Category Archives: Philosophy/Ideas

My Kinda Rich Guy

Philosophy/Ideas

 

I like Warren Buffet even though I am jealous of him. It is hard to like someone you are jealous of, but I do. I wish I could be like him, rich, smart, and kind.

Buffet is famous for being rich. In American that makes you a star. But Buffett is more than a rich man. He is a thinking man. Those don’t always go together. Take a look at the current President of the United States and his sons (Trumps). Wealth and brains don’t always go together. In fact, more often than not they are mortal enemies as strange as that might sound.

I remember when Buffet pointed out how absurd it was that at Berkshire Hathaway, his company where he is President, his secretary pays tax at a higher rate than he does. And he is one of the richest men in America. In fact, he said, in his office he pays a lower over all tax rate than everyone else in his office. That is crazy. And Buffet unlike most rich men, knows that and is not afraid to say so. Most rich men think they are wholeheartedly entitled to their privileges and if any politician touches those privileges  he or she  had better look out. There is no better recent example than our Minister of Finance in Canada who has attracted astonishing vitriol by his suggestions that he would do that in Canada.

People who have privileges invariably see their privileges as inherently right and rational. They see any challenges to those privileges as completely irrational if not insane. It is very difficult to see the sense of anything that tends to undermine one’s  own  sense of privilege and dominance. Yet Buffet is able to do that.

I heard him say on television that the current theory of trickle down economics that is so beloved by rich Americans in particular, but actually rich people everywhere, actually makes no sense. According to this theory, the way to help poor people is to give more money to rich people! Then the rich people will spend that extra money in ways that benefit the poor people by creating jobs. The nonsense of such a position is difficult to ignore. Only people arguing in favor of a firmly held belief are able to do so. Buffet is able to see it. As he said on CBS’s Sunday Morning, “Trickle down is not working well. Wealth has gushed up.” Or as some pundit said, “The only thing that trickles down is piss.”

Anyone who looks at the facts of  how wealth has exponentially exploded in the hands of rich people while poor or ordinary people have seen their incomes flatten during the reign of trickle down economics in the US since its christening by St. Ronald Reagan in the 1980s will see that. People like Donald Trump will not see that because they are blind to what is against their interests. I love a rich man like Buffet who can see that. He is my kinda rich man.

August 25, 2017 London England to Steinbach Manitoba: It was worth the trip

2017 European River Cruise, Philosophy/Ideas, Travel,

            We all have our reasons for wanting to go home. I am rarely ready to go home. I love to travel,but eventually I want to go home, but it takes some time. Once I am ready—once I am on the way—then I wish I was home at the touch of a button. This is particularly true of air travel which has become increasingly brutal. It used to be much more enjoyable. Those days are long gone Sally.

The most interesting part of the trip home was the Heathrow airport in London. That sounds crazy. It is crazy. What made it interesting was Shoheha. I hope I spelled her name right. She was a crazy Iranian woman we met in the airport. Chris and I were sitting in the airport waiting for our flight to begin. This is not usually the most pleasant task, but a book always makes it bearable. Shoheha was sitting next to us. She had a broken arm and was carrying a large carryon bag with the good arm. She asked me where I had purchased my cup of coffee and after I pointed out the kiosk nearby, she ambled off carrying her massive bag. Chris, being much smarter (and better) than me, told me to go and help her buy coffee. It would be impossible for her to carry the bag and coffee with one good arm. Dutifully, I got up to help. I offered to carry her bag while she bought coffee. Chris said a real gentleman would have bought her coffee. Right again. When I carried her bag I was astonished at the weight. It was HERAVY! Shoheha explained that she had been visiting her family in Iran and was going back home to Ottawa. Her mother—like mothers everywhere—insisted on filling her bag with Iranian culinary treats that you can’t get anywhere except from moms. And like all moms, she brooked no objections from her daughter. It did not matter how heavy the load or inconvenient the huge bag, Shoheha had no choice but to take it back home to her family who would no doubt be overjoyed at the treat bag. Easy for them to say.

We were stuck in Heathrow for an extra hour and half, while what the airline called a simple electronic problem that would be fixed soon” was dealt with. Assurances that the delay would be brief vaporized into the ether like such assurances usually do. Thankfully, we have a pleasant conversation with our new friend from Iran.

Naturally we missed our connecting flight in Toronto and managed to text our friend Garry who was picking us up, that we would be delayed while we waited for the next flight. We were very happy there was a next flight that day. A couple of hours late was no biggie. Our friend disconcertingly advised us he would wait for us in the bar. He might be intoxicated, but he would be there he assured us.

Annoyingly the flight to Winnipeg from Toronto varied between stifling hot and bone-chilling cold. No one would call it a pleasant flight.

We did arrive in time completely exhausted ready for home where, to quote Simon and Garfunkel,  all our words would come back to us like emptiness in harmony. But we were filled with joy. It is always great to travel; it is always great to come home.

I love to travel. I think I inherited this from my mother and father. They loved to travel. I am like that and my children are like that. Chris got infected with it the first trip we ever made with my parents to Grand Forks North Dakota .

I often try to figure out why we love to travel. What is so special about it? I think travel is learning. We learn about new places and new people that we would not encounter back home.

Mark Kingwell that great philosopher from Toronto (yes we have them there) got it right. He said travel was like a drug, not just because it is addictive, but also because it alters our consciousness. It affects the brain. It can challenge our routine way of thinking and, as a result, it can change us. One is not the same person after a trip as before.

Alfred Lord Tennyson on the other hand got it backwards I think when he said, “I am a part of everything I meet.” I rather think that everything I meet is now a part of me. I carry a small part of Luzerne Switzerland, Kőln Germany, Strasbourg France, Amsterdam, Paris and London with me. And I will carry them with me forever. I think that makes me a better person. I know others will say, not good enough. They are right. Never good enough.

The essential lesson is to heed the wise words of that children’s book many of read when we first learned to read: “Stop, look, and listen.” That is what it is all about. If we do that, we will enjoy the travel for we will experience something we cannot experience back home. It is not there no matter how much we love our homes. As Robertson Davies said, “People are very very hungry for some kind of contact with a greater world than the one they can immediately perceive.” This is true in more than one sense.

We do not travel to see new things, or new places, or even new people. Henry Miller was correct when he said, “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing.” We want to see things, places, and people differently than we did before. We want to change. We want to become better.

Steinbach has this crazy motto: ‘It’s worth the trip.’ Every place is worth the trip. If we see nothing worth seeing that does not mean that we went to the wrong places. It means we were not worth the trip. We did not bring our minds to the trip and then the trip is worthless. Then it is not worth the trip, but we have no one to blame but ourselves. Henry David Thoreau that great American thinker said, “It is not what you look at that matters, but what you see.”

Thoreau’s friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, also a great thinker, said, “If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps. He only is rightly immortal, to whom all things are immortal.”

To do that we have to be open to new experiences. Sometimes that is difficult. But we will be rewarded if we do. One of my favorite philosophers, Albert Camus, who haunted one of the cafés we passed by on trip in Paris, understood this well. He said, “All of a man’s life consists of the search for those few special images in the presence of which his soul first opened.” We want to open up our souls. That’s why we travel.

And once our souls are opened then we can truly see. Then we are able to appreciate what we have back home. It is special too. It also is a place of wonder. If we have learned something on the trip then we can bring that new knowledge to our old home. As T.S. Eliot wisely said,

 

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

 

Then we are able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, which to my view is what great art is all about. Finding the miraculous in the common. I hope I found this on this trip. I think I did. It was truly worth the trip. I can hardly wait for the next trip.

 

Man bad; Woman Good

Philosophy/Ideas,

 

A friend of mine once told me that every newly married man should learn one very important principle. This principle is so important that once learned a married man will be able to lead a fairly tranquil life. Without that principle every married man is bound for serious grief, he suggested. That principle is this: Man bad; woman good. Once he learns that principle every married man will realize that in disputes with his spouse that principle will quickly direct the married man to understanding what needs to be done to bring tranquility into his life. After that life is simple. Such a principle, my friend claimed, had saved his marriage. It helped him learn that it was important to compromise with his female spouse. Everyone needs to learn that.

Of course that principle  was offered in a spirit of jocularity. In fact, it was obviously a sexist remark.  He did not really mean it. At least not entirely. Lately however I have been thinking that this statement is absolutely true. Men are bad; women are good (at least in comparison to men).

The year 2017 has so far been an astounding year of revelations of sexual assault and sexual harassment one after the other. Nearly every day another celebrity is revealed as a cad or a predator. Are all men cads, or worse?

Many of us have got distracted by discussions about whether Al Franken, one of the men who allegedly has seriously mistreated women and perhaps even assaulted them, should resign. We spend time arguing whether or not Roy Moore should be rejected by the Republican Party in Alabama as a suitable candidate for the U.S. Senate because of allegations of impropriety with very young girls. We even debate whether or not the President of the United States ought to resign as a result of admissions of sexual assault that he made , corroborated, later by numerous women. All of these are important issues. However there is an even more fundamental issue that is rarely discussed.

What is becoming clear—if it was ever opaque—is that we live in a society suffused with male dominance and privilege. It is so prevalent that it has become entirely invisible. It is everywhere. As more and more men are revealed to be harassers if not predators, it is clear that men have not understood this. It is difficult to process that one’s privileged position is not earned. It seems natural. Everyone who is in a position of dominance tends to see any challenges to that dominance as irrational, or worse. Men are exactly like that.

Dominance seems so natural to men that immediately upon reflection the man who is “outed” realizes he has been morally blind. I am not here to say that I am entirely blameless. I wonder if there are any blameless men. That power imbalance is so pervasive that it has been difficult for any man to escape taint. All men seem infected. That is a humbling thought.

Men have so often failed to understand that the woman in front of them is a person. A real live woman. Not an object for jokes in poor taste. Not an object that can be treated disrespectfully. Not an object for unwanted advances. For decades—no forever—men have dominated women and they have not been able to see the sense of anyone who challenged that power. Challenges did not make sense. It is time for men to see what they have done. They have created a society that is deeply unfriendly to women.

Until the culture of dominance is exposed for what it is, this power imbalance will never be successfully challenged. How can we change? How can men learn that they have been bad? What can be done about it? This is the deep underlying issue that we should be talking about. Until we do things won’t change.

It is not entirely true that man is bad and woman is good, but there has been enough male misconduct that has been starkly revealed that men should start to presume that they are bad until proven innocent. Men have a lot to atone for. But first men must learn. Then—perhaps—they will be able to see. Only then can they deny that men are bad.

When it comes to guns the Brits are smarter than Americans (and Canadians)       

Philosophy/Ideas,

 

We Canadians always brag about our low murder rate by guns compared to our neighbors to the south. There is nothing wrong with that; it is worth bragging about. Yet England makes even our death by gun rate seem high. England has always been more civilized than us when it comes to gun violence. Most of their policemen still don’t carry guns. Americans could learn a lot from The Brits. Come to think of it, Canadians could learn a lot from the Brits.

In England the gun homicide rate is about 1 for every million people. England has a population of about 56 million so that adds up to about 50 to 60 gun homicides per year. Compare that to the U.S. where with a population of about 320,000,000 there are about 8,124 murders by gunshot. That amounts to about 25 gun homicides per million. That is 25 times higher than Britain.

Or look at it another way–in the United States where there are 160 times as many gun homicides than Britain in a country that is only 6 times larger in population than Britain.

According to Statistics Canada, in our country in 2015, the rate of handgun related homicides was 0.28 per 100,000 population. That amounts to about 2.8 per million. Almost 3 times higher than Britain but still a heck of a lot lower than the U.S. The American rate is about 8 times higher than Canada’s rate.

After a mass shooting at a school in Britain in 1996 their government pursued a legislative ban on assault rifles and handguns and tightened background checks. From then to 2013, a total of 200,000 guns were taken off the streets. Military style guns were banned completely. Given that the US has a population about 6 times as large, they would have to take 1,200,000 guns off the street to create a proportionate response. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Britain has 6.5 guns per 100 people. The U.S. has 101 guns per 100 people. Who is getting it right?

No matter what Donald Trump or the NRA says, it does not appear that more guns mean more safety.

Religious nuts are coming out of the woodwork: Obama blamed for Eclipse

Philosophy/Ideas

 

 

I read about an American televangelist and survivalist Jim Bakker who blamed Obama for the eclipse of 2017. He said that God had been angered by 8 years of Obama’s presidency. That is an astonishing claim, since the sun went down during the Trump presidency. Why is that proof that God hated Obama instead of Trump? Some American religious nuts are just plain whacky.

Bakker claimed on his online radio show, “God came to me in a dream and said I should tell the world that I am plunging the world into darkness to remind people I’m still mad at the Obama years.” What did Obama do that was so bad (besides being black of course)? According to Bakker, “Obama legalized witchcraft, sexual deviants getting married and schools started teaching transgenderism.” He added that it would take 8 years of a Trump presidency to “get right with God.”

Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Loetz saw the eclipse as a sure sign of rapidly approaching doom. Her brother Franklin Graham, remember, was one of the many Americans who accused Obama of being a Muslim. The crazies in America are really coming out of the woodwork.

Of course it is not entirely unreasonable to predict doom with Trump in the presidency. But to blame it all on Obama seems wildly irrational. Only in America.

 

Are Powerful White guys the most vulnerable group in America?

Fat Opinions, Philosophy/Ideas

We have been in he middle of what could be called the Dog Days. Or rather, the Bad Dog Days. Every day it seems that one more rich and powerful white guy is accused of sexual assault or harassment. We have to remember that these men have not yet been convicted and have to be presumed to be innocent. Yet this troubling fact raises some interesting questions.

A good friend of mine recently told me that he felt sorry for NHL hockey players. He said, “Imagine how difficult it must be for them to go on a date? They are completely vulnerable.” “Can they even date?” he asked.

I admit there are some men who have been maliciously and falsely accused of sexual assaults. It happens, but I believe it is rare. Very rare. On the other hand, many women have been sexually assaulted and few of them have successfully reported the crime and then even fewer see the assaulters charged and then fewer again see their tormentors actually convicted. To get to that stage the woman has to go through a legal wood chipper. Often her life is reduced to a black hole of pain. I call it a black hole, because it is a place from which even light cannot escape. Only the bravest of women can survive the challenge reasonably intact.

It is a fact of modern society that most sexual assaults go unreported. According to Statistics Canada (2014) a “large majority of sexual assault [is] not reported to the police…Research has widely documented that sexual assault is an underreported crime…According to the 2014 GSS on Victimization, more than eight in 10 (83%) of sexual assault incidents were not reported to the police.”[1]

As if that is not bad enough, only a small percentage of those cases reported to the police lead to charges being laid against the perpetrator.

According to Statistics Canada again,

 

  • Over a six‑year period between 2009 and 2014, sexual assault cases experienced attrition at all levels of the criminal justice system: an accused was identified in three in five (59%) sexual assault incidents reported by police; less than half (43%) of sexual assault incidents resulted in a charge being laid; of these, half (49%) proceeded to court; of which just over half (55%) led to a conviction; of which just over half (56%) were sentenced to custody…
  • About 1 in 10 (12%) sexual assaults reported by police led to a criminal conviction, and 7% resulted in a custody sentence. This is compared with 23% and 8%, respectively, for physical assaults. [2]

 

The reasons for this are complex. Some history may help to explain it. The fact is that for centuries rape was not even treated as a serious offence. Let that sink in. Is that not astonishing? Today we think of it as one of the most serious offences yet for centuries it was more or less tolerated. Today we understand that rape combines pain, degradation, terror, trauma, an unjustified seizure of a woman’s means of propagating life, and a disturbing intrusion into her progeny, that often leads to long-lasting if not permanent damage to her body and psyche. Today we realize sexual assault is abhorrent. That was not always the case.

In the Old Testament the brothers of a raped woman were allowed to sell her to the rapist! Soldiers of course were routinely permitted to rape their captives, and kings could do as they pleased with thousands of concubines. What ISIS does today, was routine.

The 10 Commandments do not mention rape as a serious offence. The Bible considers it much more important not to take the name of the Lord in vain, or make carved images, or remembering the Sabbath. Now the 10 Commandments are pretty lame, but it is interesting to see what horrible offences are worse than rape that they warrant being on the list of the top 10. The 10th Commandment warns us not to covet anything that belongs to our neighbour. That includes his house, his wife, his servants or his ass. Important property and in that order. Clearly the wife is part of his property. In one passage in the Bible it even says that a married woman who is raped should be stoned to death. Not the rapist; the victim! Sharia law contains a similar provision. Rape was seen as an offense against the woman’s owner—her husband or father or if she was a slave the slave owner. No mention of it being an offense against her.

This clearly shows the place of woman at least in societies governed by 3 of the world’s major religions. Men were dominant and women were subordinate. That is how it has been for centuries. We have come a long way from this, but we have not come far enough. That culture still lingers and we continue to suffer from its legacy.

In recent times that dominance of men has diminished. Some men are pained by that lack of dominance. This has led to all kinds of psychological trauma in men. Many people experience a loss of power as deeply painful. Too often men react with blind belligerence when women challenge their dominance, or heaven forbid, “the liberal state.” That too often drives the men to irrational fury.

One of the reasons so few women even report sexual assaults to the police is the historical futility of such reports. The man usually gets off. Even if he does not, the woman is tortured in court by defence counsel. Many have expressed this as “being raped a second time.”

I have no statistics to back this up, but it is my firm belief that since only 12% of sexual assaults are reported, the number of false reports is much lower. Women don’t want to go to court against men who have assaulted them; surely much fewer want to go to court against men who have not assaulted them! I am not saying it never happens, I am just saying it is rare—very rare.

Women are particularly leery to report powerful men. The judicial system is severely slanted in favor of those who can afford the best legal counsel and in favor of those who have the respect of society—like powerful men, particularly white men. Like athletes for example. It takes an incredible amount of courage or folly to take on the powerful elite.

A couple of years ago I read a fascinating article in the New York Times by Ross Douthat. He wrote about assaults by Asian men in England, but many of his remarks are applicable to many other situations. This is what he said,

 

Show me what a culture values, prizes, puts on a pedestal, and I’ll tell you who is likely to get away with rape. In Catholic Boston or Catholic Ireland, that meant men robed in the vestments of the church. In Joe Paterno’s pigskin-mad Happy Valley, it meant a beloved football coach. In status-conscious, education-obsessed Manhattan, it meant charismatic teachers at an elite private school. In Hollywood and the wider culture industry — still the great undiscovered country of sexual exploitation, I suspect — it has often meant the famous and talented, from Roman Polanski to the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, robed in the authority of their celebrity and art. And in Rotherham, it meant men whose ethnic and religious background made them seem politically untouchable, and whose victims belonged to a class that both liberal and conservative elements in British society regard with condescension or contempt.

The point is that as a society changes, as what’s held sacred and who’s empowered shifts, so do the paths through which evil enters in, the prejudices and blind spots it exploits. So don’t expect tomorrow’s predators to look like yesterday’s. Don’t expect them to look like the figures your ideology or philosophy or faith would lead you to associate with exploitation. Expect them, instead, to look like the people whom you yourself would be most likely to respect, most afraid to challenge publicly, or least eager to vilify and hate. Because your assumptions and pieties are evil’s best opportunity, and your conventional wisdom is what’s most likely to condemn victims to their fate. [3]

 

So don’t expect the modern “successful” rapist to necessarily look like that ruffian in the alley. He may look like a “successful” business man, or celebrity, or hockey player.

Hockey players, like other professional athletes are routinely worshipped. Remember Iron Mike Tyson, the former Heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Surprisingly, perhaps, he was convicted of sexual assault and sent to jail. Then when he returned to the ring after serving his sentence he received a lengthy standing ovation. Now I can see that a criminal who has served his or her time should be accepted back into society. That is only fair. But what had he done to warrant a standing ovation?

Jordan Klepper referred to “the most vulnerable group in America–powerful white guys”. But he meant it as a joke. It is no joke. But powerful white guys are hardly the group we should be most concerned about helping. There are much more vulnerable people than that who deserve our concern.

[1] Shana Conroy and Adam Cotter, “Self-reported sexual assault in Canada, 2014” Statistics Canada (July 11, 2017)

[2] Shana Conroy and Adam Cotter, “Self-reported sexual assault in Canada, 2014” Statistics Canada (July 11, 2017)

 

[3] Ross Douthat, “Rape and Rotherham,” New York Times, (Sept. 6, 2014)

Serial Mass Killings

Philosophy/Ideas, ,

 

2017 has been incredible year. First Donald Trump took the oath of office as the President of the United States. What could be more credulity straining than that? Well how about killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500 more people from a Hotel in Vegas followed about a month later by another mass killing this time at a church in Texas where 26 were killed and 16 injured. I wonder how many of the people from the shooting in Las Vegas were out of the hospital by the time the next major mass killing occurred in Texas?

Many pundits keep repeating that there is nothing we can do about these shootings. We can’t predict where they’ll happen many of those pundits agree. In particular, Conservatives who don’t want any actions taken, except against Muslims, keep repeating that there is nothing we can do to predict where the next violent attack will happen.  Samantha B from Comedy News, my main source of news, pointed out a day or two before the Texas shooting, that there is in fact one pretty good predictor of where mass killings will occur. Most acts of mass killings actually have a common element. Actually they have 2. That is domestic violence and guns.

An organization called ‘Every town for Gun Safety’ did a large study of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016 and found there were 156 mass shootings in the U.S. during that time. 54% of those incidents related to domestic or family violence. As Samantha B said, “Mass shootings come in all male shapes and all male sizes, but most of them rehearse for it the same way.” [1] They rehearse by beating up a family member that is weaker than them. Usually that is a spouse, partner, or child. These are not brave men! These are men who see their dominance in jeopardy and can’t stand to think about that. So they lash out. They lash out at a vulnerable family member. They seldom lash out at someone stronger than them.

James Hodgkinson of Illinois, who authorities say shot a congressman and injured others at a ball field in Virginia in June of 2017, punched one woman in the face and dragged his young and defenseless daughter to the ground by her hair. Omar Mateen’s spouse reported that he regularly beat her. Remember Mateen was the mass murderer who killed 49 people and wounded 58 others in a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016. He briefly held the record for mass killings in America until the shootings in Vegas. In the US these records are continually broken. The latest suspect in the killing that just happened a coupe of days ago in Texas apparently was in a domestic dispute with his wife and for some reason killed his mother-in-law and 25 other Parishioners.

According to Jacquelyn Campbell, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, “there are 10 times as many women killed by a current boyfriend or husband or ex boyfriend or ex-husband as by a male stranger. The majority of this violence is perpetrated with fire arms.” Guns are of course the second predictor.

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said “Women are 5 times more likely to die from domestic violence when there are guns in their household.” To which, Samantha B said, “An abusive husband and gun is a deadly combination, like matches and gasoline, or men and gasoline, or men and everything else.” While it may seem unfair to blame men, the facts speak for themselves. This is overwhelmingly a male thing. And why is that?

Many of these men are uncomfortable with women that argue with them, that seem to think they are superior to them, and don’t accept their traditional role of subservience to men. This is a power thing. Men who see themselves as losing their power, even when they actually have very little power, get upset, and some of them behave badly.

Opponents of gun control repeatedly say it won’t help. Yet states that require background checks have seen a 46% decline in women shot by their domestic partners. Isn’t that impressive?

Police commonly admit that domestic calls are the most dangerous calls they respond to. Guns in the hands of those men are seldom good things for their partners or the police. Should we not control that?

Samantha B summed up the problem well, “Even if you don’t give a shit about domestic violence, abused women are the canary in the coal mine for mass shootings. If you take guns away form abusers you might be able to save more important non-female lives. ”[2] That’s a crazy way to talk about it, but these are crazy times. Particularly in America. 

[1] Samantha B, “Full Frontal,” (November 3, 2017)

[2] Samantha B, “Full Frontal,” (November 3, 2017)

The Opioid Crisis: Don’t buy medicine from a snake oil salesman or a New York Real estate Developer

Philosophy/Ideas, , ,

By now it is well known that opioid drugs such as OxyContin (oxycodone) and Percocet are ravaging North American society. Opioids are now responsible in the United States for causing about 37,000 deaths per year. Since the year 2,000 opioid deaths in the U.S. have quadrupled. That is without counting deaths from overdoes of heroin or fentanyl and other drugs. Some people overdose on these drugs after getting addicted to opioids.

How did this happen? In part the problem is that for decades medical doctors have been prescribing prescription opioids for all kinds of ailments, including fairly minor ones. This included things like toothaches, back pain, and the like. Their patients asked the doctors for help and the doctors gave it, even when it was probably not wise for many of these patients to get such prescriptions. We shouldn’t always get what we want. Of course, once people were addicted, Big Pharma was happy to oblige.

In the U.S, the Drug Enforcement Administration (‘DEA’) saw some astonishing efforts to fill prescriptions. In some cases, they were sending out thousands of suspicious orders for pharmaceuticals. In one case, one pharmacy in Kermit West Virginian—in the heart of Trumpland—a town of just 396 people ordered 9 million opioid pills in 2 years!

One would think this would be an easy problem to resolve. One would think wrong. The DEA should be able to investigate and shutdown such commercial trafficking without getting indigestion. But in 2016 the American Congress unanimously passed a law that drastically curtailed the power of their DEA to go after drug distribution. And they did this in the midst of a drug epidemic. And they did it unanimously when ordinarily they cannot agree unanimously what day it is. How did that happen?

It is interesting how that happened. According to Trevor Noah on the Daily Show (Of course I get most of my news from Comedy News ) “that is because of the thing that they are addicted to—Money.” [1] Political commentators have long understood a fundamental principle of political analysis—follow the money. In 2016 the Pharmaceutical Industry (‘Big Pharma’) spent $246 million on lobbying the American Congress. In the decade from 2007 to 2017 they spent a cumulated total of $2.4 billion. That money was well spent.

Big Pharma consistently ranks at the top or near the top of big spenders on lobbying Congress. They do that because it works. That money buys them a lot. The insurance industry another big spender is cheap in comparison. Even though they were second in 2016, they spent a paltry $152.9 million. The gun lobby spent a puny $10.5 million. That is about 4% of what Big Pharma spent. Big Pharma spend money like river boat gamblers and it paid off BIGLEY. It paid off with unanimous legislation that they like. Like the law that crippled the ability of the DEA to investigate commercial drug traffickers.

As a result of such big spending Big Pharma has big influence with Congress. Big spending and big influence go together like love and marriage. Big Pharma wanted to get rid of regulations they did not like. These are more of those regulations that Trump keeps saying hobble American industry. In fact it bought them the right to basically write the laws that emasculated the DEA in the middle of a drug crisis that they helped to create and from which they were the primary financial beneficiaries. As the Washington Post said,

“In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.

By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War. Overdose deaths continue to rise. There is no end in sight.

A handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to an investigation by The i and “60 Minutes.” The DEA had opposed the effort for years.” [2]

 

Bob Dylan was right again—“money doesn’t talk it swears.” It is not surprising either that the chief designer of the of the law that hobbled the DEA was Rep. Tom Marino, who is now reputed to be Donald Trump’s next drug czar. Funny how that happens. In fact according to the Washington Post, Drug Industry executive Linden Barber played a key role in crafting an earlier version of the legislation that eventually curtailed the DEA’s power.” As Trevor Noah said, “for $250 million you can write your own laws.” [3]

Of course Donald Trump understood how serious the drug crisis was. In August of 2017 he declared the opioid crisis an “official national emergency.” That was very significant because it made available many millions of dollars to tackle the crisis. He said specifically, this means the country is committed to spending a lot of time, effort and a lot of money on this crisis. This was a big deal. No doubt about it. Trump should have been applauded for that declaration. Yet there was a hitch. Like there usually is with Trump’s dealings.

The problem is that Trump is a snake oil salesman. They know that in New York. They are used to him there. That is why they did not vote for Trump in the election of 2016. When Trump made the formal announcement on October 26, 2017 he did not do exactly what he had promised. It sounded the same. It looked the same. But it was not the same. Sometimes it can look like a duck, quack like a duck, yet not be duck. He said instead, “my administration is officially declaring the opioid crisis a “national public health emergency under federal law.” That is not quite the same. As a recovering lawyer, I know it is important, very important when dealing with charlatans to read the contract over very slowly and very carefully word for word. Nothing else will do. This is not the time and place for shortcuts. Politics is the time for short cuts. When listening to Trump extreme care is needed.

As a result of this “slight” change in wording, instead of many millions of dollars being available to deal with the “official national emergency” for a “national public health emergency under federal law” there was only $57,000 available. Of course he did not tell us this. He kept mum. Trump had played the old shell game. The American public were the suckers. They bought snake oil.

 

[1] Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, Comedy News Network, (Oct. 26, 2017)

[2] Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein, “The Drug Industry’s Triumph over the Dea,” Washington Post, October 15, 2017

[3] Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, Comedy News Network, (Oct. 26, 2017)

A Tsunami of Despair

Philosophy/Ideas, ,

 

 

I believe the west is in decline. No that is much too tame a statement. I think we are all Screwed. We are done. Our collapse is inevitable. I hope I am wrong. But I doubt it.

Here are some interesting statistics. 50% of people in places like U.S. and Australia suffer a serious mental illness before attaining the age of 21 years. Does that catch your attention? [1]

That great twentieth century philosopher, Woody Allen, got it right when he said, “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose wisely.”

In the 2016 U.S. Presidential election campaign Donald Trump captured imagination of about 60 million Americans, nearly half of the voting citizens, and he did that by realizing the “benefits of despair.” He realized, when pundits and professional politicians like Hillary Clinton did not, that there were advantages to be seized from rampant despair. And there was rampant despair. As George Packer, one of America’s finest political writers pointed out,

 

two Princeton economists released a study showing that, since the turn of the century, middle-aged white Americans—primarily less educated ones—have been dying at ever-increasing rates. This is true of no other age or ethnic group in the United States. The main factors are alcohol, opioids, and suicide—an epidemic of despair. A subsequent Washington Post story showed that the crisis is particularly severe among middle-aged white women in rural areas. In twenty-one counties across the South and the Midwest, mortality rates among these women have actually doubled since the turn of the century. Anne Case, one of the Princeton study’s co-authors, said, “They may be privileged by the color of their skin, but that is the only way in their lives they’ve ever been privileged.” [2]

 

As a result it should not surprise anyone that by the time 50% of people who have reached the age of 21 years in places like the United States and Australia have suffered a major mental illness.

A major symptom of the despair is the desperate measures so many people in the rich and privileged western world take to dull the despair. For example, the opioid epidemic in North America is exactly that–an epidemic. I heard on CBC radio that in 1 Vancouver hospital they admit 17 patients every day with drug overdoses![3]

One of the things few people have realized is the extent to which the election of a black man to the Presidency rocked the world of white men, particularly white men, from the rust belt of America. They were shocked. Many of them could not believe it. How could a black man be President when their own circumstances were so demeaning? It just did not seem possible. Unrecognized racism was a major factor in the election of Donald Trump. It is an unrecognized factor in the despair of the white working class. This must be carefully examined if we are to avoid even more serious consequences than the election of a man to the American Presidency who does not read. Does that seem possible? I know how serious that is, but I also think that things can and might get even worse. I keep remembering that nearly 60 million Americans voted for Donald Trump a man more obviously unqualified for the job than any person in the history of the United States presidency. No matter what happens to Trump America will have serious problems. Trump is a symptom; he is not the problem. Even after Trump stops being President this uncomfortable fact will remain. Sort of like a turd on the floor.

At the same time, to these same people who supported Trump in 2016, they were faced with the possibility that a woman now might become President. How could that be possible? First a black man; then a woman. This shook the foundations of the world of white male privilege. And they reacted crazily. And they will react crazily again.

After at least 500 years of dominance, white men have started to realize that their time of privilege is ending and there is nothing they can do about it. For many of the white men have never managed to take advantage of their privilege. That can’t possibly be their fault. Can it? Many of them justifiably to some extent, do not see their lives as privileged. They seem to be in dire straits. To them it looks like everyone except them is privileged. No one cares about them.

White working class men are beginning to realize that the new economic order does not seem to have a place for them. It seems to many of them that the best chance they have is a job at MacDonalds or Wal-Mart. Not that there is anything wrong with such jobs. They are just not what these men have been dreaming of. And they know how to dream in high def. But their gig is up and many of them got nothing. It doesn’t seem fair to them. For many of them, it is too late. Their dreams will never be realized.

As a result their self-esteem has been shredded. Their jobs are gone and they have nothing to be proud of any more. How can they look their children and their wives in the face? They have no dignity? At least it seems that way to them.

At the same time these men are often confronted with uppity women who earn more than them. Their dignity is gone. Even women are better off than them. Even blacks are better off than them. Many of these men turn to hatred of women and hatred of black. That is the only way they see that they can react to this unfairness.

And this is just a lift-off to things to come. Things are about to get a lot worse.

 

[1] Pria Viswalingam, film “Decadence: Decline of the Western World,”

[2] George Packer, “Head of the Class: How Donald Trump is winning over the White Working Class,” The New Yorker, (May 16, 2016) p. 31

[3] CBC Radio The Current (December 19, 2016)

American “Communities”

Decline of the west, Philosophy/Ideas,

I frequently  walked through one of these so-called ‘communities’ that are found in Arizona. Americans love to call them that, but as a wise judge once said, you can call a jackass an eagle, but that won’t make it fly. Some “communities” are gated. The one we stayed at in Arizona in 2017 and hope to stay at in 2018 are not gated. But uniformly, these communities are not welcoming to everyone. They want to keep ‘others’ out. They abhor biodiversity.

Yet the walk was most pleasant and the people I encountered friendly people. I guess I looked like one of ‘them.’ I did not look strange enough to be an outsider. I will have to improve next time.