Category: Uncategorized (So Far)

A question one must ask when facing a broken system:

What is reparable and what can only be replaced?

A system breaks down for one of several reasons. It can break because of bad engineering. It can break because of shoddy construction. It can break because of poor maintenance. And sometimes it can break because of pure dumb luck.

Proposition 3: A clear manifestation of this blockage is that our system is no longer capable of bringing about outcomes that are for the good of the majority of Americans. More accurately and more strongly: only a small minority of Americans are benefiting from the system as it is operating now.

(Yes, I changed the word from observation to proposition.)

While debate about what led to Trump’s victory will rage on, and while no single factor fully explains the outcome, it’s undeniable that in the general election Trump was the only candidate speaking to the sense of decline felt by many Americans, a sense that they’ve been left behind. While it was easy to hear within Trump’s call to “Make America Great Again” his supporters’ anxiety about a world in which the previously dominant power structure (white, straight, patriarchal) is being superseded by something more inclusive of cultural, racial, and sexual minorities, it’s undeniable that many of the economic changes over the last couple of generations have taken away the opportunities that once allowed the working class a path to middle class comfort and a concomitant dignity.

While Trump’s protectionist stances were widely derided by the intelligentsia on both sides of the aisle–Didn’t he get the memo that globalization is an unqualified success? seemed to be the general sense–it’s worth remembering that the promise of deals like NAFTA was that free trade would benefit all people. And while it’s true that the ability of capital to move manufacturing to the places where costs are lowest has meant that Americans get cheap TVs and cell phones, what’s gone along with that is the disappearance of the sorts of jobs that a high-school-educated person could have relied on 40 years ago to be a safe ticket to the middle class, and millions of part-time jobs at Starbucks and Walmart aren’t filling the gap.

Or let’s consider the costs and benefits of the most significant and of course most controversial piece of legislation during the Obama administration, the Affordable Care Act. In my piece from two weeks ago, I defended the ACA as better than the system we had before, because it has given many millions of Americans access to health care who previously lacked it. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the law is a far cry from an unqualified success. Is it better for the majority of Americans? Possibly. But a more salient question is, Do a majority of Americans believe it to be better? Republican electoral success since the 2010 midterms would suggest not.

Another useful measuring stick of the blockage I’m speaking of is the distribution of income and wealth in our country. Coinciding with the rise of supply-side, trickle-down economics, which hold that tax cuts for the wealthiest lead to benefits for all, an orthodoxy essentially unchallenged since the Reagan era, we’ve seen income and wealth inequality increase for almost forty years. The rich have gotten much richer, while the rest have seen stagnation, even decline.

When you consider the policy proposals at the heart of the Trump/Republican plans for governance–immigration crackdowns, repealing the ACA (without, it seems, the vaguest ideas of how to replace it with something better), increased military spending, and tax cuts (offered as a good unto themselves); and when you consider that the Democrats offered little more than the status quo, one has to ask, Is this the best we can do? Either the status quo of the last eight years or else a doubling down of the policies of the Reagan and Bush (I and II) administrations?

Sadly, by all appearances, this is exactly the case: this is the best we can do. And if the best we can do is to continue to run a system that will not and cannot benefit most of the people whom it is supposed to serve, then it has become time to change that system.

One moral, of several:

Just because certain aspects of a system function does not mean that the system isn’t broken.

“Look,” he says, indicating. “The steering wheel still works.” He turns the wheel back and forth slightly and the car shifts in kind. “The brakes still work.” He taps the brakes ever so slightly, and you feel the car slow down just a bit. “So what’s the problem?”

“At some point,” you say, “to continue traveling, we’re going to need to speed up again. We will need an engine to do that. A car without an engine is not a functioning car.”

“I still don’t see how you can say that the car isn’t functioning,” he says. “Are we or are we not traveling down the highway at 75–well, 71, now–miles per hour?”

There’s no sense on his face that he’s allowing himself to see anything as out of the ordinary.

“The engine just leaped out of the car, flew into the tall grass over there, and exploded,” you say.

“And?” he asks.

“Don’t you think we should pull over?” you ask.

“Why?” he asks. “We’re still going down the highway at 75 miles per hour, just like before.”

You are riding in a car traveling down the highway at 75 mph. Conversation between you and the driver had grown a bit contentious, and now a fraught silence fills the space between you. Suddenly, there is a hideous grinding noise, the car begins to shake furiously, smoke pours out of the engine compartment, and then the entire engine flies out through the hood and crashes down in the tall grass on the side of the highway. It rolls a couple of times and then explodes.

The grinding noise has stopped. So has the shaking. The only sound is the hiss and whistle of wind noise. You find yourself still safely belted into the passenger seat in a passenger compartment that appears to be fully intact. Apparently you are now coasting down the highway at 75 miles per hour.

You look over at the driver significantly. After a moment, he looks back.

“What?” he says.

I keep seeing this happen: an actor (or a comedian, or a musician, or a sports star) says something political. Someone somewhere–this happens all the time on Twitter–tells that person to stick to acting (or comedy, or music, or sports). Wednesday morning I watched the talking heads on ESPN debate whether or not it is appropriate that Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, has recently been outspoken on political issues.

This is very very important so let me say it as clearly as I can:

The essential core of our republic lies in the first three words of the Constitution.

Those three words are: “We the People.”

Our whole society rests on the foundation of those three words. We the People means that the government is not a thing outside of us that we have no connection to. Our government is directed not by kings nor emperors nor popes nor ayatollahs nor führers. WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT.

We, the People.

So understand: in our country, it is not just your right to speak when you feel called to speak. It is your responsibility.

A realization: when you find yourself having the thought that a given action or practice would be a significant way to increase your flow, begin it right away. As in today.

When a thought hits with a certain force–you know the feeling–it is the flow of the universe speaking to you. By starting right now, you’re telling the universe that you heard the message it sent and that you’re listening.

So if you find yourself thinking you need to start exercising, start today. You don’t have to do much. It can be as simple as going for a ten-minute walk. If you get a download that you’re supposed to write a book, open a new file on your computer and write … something. Anything. Just begin.