Adam’s betrayal left the human race with an infinite debt. Only the blood of God could pay it off. (See the movie “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe”, in which Christ is portrayed as the Lion, Aslan.)
So God had to come in human form, as a Second Adam, to cover the debts of the First. Christmas becomes that momentous occasion in which our savior (debt payer) finally comes to redeem (pay off our debts) us.
This theological point was, as the Rabbi from Tarsus, St. Paul, who basically founded Christianity was quick to admit, “foolishness to the educated and a stone they could not get over to his fellow Jews”. It sounds almost as silly as saying that a solid piece of iron is actually made up of itty-bitty little atoms that actually move around. Who, holding a piece of iron in hand, could actually believe such a thing?
But if you do believe it, the doctrine of the incarnation eliminates all possibility of one big tent where all faiths can meet In harmony. Christmas kills the dialog. If you accept the notion that the baby born in Bethlehem was “very God of very God” (Nicene Creed), then you cannot be praying to him if you pray to some other deity.
Christ said some very interesting things about himself. In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 58, Christ says, ”Before Abraham was, I AM.” Of course his Jewish hearers understood this claim. When Moses asked God what his name was, the answer came, “I am”. (Exodus 3:14) At Christ’s claim to God’s name, the Jews were so enraged at his blasphemy that they tried to kill him on the spot.
(Philosophically, “I AM (THAT I AM) is an interesting name, unique to Judeo-Christianity. With this name, God proclaims himself the only non-contingent being in existence—he needs nothing else, water, oxygen, food, etc. etc. to exist—and he is outside of and unaffected by time.)
In John 10:30, Christ says, “I and the Father (God) are one.” In John 14:9, Christ says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God). In his mind there was no doubt that he was God.
Then finally, in John 14:6, Christ makes the faith he is proclaiming, Christianity, exclusive and not subject to dialog for all time by asserting, “No one comes unto the Father (God) BUT BY ME.”
So Benedict XVI took a look at the record and, taking the Christ of Christmas at his word, admitted that there was very little spiritual point in trying to dialog with other faiths and religions.
For any Christian to suggest that we are all praying to the same God sounds fatuous at best.
About a month ago, the Pontiff (an interesting title that goes back to pagan times in ancient Rome—the Caesars carried it, it means High Priest of Rome; it predates the birth of Christ) made the statement that no meaningful dialog was possible with adherents of non-Christian faiths.
This does not mean we cannot talk to them, make a common cause in limited areas or that we ought to view them with hostility. It should be noted that the first great Christian missionary, the Rabbi Saul of Tarsus, was never guilty of talking down anyone else’s faith—he merely talked up his own.
What the Pope was finally forced to conclude is that, in the end, Christianity—like Islam and Judaism—is a highly exclusive faith. There is no way you can stretch it into a “big tent” with room for people of all faiths and beliefs. There is no way, as Bush and Obama have both said recently, that you can say, “We all pray to the same God.”
The Christmas Season highlights that fact. This may partially be why Americans of other faiths or of no faith at all are so interested in dropping the name Christmas from the season. Christmas, as the account related in the second chapter of Luke says—and as it is defined by the Nicene Creed of AD 325—is the historical moment in which God became man (the incarnation).
It is the moment in which the Second Person of the Trinity is introduced—in human form. A human mother; God himself as father. The reason for this in Christian theology is that Adam’s betrayal left the human race with an infinite debt. Only the blood of God could pay it off. (See the movie “Lion, Witch and Wardrobe”, in which Christ is portrayed as the Lion, Aslan.)
So God had to come in human form, as a Second Adam, to cover the debts of the First. Christmas becomes that momentous occasion in which our savior (debt payer) finally comes to redeem (pay off our debts) us.
This theological point was, as the Rabbi from Tarsus, St. Paul, who basically founded Christianity was quick to admit, “foolishness to the educated and a stone they could not get over to his fellow Jews”. It sounds almost as silly as saying that a solid piece of iron is actually made up of itty-bitty little atoms that actually move around. Who, holding a piece of iron in hand, could actually believe such a thing?
But if you do believe it, the doctrine of the incarnation eliminates all possibility of one big tent where all faiths can meet In harmony. Christmas kills the dialog. If you accept the notion that the baby born in Bethlehem was “very God of very God” (Nicene Creed), then you cannot be praying to him if you pray to some other deity.
Christ said some very interesting things about himself. In the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 58, Christ says, ”Before Abraham was, I AM.” Of course his Jewish hearers understood this claim. When Moses asked God what his name was, the answer came, “I am”. (Exodus 3:14) At Christ’s claim to God’s name, the Jews were so enraged at his blasphemy that they tried to kill him on the spot.
(Philosophically, “I AM (THAT I AM) is an interesting name, unique to Judeo-Christianity. With this name, God proclaims himself the only non-contingent being in existence—he needs nothing else, water, oxygen, food, etc. etc. to exist—and he is outside of and unaffected by time.)
In John 10:30, Christ says, “I and the Father (God) are one.” In John 14:9, Christ says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God). In his mind there was no doubt that he was God.
Then finally, in John 14:6, Christ makes the faith he is proclaiming, Christianity, exclusive and not subject to dialog for all time by asserting, “No one comes unto the Father (God) BUT BY ME.”
So Benedict XVI took a look at the record and, taking the Christ of Christmas at his word, admitted that there was very little spiritual point in trying to dialog with other faiths and religions.
For any Christian to suggest that we are all praying to the same God sounds fatuous at best.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Pirates and Travelers
The Associated Press reported yesterday that a German military helicopter saved an Egyptian ship off the coast of Somali from being boarded by pirates. We’re getting used to it by now—a couple of weeks ago the pirates took an oil tanker. And before that, and before that .. . It’s become the national industry of poor Somalia. (They haven’t got anything else; no government since 1991.)
The AP reports that there were 110 pirate attacks in 2008, 42 ships were hijacked and held for ransom. $30 million have been collected as ransom by the pirates; 14 ships (with over two hundred crewmen) are still being held hostage.
Piracy occurs elsewhere—in the Caribbean and the Malay Straits, for example—but the Somali attacks catch everyone’s attention. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden means much of the planet’s oil supply must risk its way through pirate infested waters –as must much of what passes through the Suez Canal. Should things get completely out of hand, gas prices would reach the stratosphere as unhappy insurers reacted to gunfire being directed against their clients.
An international flotilla of warships now patrols the oil lanes. Britain, the US, France, Germany, Iran and India all have gunboats on duty. China and Japan have contingents enroute. Not since World War II has such a conglomeration of armed ships worked together in any one sea.
But, as the AP reports, these gunboats cannot be everywhere at once. Successful pirates continue to evade them. Even as the helicopter drove them away from the Egyptian vessel, a lucky shot from a pirate wounded a seaman on the target ship. He had to be airlifted to the German boat for medical treatment. There’s likely to be another report tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
No, boys and girls, pirates didn’t go away when they hanged Captain Kidd. For over two hundred years a confederation of naval forces from Europe (and eventually America) kept them at bay. One thing that effectively stops piracy is the colonization of their home bases.
What happened to piracy in the Mediterranean Sea is instructive. The Romans stopped piracy for much of their ascendancy—but not before Julius Caesar was captured by Balkan pirates. As the Empire declined piracy rose. When Islam conquered North Africa, Muslim corsairs used ports in North Africa and Spain to attack Christian positions all across the Western Mediterranean.
When the Muslims were thrown out of Spain (1492) they retaliated with a series of raids up and down Christian coasts. In 1575 an alliance of Christian navies wrested control of the Western Mediterranean from Islam—leaving as the only effective Muslim military force in that part of the world the Barbary Pirates (named after “Red Beard” the last successful Muslim Admiral to hold sway in the west).
They were cruel and they were skilled! Over a million Christians were captured and sold into slavery during the next few centuries. Barbary pirate raiders attacked as far west as Iceland and Ireland, capturing ports in southern France and northern Italy.
Eventually the Christian nations of western and southern Europe worked out a system whereby they paid tribute to keep the pirates from attacking their ships (while, admittedly, encouraging them to attack those of Christian rivals). But the pirates weren’t out of business.
Occasionally ships of this or that Christian nation would slip in and bombard Algiers, the major pirate port. This would calm things down for an historical moment, then back at it would go the pirates. When the United States won its war for independence from England, she lost the protection of the British Navy and British bribes.
Immediately, the Americans began losing ships to piracy. By 1800, 20% of the federal budget was being paid out as bribes and ransom for captives. But we couldn’t afford to pay enough, and many Americans remained in slavery to Muslim masters. In 1805 we sent the marines on their first foreign venture to burn an American warship that had been seized near Tripoli.
Our squadron stayed in the Mediterranean until 1830. That year the French had finally had enough. Centuries of pirate raiding were long enough (even though the French had spent long periods working as allies with these pirates and their Turkish masters). The French captured Algiers and took over all of Algeria, beginning the French Empire in North Africa. The Americans went home (for 115 years).
In 1961, the French pulled out of Algeria and it became independent. Tripoli threw American bases out in 1962. It would be nice to say that Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean was forever a thing of the past.
In 1973, an acquaintance of mine was camping along the Majorca coast (a Spanish island in the Mediterranean—and a favorite spot for pirate raids in centuries past). In the morning, she learned that Muslim pirates had come ashore and kidnapped several female European and American campers a mile or so down the beach from where she had slept.
They, like the European victims of old, would be sold into slavery, often for Muslim harems where fair haired Europeans are highly prized. The Sixth Fleet and its Christian and Jewish allies keep that sort of thing checked and very low key—for now.
Face it, boys and girls, piracy is an ancient and honorable trade among many Muslim cultures. As is slavery. The French policy of occupying pirate strongholds is the only strategy ever proven to work –and only for as long as the occupying army stayed in place.
That’s not encouraging—considering the luck we’re having in Iraq, Afghanistan—and had ten years ago in Somalia when we sent in troops.
Pulling out the troops may leave us with no alternative to paying much, much, much higher prices than we’ve ever dreamt of—far beyond the horrific vision of T. Boone Pickens.
Remember the old board game? “Pirates and Travelers.” In that part of the world, we are doomed to be forever the travelers.
The AP reports that there were 110 pirate attacks in 2008, 42 ships were hijacked and held for ransom. $30 million have been collected as ransom by the pirates; 14 ships (with over two hundred crewmen) are still being held hostage.
Piracy occurs elsewhere—in the Caribbean and the Malay Straits, for example—but the Somali attacks catch everyone’s attention. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden means much of the planet’s oil supply must risk its way through pirate infested waters –as must much of what passes through the Suez Canal. Should things get completely out of hand, gas prices would reach the stratosphere as unhappy insurers reacted to gunfire being directed against their clients.
An international flotilla of warships now patrols the oil lanes. Britain, the US, France, Germany, Iran and India all have gunboats on duty. China and Japan have contingents enroute. Not since World War II has such a conglomeration of armed ships worked together in any one sea.
But, as the AP reports, these gunboats cannot be everywhere at once. Successful pirates continue to evade them. Even as the helicopter drove them away from the Egyptian vessel, a lucky shot from a pirate wounded a seaman on the target ship. He had to be airlifted to the German boat for medical treatment. There’s likely to be another report tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
No, boys and girls, pirates didn’t go away when they hanged Captain Kidd. For over two hundred years a confederation of naval forces from Europe (and eventually America) kept them at bay. One thing that effectively stops piracy is the colonization of their home bases.
What happened to piracy in the Mediterranean Sea is instructive. The Romans stopped piracy for much of their ascendancy—but not before Julius Caesar was captured by Balkan pirates. As the Empire declined piracy rose. When Islam conquered North Africa, Muslim corsairs used ports in North Africa and Spain to attack Christian positions all across the Western Mediterranean.
When the Muslims were thrown out of Spain (1492) they retaliated with a series of raids up and down Christian coasts. In 1575 an alliance of Christian navies wrested control of the Western Mediterranean from Islam—leaving as the only effective Muslim military force in that part of the world the Barbary Pirates (named after “Red Beard” the last successful Muslim Admiral to hold sway in the west).
They were cruel and they were skilled! Over a million Christians were captured and sold into slavery during the next few centuries. Barbary pirate raiders attacked as far west as Iceland and Ireland, capturing ports in southern France and northern Italy.
Eventually the Christian nations of western and southern Europe worked out a system whereby they paid tribute to keep the pirates from attacking their ships (while, admittedly, encouraging them to attack those of Christian rivals). But the pirates weren’t out of business.
Occasionally ships of this or that Christian nation would slip in and bombard Algiers, the major pirate port. This would calm things down for an historical moment, then back at it would go the pirates. When the United States won its war for independence from England, she lost the protection of the British Navy and British bribes.
Immediately, the Americans began losing ships to piracy. By 1800, 20% of the federal budget was being paid out as bribes and ransom for captives. But we couldn’t afford to pay enough, and many Americans remained in slavery to Muslim masters. In 1805 we sent the marines on their first foreign venture to burn an American warship that had been seized near Tripoli.
Our squadron stayed in the Mediterranean until 1830. That year the French had finally had enough. Centuries of pirate raiding were long enough (even though the French had spent long periods working as allies with these pirates and their Turkish masters). The French captured Algiers and took over all of Algeria, beginning the French Empire in North Africa. The Americans went home (for 115 years).
In 1961, the French pulled out of Algeria and it became independent. Tripoli threw American bases out in 1962. It would be nice to say that Muslim piracy in the Mediterranean was forever a thing of the past.
In 1973, an acquaintance of mine was camping along the Majorca coast (a Spanish island in the Mediterranean—and a favorite spot for pirate raids in centuries past). In the morning, she learned that Muslim pirates had come ashore and kidnapped several female European and American campers a mile or so down the beach from where she had slept.
They, like the European victims of old, would be sold into slavery, often for Muslim harems where fair haired Europeans are highly prized. The Sixth Fleet and its Christian and Jewish allies keep that sort of thing checked and very low key—for now.
Face it, boys and girls, piracy is an ancient and honorable trade among many Muslim cultures. As is slavery. The French policy of occupying pirate strongholds is the only strategy ever proven to work –and only for as long as the occupying army stayed in place.
That’s not encouraging—considering the luck we’re having in Iraq, Afghanistan—and had ten years ago in Somalia when we sent in troops.
Pulling out the troops may leave us with no alternative to paying much, much, much higher prices than we’ve ever dreamt of—far beyond the horrific vision of T. Boone Pickens.
Remember the old board game? “Pirates and Travelers.” In that part of the world, we are doomed to be forever the travelers.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Christian Calendar
It’s the First Day of Christmas. Okay, it’s also called December 26, Boxing Day, a day for major soccer matches or St. Stephen’s Day. But on the western Christian calendar it is universally recognized as the First Day of Christmas, with December 25 being the Feast of Christmas. On the evening of the 25th, the season of Christmas begins.
Then it rolls on twelve days until January 6th (the last day of the Christmas Season). Those are the Twelve Days of Christmas referred to in the carol that was written as an underground Catholic catechism. I find the Christian calendar a useful and happy way of keeping track of the year from a Christian point of view. So, at the risk of inflicting terminal boredom, I shall run through it for people who don’t know it.
It essentially divides the year into two halves—one celebrating the birth, life and death of Christ and the second celebrating the church he left behind. These halves are moveable, as they do not start on fixed days, unlike the secular calendar. Let’s go with the first half.
It begins four Sundays before Christmas Day. That season is called Advent, and it commemorates the long millennia of waiting for the Christ after the promise of his birth was given in Genesis 3. It is a somber season in which no public feasts or festivals are permitted. No weddings, no parties—(this is the Christian calendar). The Christian is expected to spend the season meditating on the sad state of mankind that made it necessary for God to sacrifice his own Son to redeem them.
On the Night of Christmas Eve (midnight, December 24) the mood changes to one of joy. The Christ child is born. Redemption becomes possible. A Twelve Day festival follows (which is a takeoff on both the Roman Saturnalia and the Persian celebration of the birth of Mithra.)
Christians have always felt free to take over someone else’s festivals and symbols. The concept goes back to the Book of Exodus in which the ancient Israelites “despoiled the Egyptians” before leaving captivity in Egypt. Most Christian festivals have a previous pagan counterpart.
On January 6 begins the season of Epiphany (with the Feast of Epiphany also called Twelfth NIght, which the Russian Church celebrates as Christmas)—which celebrates the revealing of the Christ Child to the “Three Kings” (or Magi, since they were not kings but Zoroastrian magicians and astrologers) who came from their observatories in Persia to honor the new King of the Jews. This season lasts through Shrove Tuesday in either February or March.
Interesting people, the Magi. I’ll talk more about them on January 6th.
On Wednesday, forty days before Easter, begins the solemn season of Lent. This is Ash Wednesday, when Christians begin another somber season of contemplating how the treachery of the first humans forced God to send his son to die for them. (The ashes come from the burning of palm leaves that were used in the previous year to celebrate Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.)
All of these dates move. Easter is often called the moveable feast because it can be celebrated on Sundays dating from the end of March to the third week of April. (In Russia, it can be as late as May.) It is held on the first Sunday after the first moon whose 14th day (full moon) falls on or after March 21.
A week before Easter comes a feast day in Lent—Palm Sunday, which celebrates Christ’s entry into Jerusalem when he is hailed as a king. To show honor, Jewish pilgrims spread their coats and palm branches before him. Then comes holy week, the last week in Lent.
On Maunday Thursday (Holy Thursday), Christians celebrate the night when Christ and his disciples ate their last Passover together. “Maunday” takes off from the Latin version of, “”A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The Roman Pope follows Christ’s example by washing the feet of several of his ecclesiastical inferiors. (Protestant divines tend not to wash anybody’s feet.)
On Good Friday, Christians of all stripes hold ceremonies to remind themselves of the day when God himself died to provide salvation for men—when God himself descended into Hell to wrench the keys of death and Hell from Satan himself. It is a celebration of the destruction of death itself.
In Christian theology everything before this would be meaningless if Christ remained dead. On Easter Sunday, the third day, Christ rises from Hell and the grave. This is the feast of Easter, the most important Christian Feast. With it begins the season of Easter which lasts 50 days.
This season is divided in two parts. The first celebrates the 40 days after Easter when Christ ascended into Heaven, back where he came from. Some churches celebrate the resurrection on a Sunday, making it the 43rd day after Easter. On the 50th day after Easter comes Pentecost (50) Sunday.
(We would call a period from Sunday to Sunday 49 days, but ancient ways of counting included the first Sunday in the count, making it 50 days.) On Pentecost Sunday begins the half the year that essentially celebrates the Church Christ left behind when he ascended.
It introduces the Third Person of the Christian Trinity—God the Holy Spirit. This is the comforter Christ promised when he told his disciples he was leaving them (Paraclete). He, Christ said, will lead you into all truth. Under his influence, Christians believe, the 27 books of the Christian New Testament were not only written but later designated as canonical in the Fourth Century after Christ.
So he creates the Christian scriptures and he leads the church. The Sunday after Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. These are both moveable feasts—the earliest Pentecost can come is May 10, the latest June 13. Every Sunday after Trinity is numbered from Trinity Sunday. This continues until the First Sunday in Advent (four Sundays before Christmas). Obviously that, too, is a variable number.
And this, for those of you who are still awake and with me, is the Christian calendar.
Then it rolls on twelve days until January 6th (the last day of the Christmas Season). Those are the Twelve Days of Christmas referred to in the carol that was written as an underground Catholic catechism. I find the Christian calendar a useful and happy way of keeping track of the year from a Christian point of view. So, at the risk of inflicting terminal boredom, I shall run through it for people who don’t know it.
It essentially divides the year into two halves—one celebrating the birth, life and death of Christ and the second celebrating the church he left behind. These halves are moveable, as they do not start on fixed days, unlike the secular calendar. Let’s go with the first half.
It begins four Sundays before Christmas Day. That season is called Advent, and it commemorates the long millennia of waiting for the Christ after the promise of his birth was given in Genesis 3. It is a somber season in which no public feasts or festivals are permitted. No weddings, no parties—(this is the Christian calendar). The Christian is expected to spend the season meditating on the sad state of mankind that made it necessary for God to sacrifice his own Son to redeem them.
On the Night of Christmas Eve (midnight, December 24) the mood changes to one of joy. The Christ child is born. Redemption becomes possible. A Twelve Day festival follows (which is a takeoff on both the Roman Saturnalia and the Persian celebration of the birth of Mithra.)
Christians have always felt free to take over someone else’s festivals and symbols. The concept goes back to the Book of Exodus in which the ancient Israelites “despoiled the Egyptians” before leaving captivity in Egypt. Most Christian festivals have a previous pagan counterpart.
On January 6 begins the season of Epiphany (with the Feast of Epiphany also called Twelfth NIght, which the Russian Church celebrates as Christmas)—which celebrates the revealing of the Christ Child to the “Three Kings” (or Magi, since they were not kings but Zoroastrian magicians and astrologers) who came from their observatories in Persia to honor the new King of the Jews. This season lasts through Shrove Tuesday in either February or March.
Interesting people, the Magi. I’ll talk more about them on January 6th.
On Wednesday, forty days before Easter, begins the solemn season of Lent. This is Ash Wednesday, when Christians begin another somber season of contemplating how the treachery of the first humans forced God to send his son to die for them. (The ashes come from the burning of palm leaves that were used in the previous year to celebrate Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter.)
All of these dates move. Easter is often called the moveable feast because it can be celebrated on Sundays dating from the end of March to the third week of April. (In Russia, it can be as late as May.) It is held on the first Sunday after the first moon whose 14th day (full moon) falls on or after March 21.
A week before Easter comes a feast day in Lent—Palm Sunday, which celebrates Christ’s entry into Jerusalem when he is hailed as a king. To show honor, Jewish pilgrims spread their coats and palm branches before him. Then comes holy week, the last week in Lent.
On Maunday Thursday (Holy Thursday), Christians celebrate the night when Christ and his disciples ate their last Passover together. “Maunday” takes off from the Latin version of, “”A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The Roman Pope follows Christ’s example by washing the feet of several of his ecclesiastical inferiors. (Protestant divines tend not to wash anybody’s feet.)
On Good Friday, Christians of all stripes hold ceremonies to remind themselves of the day when God himself died to provide salvation for men—when God himself descended into Hell to wrench the keys of death and Hell from Satan himself. It is a celebration of the destruction of death itself.
In Christian theology everything before this would be meaningless if Christ remained dead. On Easter Sunday, the third day, Christ rises from Hell and the grave. This is the feast of Easter, the most important Christian Feast. With it begins the season of Easter which lasts 50 days.
This season is divided in two parts. The first celebrates the 40 days after Easter when Christ ascended into Heaven, back where he came from. Some churches celebrate the resurrection on a Sunday, making it the 43rd day after Easter. On the 50th day after Easter comes Pentecost (50) Sunday.
(We would call a period from Sunday to Sunday 49 days, but ancient ways of counting included the first Sunday in the count, making it 50 days.) On Pentecost Sunday begins the half the year that essentially celebrates the Church Christ left behind when he ascended.
It introduces the Third Person of the Christian Trinity—God the Holy Spirit. This is the comforter Christ promised when he told his disciples he was leaving them (Paraclete). He, Christ said, will lead you into all truth. Under his influence, Christians believe, the 27 books of the Christian New Testament were not only written but later designated as canonical in the Fourth Century after Christ.
So he creates the Christian scriptures and he leads the church. The Sunday after Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. These are both moveable feasts—the earliest Pentecost can come is May 10, the latest June 13. Every Sunday after Trinity is numbered from Trinity Sunday. This continues until the First Sunday in Advent (four Sundays before Christmas). Obviously that, too, is a variable number.
And this, for those of you who are still awake and with me, is the Christian calendar.
The Christ Mass
It’s Christmas—the Christ Mass—one of the high feasts of the Christian faith. It evokes from the faithful —from those who know much about their faith—a joyous celebration of the type to be expected from anyone who was under a sentence of death and now sees deliverance.
That is the whole point of Christmas from a Christian perspective: deliverance. It is fittingly named after the ancient church’s celebration of Christ’s death (the Mass), which is the point, from a Christian point of view, at which the deliverance was effected.
Christianity—and its celebrations—is to many a truly offensive faith. When Christ himself turns to a group of followers and tells them that, to be delivered (saved), they must eat his body and drink his blood, he suddenly finds himself alone with just his twelve committed friends.
It is also unique among world faiths. Salvation in other faiths rises out of the performance of rituals, out of leading a good life well, out of man’s pursuit of God. Christianity (and Judaism before it) is a story of God’s pursuit of man.
Ancient Jewish prophets like Hosea liken mankind to a prostitute who his pursued and constantly brought back by a husband (God) who truly loves her. That image is repeated throughout the Jewish canon. It is not one that flatters human beings. It is almost never happily accepted.
It makes foolishness of the modern claim that God is too loving to create a Hell or to punish people for their misdeeds. The Prophets—and Christ, who was well versed in Hebrew scripture—make it clear that if whoring mankind insist on going their own way, they will finally get their own way.
Hell is depicted as more of a choice than a sentence. When the Christian Bible writes that Judas Iscariot goes “to his own place”, it strongly suggests he chose it. Christ also says mankind is like “sheep without a shepherd”—that they cannot help but choose badly.
Then, in Luke 2, comes a great flash of light, spiritual and temporal. Angelic beings (they are certainly “good”, but the suggestion is more of terribly powerful; whenever humans face them, the human is stricken with terror) suddenly appear.
They proclaim peace to “men of good will” (not to everyone, please notice). They tell of a savior born in the town prophesied in the Jewish canon, Bethlehem. This, later Christian writers tell us, is the story these powerful beings have waited time untold to see and to tell.
Note something: This announcement is not made in the town itself. It is made far out in the country to some of the lowest class people of the time—shepherds who lived with and smelled like their sheep. They were generally despised by decent folk who lived in houses and had regular jobs.
The suggestion here is very strongly that God felt the townsfolk and the masses of visitors registering to pay Roman taxes would not have cared very much about the birth of some new savior. They might have been momentarily frightened by the bright lights, but it would not have impacted them greatly.
Look how Christ reacts later in his ministry: “…many [Jerusalemites] when they saw the signs which he did [the fireworks, as it were] believed on him. But Jesus did not trust himself to them, … for he himself knew what was in man.” John 2:23-5 In other words, Christ didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them.
I suspect he might feel the same way about many of the Holiday shopping partiers today. He had that uncomfortable gift of knowing what people were really thinking. So, back then, a quick announcement was made to a few sheep herders—whom no one paid any mind to. A couple of years later, no one in Bethlehem seemed to have any idea of what the Magi were talking about when they showed up.
We do well to celebrate the Christ Mass. We would do better to take a moment to at least understand what it means (even if we choose like the townsfolk of Bethlehem) to ignore or reject it.
It’s deliverance—deliverance from a fate most people would prefer to deny exists. Deliverance at an eventual cost to God Himself that most people would prefer to deny was ever necessary—or ever happened.
So we substitute Santa Claus—whose only punishment is a lump of coal (which, after all, will serve to warm us)—and ignore the implications of the Christian Christ Mass.
Today we find his message and sacrifice as offensive as his contemporaries did. So we say, Happy Holidays.
That is the whole point of Christmas from a Christian perspective: deliverance. It is fittingly named after the ancient church’s celebration of Christ’s death (the Mass), which is the point, from a Christian point of view, at which the deliverance was effected.
Christianity—and its celebrations—is to many a truly offensive faith. When Christ himself turns to a group of followers and tells them that, to be delivered (saved), they must eat his body and drink his blood, he suddenly finds himself alone with just his twelve committed friends.
It is also unique among world faiths. Salvation in other faiths rises out of the performance of rituals, out of leading a good life well, out of man’s pursuit of God. Christianity (and Judaism before it) is a story of God’s pursuit of man.
Ancient Jewish prophets like Hosea liken mankind to a prostitute who his pursued and constantly brought back by a husband (God) who truly loves her. That image is repeated throughout the Jewish canon. It is not one that flatters human beings. It is almost never happily accepted.
It makes foolishness of the modern claim that God is too loving to create a Hell or to punish people for their misdeeds. The Prophets—and Christ, who was well versed in Hebrew scripture—make it clear that if whoring mankind insist on going their own way, they will finally get their own way.
Hell is depicted as more of a choice than a sentence. When the Christian Bible writes that Judas Iscariot goes “to his own place”, it strongly suggests he chose it. Christ also says mankind is like “sheep without a shepherd”—that they cannot help but choose badly.
Then, in Luke 2, comes a great flash of light, spiritual and temporal. Angelic beings (they are certainly “good”, but the suggestion is more of terribly powerful; whenever humans face them, the human is stricken with terror) suddenly appear.
They proclaim peace to “men of good will” (not to everyone, please notice). They tell of a savior born in the town prophesied in the Jewish canon, Bethlehem. This, later Christian writers tell us, is the story these powerful beings have waited time untold to see and to tell.
Note something: This announcement is not made in the town itself. It is made far out in the country to some of the lowest class people of the time—shepherds who lived with and smelled like their sheep. They were generally despised by decent folk who lived in houses and had regular jobs.
The suggestion here is very strongly that God felt the townsfolk and the masses of visitors registering to pay Roman taxes would not have cared very much about the birth of some new savior. They might have been momentarily frightened by the bright lights, but it would not have impacted them greatly.
Look how Christ reacts later in his ministry: “…many [Jerusalemites] when they saw the signs which he did [the fireworks, as it were] believed on him. But Jesus did not trust himself to them, … for he himself knew what was in man.” John 2:23-5 In other words, Christ didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them.
I suspect he might feel the same way about many of the Holiday shopping partiers today. He had that uncomfortable gift of knowing what people were really thinking. So, back then, a quick announcement was made to a few sheep herders—whom no one paid any mind to. A couple of years later, no one in Bethlehem seemed to have any idea of what the Magi were talking about when they showed up.
We do well to celebrate the Christ Mass. We would do better to take a moment to at least understand what it means (even if we choose like the townsfolk of Bethlehem) to ignore or reject it.
It’s deliverance—deliverance from a fate most people would prefer to deny exists. Deliverance at an eventual cost to God Himself that most people would prefer to deny was ever necessary—or ever happened.
So we substitute Santa Claus—whose only punishment is a lump of coal (which, after all, will serve to warm us)—and ignore the implications of the Christian Christ Mass.
Today we find his message and sacrifice as offensive as his contemporaries did. So we say, Happy Holidays.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Divisiveness--The New Unforgiveable Sin
Last night I flicked on one of those news/talk shows that appear on News Television in the evening. Forgive me, I cannot remember which one. Nor does it matter. The subject matter was interesting only after the fact when I stopped to think about it.
Two talking heads were being interviewed. One represented the Gay community; the other was a cleric who purported to represent the views of conservative Christians. Their topic of disagreement was the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at next January’s inauguration.
Mr. Warren is the pastor of a mega church in California; he wrote one of the best selling non-fiction books of all time—The Purpose Driven Life. Thousands of churches have used it as a roadmap to a more effective church life and more committed congregants. He was also the first person to get Obama and McCain on TV, face to face, as opposing candidates.
There was a certain logic to Obama picking him for the invocation—it was a gesture of conciliation toward the evangelical community which had largely voted against him. The controversy came with Mr. Warren’s backing of California’s Proposition Eight (which would ban same-sex marriages).
The talking head that represented the Gay community last night made it clear that this was a well-nigh unforgiveable act on Mr. Warren’s part. It was the word he used, over and over again, that caught my attention in the hours after the television was turned off: DIVISIVE—DIVISIVENESS.
This, he indicated, was the unforgiveable sin that Mr. Warren had committed in the eyes of the gay community. “Rick Warren was divisive,” he said over and over. “He was guilty of divisiveness.” He was dividing people, one against the other. What more horrible sin could there be?
The worthy cleric seemed to duck his head and basically agree that “divisiveness” was by itself an undesirable thing. Somehow, he seemed to feel, Mr. Warren should have made his point on Gay Marriage, homosexuality and lesbianism without being divisive. He almost seemed frightened of the divisive label—the way people were scared of the “communist” label during the 1950s.
At the time they spoke, I was doing something else and paying very little attention. Later on, it came to me that neither man seemed to understand the fundamental nature of Christianity.
It isn’t a nice religion. There isn’t an ounce of niceness in the entire canon of its doctrines. Not in real, historic Christianity. Christ did not call us to be nice and conciliatory—certainly not in matters that we consider to be foundational to morality and faith.
Unfortunately for most Biblically oriented Christians, their faith makes homosexuality just such an issue. From Genesis through the letters of Paul. Rick Warren reflects that. (Yes, I read the cover piece in Newsweek a couple of issues ago. It was drivel, which is why I haven’t bothered to comment on it.)
Christianity was never intended to be home to a forum on moral or spiritual diversity. Its fundamental intent was to be a DIVISIVE FORCE in this world. (To call Mr. Warren “divisive” is to affirm the validity of his Christianity.) I would be flattered to be publicly seen as divisive in a similar sense.
Christ (the progenitor of Christianity) makes the point clearly. He asks (Luke 12:51-53) “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but DIVISION. From now on there will be five in one family DIVIDED against each other, three against two and two against three. The will be DIVIDED, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother … .”
So strongly does Christ make the case for the divisiveness (and exclusivity) of Christianity that he insists, (Luke 14:26) “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”
There is some hyperbole there; Christ used it on more than one occasion. But no one can argue the urgency with which he was making his point: Christians are to stand firmly and be as divisive as necessary on questions of principle.
They are indeed commanded to love the sinner, but there is equal emphasis on their need to hate the sin. If that hatred makes the sinner angry, be it a mother or son or the rest of the family, then so be it—the Christian is commanded to stand firm in his divisiveness.
Christ says very bluntly that you, simply by being Christian, are going to annoy the living daylights out of other people. Christians are not permitted to cross their legs and chant mantras while smiling benignly at whatever else is going on around them. Tolerance, love of diversity in the moral arena, are not Christian virtues.
In John 15 (the Gospel of Love, incidentally) Christ warns, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. … I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (All passages from NIV)
That’s pure, unalloyed divisiveness.
Two talking heads were being interviewed. One represented the Gay community; the other was a cleric who purported to represent the views of conservative Christians. Their topic of disagreement was the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at next January’s inauguration.
Mr. Warren is the pastor of a mega church in California; he wrote one of the best selling non-fiction books of all time—The Purpose Driven Life. Thousands of churches have used it as a roadmap to a more effective church life and more committed congregants. He was also the first person to get Obama and McCain on TV, face to face, as opposing candidates.
There was a certain logic to Obama picking him for the invocation—it was a gesture of conciliation toward the evangelical community which had largely voted against him. The controversy came with Mr. Warren’s backing of California’s Proposition Eight (which would ban same-sex marriages).
The talking head that represented the Gay community last night made it clear that this was a well-nigh unforgiveable act on Mr. Warren’s part. It was the word he used, over and over again, that caught my attention in the hours after the television was turned off: DIVISIVE—DIVISIVENESS.
This, he indicated, was the unforgiveable sin that Mr. Warren had committed in the eyes of the gay community. “Rick Warren was divisive,” he said over and over. “He was guilty of divisiveness.” He was dividing people, one against the other. What more horrible sin could there be?
The worthy cleric seemed to duck his head and basically agree that “divisiveness” was by itself an undesirable thing. Somehow, he seemed to feel, Mr. Warren should have made his point on Gay Marriage, homosexuality and lesbianism without being divisive. He almost seemed frightened of the divisive label—the way people were scared of the “communist” label during the 1950s.
At the time they spoke, I was doing something else and paying very little attention. Later on, it came to me that neither man seemed to understand the fundamental nature of Christianity.
It isn’t a nice religion. There isn’t an ounce of niceness in the entire canon of its doctrines. Not in real, historic Christianity. Christ did not call us to be nice and conciliatory—certainly not in matters that we consider to be foundational to morality and faith.
Unfortunately for most Biblically oriented Christians, their faith makes homosexuality just such an issue. From Genesis through the letters of Paul. Rick Warren reflects that. (Yes, I read the cover piece in Newsweek a couple of issues ago. It was drivel, which is why I haven’t bothered to comment on it.)
Christianity was never intended to be home to a forum on moral or spiritual diversity. Its fundamental intent was to be a DIVISIVE FORCE in this world. (To call Mr. Warren “divisive” is to affirm the validity of his Christianity.) I would be flattered to be publicly seen as divisive in a similar sense.
Christ (the progenitor of Christianity) makes the point clearly. He asks (Luke 12:51-53) “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but DIVISION. From now on there will be five in one family DIVIDED against each other, three against two and two against three. The will be DIVIDED, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother … .”
So strongly does Christ make the case for the divisiveness (and exclusivity) of Christianity that he insists, (Luke 14:26) “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”
There is some hyperbole there; Christ used it on more than one occasion. But no one can argue the urgency with which he was making his point: Christians are to stand firmly and be as divisive as necessary on questions of principle.
They are indeed commanded to love the sinner, but there is equal emphasis on their need to hate the sin. If that hatred makes the sinner angry, be it a mother or son or the rest of the family, then so be it—the Christian is commanded to stand firm in his divisiveness.
Christ says very bluntly that you, simply by being Christian, are going to annoy the living daylights out of other people. Christians are not permitted to cross their legs and chant mantras while smiling benignly at whatever else is going on around them. Tolerance, love of diversity in the moral arena, are not Christian virtues.
In John 15 (the Gospel of Love, incidentally) Christ warns, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. … I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (All passages from NIV)
That’s pure, unalloyed divisiveness.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Space Exploration--The Profit Imperative
Very soon it will be forty years since Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder and made his “giant leap for mankind.” We went back to the moon a few more times and then hung it up. Occasionally someone asks why we didn’t keep going back or why our scientific curiosity flagged so immediately and badly.
History gives us an excellent and accurate answer. It is one that those who champion the cause of space exploration should study carefully. Look at the exploration and exploitation of the American Hemisphere—no, I don’t mean just since 1492 or 1519. I mean way before that.
The first Neil Armstrong to jump off his ship and onto the new world was probably Phoenician. Any objective historian accepts as reasonable the notion that they were here 3,000 years ago. It is possible that Asiatic and North African peoples came here by sea long before that.
There is the legend of Egyptians crossing the Atlantic. There is even a story that the Chief Rabbi of Portugal (who induced the Jewish bankers of Spain to pay for Columbus’s trip) had in his possession a map of the Americas showing land configurations as they might have been 6,000 years ago.
Whatever the legends, the Phoenicians were probably here. There is little doubt that an Irish monk made the trip 1500 years ago. The Scandinavians settled the northeast coast of Canada a thousand years ago. They established a route others followed.
When Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed up the East Coast of the present United States in 1524, he found an abandoned church in Rhode Island modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (John Smith of Jamestown fame found the same church in 1610.) In Massachusetts there’s a tombstone depicting a Renaissance knight in full armor. Carbon dating suggests a period about ninety years before Columbus. (I have photographs of both.)
In any case, lots of people were here before Columbus. So why is Columbus famous and the others all but forgotten? You want the simplest possible answer? Money.
Columbus found enough gold trinkets to suggest the serious possibility of profit. Enough so that men like Vespucci and Cortes started looking harder—and found enough treasure to turn Spain into modern Europe’s first super power overnight. Money.
People don’t spend huge fortunes to go exploring unless the venture capitalists who come up with the money think there’s a profit to be made. By Columbus’s day, ships were big and seaworthy enough to carry cargoes of gold, spices, silver and sugar back to Europe in profit-making quantities.
So the wave of exploration he began stuck—while the Phoenicians, Irish and Scandinavians made like astronauts and just went home. They came up with nothing to justify the expense—or had no way of transporting it if they did. But the explorers who followed Columbus found all kinds of backers.
There, in a sentence, is the problem with the human space program. Any gold or uranium on the moon or Mars? We haven’t found it yet. And, our only way of getting there involves such huge quantities of fuel that we have room for no more than a couple of hundred pound of cargo per trip.
Like the Tenth Century Scandinavians, we haven’t found anything valuable—and, if we did, we’d have no way to ship it back to Earth. That, as long as it remains true, will stop space exploration dead in its tracks. All the appeals to Congress in the world won’t change that reality.
If we really want to get into serious space exploration, travel and settlement, there are three things we need to do before we fire off another rocket. One) we have to find a different means of transport—one that can efficiently transport mining, housing and living equipment up there and valuable commodities back to Earth.
Two) we have to find some effective way of shielding any space settlements from the asteroids and pieces of space rock that fly through the ether. If we don’t, we’re going to take enough casualties to end any exploration program right there.
Three) we have to get lucky and locate something that makes people think there’s money to be made up there—like the gold trinkets Columbus found on his voyages.
Some of that may involve the stuff of today’s science fiction—for instance, gravity nullification. Einstein said gravity was not so much an attraction between two objects as it was a bending of space that forced the two together. Maybe we have to rebend it, if there’s such a thing. We need to find a way to go much, much faster than rockets can go. Is the speed of light really absolute?
These are the questions we need to deal with rather than wasting any more money on our current space projects. Some back to basics, knowledge for knowledge’s sake kinds of research—the sort of thing nothing but a government will back either now or in 1492. (The Spanish government was broke so it put the screws to Jewish bankers, but it was still public monies).
Solve the problem of fast space travel, of getting large amounts of gear off the surface of a planet without obscene amounts of fuel—these are what we MUST do, or our space programs will remain the stuff of dilettantism.
To make it real, we need something to invoke the Profit Imperative—that has motivated most human exploration throughout our history. Show me how much money I can make, and I’ll go to Mars. If I can prove to you that the trip will pay off, you’ll invest your retirement funds in my travels..
History gives us an excellent and accurate answer. It is one that those who champion the cause of space exploration should study carefully. Look at the exploration and exploitation of the American Hemisphere—no, I don’t mean just since 1492 or 1519. I mean way before that.
The first Neil Armstrong to jump off his ship and onto the new world was probably Phoenician. Any objective historian accepts as reasonable the notion that they were here 3,000 years ago. It is possible that Asiatic and North African peoples came here by sea long before that.
There is the legend of Egyptians crossing the Atlantic. There is even a story that the Chief Rabbi of Portugal (who induced the Jewish bankers of Spain to pay for Columbus’s trip) had in his possession a map of the Americas showing land configurations as they might have been 6,000 years ago.
Whatever the legends, the Phoenicians were probably here. There is little doubt that an Irish monk made the trip 1500 years ago. The Scandinavians settled the northeast coast of Canada a thousand years ago. They established a route others followed.
When Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed up the East Coast of the present United States in 1524, he found an abandoned church in Rhode Island modeled after the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (John Smith of Jamestown fame found the same church in 1610.) In Massachusetts there’s a tombstone depicting a Renaissance knight in full armor. Carbon dating suggests a period about ninety years before Columbus. (I have photographs of both.)
In any case, lots of people were here before Columbus. So why is Columbus famous and the others all but forgotten? You want the simplest possible answer? Money.
Columbus found enough gold trinkets to suggest the serious possibility of profit. Enough so that men like Vespucci and Cortes started looking harder—and found enough treasure to turn Spain into modern Europe’s first super power overnight. Money.
People don’t spend huge fortunes to go exploring unless the venture capitalists who come up with the money think there’s a profit to be made. By Columbus’s day, ships were big and seaworthy enough to carry cargoes of gold, spices, silver and sugar back to Europe in profit-making quantities.
So the wave of exploration he began stuck—while the Phoenicians, Irish and Scandinavians made like astronauts and just went home. They came up with nothing to justify the expense—or had no way of transporting it if they did. But the explorers who followed Columbus found all kinds of backers.
There, in a sentence, is the problem with the human space program. Any gold or uranium on the moon or Mars? We haven’t found it yet. And, our only way of getting there involves such huge quantities of fuel that we have room for no more than a couple of hundred pound of cargo per trip.
Like the Tenth Century Scandinavians, we haven’t found anything valuable—and, if we did, we’d have no way to ship it back to Earth. That, as long as it remains true, will stop space exploration dead in its tracks. All the appeals to Congress in the world won’t change that reality.
If we really want to get into serious space exploration, travel and settlement, there are three things we need to do before we fire off another rocket. One) we have to find a different means of transport—one that can efficiently transport mining, housing and living equipment up there and valuable commodities back to Earth.
Two) we have to find some effective way of shielding any space settlements from the asteroids and pieces of space rock that fly through the ether. If we don’t, we’re going to take enough casualties to end any exploration program right there.
Three) we have to get lucky and locate something that makes people think there’s money to be made up there—like the gold trinkets Columbus found on his voyages.
Some of that may involve the stuff of today’s science fiction—for instance, gravity nullification. Einstein said gravity was not so much an attraction between two objects as it was a bending of space that forced the two together. Maybe we have to rebend it, if there’s such a thing. We need to find a way to go much, much faster than rockets can go. Is the speed of light really absolute?
These are the questions we need to deal with rather than wasting any more money on our current space projects. Some back to basics, knowledge for knowledge’s sake kinds of research—the sort of thing nothing but a government will back either now or in 1492. (The Spanish government was broke so it put the screws to Jewish bankers, but it was still public monies).
Solve the problem of fast space travel, of getting large amounts of gear off the surface of a planet without obscene amounts of fuel—these are what we MUST do, or our space programs will remain the stuff of dilettantism.
To make it real, we need something to invoke the Profit Imperative—that has motivated most human exploration throughout our history. Show me how much money I can make, and I’ll go to Mars. If I can prove to you that the trip will pay off, you’ll invest your retirement funds in my travels..
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Global Warming--The Profit Imperative
Today gave us the kind of morning that could almost make one lose his faith in Global Warming. It didn’t get above 17 in West Michigan. The county gave up and called the plows off the road. The sheriffs up and down the coast recommended that people not drive. And now we have a blizzard.
It was 37 in Austin, TX, where one in-law lives. It was 39 where another one lives near San Jose, CA. Chicago land was reporting in at six below—and Seattle was all but shut down with a rare blizzard. We haven’t experienced a December like this one in West Michigan for about fifty years.
It could almost make some people dismiss all the talk about “global warming”. Cold blasts like these may actually signify the kind of weather that precedes an ice age. The best guess scientists can give us on previous ice ages is that this is how they began: warmer in the arctic, snowier down below.
Many scientists suggest that symptoms of Global Warming tend more toward erratic weather patterns than to any straight line warming trend. This morning, we’re seeing erratic. Over the past few years, we’ve seen drought, we’ve seen floods, we’ve seen hurricanes and tornadoes – in short, we’ve seen just about every kind of weather pattern you can ask for.
But, the brutal fact is—and I’m not putting my head in the sand and insisting that nothing is happening —nobody really knows. Nobody really knows what’s happening or why. There’s a great hue and cry that it’s all due to our “carbon footprint”. Stop driving, prevent bovine flatulence, don’t burn coal—and it will all go away.
Will it? Has anyone proved that? Has anyone done some serious scientific research and observation—say, on the scale of the Manhattan Project—to figure out what is really happening? And what might really prevent it? Or might we find out that what’s happening is cyclical—a cycle that occurs over a very long period of time? That, God help us, it’s a normal planetary pattern?
After all, we have only been keeping accurate records of our weather patterns for a century or two. No one has any records that date back 10,000 years, let alone a million or two.
Some scientists seriously suggest that if the arctic seas continue to warm so that arctic waters spill out into the Atlantic, Europe might be rendered incapable of sustaining human life within a decade or two. Imagine that such a thing might possibly be true. How close might we be to the tipping point?
Wouldn’t this be worth some serious evaluation? Would a rational race of beings do anything but devote all its energies—not toward one quick, unproven panacea like eliminating fossil fuels but to a study of what is actually happening? How about drilling core samples all over the planet—cost be hanged—to see if and when this happened before and what caused it.
Such a study might give us some solid, data-based clues as to what we actually faced and what we might possibly do about it. What if there’s nothing we can do? Then the expenditures might go toward moving vast human populations to regions further south. Et cetera, et cetera.
But we haven’t done that. We won’t do it. Why not? I got an insight into “why not” when I was an undergraduate in college. They made me take a physical science course so that, a history and English majors, I might become more well rounded. I found the course tedious until … .
One day the instructor began talking about the properties of electricity—and all the clever things it can DO. That’s not how my mind works. I immediately raised my hand. When recognized, I asked, “What IS electricity?”
“No one knows”, answered the professor. He smiled benignly and went on with his lecture. I was stunned. We play with the stuff, we make it stand up and do tricks—but we have no idea what it actually is. My unscientific mind wants to know: if we spent a few billion doing nothing but finding out what the stuff is, might not we save far more billions discovering how to generate it more easily and safely, and figuring out how to store it and transport it more efficiently?
But that would be like wasting money learning what is actually causing our freakish weather patterns –and how we might deal with it as a known quantity. There’s no obvious or immediate money in it. You cannot draw up a neat little chart that will show a corporate board—or a Congressional committee--exactly how much money they will get back or when.
Companies and governments tend not to spend money on research that doesn’t offer an immediate payoff. (Even if their lives may be at stake.) No, the Financial—or Profit—Imperative keeps us from wasting our time on what we sneeringly dismiss as knowledge merely for knowledge’s sake.
No use trying to explain that such knowledge just might give us some vitally needed answers. It can’t be justified on the bottom line.
We will go on babbling—as if we knew precisely what we were doing—about Greening ourselves, cutting back our carbon footprint, with no idea if that’s actually the problem, or if any such actions will necessarily cure the problem. We’re not even sure, as I sit here, what the problem is.
No matter. It’s very human to rush around DOING SOMETHING or at least talking about doing it. Whether it’s a sensible thing—or even a helpful thing to do—doesn’t really matter. We’re in motion; a handful of us are buying hybrid cars, we’re recycling a few more cans. See? We’re all helping.
Couldn’t we spend a tiny fraction of the “bailout” figuring out what’s really going on?
It was 37 in Austin, TX, where one in-law lives. It was 39 where another one lives near San Jose, CA. Chicago land was reporting in at six below—and Seattle was all but shut down with a rare blizzard. We haven’t experienced a December like this one in West Michigan for about fifty years.
It could almost make some people dismiss all the talk about “global warming”. Cold blasts like these may actually signify the kind of weather that precedes an ice age. The best guess scientists can give us on previous ice ages is that this is how they began: warmer in the arctic, snowier down below.
Many scientists suggest that symptoms of Global Warming tend more toward erratic weather patterns than to any straight line warming trend. This morning, we’re seeing erratic. Over the past few years, we’ve seen drought, we’ve seen floods, we’ve seen hurricanes and tornadoes – in short, we’ve seen just about every kind of weather pattern you can ask for.
But, the brutal fact is—and I’m not putting my head in the sand and insisting that nothing is happening —nobody really knows. Nobody really knows what’s happening or why. There’s a great hue and cry that it’s all due to our “carbon footprint”. Stop driving, prevent bovine flatulence, don’t burn coal—and it will all go away.
Will it? Has anyone proved that? Has anyone done some serious scientific research and observation—say, on the scale of the Manhattan Project—to figure out what is really happening? And what might really prevent it? Or might we find out that what’s happening is cyclical—a cycle that occurs over a very long period of time? That, God help us, it’s a normal planetary pattern?
After all, we have only been keeping accurate records of our weather patterns for a century or two. No one has any records that date back 10,000 years, let alone a million or two.
Some scientists seriously suggest that if the arctic seas continue to warm so that arctic waters spill out into the Atlantic, Europe might be rendered incapable of sustaining human life within a decade or two. Imagine that such a thing might possibly be true. How close might we be to the tipping point?
Wouldn’t this be worth some serious evaluation? Would a rational race of beings do anything but devote all its energies—not toward one quick, unproven panacea like eliminating fossil fuels but to a study of what is actually happening? How about drilling core samples all over the planet—cost be hanged—to see if and when this happened before and what caused it.
Such a study might give us some solid, data-based clues as to what we actually faced and what we might possibly do about it. What if there’s nothing we can do? Then the expenditures might go toward moving vast human populations to regions further south. Et cetera, et cetera.
But we haven’t done that. We won’t do it. Why not? I got an insight into “why not” when I was an undergraduate in college. They made me take a physical science course so that, a history and English majors, I might become more well rounded. I found the course tedious until … .
One day the instructor began talking about the properties of electricity—and all the clever things it can DO. That’s not how my mind works. I immediately raised my hand. When recognized, I asked, “What IS electricity?”
“No one knows”, answered the professor. He smiled benignly and went on with his lecture. I was stunned. We play with the stuff, we make it stand up and do tricks—but we have no idea what it actually is. My unscientific mind wants to know: if we spent a few billion doing nothing but finding out what the stuff is, might not we save far more billions discovering how to generate it more easily and safely, and figuring out how to store it and transport it more efficiently?
But that would be like wasting money learning what is actually causing our freakish weather patterns –and how we might deal with it as a known quantity. There’s no obvious or immediate money in it. You cannot draw up a neat little chart that will show a corporate board—or a Congressional committee--exactly how much money they will get back or when.
Companies and governments tend not to spend money on research that doesn’t offer an immediate payoff. (Even if their lives may be at stake.) No, the Financial—or Profit—Imperative keeps us from wasting our time on what we sneeringly dismiss as knowledge merely for knowledge’s sake.
No use trying to explain that such knowledge just might give us some vitally needed answers. It can’t be justified on the bottom line.
We will go on babbling—as if we knew precisely what we were doing—about Greening ourselves, cutting back our carbon footprint, with no idea if that’s actually the problem, or if any such actions will necessarily cure the problem. We’re not even sure, as I sit here, what the problem is.
No matter. It’s very human to rush around DOING SOMETHING or at least talking about doing it. Whether it’s a sensible thing—or even a helpful thing to do—doesn’t really matter. We’re in motion; a handful of us are buying hybrid cars, we’re recycling a few more cans. See? We’re all helping.
Couldn’t we spend a tiny fraction of the “bailout” figuring out what’s really going on?
Saturday, December 20, 2008
O holiday Tree, O holiday Tree ...
It’s holiday time again. We’re very likely to have a White holiday here. A reasonably Merrie one at that—just don’t be so rude as to say the word, C*******s. For some reason, that word, the one the holiday is actually based upon, has become a major political no-no.
Our schools can talk about the Mexican holiday, Dia de las Muertos (Day of the Dead), and display the rather ghastly skeletons and skulls. I’ve seen many classes where American children are taught in detail about Kwanzaa (designed in 1966 to be an alternative to C*******s). No one would object if I were to explain the origins of Hanukah or Ramadan or even the Hajj.
But let’s not explain what shepherds or Magi or mangers have to do with anything. (There are plenty of American kids with absolutely no idea.) That this might be part of the warp and woof of American culture is irrelevant. That somehow stables and overstuffed inns created the biggest shopping binge on the American calendar must remain a dark secret.
The stores no longer play old fashioned carols. No, no—impolitic! The speakers blare contemporary songs about Santa, Rudolph and coming home for the holidays. Oh yes, there’s not an American child of whatever background or faith who doesn’t know all about Santa and his elves.
But if the kiddies were ever to find out the actual story behind the holiday, the ACLU and many others fret, all of our civil liberties, our democratic freedoms would be compromised if not forever lost. (Better to whisper quietly that Washington turned the Revolutionary War around by attacking the Hessians on Holiday Eve.)
This has become a form of insanity. To reduce the Christmas story (there, I wrote it) to the level of political and cultural subversion—to make it the very word into a socially unacceptable obscenity—is a form of discrimination that would once have filled the streets with protest.
Oh, I am told, it’s because you Christians are the majority and if we allowed you to explain yourselves or put up a crèche in a public place on Christmas Eve, that would be oppressive. Well, if being in the majority makes one an oppressor, we had best check into the current Democratic Party.
I’ve always felt—and observed—that the most frustrating bully (oppressor, if you will) was the little guy who kept baiting a bigger one. The big kid winds up feeling absolutely helpless. He can’t hit the little kid (I tried once, the consequences were nasty). No teacher will come to his defense against a chap so much smaller than he is.
There is no one more helpless—no one with less legal or social remedy—than the picked on big guy. It gives a meanly disposed small chap absolute license to do what he wills. That seems to be very much the position Christians in America are finding themselves in, helplessly. The suppression of Christmas is just one obvious example.
All I would ask for is equal time. If Kwanzaa and Hanukah are explained, let us tell the story behind all the presents, the vacation, the jolly fat elf in red and the incredible number of ads in the newspapers. After all, Christianity is as validly a part of world culture as is Islam, Hinduism or Judaism.
It seems to me American school kids have as much right to know the story behind a holiday that is celebrated by half the world’s population as they do to know about a festival held each year in a single nation in Latin America, The Day of The Dead.
Since we pride ourselves on being a diverse society, I shall take no offense if you offer me a Hanukah or Kwanzaa greeting. I expect you to take none, if in the holy name of diversity, I reply, Merry Christmas.
Our schools can talk about the Mexican holiday, Dia de las Muertos (Day of the Dead), and display the rather ghastly skeletons and skulls. I’ve seen many classes where American children are taught in detail about Kwanzaa (designed in 1966 to be an alternative to C*******s). No one would object if I were to explain the origins of Hanukah or Ramadan or even the Hajj.
But let’s not explain what shepherds or Magi or mangers have to do with anything. (There are plenty of American kids with absolutely no idea.) That this might be part of the warp and woof of American culture is irrelevant. That somehow stables and overstuffed inns created the biggest shopping binge on the American calendar must remain a dark secret.
The stores no longer play old fashioned carols. No, no—impolitic! The speakers blare contemporary songs about Santa, Rudolph and coming home for the holidays. Oh yes, there’s not an American child of whatever background or faith who doesn’t know all about Santa and his elves.
But if the kiddies were ever to find out the actual story behind the holiday, the ACLU and many others fret, all of our civil liberties, our democratic freedoms would be compromised if not forever lost. (Better to whisper quietly that Washington turned the Revolutionary War around by attacking the Hessians on Holiday Eve.)
This has become a form of insanity. To reduce the Christmas story (there, I wrote it) to the level of political and cultural subversion—to make it the very word into a socially unacceptable obscenity—is a form of discrimination that would once have filled the streets with protest.
Oh, I am told, it’s because you Christians are the majority and if we allowed you to explain yourselves or put up a crèche in a public place on Christmas Eve, that would be oppressive. Well, if being in the majority makes one an oppressor, we had best check into the current Democratic Party.
I’ve always felt—and observed—that the most frustrating bully (oppressor, if you will) was the little guy who kept baiting a bigger one. The big kid winds up feeling absolutely helpless. He can’t hit the little kid (I tried once, the consequences were nasty). No teacher will come to his defense against a chap so much smaller than he is.
There is no one more helpless—no one with less legal or social remedy—than the picked on big guy. It gives a meanly disposed small chap absolute license to do what he wills. That seems to be very much the position Christians in America are finding themselves in, helplessly. The suppression of Christmas is just one obvious example.
All I would ask for is equal time. If Kwanzaa and Hanukah are explained, let us tell the story behind all the presents, the vacation, the jolly fat elf in red and the incredible number of ads in the newspapers. After all, Christianity is as validly a part of world culture as is Islam, Hinduism or Judaism.
It seems to me American school kids have as much right to know the story behind a holiday that is celebrated by half the world’s population as they do to know about a festival held each year in a single nation in Latin America, The Day of The Dead.
Since we pride ourselves on being a diverse society, I shall take no offense if you offer me a Hanukah or Kwanzaa greeting. I expect you to take none, if in the holy name of diversity, I reply, Merry Christmas.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Ford, Chrysler, GM--Glub, Glub, Glub
It has come down to it. The unthinkable is being thought of—at the highest levels. The Bush Administration is talking about “structured bankruptcy” for any or all of the Big Three Detroit auto makers. The Senate may well have left us with no other choice.
I can tell you that talk like this has sent convulsive shudders through states like Michigan, Ohio and Ontario. The shudders are scarcely limited to the rust belt. My cousin, who spent a career as an accountant for Ford Motor Company—and has been comfortably retired in Florida for twenty five years—is suddenly concerned that his pension might go away. He has several million for company.
The era of Walter Reuther is over, indeed, it seems likely to come to a screeching halt right In front of our eyes. Year after year when the supremely arrogant Detroit auto companies believed the good times would never stop rolling—anything the unions asked for, they got.
Thirty years and out, extra pay during layoffs, decades of retirement covered under ever more generous pensions and health benefits, higher and higher wages—anything to keep the assembly lines rolling. All of this piled on potentially crushing overhead. But that didn’t matter. We’re General Motors—or Ford, or Chrysler.
They didn’t seem to notice what was going on around them even then. Other American car companies were folding up and dying. Studebaker, Hudson, Nash (American Motors), Packard—all collapsed as the Big Three kept appeasing their labor unions at any cost.
Clouds “the size of man’s hand” showed on the economic horizon, but the sudden popularity of the first European cars—VW and Volvo—caused no second thoughts in Detroit. Henry Ford II sneeringly dismissed the thought of competing with Honda, Toyota or Datsun (Nissan): “Mini cars, mini profits.”
The overhead piled higher; the see no competition, hear no competition, speak no competition attitude continued. The only rivals a Detroit auto maker could imagine as worth its consideration were the other two down the street. They remained myopic as American cars lost both coasts to Europe and Japan. The SUV and truck buying Midwest seemed as far as Detroit could see.
They designed their cars exclusively for the ever forgiving big vehicle loving middle American, virtually ignoring everyone else. It didn’t seem to catch their attention when Volkswagen first tried to manufacture cars in the US—and could not locate a single American automotive parts supplier who could make parts that were up to German standards. That should have made someone reflect.
But nothing did. (Even when they demonstrated to themselves that they could build and sell small cars in Europe!) For the US, they built more Hemi’s, Hummers and ten cylinder trucks. They created a mindset in American consumers: small and fuel efficient=Japan; big and gas guzzling=Detroit.
That was okay as long as there was no compelling reason to buy small cars. It became a problem in 1973 when gas prices doubled. People took recently purchased American cars out into the California desert and torched them for the insurance. That could have been another warning. Detroit remained blind.
Until last summer. Now Detroit needs a multi-billion dollar bailout just to get to next payday—assuming people will start buying Hummers and Hemi’s anytime soon. Oh, Hudson, Studebaker, Nash … .
A coalition of people like senators from southern states where BMWs and Toyotas are manufactured, disgusted buyers (like myself) who don’t care if they ever own an American car again, and a large group of people who don’t believe that Detroit has the will or the capability of reinventing itself have created an informal coalition to oppose the bailout. Why, they ask, throw good money after bad? A bailout, they believe, won’t save Detroit, it will merely delay the inevitable. So why waste taxpayer money?
That’s a more than fair question. Would Detroit have any idea how to recreate itself? Would buyers who have been conditioned to see Detroit exclusively as Big Car country change their perception in time to save the shrunken three? Would Detroit know how to build a vehicle with enough quality to woo Toyota buyers? Enough pizzazz to woo Mercedes or BMW drivers? Efficient enough to win over Green People?
Neither Detroit nor the taxpayers can afford a single misstep at this late date—and Detroit has a very bad record for missteps—going back as long as I’ve been alive. What will be different this time?
What, you ask, about the poor workers who pushed Detroit for higher pay, better pensions? Where will they find other jobs that pay as well? Maybe, brutal thought, the Walter Reuthers of today can’t force GM and Ford to protect them any more? Maybe that day is done.
What, you ask, of the states whose economy has been built around Detroit cars and its too well paid work force? Reality is sometimes cruel, especially to those who blind their eyes to it.
Southern States that welcomed European and Japanese companies—and are doing so well now—backed the wrong side in the Civil War. They suffered privation for decades as a direct consequence. Perhaps there are equally bad consequences for backing the wrong industry, exclusively and for too long.
I can tell you that talk like this has sent convulsive shudders through states like Michigan, Ohio and Ontario. The shudders are scarcely limited to the rust belt. My cousin, who spent a career as an accountant for Ford Motor Company—and has been comfortably retired in Florida for twenty five years—is suddenly concerned that his pension might go away. He has several million for company.
The era of Walter Reuther is over, indeed, it seems likely to come to a screeching halt right In front of our eyes. Year after year when the supremely arrogant Detroit auto companies believed the good times would never stop rolling—anything the unions asked for, they got.
Thirty years and out, extra pay during layoffs, decades of retirement covered under ever more generous pensions and health benefits, higher and higher wages—anything to keep the assembly lines rolling. All of this piled on potentially crushing overhead. But that didn’t matter. We’re General Motors—or Ford, or Chrysler.
They didn’t seem to notice what was going on around them even then. Other American car companies were folding up and dying. Studebaker, Hudson, Nash (American Motors), Packard—all collapsed as the Big Three kept appeasing their labor unions at any cost.
Clouds “the size of man’s hand” showed on the economic horizon, but the sudden popularity of the first European cars—VW and Volvo—caused no second thoughts in Detroit. Henry Ford II sneeringly dismissed the thought of competing with Honda, Toyota or Datsun (Nissan): “Mini cars, mini profits.”
The overhead piled higher; the see no competition, hear no competition, speak no competition attitude continued. The only rivals a Detroit auto maker could imagine as worth its consideration were the other two down the street. They remained myopic as American cars lost both coasts to Europe and Japan. The SUV and truck buying Midwest seemed as far as Detroit could see.
They designed their cars exclusively for the ever forgiving big vehicle loving middle American, virtually ignoring everyone else. It didn’t seem to catch their attention when Volkswagen first tried to manufacture cars in the US—and could not locate a single American automotive parts supplier who could make parts that were up to German standards. That should have made someone reflect.
But nothing did. (Even when they demonstrated to themselves that they could build and sell small cars in Europe!) For the US, they built more Hemi’s, Hummers and ten cylinder trucks. They created a mindset in American consumers: small and fuel efficient=Japan; big and gas guzzling=Detroit.
That was okay as long as there was no compelling reason to buy small cars. It became a problem in 1973 when gas prices doubled. People took recently purchased American cars out into the California desert and torched them for the insurance. That could have been another warning. Detroit remained blind.
Until last summer. Now Detroit needs a multi-billion dollar bailout just to get to next payday—assuming people will start buying Hummers and Hemi’s anytime soon. Oh, Hudson, Studebaker, Nash … .
A coalition of people like senators from southern states where BMWs and Toyotas are manufactured, disgusted buyers (like myself) who don’t care if they ever own an American car again, and a large group of people who don’t believe that Detroit has the will or the capability of reinventing itself have created an informal coalition to oppose the bailout. Why, they ask, throw good money after bad? A bailout, they believe, won’t save Detroit, it will merely delay the inevitable. So why waste taxpayer money?
That’s a more than fair question. Would Detroit have any idea how to recreate itself? Would buyers who have been conditioned to see Detroit exclusively as Big Car country change their perception in time to save the shrunken three? Would Detroit know how to build a vehicle with enough quality to woo Toyota buyers? Enough pizzazz to woo Mercedes or BMW drivers? Efficient enough to win over Green People?
Neither Detroit nor the taxpayers can afford a single misstep at this late date—and Detroit has a very bad record for missteps—going back as long as I’ve been alive. What will be different this time?
What, you ask, about the poor workers who pushed Detroit for higher pay, better pensions? Where will they find other jobs that pay as well? Maybe, brutal thought, the Walter Reuthers of today can’t force GM and Ford to protect them any more? Maybe that day is done.
What, you ask, of the states whose economy has been built around Detroit cars and its too well paid work force? Reality is sometimes cruel, especially to those who blind their eyes to it.
Southern States that welcomed European and Japanese companies—and are doing so well now—backed the wrong side in the Civil War. They suffered privation for decades as a direct consequence. Perhaps there are equally bad consequences for backing the wrong industry, exclusively and for too long.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Blagojevich--A Cruel Fate For An Ativism
Poor Rod Blagojevich. He was born too late. In the good old days of Boss Tweed of Tamanny Hall, he would scarcely have been noticed. After all, the Rockefellers and Goulds and Morgans and Vanderbilts routinely bought senators—in wholesale lots.
How else could you avoid running a railroad (as Commodore Vanderbilt so famously said), “according to the laws of the State of New York”? Or any other state or federal entity? Alas, poor Blagojevich, he was born in a time that requires, if not greater honesty, at least greater subtlety.
I remember back when I was in college—during the reign of Richard J. Daley the elder. Now there was a fine figure of a politician. During his regime (50’s and 60’s), it was understood that you did not drive in Chicago without a five dollar bill paper clipped to your driver’s license.
When the cop pulled you over for some infraction, you handed him your license. He mumbled some politeness about a warning and handed you back your license—sans the fiver. The alternative was a long, expensive visit to an Illinois traffic court.
I had a wealthy acquaintance who nearly gave one unsuspecting officer a heart attack. He had clipped a ten dollar bill to his license. When he was pulled over, he handed the cop his license and the poor man nearly choked. That could have been bad—it might have raised the cost of driving for all of us.
While I was in Washington, I developed a working relationship with a man who was known as the hatchet man for his ways of dealing with uncooperative bureaucrats. His claim to fame and toughness came from an experience he had while living in Chicago.
A fire broke out in his building. The fire department arrived, put out the fire, and—as apparently was their custom—looted several of the other apartments. Most citizens accepted this as a normal cost of living—Daley and his police and fire men were not safely crossed.
This guy lived in one of the affected apartments and he objected. More than that, he won his fight. This rarely, rarely ever happened in Daley’s Chicago. Kennedy was so impressed that he brought the man to Washington and used him as bureaucratic muscle.
(Then, of course, there’s always the story of how Daley held up the 1960 Chicago vote tally until he knew exactly how many votes JFK would need to carry Illinois over the downstate Republicans. And, again, there’s the legend of Steve Smith (the Kennedy in-law who managed the family business) who brought a suitcase full of cash to buy votes in the 1960 West Virginia primary.
He stopped for a haircut and accidentally left the suitcase behind. He had to ask Joe Kennedy to send down another case full of ten dollar bills (the going cost for votes in the southern Appalachians back then), which provoked the famous telegram from Joe: “I’m not buying a landslide!”)
A little friendly corruption is (as Rap Brown once said of violence) “as American as apple pie.” The British tried to indict Benjamin Franklin for selling shoddy goods to Braddock’s army during the French and Indian War. Then again there’s the Father of his Country.
With inside knowledge that the new capital was going to be built just up the river from his plantation, George Washington bought up lots in what became the District of Columbia and made a profit on them. The profit he made would be illegal today.
Think what Hamilton did with Revolutionary War bonds. They had lost all value after the war. As Secretary of the Treasury, he had his friends buy them up for pennies on a dollar—and then pushed through a law requiring the federal government to redeem them at face value. Jefferson was so outraged he left the cabinet and created an opposition party.
There is extant a letter in which Daniel Webster duns the lobbyists and interests that routinely made cash contributions to him. They were a bit late in their payments.
In the good old days some of these things often weren’t even thought of as corrupt. I’ve always loved what Nelson Rockefeller said about his grandfather, John D., senior. Asked if his grandfather had been corrupt, Nelson thought a moment and said, “I don’t think grampa broke any laws—but they sure made a lot of laws because of him.”
For decades it was whispered that no one could get elected mayor of New York without Mafia approval. I once owned a Brownstone in that city that needed fixing up. The realtor who sold me the house told me how to handle the city inspectors who had to sign off on any improvements.
“Meet him as he arrives and shake his hand. Have a hundred dollar bill in your palm and leave it in his. Inspection will go much more smoothly.”
You can argue that, after all, I wasn’t selling a Senate seat. But, in the ultimate scheme of things there really isn’t a lot of difference. It’s just that poor Blagojevich got caught out in public with his palm out in a time when there is a certain amount of public indignation at making a good old fashioned crooked profit.
Sorry, Rod—wrong era, wrong game for the time.
How else could you avoid running a railroad (as Commodore Vanderbilt so famously said), “according to the laws of the State of New York”? Or any other state or federal entity? Alas, poor Blagojevich, he was born in a time that requires, if not greater honesty, at least greater subtlety.
I remember back when I was in college—during the reign of Richard J. Daley the elder. Now there was a fine figure of a politician. During his regime (50’s and 60’s), it was understood that you did not drive in Chicago without a five dollar bill paper clipped to your driver’s license.
When the cop pulled you over for some infraction, you handed him your license. He mumbled some politeness about a warning and handed you back your license—sans the fiver. The alternative was a long, expensive visit to an Illinois traffic court.
I had a wealthy acquaintance who nearly gave one unsuspecting officer a heart attack. He had clipped a ten dollar bill to his license. When he was pulled over, he handed the cop his license and the poor man nearly choked. That could have been bad—it might have raised the cost of driving for all of us.
While I was in Washington, I developed a working relationship with a man who was known as the hatchet man for his ways of dealing with uncooperative bureaucrats. His claim to fame and toughness came from an experience he had while living in Chicago.
A fire broke out in his building. The fire department arrived, put out the fire, and—as apparently was their custom—looted several of the other apartments. Most citizens accepted this as a normal cost of living—Daley and his police and fire men were not safely crossed.
This guy lived in one of the affected apartments and he objected. More than that, he won his fight. This rarely, rarely ever happened in Daley’s Chicago. Kennedy was so impressed that he brought the man to Washington and used him as bureaucratic muscle.
(Then, of course, there’s always the story of how Daley held up the 1960 Chicago vote tally until he knew exactly how many votes JFK would need to carry Illinois over the downstate Republicans. And, again, there’s the legend of Steve Smith (the Kennedy in-law who managed the family business) who brought a suitcase full of cash to buy votes in the 1960 West Virginia primary.
He stopped for a haircut and accidentally left the suitcase behind. He had to ask Joe Kennedy to send down another case full of ten dollar bills (the going cost for votes in the southern Appalachians back then), which provoked the famous telegram from Joe: “I’m not buying a landslide!”)
A little friendly corruption is (as Rap Brown once said of violence) “as American as apple pie.” The British tried to indict Benjamin Franklin for selling shoddy goods to Braddock’s army during the French and Indian War. Then again there’s the Father of his Country.
With inside knowledge that the new capital was going to be built just up the river from his plantation, George Washington bought up lots in what became the District of Columbia and made a profit on them. The profit he made would be illegal today.
Think what Hamilton did with Revolutionary War bonds. They had lost all value after the war. As Secretary of the Treasury, he had his friends buy them up for pennies on a dollar—and then pushed through a law requiring the federal government to redeem them at face value. Jefferson was so outraged he left the cabinet and created an opposition party.
There is extant a letter in which Daniel Webster duns the lobbyists and interests that routinely made cash contributions to him. They were a bit late in their payments.
In the good old days some of these things often weren’t even thought of as corrupt. I’ve always loved what Nelson Rockefeller said about his grandfather, John D., senior. Asked if his grandfather had been corrupt, Nelson thought a moment and said, “I don’t think grampa broke any laws—but they sure made a lot of laws because of him.”
For decades it was whispered that no one could get elected mayor of New York without Mafia approval. I once owned a Brownstone in that city that needed fixing up. The realtor who sold me the house told me how to handle the city inspectors who had to sign off on any improvements.
“Meet him as he arrives and shake his hand. Have a hundred dollar bill in your palm and leave it in his. Inspection will go much more smoothly.”
You can argue that, after all, I wasn’t selling a Senate seat. But, in the ultimate scheme of things there really isn’t a lot of difference. It’s just that poor Blagojevich got caught out in public with his palm out in a time when there is a certain amount of public indignation at making a good old fashioned crooked profit.
Sorry, Rod—wrong era, wrong game for the time.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
What Can We Actually Afford?
My last three blogs dealt with the three economic “circles” that have sustained the American economy since 1920. There have, in that period of time, also been two major wars—1914-1918 and 1939-1945 that kept our factories humming.
The first two circles consisting of us taking our “lottery” (war spoils) winnings and loaning them to other countries who, in turn, used the money to buy from us. The third and current circle involved other nations loaning money to us with which we bought from them.
The fact that we have depended on deficit spending, loans from others and spoils of war for our livelihood over the past ninety years strongly suggests that we haven’t lived within our means during that period of time. Let’s be boring and lay out a time line:
WWI (’14-’18) deficit financed. First Circle (’20-‘-’28) spoils of war New Deal (’33-’39) deficit financed. WWII (’39-’45) deficit financed. Cold War (‘45/49-’91) deficit financed & spoils of war. Third Circle (’47-’08?) financed by our deficits and other nations’ loans.
Nowhere in that line is there a period in which the United States lived on what it actually earned in foreign trade or by local industry. In other words, there is no time in the past ninety years in which it can be definitively said we were living within our means.
If this is true, then President-elect Obama faces some stark choices. To maintain current American living standards—and that’s really what the 2008 campaign was all about, with both sides promising to do just that—he must do one of four things.
One) He must find a truly profitable war—like World War I and World War II. It can be argued that this is precisely what George Bush thought he was doing in 2003 when he invaded oil rich Iraq. It is hard to look at the present world and see any significant pots of gold that can easily be made available as spoils at an acceptable cost in American blood and treasure.
Either the cost would be too high or the return too low. (How much did we get out of Vietnam, Korea or are we getting out of Afghanistan?) Another nasty question: living as we do in a technology and service oriented economy, do we still have the basic manufacturing capability to win a major war?
(The foundries of West Michigan that provided so many tens of thousands of engines blocks for tanks, trucks, jeeps and planes in World War II are empty lots today. Nobody’s building any new ones. The “tank factory” in Muskegon now turns out a few ambulances and fire trucks. Half its buildings are torn down or empty.)
The last time such an absurd strategy was actually suggested to an American President was in 1861 when William Seward (Secretary of State) suggested to Lincoln that the best way to avoid a Civil War was to declare war on Super Power England. Lincoln sensibly demurred.
Two) He can somehow talk China, Japan, the Arab World, and a shrinking number of willing players into keeping the Third Circle going. This assumes they have the money, the will—and the trust in the American dollar and economy needed to encourage massive loans.
Three) He can find a way to create some new “Fourth Circle”—new players with new motivation to invest hugely in the American retail sector. As I look around my globe, I don’t see where these new players are going to come from. Australia? Antarctica? Paraguay? Nigeria? Very iffy.
Four) He can commit political suicide.
That’s what often happens to national leaders who find themselves in deep financial doo-doo (don’t you just love George H.W.Bush?) and have to tell their constituents that they must now live on what they can actually afford.
Can you imagine the fury of the American voter if he were told that he must downsize his home, give up one of his two or three autos, forego snowmobiling or luxury camping? It’s a sight I wouldn’t want to see from the vantage point of the White House!
We don’t even know what an affordable life style would be in the country. We haven’t lived one in the life time of almost anyone alive today. (I don’t think any of us really want to find out.) The question: What can we really afford? hasn’t been answered—perhaps ever.
We’ve always been a booming, high rolling nation. We’ve always lived on other peoples’ money (we bankrupted investors all over Europe with our crashes in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873-77 and 1893—but we just rolled on.) We fought the American Revolution to avoid paying justly owed taxes and just walked away. We’re called an optimistic nation—and we certainly have been in matters of finance!
We’ve always found another sucker out there willing to pay our way. If Obama gets really lucky, he will again. And then, we can defer one more time that nagging query, what CAN we really afford?
The first two circles consisting of us taking our “lottery” (war spoils) winnings and loaning them to other countries who, in turn, used the money to buy from us. The third and current circle involved other nations loaning money to us with which we bought from them.
The fact that we have depended on deficit spending, loans from others and spoils of war for our livelihood over the past ninety years strongly suggests that we haven’t lived within our means during that period of time. Let’s be boring and lay out a time line:
WWI (’14-’18) deficit financed. First Circle (’20-‘-’28) spoils of war New Deal (’33-’39) deficit financed. WWII (’39-’45) deficit financed. Cold War (‘45/49-’91) deficit financed & spoils of war. Third Circle (’47-’08?) financed by our deficits and other nations’ loans.
Nowhere in that line is there a period in which the United States lived on what it actually earned in foreign trade or by local industry. In other words, there is no time in the past ninety years in which it can be definitively said we were living within our means.
If this is true, then President-elect Obama faces some stark choices. To maintain current American living standards—and that’s really what the 2008 campaign was all about, with both sides promising to do just that—he must do one of four things.
One) He must find a truly profitable war—like World War I and World War II. It can be argued that this is precisely what George Bush thought he was doing in 2003 when he invaded oil rich Iraq. It is hard to look at the present world and see any significant pots of gold that can easily be made available as spoils at an acceptable cost in American blood and treasure.
Either the cost would be too high or the return too low. (How much did we get out of Vietnam, Korea or are we getting out of Afghanistan?) Another nasty question: living as we do in a technology and service oriented economy, do we still have the basic manufacturing capability to win a major war?
(The foundries of West Michigan that provided so many tens of thousands of engines blocks for tanks, trucks, jeeps and planes in World War II are empty lots today. Nobody’s building any new ones. The “tank factory” in Muskegon now turns out a few ambulances and fire trucks. Half its buildings are torn down or empty.)
The last time such an absurd strategy was actually suggested to an American President was in 1861 when William Seward (Secretary of State) suggested to Lincoln that the best way to avoid a Civil War was to declare war on Super Power England. Lincoln sensibly demurred.
Two) He can somehow talk China, Japan, the Arab World, and a shrinking number of willing players into keeping the Third Circle going. This assumes they have the money, the will—and the trust in the American dollar and economy needed to encourage massive loans.
Three) He can find a way to create some new “Fourth Circle”—new players with new motivation to invest hugely in the American retail sector. As I look around my globe, I don’t see where these new players are going to come from. Australia? Antarctica? Paraguay? Nigeria? Very iffy.
Four) He can commit political suicide.
That’s what often happens to national leaders who find themselves in deep financial doo-doo (don’t you just love George H.W.Bush?) and have to tell their constituents that they must now live on what they can actually afford.
Can you imagine the fury of the American voter if he were told that he must downsize his home, give up one of his two or three autos, forego snowmobiling or luxury camping? It’s a sight I wouldn’t want to see from the vantage point of the White House!
We don’t even know what an affordable life style would be in the country. We haven’t lived one in the life time of almost anyone alive today. (I don’t think any of us really want to find out.) The question: What can we really afford? hasn’t been answered—perhaps ever.
We’ve always been a booming, high rolling nation. We’ve always lived on other peoples’ money (we bankrupted investors all over Europe with our crashes in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873-77 and 1893—but we just rolled on.) We fought the American Revolution to avoid paying justly owed taxes and just walked away. We’re called an optimistic nation—and we certainly have been in matters of finance!
We’ve always found another sucker out there willing to pay our way. If Obama gets really lucky, he will again. And then, we can defer one more time that nagging query, what CAN we really afford?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Let The Circle Be Unbroken 3
The Third Circle differed quite dramatically from the first two. In those circles, we gave the money and they bought the goods. In the third, they gave us the money and we bought the goodies. Not insignificantly, in the midst of the last circle, we went back to being a debtor nation (1986)—which we had not been since 1916.
It began gradually. We lost the shoe business to Italy and Asia. So what? We stopped producing our own televisions and bought them from Japan. So? We lost textiles (something we'd had since the 1830s), foreign steel mills began to compete aggressively. Then there were those pesky little Volkswagens and Volvos.
Toyota and Honda came later. And so it went. Did we care? Hey—fifty cent an hour labor over in Asia or Latin America was cheaper. Chains of bargain stores sprang up. Mothers could dress themselves and their children much, much less expensively from abroad than from American labor.
As the decades rolled on, the flood of foreign goods—and of loaned foreign money to enable us to pay for it all—became a raging torrent that nothing appeared able to stop. They loaned us money; we bought cars and TVs, they took the profits from those sales and loaned us more money. As long as the circle remained unbroken … .
Our life style became more and more extravagant; they loaned us more and more money to keep us in the game. (The circle was spinning faster and faster—something that had not happened during the first two circles.) It was a wild party that could afford to be so wild because somebody else was paying.
Starter houses now came with central air, vacuum cleaners in the walls, underground sprinkling, and cost $150,000—dirt cheap at that. Kids barely old enough to shave were buying them (some had no money left for furniture or any kind of decorations on the wall.)
All of this on Chinese, Japanese and Indian money—as they piled in the dollars, viewing them as more secure than their own currencies. The Arabs piled up massive amounts of dollars as they, too, bought American treasury bonds, funding our huge deficits.
Two thirty to forty thousand vehicles in every garage, riding mowers, snow mobiles and snow blowers, all on other people’s money. No new technological device was too expensive. The latest widescreen TVs (at two and three thousand dollars) walked out of the stores. Pocket gadgets that talk to your computer, play music, call California, take pictures, and—should a fit of inactivity come upon you—offer you games to play were on every belt. On Chinese money.
We were like children turned loose in Toys R Us with grampa’s credit card—no limit. Our saving rate dropped to zero. We kept on spinning the circle. I confess my own house contains seven computers for four people. We have at least three working televisions (none of them very new or big—but, still, three?!?)
What was in it for them? A couple of things—the dollar was, for most of the Twentieth Century, the most secure currency you could hold. It seemed like the Gold of the 1900s. But, more importantly, and this is the basis for the circle: we were the consumers of last resort.
If Sony made too many radios and had no place to sell them—not to worry. Put them on a boat for San Francisco and have someone get on the phone. The incomparable American retail chains will suck them up in five or six phone calls. They’ll be sold before the ship reaches harbor.
Then the highway system built by Eisenhower will rush them to the American consumer within a matter of three or four days, in trucks driven sixteen hours a day. We were the last, best safety net for everyone else’s bottom line. It seemed a small price to pay: buy a few million more American bonds and guarantee that everybody stays in the black.
The sybaritic American consumer allowed nations that hadn’t even existed during the first and second circles to build their own factories, their own car companies and begin to create their own middle classes—all on our debt. More and more American manufacturing capacity left our shores in search of their lower wages. Our real wages stagnated, but we borrowed on those incredibly expensive new homes we were buying. The circle was now almost a blur.
As those who made our soccer balls and shoes went hungry, as millions starved across the globe, no delicacy was too expensive or too out of season for the American gourmet. The corner grocer routinely carried luxury foods from all over the world that our grandparents couldn’t have pronounced. This, too, was part of the circle, the good life on other people’s money.
By 1960 we faced a world in which our traditional manufacturing rivals had recovered. At some point in this century we will face a world in which a whole new set of rivals (we never dreamt of back then) will have reached a point where they can and will compete with us without feeling that we are their only possible safety net.
Then this third circle will break. Then we will be caught without savings, with ludicrously expensive housing, automobiles few can actually afford, with rooms full of luxuries in homes where the grocery bill is too high to endure.
God help us, that may have begun to happen. If it has, no clever plan by a new President Obama or anyone else will fix the problem. It’s very, very hard to see where a fourth circle will come from once this one stops—as the last two did. But we’d better be looking hard.
The shattering of the Third Circle is what may very well have begun this past fall.
It began gradually. We lost the shoe business to Italy and Asia. So what? We stopped producing our own televisions and bought them from Japan. So? We lost textiles (something we'd had since the 1830s), foreign steel mills began to compete aggressively. Then there were those pesky little Volkswagens and Volvos.
Toyota and Honda came later. And so it went. Did we care? Hey—fifty cent an hour labor over in Asia or Latin America was cheaper. Chains of bargain stores sprang up. Mothers could dress themselves and their children much, much less expensively from abroad than from American labor.
As the decades rolled on, the flood of foreign goods—and of loaned foreign money to enable us to pay for it all—became a raging torrent that nothing appeared able to stop. They loaned us money; we bought cars and TVs, they took the profits from those sales and loaned us more money. As long as the circle remained unbroken … .
Our life style became more and more extravagant; they loaned us more and more money to keep us in the game. (The circle was spinning faster and faster—something that had not happened during the first two circles.) It was a wild party that could afford to be so wild because somebody else was paying.
Starter houses now came with central air, vacuum cleaners in the walls, underground sprinkling, and cost $150,000—dirt cheap at that. Kids barely old enough to shave were buying them (some had no money left for furniture or any kind of decorations on the wall.)
All of this on Chinese, Japanese and Indian money—as they piled in the dollars, viewing them as more secure than their own currencies. The Arabs piled up massive amounts of dollars as they, too, bought American treasury bonds, funding our huge deficits.
Two thirty to forty thousand vehicles in every garage, riding mowers, snow mobiles and snow blowers, all on other people’s money. No new technological device was too expensive. The latest widescreen TVs (at two and three thousand dollars) walked out of the stores. Pocket gadgets that talk to your computer, play music, call California, take pictures, and—should a fit of inactivity come upon you—offer you games to play were on every belt. On Chinese money.
We were like children turned loose in Toys R Us with grampa’s credit card—no limit. Our saving rate dropped to zero. We kept on spinning the circle. I confess my own house contains seven computers for four people. We have at least three working televisions (none of them very new or big—but, still, three?!?)
What was in it for them? A couple of things—the dollar was, for most of the Twentieth Century, the most secure currency you could hold. It seemed like the Gold of the 1900s. But, more importantly, and this is the basis for the circle: we were the consumers of last resort.
If Sony made too many radios and had no place to sell them—not to worry. Put them on a boat for San Francisco and have someone get on the phone. The incomparable American retail chains will suck them up in five or six phone calls. They’ll be sold before the ship reaches harbor.
Then the highway system built by Eisenhower will rush them to the American consumer within a matter of three or four days, in trucks driven sixteen hours a day. We were the last, best safety net for everyone else’s bottom line. It seemed a small price to pay: buy a few million more American bonds and guarantee that everybody stays in the black.
The sybaritic American consumer allowed nations that hadn’t even existed during the first and second circles to build their own factories, their own car companies and begin to create their own middle classes—all on our debt. More and more American manufacturing capacity left our shores in search of their lower wages. Our real wages stagnated, but we borrowed on those incredibly expensive new homes we were buying. The circle was now almost a blur.
As those who made our soccer balls and shoes went hungry, as millions starved across the globe, no delicacy was too expensive or too out of season for the American gourmet. The corner grocer routinely carried luxury foods from all over the world that our grandparents couldn’t have pronounced. This, too, was part of the circle, the good life on other people’s money.
By 1960 we faced a world in which our traditional manufacturing rivals had recovered. At some point in this century we will face a world in which a whole new set of rivals (we never dreamt of back then) will have reached a point where they can and will compete with us without feeling that we are their only possible safety net.
Then this third circle will break. Then we will be caught without savings, with ludicrously expensive housing, automobiles few can actually afford, with rooms full of luxuries in homes where the grocery bill is too high to endure.
God help us, that may have begun to happen. If it has, no clever plan by a new President Obama or anyone else will fix the problem. It’s very, very hard to see where a fourth circle will come from once this one stops—as the last two did. But we’d better be looking hard.
The shattering of the Third Circle is what may very well have begun this past fall.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Let The Circle Be Unbroken 2
In 1945, the entire industrialized world lay in ruins. Whatever artillery and aerial bombs could accomplish had been wreaked upon it. Gaunt, starving people stood in front of piles of rubble that had once been jobs and homes.
There was, of course, a single exception. America had won, overwhelmingly. We had all the marbles; we had all the intact factories; we had unchallenged and unchallengeable power. The one thing we did not have was buyers.
We had spent half a decade building unbelievable amounts of munitions, tanks, planes, ships, trucks, boots and uniforms. It was a matter of months before those factories would be back to producing cars, radios, refrigerators, civilian clothes and supplies for new homes.
By 1947, we had met the most urgent domestic needs (for those able to pay)—and, failing any other customers for our goods, were sliding back into recession if not depression. We needed two things—foreign buyers to generate greater demand and 2) jobs for surplus American workers who weren’t needed to meet merely domestic needs.
And the whole world lay in ruins, listening eagerly to false promises being made by Communists and other radicals. We came up with a strategy fully as brilliant and self-serving as Lend Lease had been. We would take the proceeds of World War II and hand them out as aid to the ruined economies of Europe and Japan.
This would create strong domestic demand here and hopefully lessen the appeal of Soviet propaganda. We called it the Marshall Plan. It poured money into Europe and Japan. People were fed, factories and homes rebuilt—all with materials coming out of American factories.
It also gave us an enormous measure of economic control over the countries that came to depend on it. (Stalin recognized this reality and would not accept Marshall Plan money to rebuild Russia or Eastern Europe. Read Tito’s henchman, Dilas, on this. “Conversations With Stalin.” The vicious old Georgian knew control when he saw it.)
Soon the currencies of Europe were no longer backed by reserves of precious metals but by stacks of what were then called “Eurodollars”. Our economic control was now as absolute as our military control.
What a boom we were having at home. Houses were built, cars were produced, new media like television were introduced and sold in vast quantities. The American dream had become a cornucopia of suburban delights. An incredible highway system carried goods and vacationers from coast to coast almost effortlessly.
Since the Soviets had constituted the main threat that had led us to the Marshall Plan, we continued to make good use of them. People became terrified of a completely non-existent Soviet threat to the US itself. I remember a ten year old friend of mine spending his Saturdays in a fire tower with binoculars watching for non-existent Russian bombers loaded with non-existent Russian Atom bombs (c.a.1950).
This also kept the economy singing along. Just as war production in World War II became the basis of our prosperity in the early 1940s, so war production for the Cold War became a significant basis for our prosperity in the latter 40s and the 50s.
Between the Soviet “threat” and rebuilding much of the planet, we thrived as no nation has ever thrived before. The circle seemed destined to go on forever—we give the money to Europe and Japan, they use it to buy from us, out of the prosperity this generates here, we give more money out in foreign aid.
But, like all good things, this too came to an end. The world’s factories were eventually rebuilt—with newer and more efficient ones than ours. Russia, working on her own without American aid, rebuilt herself and became a real threat. Now she had missiles and bombs.
By 1960, you could see the clouds forming. By 1968, while working in the Office of the President, I was told to expect a serious devaluation of the American dollar within months. We were wasting enormous amounts of money on a pointless war in Vietnam. I braced for the shock. We had a recession in 1968, the dollar was devalued—slowly—in 1971 and ’73.
But we didn’t collapse. 1933 or ’38 did not come again. Why? I thought about it for a couple of years, and I realized something.
The Third Circle had begun.
There was, of course, a single exception. America had won, overwhelmingly. We had all the marbles; we had all the intact factories; we had unchallenged and unchallengeable power. The one thing we did not have was buyers.
We had spent half a decade building unbelievable amounts of munitions, tanks, planes, ships, trucks, boots and uniforms. It was a matter of months before those factories would be back to producing cars, radios, refrigerators, civilian clothes and supplies for new homes.
By 1947, we had met the most urgent domestic needs (for those able to pay)—and, failing any other customers for our goods, were sliding back into recession if not depression. We needed two things—foreign buyers to generate greater demand and 2) jobs for surplus American workers who weren’t needed to meet merely domestic needs.
And the whole world lay in ruins, listening eagerly to false promises being made by Communists and other radicals. We came up with a strategy fully as brilliant and self-serving as Lend Lease had been. We would take the proceeds of World War II and hand them out as aid to the ruined economies of Europe and Japan.
This would create strong domestic demand here and hopefully lessen the appeal of Soviet propaganda. We called it the Marshall Plan. It poured money into Europe and Japan. People were fed, factories and homes rebuilt—all with materials coming out of American factories.
It also gave us an enormous measure of economic control over the countries that came to depend on it. (Stalin recognized this reality and would not accept Marshall Plan money to rebuild Russia or Eastern Europe. Read Tito’s henchman, Dilas, on this. “Conversations With Stalin.” The vicious old Georgian knew control when he saw it.)
Soon the currencies of Europe were no longer backed by reserves of precious metals but by stacks of what were then called “Eurodollars”. Our economic control was now as absolute as our military control.
What a boom we were having at home. Houses were built, cars were produced, new media like television were introduced and sold in vast quantities. The American dream had become a cornucopia of suburban delights. An incredible highway system carried goods and vacationers from coast to coast almost effortlessly.
Since the Soviets had constituted the main threat that had led us to the Marshall Plan, we continued to make good use of them. People became terrified of a completely non-existent Soviet threat to the US itself. I remember a ten year old friend of mine spending his Saturdays in a fire tower with binoculars watching for non-existent Russian bombers loaded with non-existent Russian Atom bombs (c.a.1950).
This also kept the economy singing along. Just as war production in World War II became the basis of our prosperity in the early 1940s, so war production for the Cold War became a significant basis for our prosperity in the latter 40s and the 50s.
Between the Soviet “threat” and rebuilding much of the planet, we thrived as no nation has ever thrived before. The circle seemed destined to go on forever—we give the money to Europe and Japan, they use it to buy from us, out of the prosperity this generates here, we give more money out in foreign aid.
But, like all good things, this too came to an end. The world’s factories were eventually rebuilt—with newer and more efficient ones than ours. Russia, working on her own without American aid, rebuilt herself and became a real threat. Now she had missiles and bombs.
By 1960, you could see the clouds forming. By 1968, while working in the Office of the President, I was told to expect a serious devaluation of the American dollar within months. We were wasting enormous amounts of money on a pointless war in Vietnam. I braced for the shock. We had a recession in 1968, the dollar was devalued—slowly—in 1971 and ’73.
But we didn’t collapse. 1933 or ’38 did not come again. Why? I thought about it for a couple of years, and I realized something.
The Third Circle had begun.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Let The Circle Be Unbroken -- 1
The United States has lived—and thrived—on three economic circular flows since World War I. When the first two came to an end, there were immediate economic repercussions. What we seem to be living through now is the end of the third circle, or cycle.
World War I, for those who recall their history, was not a bad war for us. We came in late, took minimal casualties, and went from debtor nation (to most of Europe) to creditor. We had tons of what businessmen call “receivables”, there was just no clear way to collect all the money.
In their foolishness, the statesmen who met at Versailles in 1919 decided to make defeated Germany pay all the damages for the war. (This, of course, became the biggest single cause of World War II in Europe.) The problem in 1919 was that Germany was at least as broke as Russia, France and Britain—and she was stripped of her colonial assets.
She could no more pay her “reparations” to France or England than I can pay off the national debt. Then we stepped in, using the money we made from selling munitions during the war, and loaned Germany lots of money.
That’s how the circle began. We “loaned” money to Germany, Germany took some of it and paid reparations to France, Britain and Belgium. Then all four of them came to the United States and spent that money buying American products to ship home.
This produced feverish prosperity in the urban sectors of American society and sent the stock market to dizzying heights. (At the time there was a popular hymn that had the refrain, “Let the circle be unbroken.” As long as it was, the Twenties roared.)
In 1928, we got peevish. Why, demanded Congress, should we go on loaning money to Europe? So we stopped. A year later, so did prosperity. There were a variety of causes, there always are, but it is no coincidence that the Crash coincided with the breaking of the circle.
We went bust. We stayed bust until World War II. Once again we were selling munitions—except that this time our laws required munitions go out on a cash and carry basis. What really brought us out of the Depression was that England decided that the safest place to build British factories was across the Atlantic, out of range of German bombers.
They went through their cash assets faster than General Motors. If someone had taken a trip to the US and brought back for his nephew some sample American coins, these had to be turned in. Britain spent every cent she had buying from us and building war factories here.
In 1941, Britain went on “welfare”. That’s what Lend Lease was—especially in the restrictions it imposed on the recipients, here again, especially on our old rival, Britain. Just like a welfare family in our current society, England was required to divest itself of all monetary assets—AND NOT TO ACQUIRE ANY ADDITIONAL ONES.
That clause killed the British Empire more effectively than the Atom bomb killed Japan. We watched carefully to make certain England accumulated no currency reserves during the war. If needed, we removed items from the Lend Lease list to make Britain spend any new reserves on things Lend Lease used to buy.
At war’s end (September 2, 1945) we stopped Lend Lease cold. Like any welfare family, Britain was not allowed to be in any shape to go on feeding, transporting, medicating or clothing 12 million Tommies around the world. No surprise that the core of the Empire had collapsed by 1948.
We picked up the goodies. Guess why Roosevelt stopped in Saudi Arabia on his way home from Yalta? British oil fields became American oil fields, et cetera, et cetera. Same thing happened to pieces of the Dutch, Japanese, Belgium, Italian and French empires.
World War II was a far more wonderful war than World War I had ever been. Again, our casualty rate was not insupportable (after all the Russians and the British did most of the dying), and we came out with tons and tons of cash and receivables.
Time for the second circle.
World War I, for those who recall their history, was not a bad war for us. We came in late, took minimal casualties, and went from debtor nation (to most of Europe) to creditor. We had tons of what businessmen call “receivables”, there was just no clear way to collect all the money.
In their foolishness, the statesmen who met at Versailles in 1919 decided to make defeated Germany pay all the damages for the war. (This, of course, became the biggest single cause of World War II in Europe.) The problem in 1919 was that Germany was at least as broke as Russia, France and Britain—and she was stripped of her colonial assets.
She could no more pay her “reparations” to France or England than I can pay off the national debt. Then we stepped in, using the money we made from selling munitions during the war, and loaned Germany lots of money.
That’s how the circle began. We “loaned” money to Germany, Germany took some of it and paid reparations to France, Britain and Belgium. Then all four of them came to the United States and spent that money buying American products to ship home.
This produced feverish prosperity in the urban sectors of American society and sent the stock market to dizzying heights. (At the time there was a popular hymn that had the refrain, “Let the circle be unbroken.” As long as it was, the Twenties roared.)
In 1928, we got peevish. Why, demanded Congress, should we go on loaning money to Europe? So we stopped. A year later, so did prosperity. There were a variety of causes, there always are, but it is no coincidence that the Crash coincided with the breaking of the circle.
We went bust. We stayed bust until World War II. Once again we were selling munitions—except that this time our laws required munitions go out on a cash and carry basis. What really brought us out of the Depression was that England decided that the safest place to build British factories was across the Atlantic, out of range of German bombers.
They went through their cash assets faster than General Motors. If someone had taken a trip to the US and brought back for his nephew some sample American coins, these had to be turned in. Britain spent every cent she had buying from us and building war factories here.
In 1941, Britain went on “welfare”. That’s what Lend Lease was—especially in the restrictions it imposed on the recipients, here again, especially on our old rival, Britain. Just like a welfare family in our current society, England was required to divest itself of all monetary assets—AND NOT TO ACQUIRE ANY ADDITIONAL ONES.
That clause killed the British Empire more effectively than the Atom bomb killed Japan. We watched carefully to make certain England accumulated no currency reserves during the war. If needed, we removed items from the Lend Lease list to make Britain spend any new reserves on things Lend Lease used to buy.
At war’s end (September 2, 1945) we stopped Lend Lease cold. Like any welfare family, Britain was not allowed to be in any shape to go on feeding, transporting, medicating or clothing 12 million Tommies around the world. No surprise that the core of the Empire had collapsed by 1948.
We picked up the goodies. Guess why Roosevelt stopped in Saudi Arabia on his way home from Yalta? British oil fields became American oil fields, et cetera, et cetera. Same thing happened to pieces of the Dutch, Japanese, Belgium, Italian and French empires.
World War II was a far more wonderful war than World War I had ever been. Again, our casualty rate was not insupportable (after all the Russians and the British did most of the dying), and we came out with tons and tons of cash and receivables.
Time for the second circle.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The Good, The Bad--And The Gray
Crime was so much easier years ago. Immorality was so much simpler. You could categorize the one so effortlessly—murder one, murder two, manslaughter, negligent homicide or rape in the first degree, second degree, statuatory, over a hundred bucks and it’s a felony; under and it’s a misdemeanor, and so forth. You could define the moral and immoral so easily by holding up a litmus test like the Ten Commandments. It’s black or it’s white.
Even if you couldn’t define it, you could identify it. As one jurist put it, “I can’t tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it.”
How different, how slippery, how gray are the issues we face today. I sat in a class today where a high school age young lady gave an excellent report on stem cell research and the issues surrounding it. I couldn’t help but interject a few thoughts of my own as I listened to the discussion.
I pointed out that when you get to the end product—the stem cells coming from an already fertilized egg—the issue is simple. Obviously it’s better (and probably more moral) to donate the unneeded cells to a research laboratory rather than bundle them up in the trash.
But, I told them, that’s not the “moral” issue. The real question is the morality of creating, say, one hundred fertilized eggs (that some might define as already living human beings), knowing that you are only going to use two or three. You go in knowing that the rest will have to be disposed of. Whether it’s in a trash bin or a university laboratory is irrelevant—morally speaking.
A student suggested (seriously) that morality is not an issue where medical research is involved because ultimately you will benefit so many people. Another said that it was okay to harvest the stem cells from fertilized eggs because the eggs had never become aware human beings—and the people who might be helped by the research were fully aware of themselves and their condition.
Yet another put forth the argument that a paralyzed human feels pain, but the fertilized cell in a test tube feels no pain—so there is nothing wrong with destroying it and collecting its stem cells.
I asked them if they’d ever heard of a Dr. Mengele at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Only one had—so I briefly explained that he was the SS physician who met the trains full of gypsies and Jews and made the determination who would live and who would die.
He conducted endless medical experiments on inmates of the camp—often very cruel ones. But he would happily have accepted any one of the above student rationalizations for his “research”. I warned them about the dangers of establishing legal precedent for what seems a greater good—but can open the door to moral horrors thereafter.
I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes’ dictum that “hard cases make bad law”. I explained that this means that often when you provide a remedy for a poor widow who really has been wronged, you may create a legal precedent that will allow major corporations to ravage the national good.
When a young lady suggested that my points had no validity because “we are more broad minded today”, I came back with a final question: what if the standard of “feeling or inflicting no pain” were applied in murder cases? Would I receive a lighter sentence because I found a way to kill someone in which he or she felt no pain?
So gray, so slippery. How about Gay Marriage? For centuries an adherent of the Judeo-Christian position would have cited one or two Biblical references and said, “It’s wrong”. But this week’s Newsweek Magazine asks if a loving Christ would really have inflicted so much pain on homosexuals and lesbians by denying them the sacrament of marriage.
You could use the same logic to ask if a loving Christ would cause pedophiles and serial killers so much pain by denying them the natural outlet for their compulsions. (Newsweek and its adherents might have had more of a leg to stand on if they had simply suggested that in a diverse society, such atavistic strictures as Biblical morality no longer apply. That’s an argument I could at least respect.)
Having made the argument that morality based on any one religion has no place in this society, then you could made the distinction the girl in my class did when she raised the issue of what inflicts pain. Obviously pedophiles and serial killers cause way more pain than single sex couples do—so the one becomes “good” and the other two “bad”.
So the issues go. Slippery and gray. Our standard for deciding has been reduced to how we “feel” about it—or how it makes others “feel”.
Feeling good as a basis of morality is certainly not new. Greek Hedonists came up with that notion over two and a half millennia ago. Feeling good is the highest good. Then you never have to fuss about archaic notions like “right” and “wrong”. The hippies understood this. “If it feels good, do it.”
Even if you couldn’t define it, you could identify it. As one jurist put it, “I can’t tell you what pornography is, but I know it when I see it.”
How different, how slippery, how gray are the issues we face today. I sat in a class today where a high school age young lady gave an excellent report on stem cell research and the issues surrounding it. I couldn’t help but interject a few thoughts of my own as I listened to the discussion.
I pointed out that when you get to the end product—the stem cells coming from an already fertilized egg—the issue is simple. Obviously it’s better (and probably more moral) to donate the unneeded cells to a research laboratory rather than bundle them up in the trash.
But, I told them, that’s not the “moral” issue. The real question is the morality of creating, say, one hundred fertilized eggs (that some might define as already living human beings), knowing that you are only going to use two or three. You go in knowing that the rest will have to be disposed of. Whether it’s in a trash bin or a university laboratory is irrelevant—morally speaking.
A student suggested (seriously) that morality is not an issue where medical research is involved because ultimately you will benefit so many people. Another said that it was okay to harvest the stem cells from fertilized eggs because the eggs had never become aware human beings—and the people who might be helped by the research were fully aware of themselves and their condition.
Yet another put forth the argument that a paralyzed human feels pain, but the fertilized cell in a test tube feels no pain—so there is nothing wrong with destroying it and collecting its stem cells.
I asked them if they’d ever heard of a Dr. Mengele at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Only one had—so I briefly explained that he was the SS physician who met the trains full of gypsies and Jews and made the determination who would live and who would die.
He conducted endless medical experiments on inmates of the camp—often very cruel ones. But he would happily have accepted any one of the above student rationalizations for his “research”. I warned them about the dangers of establishing legal precedent for what seems a greater good—but can open the door to moral horrors thereafter.
I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes’ dictum that “hard cases make bad law”. I explained that this means that often when you provide a remedy for a poor widow who really has been wronged, you may create a legal precedent that will allow major corporations to ravage the national good.
When a young lady suggested that my points had no validity because “we are more broad minded today”, I came back with a final question: what if the standard of “feeling or inflicting no pain” were applied in murder cases? Would I receive a lighter sentence because I found a way to kill someone in which he or she felt no pain?
So gray, so slippery. How about Gay Marriage? For centuries an adherent of the Judeo-Christian position would have cited one or two Biblical references and said, “It’s wrong”. But this week’s Newsweek Magazine asks if a loving Christ would really have inflicted so much pain on homosexuals and lesbians by denying them the sacrament of marriage.
You could use the same logic to ask if a loving Christ would cause pedophiles and serial killers so much pain by denying them the natural outlet for their compulsions. (Newsweek and its adherents might have had more of a leg to stand on if they had simply suggested that in a diverse society, such atavistic strictures as Biblical morality no longer apply. That’s an argument I could at least respect.)
Having made the argument that morality based on any one religion has no place in this society, then you could made the distinction the girl in my class did when she raised the issue of what inflicts pain. Obviously pedophiles and serial killers cause way more pain than single sex couples do—so the one becomes “good” and the other two “bad”.
So the issues go. Slippery and gray. Our standard for deciding has been reduced to how we “feel” about it—or how it makes others “feel”.
Feeling good as a basis of morality is certainly not new. Greek Hedonists came up with that notion over two and a half millennia ago. Feeling good is the highest good. Then you never have to fuss about archaic notions like “right” and “wrong”. The hippies understood this. “If it feels good, do it.”
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Poof! There Goes My Retirement
Today I was chatting with a friend who has recently attained the age of sixty—when he planned to retire. Like tens of thousands of others, he has revised those plans. He’s not bitter—he enjoys what he does and, for him, retirement day is still in sight.
He did everything right. He paid off his house; he will have pensions from two different careers. It’s the investments—the ones he was planning to live on until Social Security and the pensions all kicked in—that are stopping him. He suggested it was like watching water draining from a tub over the past year.
“But,” he said to me, “I have one question I’d like to figure out the answer to. When the stock market falls several hundred points and they tell me a trillion dollars is lost, where did that money actually go?
“I mean,” he said, “if I have two apples and you take one away from me, I’ve clearly lost an apple—but I know exactly where it went. But where did half the value of my stocks GO? That’s what I want to know. Where does this lost money disappear to?”
I thought about it for awhile. It does seem to defy basic laws of physics to have vast quantities of cash (even if it is all electronic—just little blips on a computer chip) disappear from the known universe without a trace. There should, according to physics, be at least some residue—or some bottom feeder over in Asia who now has that trillion. But, no, it’s gone. Poof.
Those who deny the possibility of creation ex nihilo (from nothing) insist that I believe in demolition ad nihilo (to nothing). I jokingly suggested that perhaps my friend hadn’t watched enough science fiction; that there is a little gnome-like Yoda who waves both hands and things just disembody themselves right out of this universe. Blame Wall Street’s problems on the Force, of course.
Then I raised a second, more thought provoking question, perhaps the right thing to ask is not where did it go when it disappeared but did it ever really exist? This is far more philosophical than brokers and financiers ever care to get, but when we talk about a company’s market cap reaching so many billions, is all of that money real?
If it can disappear at the flick of a switch, was it ever really there? One really doesn’t want to think of the stock exchange as being some kind of magician’s cabinet with false sides and mirrors; when his assistant vanishes we know it’s a trick. What about the trillion that vanishes? Is that a trick too?
It’s not all that reassuring—as far as investing in the market goes—to make oneself accept that it is all because so many people stopped selling and buying product, and that companies spent through cash reserves to meet payroll and pay for raw materials until nothing was left (not even credit)—and that’s really why a company with a market cap of billions last year now sells like a penny stock.
The fellow left holding the hideously shrunken IRA is still left vaguely wondering where did the trillion (and my retirement) really go? (Dear Lord, imagine if they had managed to put Social Security into the market like they wanted to do! There are people for whom Social Security is all that is left in this ruin.)
BusinessWeek (12/15 issue) ran an article called “The Hidden Pension Threat”. Pension portfolios have been hit as hard as anyone else. A company whose pension was fully funded a year ago suddenly finds itself underfunded by millions upon millions due to the collapse in stock values.
This happens just as the 2006 Pension Protection Act kicks in with its requirement that pension plans must have enough funds on hand to cover present AND FUTURE obligations. The suddenly cash strapped companies (whose products have stopped selling) must now come up millions in cash to cover the Wall Street shortfall that hammered its pension plan.
Guess where that leads? The quickest way for any company to improve cash flow is to lay off bodies. And what, do you suppose, more layoffs will do for the stock market and retirees IRAs?
Just how much confidence do people have on future prospects on Main Street or Wall Street? On National Public Radio I heard a brief note this morning: For the first time ever the Government is issuing treasuries with a Zero interest rate. In other words, Uncle Sam will hold your money for you and give you back exactly what you put in. No interest, no income. People are desperate enough to buy these.
The horrifying thing about this situation is that it is not just that some arcane law of physics no longer applies—all those things Barron’s, the Wall Street Journal, and the financial advisors told us to do no longer apply.
Invest prudently – and you can be just as broke as the guy who didn’t invest at all. Revise the old clause in the will, “Being of sane and sound mind, I spent every penny before I died”. Have it read, “Being of sane and sound mind, I spent it all while it still had some value.”
He did everything right. He paid off his house; he will have pensions from two different careers. It’s the investments—the ones he was planning to live on until Social Security and the pensions all kicked in—that are stopping him. He suggested it was like watching water draining from a tub over the past year.
“But,” he said to me, “I have one question I’d like to figure out the answer to. When the stock market falls several hundred points and they tell me a trillion dollars is lost, where did that money actually go?
“I mean,” he said, “if I have two apples and you take one away from me, I’ve clearly lost an apple—but I know exactly where it went. But where did half the value of my stocks GO? That’s what I want to know. Where does this lost money disappear to?”
I thought about it for awhile. It does seem to defy basic laws of physics to have vast quantities of cash (even if it is all electronic—just little blips on a computer chip) disappear from the known universe without a trace. There should, according to physics, be at least some residue—or some bottom feeder over in Asia who now has that trillion. But, no, it’s gone. Poof.
Those who deny the possibility of creation ex nihilo (from nothing) insist that I believe in demolition ad nihilo (to nothing). I jokingly suggested that perhaps my friend hadn’t watched enough science fiction; that there is a little gnome-like Yoda who waves both hands and things just disembody themselves right out of this universe. Blame Wall Street’s problems on the Force, of course.
Then I raised a second, more thought provoking question, perhaps the right thing to ask is not where did it go when it disappeared but did it ever really exist? This is far more philosophical than brokers and financiers ever care to get, but when we talk about a company’s market cap reaching so many billions, is all of that money real?
If it can disappear at the flick of a switch, was it ever really there? One really doesn’t want to think of the stock exchange as being some kind of magician’s cabinet with false sides and mirrors; when his assistant vanishes we know it’s a trick. What about the trillion that vanishes? Is that a trick too?
It’s not all that reassuring—as far as investing in the market goes—to make oneself accept that it is all because so many people stopped selling and buying product, and that companies spent through cash reserves to meet payroll and pay for raw materials until nothing was left (not even credit)—and that’s really why a company with a market cap of billions last year now sells like a penny stock.
The fellow left holding the hideously shrunken IRA is still left vaguely wondering where did the trillion (and my retirement) really go? (Dear Lord, imagine if they had managed to put Social Security into the market like they wanted to do! There are people for whom Social Security is all that is left in this ruin.)
BusinessWeek (12/15 issue) ran an article called “The Hidden Pension Threat”. Pension portfolios have been hit as hard as anyone else. A company whose pension was fully funded a year ago suddenly finds itself underfunded by millions upon millions due to the collapse in stock values.
This happens just as the 2006 Pension Protection Act kicks in with its requirement that pension plans must have enough funds on hand to cover present AND FUTURE obligations. The suddenly cash strapped companies (whose products have stopped selling) must now come up millions in cash to cover the Wall Street shortfall that hammered its pension plan.
Guess where that leads? The quickest way for any company to improve cash flow is to lay off bodies. And what, do you suppose, more layoffs will do for the stock market and retirees IRAs?
Just how much confidence do people have on future prospects on Main Street or Wall Street? On National Public Radio I heard a brief note this morning: For the first time ever the Government is issuing treasuries with a Zero interest rate. In other words, Uncle Sam will hold your money for you and give you back exactly what you put in. No interest, no income. People are desperate enough to buy these.
The horrifying thing about this situation is that it is not just that some arcane law of physics no longer applies—all those things Barron’s, the Wall Street Journal, and the financial advisors told us to do no longer apply.
Invest prudently – and you can be just as broke as the guy who didn’t invest at all. Revise the old clause in the will, “Being of sane and sound mind, I spent every penny before I died”. Have it read, “Being of sane and sound mind, I spent it all while it still had some value.”
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Half Off At The Mall
Last night I drove down to a mall. (I hate malls. Always enjoyed walking down Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive or downtown Grand Rapids when I was a kid. Going store to store on an actual street seemed an adventure to me. Malls take the art of the artificial to a transcendent level.) But I did.
I was looking for a new pair of boots. (My old faithful pair has given up after twelve or more years.) The thing I noticed about walking into one store after another is how empty of shoppers they were. And, a full two weeks before Christmas, the desperate nature of the pricing.
Gift wrapping paper was 55% off—and, boy, was there lots of it! Rack after rack of clothing was advertised at 50% off. If that’s a true markdown, we’re talking about selling stuff at cost two weeks before the holiday.
Some racks were only 40% off; a few said 25%. But everything was marked down. The boots I finally bought were priced at $80 and I bought them for $35. For years and years, that wouldn’t have been true until the week after Christmas—if there were any left.
How much better could the sales on Black Friday possibly have been?
It seems to me we have been climbing this mountain toward bigger and more inclusive malls since some time in the 1950s. I remember they opened the first mall in Grand Rapids late that decade. I saw my first mall in suburban Detroit in 1954. It was considered quite a phenomenon at the time.
Back in that ancient time, “downtown” had a meaning. I’m not a big shopper—most men aren’t—but there was something truly enjoyable about traipsing up Monroe Avenue, going in and out of standalone stores, just looking.
There was a Planter’s Peanut store across the street from the old Pantlind Hotel (now the Amway Grand Plaza—but they’ll still let you walk from today’s glass and steel entrance back into the elegant 1913 lobby no longer used). To begin my shopping day, I’d buy a huge bag of hot, roasted red peanuts, half a pound for 50 cents, and munch my way up the Avenue for some serious shopping. That became my private Christmas ritual.
In the space of six or eight blocks there were three locally owned department stores, a Sears and a JC Penney store—plus a raft of smaller, independent stores. (My mother had a relationship with the hat buyer at Jacobsen’s—when a new shipment of hats came in, she’d set aside a few that my mom would like and give her a call.
I had a similar relationship with a small men’s store in New York once. My friend could buy my Christmas present by going in and asking Charlie what would go with my wardrobe.) I miss having the same stores there, year after year—greeting them like old friends.
Stores weren’t open each and every night. As a concession, they were open Monday nights only. Sales stayed where they belonged, after the holidays. As you entered a store, there were real Christmas carols playing—not the secular holiday tunes of today.
On the occasion when you can force me into a mall, like last night, I look at the row on row of characterless “shops” with their entire fronts open to the mall concourse. Dress shop after dress shop; shoe shop after shoe shop; none with anything to distinguish them. I wonder if there really is a dress shop for every three women in the United States? Can we afford them all?
Will this finally be the year when we weed out some of those “boutique” shops? Will we lose some of the department stores (with much less variety than the real ones used to have—the ones the malls drove out business) that seem to spring up like dandelions?
Fifty and forty and fifty-five percent off weeks before Christmas seems to give hope for that to happen. Maybe in some of the empty spaces they’ll bring back my old Planter’s store—with its hobbit sized peanut man beating out a tattoo on a fifty cent piece taped to the glass front window (a proper store ought to have a glass front windows). You could hear the tapping a block or two away.
It’s really not Christmas without it. Perhaps the economic reality that seems to be descending upon us will bring back something about shopping that I really enjoyed. Tap tap, tap tap, tap tap … . And a Merrie Christmas to us all—at 50% off.
I was looking for a new pair of boots. (My old faithful pair has given up after twelve or more years.) The thing I noticed about walking into one store after another is how empty of shoppers they were. And, a full two weeks before Christmas, the desperate nature of the pricing.
Gift wrapping paper was 55% off—and, boy, was there lots of it! Rack after rack of clothing was advertised at 50% off. If that’s a true markdown, we’re talking about selling stuff at cost two weeks before the holiday.
Some racks were only 40% off; a few said 25%. But everything was marked down. The boots I finally bought were priced at $80 and I bought them for $35. For years and years, that wouldn’t have been true until the week after Christmas—if there were any left.
How much better could the sales on Black Friday possibly have been?
It seems to me we have been climbing this mountain toward bigger and more inclusive malls since some time in the 1950s. I remember they opened the first mall in Grand Rapids late that decade. I saw my first mall in suburban Detroit in 1954. It was considered quite a phenomenon at the time.
Back in that ancient time, “downtown” had a meaning. I’m not a big shopper—most men aren’t—but there was something truly enjoyable about traipsing up Monroe Avenue, going in and out of standalone stores, just looking.
There was a Planter’s Peanut store across the street from the old Pantlind Hotel (now the Amway Grand Plaza—but they’ll still let you walk from today’s glass and steel entrance back into the elegant 1913 lobby no longer used). To begin my shopping day, I’d buy a huge bag of hot, roasted red peanuts, half a pound for 50 cents, and munch my way up the Avenue for some serious shopping. That became my private Christmas ritual.
In the space of six or eight blocks there were three locally owned department stores, a Sears and a JC Penney store—plus a raft of smaller, independent stores. (My mother had a relationship with the hat buyer at Jacobsen’s—when a new shipment of hats came in, she’d set aside a few that my mom would like and give her a call.
I had a similar relationship with a small men’s store in New York once. My friend could buy my Christmas present by going in and asking Charlie what would go with my wardrobe.) I miss having the same stores there, year after year—greeting them like old friends.
Stores weren’t open each and every night. As a concession, they were open Monday nights only. Sales stayed where they belonged, after the holidays. As you entered a store, there were real Christmas carols playing—not the secular holiday tunes of today.
On the occasion when you can force me into a mall, like last night, I look at the row on row of characterless “shops” with their entire fronts open to the mall concourse. Dress shop after dress shop; shoe shop after shoe shop; none with anything to distinguish them. I wonder if there really is a dress shop for every three women in the United States? Can we afford them all?
Will this finally be the year when we weed out some of those “boutique” shops? Will we lose some of the department stores (with much less variety than the real ones used to have—the ones the malls drove out business) that seem to spring up like dandelions?
Fifty and forty and fifty-five percent off weeks before Christmas seems to give hope for that to happen. Maybe in some of the empty spaces they’ll bring back my old Planter’s store—with its hobbit sized peanut man beating out a tattoo on a fifty cent piece taped to the glass front window (a proper store ought to have a glass front windows). You could hear the tapping a block or two away.
It’s really not Christmas without it. Perhaps the economic reality that seems to be descending upon us will bring back something about shopping that I really enjoyed. Tap tap, tap tap, tap tap … . And a Merrie Christmas to us all—at 50% off.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Lessons from British Foreign Policy
When I wrote that American foreign policy since 1607 has been simply a copy or remake of British foreign policy, I deliberately left out one significant aspect of Anglo-British policy. That was English policy toward the continent of Europe during most of the Nineteenth Century.
After 1815, England stood offshore from the continent, played balance of power politics with a nudge here or a threat there, and avoided participation in any European shooting war from 1815 to 1914—with one small exception when she was asked to participate in an anti-Russian coalition in the Crimea.
Contrast this to the Eighteenth Century in which British troops fought major battles on the continent in four world-wide wars. In the Nineteenth, she left Europe alone as long as her sea power was unchallenged.
She stood aloof as mortal enemy, France, went from Monarchy to Republic to Empire to Republic. She insisted on the Tripartite Treaty of 1830 when the United Netherlands split into two ineffectual parts but did nothing more. She stood idle as nearly every government in western and central Europe collapsed in revolutionary convulsions in 1848.
She did nothing as a series of German wars eliminated Austria as a Major Power, humiliated France and created a dangerously powerful united Germany. She stayed out of the Russo-Turkish War in 1878, only participating in the Congress of Berlin that year.
She watched, she put a thumb on the scale here or there, but she did nothing military. It worked because she had unchallenged control of the seas—all over the globe. When Spain, Russia, Austria, France and Prussia wanted to invade the United States in 1820, they couldn’t move without the approval of the British fleet—which never came.
When France wanted to fight Russia over the Holy Places in Turkish Jerusalem, not an army could move unless transported by the British navy. France and Spain could not invade Mexico in 1862 without the concurrence of Britain. All three went in together.
Few Americans are aware of how close the United States came to destruction in 1861-2. It was not the prowess of Robert E. Lee, but the threat of British naval intervention on behalf of the Confederacy that could have ended our existence. Only the dying Prince Albert, propped up in bed, saved us.
In other words, in the words of an American naval captain and author, Albert Thayer Mann, sea power was the key. Sea power was supreme. From Napoleon to the Kaiser there were no world wars—because sea power prevented them. (At some point someone has to say something about Rothschild financial power which certainly prevented wars in the early 19th Century, but the real teeth lay with the British navy.)
With all of our concentration on top-of-the line land vehicles and army special forces, Americans have possibly forgotten Thayer’s point. The British army during the Pax Britannica was tiny. It was good for colonial wars, period.
It might truly be said that if we continue to rule the waves, what happens on the land masses of Africa, Asia and Europe, are essentially insignificant. Perhaps we can back off and give a nudge here, make an unspoken threat there. But if we keep control of the skies over our fleets (with carriers) and maintain our capacity to destroy any fleet that might challenge us, our need to send in troops (for any but rather silly ideological reasons—like Iraq and Vietnam) will be minimal.
We must learn the core premise of Balance of Power politics—as articulated by England’s Prime Minister Palmerston: “A Great Power has no friends, only interests.” Bluntly put, “We don’t care if you are Communists or cannibals, as long as you allow us to make money trading with you, and you do not challenge us at sea.”
This is a British policy we might consider emulating. It worked. It prevented major war in a divided and fractious Europe. Only when Germany decided to go head to head with England in the area of naval power, did she finally become entangled in the alliances that toppled over on themselves in 1914.
As World War I shows us, disengagement won’t last forever, but it may provide us with a long and peaceful run, as it did Britain. Right now, we’re letting our navy slip badly. There is a real question, as the Russian navy roams the Caribbean freely (as a reaction to our foolish provocations in Eastern Europe and the former soviet block nations) whether we have enough naval muscle off our southern coast to control those waters effectively.
That question had better never arise seriously. (We have too many indigenous enemies down there.) Back off the fun stuff with tanks and M-16s, and put your money where your navy (and naval air arm) is.
That’s where your oil and your without which not metals that keep a modern society come from—the areas that our navy can control. Here, we could learn from Imperial Britain. Maybe we’d better, fast.
After 1815, England stood offshore from the continent, played balance of power politics with a nudge here or a threat there, and avoided participation in any European shooting war from 1815 to 1914—with one small exception when she was asked to participate in an anti-Russian coalition in the Crimea.
Contrast this to the Eighteenth Century in which British troops fought major battles on the continent in four world-wide wars. In the Nineteenth, she left Europe alone as long as her sea power was unchallenged.
She stood aloof as mortal enemy, France, went from Monarchy to Republic to Empire to Republic. She insisted on the Tripartite Treaty of 1830 when the United Netherlands split into two ineffectual parts but did nothing more. She stood idle as nearly every government in western and central Europe collapsed in revolutionary convulsions in 1848.
She did nothing as a series of German wars eliminated Austria as a Major Power, humiliated France and created a dangerously powerful united Germany. She stayed out of the Russo-Turkish War in 1878, only participating in the Congress of Berlin that year.
She watched, she put a thumb on the scale here or there, but she did nothing military. It worked because she had unchallenged control of the seas—all over the globe. When Spain, Russia, Austria, France and Prussia wanted to invade the United States in 1820, they couldn’t move without the approval of the British fleet—which never came.
When France wanted to fight Russia over the Holy Places in Turkish Jerusalem, not an army could move unless transported by the British navy. France and Spain could not invade Mexico in 1862 without the concurrence of Britain. All three went in together.
Few Americans are aware of how close the United States came to destruction in 1861-2. It was not the prowess of Robert E. Lee, but the threat of British naval intervention on behalf of the Confederacy that could have ended our existence. Only the dying Prince Albert, propped up in bed, saved us.
In other words, in the words of an American naval captain and author, Albert Thayer Mann, sea power was the key. Sea power was supreme. From Napoleon to the Kaiser there were no world wars—because sea power prevented them. (At some point someone has to say something about Rothschild financial power which certainly prevented wars in the early 19th Century, but the real teeth lay with the British navy.)
With all of our concentration on top-of-the line land vehicles and army special forces, Americans have possibly forgotten Thayer’s point. The British army during the Pax Britannica was tiny. It was good for colonial wars, period.
It might truly be said that if we continue to rule the waves, what happens on the land masses of Africa, Asia and Europe, are essentially insignificant. Perhaps we can back off and give a nudge here, make an unspoken threat there. But if we keep control of the skies over our fleets (with carriers) and maintain our capacity to destroy any fleet that might challenge us, our need to send in troops (for any but rather silly ideological reasons—like Iraq and Vietnam) will be minimal.
We must learn the core premise of Balance of Power politics—as articulated by England’s Prime Minister Palmerston: “A Great Power has no friends, only interests.” Bluntly put, “We don’t care if you are Communists or cannibals, as long as you allow us to make money trading with you, and you do not challenge us at sea.”
This is a British policy we might consider emulating. It worked. It prevented major war in a divided and fractious Europe. Only when Germany decided to go head to head with England in the area of naval power, did she finally become entangled in the alliances that toppled over on themselves in 1914.
As World War I shows us, disengagement won’t last forever, but it may provide us with a long and peaceful run, as it did Britain. Right now, we’re letting our navy slip badly. There is a real question, as the Russian navy roams the Caribbean freely (as a reaction to our foolish provocations in Eastern Europe and the former soviet block nations) whether we have enough naval muscle off our southern coast to control those waters effectively.
That question had better never arise seriously. (We have too many indigenous enemies down there.) Back off the fun stuff with tanks and M-16s, and put your money where your navy (and naval air arm) is.
That’s where your oil and your without which not metals that keep a modern society come from—the areas that our navy can control. Here, we could learn from Imperial Britain. Maybe we’d better, fast.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Return of the Queen?
So Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg has called Governor David Paterson of New York and indicated an interest in being appointed to Hilary’s Senate Seat—should the latter be confirmed as Secretary of State. Barring an almost incredible stumble, there is possibly America’s first woman President.
If appointed this January, Caroline would have to run in a special election in 2010 and, again, for the regular election in 2012. That should not be a problem. There will be plenty of money from all kinds of sources, and she will, in the words of cousin, Robert, have the vigorous support of “more Kennedy’s than you’ve ever seen before.”
Indeed, she will wind a horn so compelling as not heard on this continent since Father Abraham summoned volunteer soldiers to put down the secessionists in 1861. It all but sends chills up an old man’s spine to imagine who all might come out for her.
And she might just be worth all the folderol. As my wife put it, to the extent she is a Kennedy, she seems more like Rose—with a touch of Joe—than Jack. Those were tough, competent people. She also seems to have the steel that went into Jackie’s backbone—a fierce woman who took the bit of celebrity fluff that was her husband and single handedly made him into a monumental legend.
Caroline comes from awesome stock: Jackie, Rose and Joe—and don’t forget brother-in-law Bobbie, of whom Joe said, “He’s like me.” On top of that she inherits the mantle (Jackie-made) of her martyred father. She is also the niece of Teddy, who has become one of the most effective senators of the past forty years.
She’s seems very unlike her brother. He, poor lad, had his one moment of glory when, at age three, he saluted his daddy’s casket on the capitol steps (I remember standing across the street that day and watching—it’s a memory that still brings tears to my eyes).
After that, John John never seemed sure of his direction or his bearings. Tragic though his death was, it was an apt summation of his life—getting lost in a fog, confusing up and down, and crashing into the sea. God rest him.
Caroline never seems to have gotten lost or confused. She married a man who could afford her the privacy and security in which to raise a family securely (what Jackie was looking for in Onassis, but never obtained). She flew contentedly below the radar until this job was done.
Now that this phase is done, thinking of Tolkien, she seems ready to cast off the gray cloak and reveal the White Wizard beneath. My suspicion is that we are going to see one smart, tough lady underneath any velvet gloves she may wear. She’ll probably be much savvier than Hilary.
Interesting development to say the least. Of course, Governor Paterson could put a wrench in the works by refusing to appoint her. There are many, many other interested persons. Probably some that he owes more to.
But Caroline brings some practical things to the job—huge name recognition for keeping the seat in the Democratic column no matter what happens in Washington, a huge draw for money. Many, many allies who could help Paterson, too. And Paterson has to sense that he’d be getting in the way of some kind of historical destiny by saying “no”. (Who wants that as his legacy?)
Who needs all the Kennedys and their friends as enemies? Boy, would he have them. That thought—remember the old Irish Mafia?—has to give any politician on the East Coast pause. Furthermore, a new Democratic president takes office in January who doesn’t owe anybody in New York like he owes Caroline
I don’t often get terribly emotional about politicians, but if that lady were to run in 2012 or 16, and I were still around to vote, I cannot imagine anyone my fellow Republicans could run against her who could keep my fingers from twitching toward the Democratic column.
After all, “Once there was a Camelot” is a whale of a line (even if the real Camelot was probably a broken down Roman villa)—and it’s certainly time to bring back Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.
If appointed this January, Caroline would have to run in a special election in 2010 and, again, for the regular election in 2012. That should not be a problem. There will be plenty of money from all kinds of sources, and she will, in the words of cousin, Robert, have the vigorous support of “more Kennedy’s than you’ve ever seen before.”
Indeed, she will wind a horn so compelling as not heard on this continent since Father Abraham summoned volunteer soldiers to put down the secessionists in 1861. It all but sends chills up an old man’s spine to imagine who all might come out for her.
And she might just be worth all the folderol. As my wife put it, to the extent she is a Kennedy, she seems more like Rose—with a touch of Joe—than Jack. Those were tough, competent people. She also seems to have the steel that went into Jackie’s backbone—a fierce woman who took the bit of celebrity fluff that was her husband and single handedly made him into a monumental legend.
Caroline comes from awesome stock: Jackie, Rose and Joe—and don’t forget brother-in-law Bobbie, of whom Joe said, “He’s like me.” On top of that she inherits the mantle (Jackie-made) of her martyred father. She is also the niece of Teddy, who has become one of the most effective senators of the past forty years.
She’s seems very unlike her brother. He, poor lad, had his one moment of glory when, at age three, he saluted his daddy’s casket on the capitol steps (I remember standing across the street that day and watching—it’s a memory that still brings tears to my eyes).
After that, John John never seemed sure of his direction or his bearings. Tragic though his death was, it was an apt summation of his life—getting lost in a fog, confusing up and down, and crashing into the sea. God rest him.
Caroline never seems to have gotten lost or confused. She married a man who could afford her the privacy and security in which to raise a family securely (what Jackie was looking for in Onassis, but never obtained). She flew contentedly below the radar until this job was done.
Now that this phase is done, thinking of Tolkien, she seems ready to cast off the gray cloak and reveal the White Wizard beneath. My suspicion is that we are going to see one smart, tough lady underneath any velvet gloves she may wear. She’ll probably be much savvier than Hilary.
Interesting development to say the least. Of course, Governor Paterson could put a wrench in the works by refusing to appoint her. There are many, many other interested persons. Probably some that he owes more to.
But Caroline brings some practical things to the job—huge name recognition for keeping the seat in the Democratic column no matter what happens in Washington, a huge draw for money. Many, many allies who could help Paterson, too. And Paterson has to sense that he’d be getting in the way of some kind of historical destiny by saying “no”. (Who wants that as his legacy?)
Who needs all the Kennedys and their friends as enemies? Boy, would he have them. That thought—remember the old Irish Mafia?—has to give any politician on the East Coast pause. Furthermore, a new Democratic president takes office in January who doesn’t owe anybody in New York like he owes Caroline
I don’t often get terribly emotional about politicians, but if that lady were to run in 2012 or 16, and I were still around to vote, I cannot imagine anyone my fellow Republicans could run against her who could keep my fingers from twitching toward the Democratic column.
After all, “Once there was a Camelot” is a whale of a line (even if the real Camelot was probably a broken down Roman villa)—and it’s certainly time to bring back Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Finally, an AMERICAN foreign policy?
We’ve just elected a man President who spent his entire campaign promising “change”. As I thought about that, it dawned on me that there is one aspect of American national policy that hasn’t been changed—or even looked at—for decades or, possibly, centuries.
It’s been assumed. Our foreign policy has been assumed and followed without question or evaluation ever since John Smith set out to explore the American coast to find a sea route to China. Even as an independent nation, we have just walked into it. Without evaluation, without thought. Especially since 1945.
Our current foreign policy was essentially made in London by British statesmen after the Napoleonic Wars—roughly from 1815 on. It hasn’t really changed since then. We have simply stepped into British shoes and followed their lead—especially after World War II.
British/American foreign policy has consisted of three major, unchanging objectives since the Congress of Vienna that recreated a post-Napoleonic World. One) Control of the oceans; two) opposition to Russian aggrandizement, and three, control of the China trade.
During the Nineteenth Century the Anglo-American conflict with Russia was characterized as a struggle between the British whale (navy) and the Russian elephant (army). Each was seen as dominant in its own area but, with few exceptions, neither was ever actually able to get at the other. Nor much changed in the last century.
In the 1940s this struggle between autocratic Russia (the Soviets) and democratic Britain/America was called the “Cold War”. But it was really no different than the Nineteenth Century struggle.
Throughout the Nineteenth Century version of the Cold War, British interests spread across the Asian land mass, facing Russia at every point. Britain backed the Muslim Turkish Empire (kept it in existence) that had been warring against Russia for centuries, as a way of holding the Russians in check from the Mediterranean to the border of Persia (Iran).
By 1907, Britain had effectively split Iran in two—with Britain controlling the oil-rich south and Russia having primary say in the northern third. In between was a quasi independent Iran that came under the rule of the British backed Pahlavi dynasty. When the Shah was overthrown in 1953, British MI6 and the CIA worked together to restore his rule—making Iran an anti-Russian state.
Coming out of Pakistan, part of the British Empire until 1947 and, after that, an American Cold War ally, the Anglo-Americans kept tabs on Russian/Soviet activities in Afghanistan—going back to the 1840s. (The Afghans got so annoyed with this game that they wiped out an entire British army back then.)
Then came the Pacific confrontation. The Russians chewed began chewing up pieces of China. Keeping China open to Western trade has been a cornerstone of Anglo-American foreign policy since before Jamestown was founded. Wherever the British navy went in the Nineteenth Century, an American gunboat—or just a freighter with a single cannon slung over the stern—went along.
Britain propped up an ailing Manchu dynasty (that would otherwise have collapsed 50 years earlier) as a block to foreign interests in China and keep her interests paramount. We stepped in subsequently and propped up an equally sick Kuomintang regime. The British lost their pet regime to Sun Yat-sen in 1911; we lost our pet to Mao in 1949. (Now the Chinese prop up our economy. Such is the irony of history.)
The Russian fleet at Vladivostok remained a threat until the Japanese sank it for us in 1904. In the meantime, the British squeezed Russia out of the San Francisco in 1841, and we ended the Russian-American company by buying Alaska and all Russian West coast interests in 1867.
(Think how differently the Twentieth Century Cold War might have gone if the Russians had had a major military presence in this hemisphere!)
When Britain’s power effectively collapsed at the end of World War II, we stepped into every foxhole abandoned by a Tommy. Our fleets ruled the Mediterranean, the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean. Different flag, same basic policy.
(Worth noting that the British collapse in the late 1940s was very much our doing. We made sure, by manipulation of the provisions of Lend Lease, that Britain accumulated no cash reserves during the War. When it was over, we stopped Lend Lease on a dime—leaving England with 12 million troops to feed, clothe, medicate and transport around the globe, without a six pence in the coffers. Their Empire, and their Cold War, was effectively over by 1948.)
Okay, we’ve inherited Britain’s foreign policy and much of the territory she controlled. Without thinking about it, we just carried on—taking up Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”.
Maybe it’s time we put the burden down for a moment and thought about it. We’re not England. The Congress of Vienna was a long time ago. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for a change.
It will take us awhile to figure out just what that change should be. When you’ve been pointed in the same direction for 400 years, it’s hard to think of going any other way. So this won’t be easy. It may be as wrenching as the Civil Rights Movement or the Civil War—a whole new way of viewing the world.
But it would be change that REALLY would be change.
It’s been assumed. Our foreign policy has been assumed and followed without question or evaluation ever since John Smith set out to explore the American coast to find a sea route to China. Even as an independent nation, we have just walked into it. Without evaluation, without thought. Especially since 1945.
Our current foreign policy was essentially made in London by British statesmen after the Napoleonic Wars—roughly from 1815 on. It hasn’t really changed since then. We have simply stepped into British shoes and followed their lead—especially after World War II.
British/American foreign policy has consisted of three major, unchanging objectives since the Congress of Vienna that recreated a post-Napoleonic World. One) Control of the oceans; two) opposition to Russian aggrandizement, and three, control of the China trade.
During the Nineteenth Century the Anglo-American conflict with Russia was characterized as a struggle between the British whale (navy) and the Russian elephant (army). Each was seen as dominant in its own area but, with few exceptions, neither was ever actually able to get at the other. Nor much changed in the last century.
In the 1940s this struggle between autocratic Russia (the Soviets) and democratic Britain/America was called the “Cold War”. But it was really no different than the Nineteenth Century struggle.
Throughout the Nineteenth Century version of the Cold War, British interests spread across the Asian land mass, facing Russia at every point. Britain backed the Muslim Turkish Empire (kept it in existence) that had been warring against Russia for centuries, as a way of holding the Russians in check from the Mediterranean to the border of Persia (Iran).
By 1907, Britain had effectively split Iran in two—with Britain controlling the oil-rich south and Russia having primary say in the northern third. In between was a quasi independent Iran that came under the rule of the British backed Pahlavi dynasty. When the Shah was overthrown in 1953, British MI6 and the CIA worked together to restore his rule—making Iran an anti-Russian state.
Coming out of Pakistan, part of the British Empire until 1947 and, after that, an American Cold War ally, the Anglo-Americans kept tabs on Russian/Soviet activities in Afghanistan—going back to the 1840s. (The Afghans got so annoyed with this game that they wiped out an entire British army back then.)
Then came the Pacific confrontation. The Russians chewed began chewing up pieces of China. Keeping China open to Western trade has been a cornerstone of Anglo-American foreign policy since before Jamestown was founded. Wherever the British navy went in the Nineteenth Century, an American gunboat—or just a freighter with a single cannon slung over the stern—went along.
Britain propped up an ailing Manchu dynasty (that would otherwise have collapsed 50 years earlier) as a block to foreign interests in China and keep her interests paramount. We stepped in subsequently and propped up an equally sick Kuomintang regime. The British lost their pet regime to Sun Yat-sen in 1911; we lost our pet to Mao in 1949. (Now the Chinese prop up our economy. Such is the irony of history.)
The Russian fleet at Vladivostok remained a threat until the Japanese sank it for us in 1904. In the meantime, the British squeezed Russia out of the San Francisco in 1841, and we ended the Russian-American company by buying Alaska and all Russian West coast interests in 1867.
(Think how differently the Twentieth Century Cold War might have gone if the Russians had had a major military presence in this hemisphere!)
When Britain’s power effectively collapsed at the end of World War II, we stepped into every foxhole abandoned by a Tommy. Our fleets ruled the Mediterranean, the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean. Different flag, same basic policy.
(Worth noting that the British collapse in the late 1940s was very much our doing. We made sure, by manipulation of the provisions of Lend Lease, that Britain accumulated no cash reserves during the War. When it was over, we stopped Lend Lease on a dime—leaving England with 12 million troops to feed, clothe, medicate and transport around the globe, without a six pence in the coffers. Their Empire, and their Cold War, was effectively over by 1948.)
Okay, we’ve inherited Britain’s foreign policy and much of the territory she controlled. Without thinking about it, we just carried on—taking up Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”.
Maybe it’s time we put the burden down for a moment and thought about it. We’re not England. The Congress of Vienna was a long time ago. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for a change.
It will take us awhile to figure out just what that change should be. When you’ve been pointed in the same direction for 400 years, it’s hard to think of going any other way. So this won’t be easy. It may be as wrenching as the Civil Rights Movement or the Civil War—a whole new way of viewing the world.
But it would be change that REALLY would be change.
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