Guns. And inequality. OR; Lets focus on the root of the problem

Apparently now the topic is guns here. I guess I'll bite too.
Inspired by a Facebook theory on how race relates to the public reaction to gun violence, I did a little (internet) research, and a little thinking, and I think I've got something...

First a bunch of background:

- Gun violence IS very high in this country compared to other wealthy nations. So is violence, generally. Gun violence is a subset of, and proportionate to, violence generally.

- While comparing the US to wealthy nations makes us seem particularly violent, comparing us to the world puts us on the gentler side of average.

- It turns out wealth is the wrong metric to use to compare. There is little to no correlation with wealth vs poverty and rates of violence.

- The relevant metric is actually wealth equality. Across all countries, the more inequality there is, the more violence there is. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465300559028#.VEa2xNTF9D5
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Crime%26Inequality.pdf
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/08/mexico-study-income-inequality-crime/
https://academic.oup.com/oep/article-abstract/66/4/1090/2912941

- When measuring inequality, the US is actually closer to some "third-world" dictatorships than it is to Western Europe, Canada, or Japan. According to the CIA, there are 110 nations with more equality than the US, and only 39 with less.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/map-us-ranks-near-bottom-on-income-inequality/245315/

- Whenever a high profile, dramatic incident involving guns occurs, 1/2 the country is extremely interested in guns for a few weeks. This could be a person shooting indiscriminately at other people, or a stand off between law enforcement and some cult or militia.

The American Left's strategy for racial equality is self-defeating

The following was written to some close friends and family, after I opted out of a discussion of race issues in America inspired by a book club meeting.

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To begin with, let me make clear some things I am in agreement about.

I agree entirely that racial disparities exist, in incarceration, in income, in health and longevity, and many other metrics, and I agree that it is a problem

I agree entirely that the root causes of these disparities,histrionically, are slavery, Jim Crow, racism, etc, which continue to have effects today

I agree also that racism exists, and that some portion of disparities are likely a result of racism.  

While I disagree, I do understand the reasons for the focus on racism and oppression- it really was about 100% of the reason for disparities for 100s of years, and up until very recently.  Most of the people involved in our discussion are actually old enough to have been alive as it was happening in real time (even if not in the actual places it was most prevalent)

But the thing so many of today's Social Justice Warriors and activists and protesters and reporters and authors and commentators haven't seemed to consider is that society actually can, does, and has changed.  Slowly, to be sure, but it does, and like the lobster in the pot, the change may be too gradual to notice in real time, but there is a threshold past where the change is significant.  

Racism is explicitly illegal.  

We have black cops and judges and CEOs.  

And yes, even a president (well, 1/2 is close enough).  

Activists and others who counter the "post-racial" claims, that having a black president does not end the conversation are correct: this fact, these facts, they do not end the conversation on race.  

But they sure as hell should change the conversation!  They should change it a whole heck of a lot. 

Yet the talking points today remain largely the exact same ones heard during a time when a (half) black president was completely inconceivable.

The power structers, the laws, the cultural norms, the dynamics of everything about society have changed.  Its time for the social justice activists to catch up.

Landlord Who Supports Rent Control

[Background - the city council of my town, Richmond CA, has had a very heated political debate for a couple years now over whether or not to institute rent control.
Richmond is currently one of the more affordable pockets in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially for being close enough to the center to have its own BART stop, but like rents everywhere in this popular and rapidly growing area, they are climbing fast.
With rent control measures, landlords would only be able to raise rents they charge by a certain percentage (generally close to inflation levels) each year, and could only evict tenants if those tenants actually did something wrong (or if the landlord wants to move in), not just as a way to get new tenants to pay higher rent (rents can be increased between tenants, assuming they move out voluntarily or are evicted for a legitimate reason).

In the public discourse around the issue, those against it are constantly making the claim that it would "hurt small-time landlords".
I posted the following to a couple neighborhood discussion groups on the topic:

Not that any one cares about one random individual's opinion, nor that they should... 
...but since so many who talk about the subject feel entitled to speak on my behalf, I just wanted to set the record straight. 
I grew up in Richmond, and I live here now. I worked for the downpayment money for our triplex home from scratch, on an ordinary working class salary (averaging around 20k a year). I was able to save money by living in trailer parks most of my adult life.

Today I am a "small time" landlord. I own just a couple of units, which share the same land as my own home is on. I put a lot of money and time and work into upgrading it and making it a nice place for my tenants to live, and I still have a giant mortgage on it.

And there is absolutely no way I could honestly claim that rent control would "hurt" me.

I'm So Fancy: On the Consept of Cultural Appropriation

I used to have I'm So Fancy, by Iggy Azalea, as my phone's ringtone, for the express purpose of annoying Social Justice Warriors.

 

Because she is white (so say the SJW), she has no business making rap music.
Black people invented hip-hop, therefore only they have the right to produce it.
White people can listen and enjoy it, perhaps, but they should not be able to make any money off of it.


As counter-point, allow me to introduce "Unlocking the Truth"

The Mechanic and the Bumper Stickers; On Cultural Isolation

I broke the axle of my truck.

Turns out, even though the truck model is very popular, and the company made parts interchangeable for many years before and after mine came out, mine just so happens to have one of the rarer weight capacity and gear ratio combinations, which means if I replace it I will most likely either not be able to haul as much or I will lose MPG on the highway.

There is only one place I could find in the area that rebuilds axles, so I removed the wheels and hubs and took the axle to them.

The city of Hayward, where the gear shop is, is two cities south of Oakland, CA.  Oakland, which is the next city south of Berkeley, and across the bay from San Francisco.  This is where Gavin Newsome, Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Lee are from.  The center of the anti-Vietnam war movement, the gay rights movement, and the birth place of the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter.
It doesn't get much more liberal than the Bay Area.

But, see, I was heading to a gear shop, a place that rebuilds transmissions, axles, and transfer cases, primarily for big trucks and off-road vehicles, plus the occasional hot-rod or classic car.

I was expecting a couple of middle aged to older white guys.  I would not have been the least surprised if they ranged somewhere between conservative and libertarian.

But I sure didn't expect this:

A Conversation on my Post Before Last

I got some in depth feedback on my post before last.
That's the parts in black.
My response follows in red.

Hi Bakari

My reply is too long to post into your "comment" box, so I am emailing it instead:

First, I want to thank you for taking the time to try to articulate your thoughts and beliefs more clearly so we can understand what you are thinking. 

Thanks for this reply!

I think that I understand your beliefs a little better now. 

That being said, I have many mixed feelings about your analysis and conclusions. ... who cares enough to want to influence things to be more just and fair and better for all; and ... that you are so intelligent and do so much research to try to discern what is real and true and what is not; and that you have the courage to express your beliefs regardless how unpopular. 

However, I believe that you oversimplify many things to make them fit neatly into your analysis

That is without a doubt true!  Topics the encompass hundreds of millions of different individuals can never possibly be discussed without oversimplifying.  If I were to flesh out every caveat, I'd end up with a book instead of a blog post.

Protesting Police Shootings VERSUS *not* Helping Your Kids with a College Degree and DownPayment

From the outside, it could look an awful lot like the liberal Left is populated with tens of thousands of Donald Trumps.  Trumps that just happen to have different values; but watch them on mute for a while, or listen to the emotion without the specifics, and there is the exact same self-righteousness, the exact same outrage and contempt for who ever they consider the "other" side. And with it, a complete and total obliviousness to anything they or their allies may be doing to exacerbate the very problems they rail against, while instead placing blame on the most immediately visible target. 

There are lots of details that vary, but they are fill-in-the-blank details that everything above applies equally well to.  Everyone is angry and loud and makes proclamations of fact which are just plain false.  Everyone is so confident that their own values are the "correct" ones that it doesn't even occur to them to qualify conclusions of what "should be" with an "if we want..."

But nobody seems to notice...

Or... maybe its neither

I am not really sure exactly what to think or feel about the fact that within the span of a couple months I can be accused of being both a libertarian and a communist.
By different people, of course.
But on the same general topics, and with my stance staying consistent.

As far as I can tell, the reasoning goes something like this:

"This guy [me] doesn't agree with my viewpoint, therefor he must hold the views of those other people".

In discussions I am regularly told, after stating my beliefs and understandings, something along the lines of "I bet you think ___________, too".
Well, no, I told you exactly what I think.
That other part you just made up.

That is always a pretty good sign that the statements the other person is making aren't even really their own.  They are things that person heard, and agreed with, and now they are repeating them.  Possibly in their own words, but unoriginal none-the-less.  It means they have subscribed to an ideology.
There is no "right" ideology.  There is no good ideology.  By very definition, one must accept an entire ideology as is, which intrinsically means not questioning anything.  It is exactly like a religion: all of your beliefs are handed to you, externally.
It is anti-scientific, and it is intended to be.

OUTRAGE! (is to the left as fear is to the right)

I've heard it repeated a few times from different sources recently how people who tend to lean politically "right" frequently have a slightly larger amygdala, which controls the basic fear response.  As a result - so the theory goes - they are more easily frightened, and this leads to a desire to take the safe option in all questions; generally we think the option with the least unknowns is "safest", and so those more prone to fear are more likely to stick with things that are tried and true - in other words, to be "conservative".

Proponents of this theory - the scientists who noticed the trend in the first place, certainly, but much more so activists and armchair politicians - will point out the fear-mongering used by conservative political leaders and media.  Crime!  Terrorists!  Illegal immigrants!  Communists!

And since I've heard it, sure enough, I do notice just such a trend in media and speeches geared toward conservatives.

But then, since I was looking at news reports with the kind of eye you use to catch marketing psychology in advertisements, I started paying attention to what media geared toward liberals always tends to have in common.

Its outrage.

I don't think in terms of "us vs them" - it's those other people who do that (Part II - real life)

In the Star Wars universe, it is understood that the Jedi are the good guys and the Sith are all evil.
Yet, when you look at their actual behavior, the differences are few, while the parallels are many.  The Jedi act on their own behalf, outside of the government they are supposed to serve, in blatant disregard for democracy, going so far as to internally authorize military and political executions - even the democratically elected head-of-state.

http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2015/05/us-vs-them-part-i-star-wars-analogy.html

Here in the real world, Bill Maher outspokenly calls out Islam, saying in a recent interview:

"The vast, vast, vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists. But here’s the point people don’t bring up: They’re not terrorists, but they share some very bad ideas with terrorists, and bad ideas lead to bad behavior. You couldn’t put the Muslim equivalent of The Book of Mormon on Broadway. You can’t write a book like The Satanic Verses without millions going jihadi on you. You couldn’t have an art exhibit like Piss Christ, which made Giuliani mad in the 1990s. Hundreds of millions of Muslims believe that if you leave the religion you should get killed for that. Try walking down the street in Muslim areas—even in more tolerant places like Amman, Jordan—wearing shorty shorts or a T-shirt that says HEY, I AM GAY. That shit is not going to fly, not at all."

Elsewhere, in the very same magazine that published those words, it is mentioned in passing that in 1988 Christian fundamentalists fire-bombed a public movie theater for showing the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ".
1988 is hardly going back to the time of the Crusades or the Inquisition, it is within this current generation.  The majority of people alive today were alive in 1988.  There have been plenty of other terrorist attacks right here in the US by Christians and far right Conservatives, from 7 murders of doctors and staff of clinics that provided abortions in the 1990s to the Oklahoma City bombing.

The more "other" a particular group is, the easier it is to call them out.

Us VS Them (Part I, the Star Wars analogy)

"There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere. "

So says the opening crawl of Star Wars Episode III (Revenge of the Sith)

Yet this message gets lost and forgotten as soon as it is off the screen.

As a viewer of any of the Star Wars movies, it goes without saying that the Jedi represent Good, and those who practice the "Dark" side of the force are Evil.
The Jedi and their allies say as much explicitly, at every opportunity.

Paying slightly more attention to the politics behind the action, though, it appears the reality is much more complicated than that.

In this Universe, roughly 50 thousand planets have agreed to a broad alliance, the Galactic Republic, roughly equivalent to the UN - each member state retains some degree of autonomy, and each sends its own representative to be a part of the Senate.The Senate is headed up by a Chancellor who gets elected by the Senate.  Each planet's government picks their Senator - if the planet happens to be a democracy, the inhabitants may vote on the senator, but if the planetary government is a monarchy, then it may unilaterally decide who will be the planets representative.  

The roughly 50 thousand planets are divided into groups of 50 (called sectors), with the senate floor consisting of 1000 chairs - some of which are taken by representatives of extra-planetary organizations such as trade federations.

That leaves one not-necessarily-democratically-elected individual to represent on average more than 50 entire planets.

(Much like the US), although they preach Democratic values consistently, the Republic makes no particular effort to practice them in actuality.

The Jedi were originally meant to be a security force that answered to the senate and the Chancellor (much like the CIA answers to the president).  They protected the Republic government (like the secret service), and enforced senate decrees (like Federal police), since the Republic did not originally have any military force of its own.  They were also considered a "moral authority", making them in some ways akin to Mutaween, the religious police that enforce Sharia law in some Islamic nations.  

Reading list to assist in understanding everything about everything

While I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think I'm an idiot, I think (hope?) its fair to say there are at least a few who find me to have an above average grasp of how the world works.

I don't really think I'm all that much "smarter" than average.
I may have a slightly better than average ability to spot patterns in complex systems.  Side effect of being a touch closer to the Spectrum than your typical NT, I guess.

But part of it, I think, is just that its much more my goal to understand things than for most.

It seems for a lot of people a lot of the reason for adopting particular beliefs is to fit in and be popular.
That, and having those beliefs justify what people would like to be true, which is comforting or justifies something that would otherwise conflict with ethical values.

Since I've never had much interest in large groups of people, I've never had any real use for conformity - including conforming to any non-mainstream sub-cultures.
Beliefs that feed rationalizations to avoid cognitive dissonance?  Well, who knows, maybe I'm as susceptible to that as anyone, I suppose if I were doing it, I wouldn't know, would I?

Anyway, another advantage I've had is just that I've been exposed to some good sources of information that tie it all together.

Cops are the New Blacks

Go back about 90 years.  And about 350 miles South (from where I am, in N. California).
Slavery has been abolished long enough ago that there has been almost (but not quite) a total generational turn-over; most people alive don't actually remember it, though it was recent enough that everyone is very aware.
Since reparations never actually happened obviously there remains a dramatic disparity along race lines.
Combine poverty, a lack of education in the parent's generation, and unequal public school services for the current generation, and you have not just a wealth gap, but sharp class distinctions.

Whenever there is a sharp disparity of wealth and class, combined with cultural isolation, increased crime is the result.  This isn't a "racial" phenomenon, per say - the same pattern happens within a "race" when the same conditions apply: the "untouchables" (Dalit) of caste system India, the Irish immigrants in mid 1800s America, gypsies of medieval Europe, or the Burakumin of Japan today; people indistinguishable from the main population by appearance, but separate culturally, and substantially poorer.
Predictably crime is higher - driven not only by poverty and desperation, but also by a mutual feeling of "otherness" relative to the main society which makes it easy to rationalize the harm done to the victims - to start with if the victim comes from the "oppressor" class, but resolving the cognitive dissonance of unethical acts against one group opens the door for setting aside morality altogether.

But here's the thing: In all of these examples, while the average crime rate may be higher among the sub-group than it is in the general population, it is never remotely as high as approaching 50%.  Even at it's very worse, rates stay down in the single digits per 100 population - for example, as excessively high as the Black incarceration rate in the US may be, it is only 1.2% of the Black population.

In other words, the vast majority of the marginalized population are ordinary ethical law-abiding citizens, even despite the prejudice they face.

On not posting many blogs anymore

At first it was work. Was working as the manager of the building I lived in, along with all my other jobs.
And filling most of my free time with dating.

Then I actually ended up finding her.
Not even somewhere I was looking.  A series of very random and fortunate events.
I'll probably write more on that later.

So she's been getting most of my free time ever since figuring out that that was settled.
But she works full time, and I most certainly don't.

I have had just about as many thoughts, but been much less motivated to take the time and effort to actually write.

I think I may slowly be getting to that final stage.
Acceptance.

Maybe there is so little writing from the wisest because they realize how little impact it would have, and so don't bother. (Or at least, that's what I'm going to keep telling myself.)

As the robots say: "all of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again".
The more I learn, the more I start to believe that.

Why am I writing this stuff?

In some of the discussions that followed my last few posts, someone asked what purpose there was to writing it, other than making people angry?

Another pointed out that the belief of women's weakness and vulnerability might be the part of the reason women are victimized less, implying that even if its untrue, maybe we should encourage people to keep believing it since the effect is (presumably) less violence overall.


Well, for one, like it says in the header at the top of the page, I believe truth is inherently valuable.

But aside from that, there's a bunch of specific reasons.

The central one is this:

It seems like it is more important to people to support the ideological narrative they have accepted than it is to create better outcomes in the real world. 

- In discussions several women have said that fighting back would be pointless, because the strength difference between them and their boyfriend or lover is so large.
This makes me really really fucking angry at every rape activist and counselor and everyone else who has promoted false information for the sake of promoting ideology.
The actual research shows consistently that it doesn't matter if the victim is able to physically overpower the attacker.   The mere fact of attempting to physically resist is alone almost always enough to stop rape from occurring.
But this reality conflicts with the story people want to believe about rape being about power and domination and not access to sexual gratification.
This reality makes it more challenging to support the idea that lack of physical resistance isn't consent.  That idea is totally valid!  A woman shouldn't "have to" fight back; if she says "no", and he continues, its rape.
However, in the desire to protect the feelings of people who have already been victimized ("its not your fault just because you didn't fight back") everyone down plays the effectiveness of fighting back - which means there will be MORE victims!
Why are we more concerned with protecting woman's feelings and chances of prosecution after the fact than we are with preventing rape from occurring in the first place?

- The same goes for all forms of female victimization or submission by males.  The more we teach people that men are inherently stronger than women, or that women are naturally submissive, the more predatory men assume women to be easy targets, and the more likely women are to act out learned helplessness and accept it.

- The message that men should not commit violence against women implicitly sends the message that violence in general is ok.  We should be sending the message that violence is never ok.  It doesn't matter who the victim is.

- Intoxicated consent laws make it so that not only does "no" mean no, but "yes" also means no, but only sometimes.  And it is up to men to decide when that is.  Women aren't to be trusted to know how drunk they are, but men can tell for them.  Because, you know, men don't have enough power over women already.  We also need to make it law that only men can decide when women shouldn't have sex - for their own good, of course.

-In one of the discussions on my first post on cultural dimorphism, a woman who had insisted at first that not only did she not think women were weak, she saw no evidence that anyone did, online or in real life - eventually went on the defend the gender based draft on the grounds that (some specific individual) men are stronger than (some specific individual) women.

- Our way of viewing gender and race emphasizes differences. Far more than actually exist.  Those expectations we have then go on to influence our behavior, which cause those imaginary differences to manifest.

 - Our obsessing over what we imagine to be grand categorical differences in how we are treated creates the differences we complain about.

- As I wrote at the bottom of my last post, perpetuating the myth of Blacks oppressed by cops leads to a self-fulfilling prophesy that makes it more likely Blacks get shot by cops.

- The stuff that outrages everyone is almost always a distraction from real issues.  The energy we spend on stupid stuff could be spent, say, working toward making HeadStart universal, or making laws that say employees are entitled to the profit their own labor generates.

Debunking "Debunking Democracy"

http://sfbay-anarchists.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Bob-Black-Debunking-Democracy.pdf

The nearly unanimous condemnation of democracy in past history which Black (accurately) mentions was in all cases in contrast to elite rule, whether monarchy, oligarchy, or republic.

He then points out that democracy has been largely corrupted, that most societies that use it today are representative / republican, that not everyone who claims it actually practices it, and points out that there has rarely if ever been universal enfranchisement.
Again, all accurate points, but none of them is an actual criticism of direct democracy, its simply saying that not all of what people call “democracy” is the same thing.

He gives the lack of successful urban direct democracy as a reason it could not possibly happen.  That’s just silly.  Nothing exists prior to the first time it exists, that is certainly not proof that it couldn't possibly ever exist.  It may well be an “abstract ideal”, but no less so than anarchy, or any other ideological potential organization of society.  He acknowledges that direct democracy has in fact existed, but implies it ‘doesn't count’ because “Every known instance has involved a considerable admixture of representative democracy which has sooner or later usually subordinated [direct] democracy where it didn't eliminate it altogether”
But of course there is exactly zero cases of anarchy which did not “sooner or later” succumb to another form of social organization.

Black says that the objections to representative democracy apply to direct “pure majoritarian democracy”.  But nothing inherent in the ideal of democracy demands it must be majoritarian in nature.

On to the specific points:

Walk the talk

One person asked me, upon reading my anti-capitalism pro-free market essay series, for ideas on how individuals might help contribute in daily life.

Walking the walk on two of the big points is easy: shop at independant stores instead of chains, don't buy IPOs, and if you create something (art, music, software, inventions), make it creative commons / open source / patent it but then licence it for free.

As to walking the walk on real estate: I don't really think it's applicable. There is some political momentum behind changing the corporate system after Citizen's United, and there is piracy/file sharing undermining copyright, but there is exactly zero movement behind one person one parcel.
Thats not even a phrase that exists. I just made it up, just now, as I was typing!
But there really is no inbetween. Nothing any one person does (short of the solution proposed in Manna) is going to have more than zero effect on the rest of the world.
The closest I imagine one could possibly come would be buying rental properties, and renting them at below market rent, even at cost (though with hidden irregular costs, like vacancies and major maintenance, factored in). One could opt out, but that would do as little to change the system or benefit anyone as opting out of voting does (i.e. exactly none, and possibly counter-productive, since then you are diluting your own potential influence)

For one person one parcel, I think the best anyone could do right now, even a billionaire, would be to publicize and promote the idea, because the first step would be getting the idea into the minds of millions of people. Its not quite communism, not quite libertarianism, not quite anarchy, not quite free market. As far as I know, its something no one has ever thought of before.

There is one other thing - probably the single biggest change to our system, (short of one person one parcel) would be for working hours to be adjusted downward to match increases in efficiency.
That is something we could easily do, if we were so inclined, just like we reduced working hours from 60-80 per week at the turn of the last century down to 40-50 hours today, as the industrial revolution vastly increased output per worker.

Today, computers and the internet and robots, plus outsourcing and corporate consolidation, not to mention quickly advancing 3D printing, has increased productivity far more than steam power and assembly lines ever did, yet we have never adjusted the 40 hour work week to match.  Our insanely massive income inequality, inflation adjusted income stagnation, and steadily high unemployment are all direct results of that.
I have started a petition to that end: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/a-35-hour-work-week-will
Of course, given the actual increase in output per worker since the 1940s when the 40 hour week was officially established, we should be at 4 hour work weeks by now,

 but 35 seems a bit more politically realistic as a starting point.

Unfortunately, I'm just a manual laborer with some ideas and a free blog account, not an activist or promoter, but if you happen to have a network of people who'd support the idea, by all means help me get some signatures
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/a-35-hour-work-week-will

Privilege - its not the problem

Response to:
http://andrea366.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-problem-with-privilege-by-andrea-smith/



I absolutely love its general premise, and could not agree more - though perhaps for slightly different reasons.

I have long questioned the entire idea of "privilege", and especially the focus on it.  If you are lucky enough to be middle class, its fairly easy to see inequality in terms of having some privileges or not.  One of those privileges is being able to (pretend that you) live in an insular world where an individual being culturally insensitive to another individual is one of the worst aspects of racism.

As a African American, who has lived most (but not all) of his life in poor, high crime, high minority urban areas, the entire sub-culture of race activists has always looked very shallow and meaningless to me.  It has always seemed much more about being able to say "I, in contrast to all those other (white) people, am enlightened."

What, exactly, does white people or men or straight people or whoever, acknowledging their privilege actually accomplish?

Lets say every single European American was fully aware, fully acknowledged, and fully internalized that they have privilege relative to other people.

Would that somehow instantly, magically, cause wealth and income inequality to disappear, so that whites were proportionately represented among the extremely poor (and I'm not talking "can't make car payments" or "home foreclosure" poor - I'm talking "can't afford a halfway decent bicycle" or "choose between rent and food" poor) - or better yet, make it so that everyone who has the ability and desire to work could live (what we currently consider) a middle class lifestyle?

Would it end the dramatically different levels of violent crime victimization?  For all the talk about police brutality, young black men are murdered by young black men somewhere on the order of 100 to 1000 times more often than they are shot by cops.  If enough white people acknowledged their privilege, would that stop?

Why OWS and the 99% is THE fundamental issue, which lies behind all others:

[This is another of those things I wrote years ago, and has been lost in draft form.  I think I originally planned to add more list items, and elaborate further on all of them, but of course I don't remember what exactly I had in mind]


-War: Some of the largest corporations, (Boeing, Lockheed Martin), profit enormously from war

-Civil Rights: Corporations are not citizens, and therefor should have no civil rights - they are granted right anyway.  They violate the rights of individuals without consequence.  Income and wealth inequality are the single largest factor for the different life experiences of American whites and blacks, and wealth inequality is a direct result of our economic policies.

-Gay rights, abortion, etc etc: Directly mutual relationship between corporate political power and the religious right, as they are both "conservative".  The only reason the religious right is taken seriously is because they support the politicians who are funded by corporate money.

-Environment: EPA doesn't work on shutting down your backyard BBQ.  It is corporations which cause massive pollution.  Corporations decide which power sources to tap into and what type of cars are manufactured.  It was corporations which deliberately destroyed public transit across America.

WTO / NAFTA / etc: this should go without saying

Freedom VS democracy

[I wrote this some years ago, I don't remember exactly when. It was lost in the drafts folder.]

Some people condemn all government as authoritarian.  They take the government we have today as an example of "democracy" and condemn democracy as just another form of government control over people's lives.  But the word "government" doesn't mean "authoritarian control".  Democracy is a form of government.  And democracy isn't about legislatures interfering into private peoples lives.  Democracy is about private people acting as legislatures. 

The United States of America has corrupted the word democracy.
The USA is not, and never has been, a democracy.  It was never intended to be.