WEALTH AND POWER

I had in mind to write a follow-up commentary to “How We Got Here and Where We Are Headed,” September, 2011. It was to dwell on how redistribution of wealth successfully served as operational policy for the Republic all the way back to the founding. In fact, the Founding Fathers voiced deep concern about the danger to the Republic if too much wealth were to be concentrated in an aristocracy and devised taxation as a means of leveling the playing field and holding the aristocracy at bay.

The policy worked reasonably well since the beginning, with a couple of exceptions (e.g. 1895 and 1928) when the reins were loosened and the economy predictably took a tumble. It worked until the Reagan Administration, when the floodgates were opened to grow enormous wealth for a very few. Not that wealth of itself is particularly damaging, but with it is the irresistible draw to wield power, and that is the danger to the Republic that the founding fathers were concerned about. We see this in the actions of skilled operatives like Karl Rove, Dick Armey, Grover Norquist, Tony Feather and David Bossie, in the employ of Titans such as Met-Life, the Scarfe Family, The Koch brothers, Trevor Rees Jones and the Walton family. We see it in the funding of an army of lobbyists in Washington, working full time influencing legislators and even helping to write legislation. We also see it in the inexplicable ruling by the Supreme Court that allows tons of untraceable money to be spent by corporations to help elect legislators of their choice.

But then a little research turned up an article that covered the subject of redistribution of wealth far better than I could have hoped to have done it. An article titled “Founding Fathers and Wealth” by J. Edward appeared on the web site Daily Kos on April 23, 2011. It can be found by searching online with the title of the piece and author.

Because the Preamble to the Constitution assigns no power to the Federal Government, it has no standing in the judicial world for making judgments. Still, it is a distillation of all that follows in the Articles, Amendments and Bill of rights. There has never been occasion to change its wording. Of the several phrases that make up its content, two implicitly call for significant spending: “provide for the common defense,” and “promote the general welfare.”

Spending on defense carries little opposition. Nuclear threats, nations in foment, terrorist attacks and seemingly endless wars accrue to heavy expenditures in this area. Spending to promote the general welfare is under attack.

The government collects revenue and functions as a redistributor of wealth. There is no choice in this matter, or infrastructure wouldn’t be built and would go untended,

There would be no military. There would be no one overseeing food safety. Air travel safety would be compromised. Natural disasters would receive no relief. Important research and development and space exploration would never take place. There would be no Medicare, no Medicaid. You get the picture.

All these things that the Federal Government funds and controls come under the phrases in the Preamble: “Provide for the common defense” and “Promote the general welfare.”

Thus, one can conclude that redistribution of wealth is a necessary and wise operational policy for a healthy democracy. The extent to which it is practiced to preserve the Republic is the level at which the power of the aristocracy is rendered harmless.

REFLECTION

This poem was posted today, October 22, on Your Daily Poem

Now in our countdown years the consequences of our actions can be weighed. The measure of a person’s candor is revealed, writing one’s own obituary. It says nothing of wrong turns, what might have been. Nor does it aver to having lived a road to redemption. In the best of circumstances the text would read: We did no harm, or tried not to. We tried to do good. We had many friends and spent our days productively. We apportioned time to relax and play. We loved someone dearly. www.yourdailypoem.com

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

by Edward Hujsak

This month marks the 49th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when the United States and the Soviet Union came closest to a nuclear war. Nothing compares to it during the entire period that came to be called the Cold War in the decades after WWII.

In August of 1962, following the abortive Bay of Pigs operation that was designed to overthrow the Cuban Government, a secret agreement was made between Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev to build missile bases in Cuba and equip them with nuclear-tipped medium and intermediate range missiles that could reach most of continental United States. At the time, the United States had already deployed Thor and Jupiter intermediate range missiles (IRBM’s) in Europe and Turkey, which the Soviets logically considered highly provocative. In the United States, the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), emplaced in 76 underground silos around the country, was only partially operational.

On October 14 a U-2 overflight captured photos that confirmed that construction of missile sites in Cuba was well under way. There followed immediately a crisis situation that involved a blockade of Cuba and round-the-clock secret negotiations with the Soviets. Meantime, military personnel and contractors strained to put as many Atlas ICBMs into operational status as possible.

The confrontation ended on October 28, when secret agreements were concluded that involved a commitment by the United States not to invade Cuba and to dismantle the missile sites in Europe and Turkey. The Soviets subsequently left Cuba with their equipment and missiles.

It was a very scary time for those of us who were working in the ICBM program. Many of us felt the worst was about to happen.

The following poem tries to put a human face on a situation that should be unimaginable, given human capacity, if so inclined, to solve their problems amicably.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

I had to go there, to know

the feeling at the very bottom of

a missile silo, to sight along the muzzle

of this unlikely gun that can flatten a city

continents away and fry its humanity.

We called them wheatfield silos,

so pastoral. Who would have guessed

that Kansas and Nebraska

were armed for Armageddon?

One hundred-fifty foot-deep holes

in the ground, lined with concrete,

filled with open steel structures,

work platforms every ten feet.

At the center, the missile;

silent, shining, loaded, deadly.

We take the elevator down down down.

Foreman tells me men died here,

like the fellow, married, two kids, who

stepped off the scaffolding at the top,

swore a blue streak all the way down.

Landed right here, he says,

as we reach the floor, a discoloration

etched in grave gray concrete.

A puddle of water reflects the webwork

of steel above, lit like a Christmas tree.

Compressors chattering, motors humming,

screams of high pressure gas venting.

Such a panic, getting all these silos ready

for an impending shooting war.

Looking up, I can see the rocket through

the girders, hunkered on its platform,

silent, shining, loaded, deadly.

I wonder if it will work as planned.

Will it leave marks on the planet

like the workman who landed here?

REPUBLIC LOST - A BOOK REPORT

By Edward Hujsak

For the 89% of Americans who currently express dissatisfaction or mistrust of the Congress, a new book by Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law Professor and political activist, titled “Republic Lost – How Money Corrupts Congress, and a Plan to Stop It,” is a compelling read. It resonates on a personal level in that it broadly underscores and provides clarity and depth to the concerns expressed in my article on this site: “How We Got Here and Where We are Headed.”

The book dwells on the reality that concern for reelection on the part of legislators as soon as they move into office has resulted in a dual dependency, as opposed to the single dependency on which they were elected - fidelity to the people who elected them.

The second dependency centers on cultivating sources of money to fund the next election. Lessig writes that thirty percent of every legislator’s time is spent raising money, a disturbing diversion that helps explain the empty seats in both houses during serious debates. In the last twenty years that source of money has been identified to the huge stable of lobbyists that has taken root in Washington, representing various interests. In 2009, 13,700 lobbyists spent $3.5 billion, or about $6.5 million per elected representative. Nothing illegal takes place. No bribes, no overt pressure, no outright gifts. What has developed is a fine art of creating a relationship between lobbyists and legislators. A communing, a sharing of concerns, a capturing of the majority of their attention, an infusion of the ideas and concerns that the lobbyists are pushing. Inevitably, when the needs of the lobbyists are realized through legislation, the money flows. It’s all legal. A slow dance develops between the two parties. The relationship warms with the notion that if reelection is unsuccessful, the legislator can move seamlessly into the ranks of the lobbyists at several times his or her Federal salary. As the author points out, these are not evil people. They are good people doing wrong, whether knowingly or not. It’s just human nature, isn’t it, that a legislator will answer a phone call from a contributor before answering one from a constituent. Likewise, contributors would likely be first on the list of calls the legislator makes.

A quote from the book: “The real story of the Great Recession is simply this: Stupid Government regulation allowed the financial services to run the economy off the rails. But it was the financial services industry that drove the Government to the stupid Government regulations. They benefited economically from this policy, and as carefully as I have tried to frame these puzzles in a way that might allow both sides some space, this case brings even me to the brink. Strain as I may, I find it impossible to believe that our Government would have been this stupid, had Congress from both sides of the aisle not been so desperate for the more than $1 billion in campaign contributions given by individuals and groups affiliated with these firms, and the $2.7 billion spent by them lobbying.”

The second dependency is likened to an addiction and the Congress is no more able to fix it than an alcoholic can be restored without intervention. Any change from the status-quo would likely be strongly resisted by all parties that benefit from the current corrupt system of government.

In concluding chapters Lessig describes several ways to circumvent the above, the strongest suggesting that a plurality of states can force Congress to call a constitutional convention with a single purpose: to resolve the problem of campaign financing in a way that eliminates the hold that powerful interests hold over legislators through the lobbyist medium. The cost per individual would be trivial compared to the costs they presently bear in the present corrupt system of subsidies and largess to special interests.

ALIENS IN SAN DIEGO (Flash fiction)

by Edward Hujsak

I tell my lawyer friend Hymie that we’re really empty space and everything he sees before him - the buildings, the cars, the bench he is sitting on, everything is empty space. I tell him a neutrino can zip through him, through the concrete pad beneath him, through the planet and out the other side without hitting a thing. I tell him that the real matter that makes up his body, if dropped into a thimble, you would hardly see. “But,” I added, as I ran my eyes over his corpulent body, “you’d have trouble lifting it. Especially you.”

We sit here during lunch hour every sunny day, which is almost every day, at the foot of Sixth Avenue, a short distance from San Diego Harbor. The area is a city planner’s nightmare, what with a convergence of a half dozen streets with the six lane Harbor Drive, what could be an open square but plugged with cars, crosswalks, traffic lights, a pair of trolley tracks, and still space for a place to relax with benches, a fountain that isn’t working and a patch of grass half the size of a tennis court where the homeless loll in the sun. At noon, however, they disappear - off to the local soup kitchens.

Hymie only half hears me above the street noise. He concentrates on lighting up a cigar and mutters something about the possibility that the empty space is in my head. I let it pass. As a matter of fact, a reason why I sit with Hymie is for the smoke from his fine Cubans, a habit I gave up years ago.

I look up at a blue sky and see a globe of a white cloud - the only cloud in the sky. A Navy Phantom Jet from North Island appears to be headed toward it, as though the pilot intended to plow right through. Suddenly the plane veers off to the right.

“Did you see that? He was going to fly right through that cloud, but then he turned away.”

“Probably thought something might be inside it.” Hymie offers.

“Maybe something inside it caused it to veer off. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Well, no self respecting pilot is going to report that he lost control of his airplane.”

We watched the cloud for a while. Like clouds do, it appeared to move into a dry zone and gradually faded away into a few trailing wisps. Still, I had to wonder. Was the cloud actually a cloak for an approaching alien craft? If so, what happened to it? Where did it go?

Then strange things began to occur. An approaching trolley came to a sudden stop, sparks and smoke appeared above it where the tracker meets the overhead power line. In a matter of minutes a repair crew appeared and workers clambered over it.

That wasn’t all. I had a creepy feeling that the grassy area was occupied, but couldn’t see anything. Pedestrians, inclined to take a short cut across the grass stopped suddenly as if changing their minds, opting instead to take a circuitous route around it.

For a moment my attention was drawn to a fender bender in the square. Traffic came to a standstill and a taxi driver stood cursing an errant youngster who had misjudged a turn.

Then to the left of me a tall pair of characters passed by with long strides, weaving through stalled cars, headed across the square. They were clad in what appeared to be a gold foil and were masked.

“What do you make of that, Hymie?

Hymie pointed a thumb over his shoulder across Harbor Drive toward the Convention Center. “Comicon. They meet every year. Thousands of characters. Some dress pretty weird.”

I watched the pair thread their way through the stalled traffic. Sirens from approaching police sounded from a distance. As they reached the sidewalk at the other side, I saw them slip into a Starbucks. A few minutes later they emerged, each holding a pair of tall paper cupped lattes.

I watched closely. This pair wasn’t going to circle the grassy area. They headed right for it. But they didn’t cross it. They simply faded from view.

Moments later the trolley started up. I noticed too that people were taking short cuts across the grass. Traffic started up. I looked at Hymie.

“You saw it, didn’t you?”

Hymie stood and doused the stub of a cigar in the still water of the fountain and then tossed it into a trash container. “I did indeed, and you may be right. It’s all empty space, and at the same time full of strange things too.”

© E. Hujsak 2011

BARRIO WOMAN

Someone’s grandmother leaves
the warmth of the Barrio at sunup.
She carries with her an aroma
of newly-baked corn flour tortillas.

A long bus ride takes her
to this day’s place of work,
a short hike by my place
from the nearby bus stop.

Bound for the heart surgeon’s,
five doors down, to
tend last week’s accumulation
of dust and grime.

Soldier straight stride,
her dark eyes miss nothing.
Her smile an act of grace
as she passes by me.

Her dress is faded paisley.
A matching bag is slung
over a knitted cardigan
that drapes her shoulders.

Her face, haunted by bridal beauty,
is worn by time, wind and sun,
ravined to match
the rivers of her palms.

Braided hair, bundled in back,
is the color of new cast iron.
I imagine it falls to her waist,
combed in candlelight at bedside.

I want to seat her
in a rocking chair,
in profile,
before a fireplace.

I want to reach
for my shutterless old Kodak.
I want to take
the photo of the century.

BOOK REVIEW

Who among us does not know someone whose life has been disrupted by dementia in its many forms as we become more and more aware of ailments common to an aging population? Often this is in close family, so the burdens are multiplied in the care and worries regarding the afflicted one. Some forms are manageable and treatable, but the more serious diseases that include Alzheimer's, and less common but equally serious Picks’s Disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Levy Body Disease are thus far non-reversible.
Medical research directed toward treatment and possible reversal of Alzheimer’s has made little progress.
Another view begs the question: What if it were possible through adjustments in life style to prevent Alzheimer’s from ever occurring?
Jean Carper is a seventy-eight year old woman who carries a gene ApoE4 that makes her exceptionally vulnerable to the disease. In recent years she undertook a broad survey of what is being accomplished in the medical profession, life styles of populations where Alzheimer's is rare, and common sense adjustments to personal life styles that help to maintain good health. She vowed that after accumulating a hundred different pieces of information that if applied would individually or cumulatively eliminate the prospect of succumbing to Alzheimer's, or postpone it to when other causes bring an end to life, she would publish them in a book.
100 Simple Things You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer’s And Age Related Memory Loss is her book, published in 2010 by Little Brown & Company.
Although following all of them might not be practical, anyone bent on conducting a personal preventive war against the disease would find many easy to adopt. All are common sense. A pleasant surprise might be that some are already being followed. What if this were the proper approach to reducing Alzheimer’s to a rarity?

http://jeancarper.com

A CASE OF MISUNDERSTANDING

A masked robber accosted a quarreling couple walking through a deserted alley.
“Your money or your life,” he said, in a muffled voice.
The man, out of desperation, answered, “Take my wife.”
Whereupon the robber, hard of hearing, shot the man.
Then he abducted the woman.