Where you so often find us these days ---- eating and drinking in a tavern.

If the society we live in continues to move in the direction it is going, there will be violence. This isn't something I wish for. Certainly a violent society will threaten my children and grandchildren, and that alone is good reason why I couldn't embrace it. In all probability I will be dead before the shooting starts.

But there are two knots in the fabric of our civilization which I think are astonishing, because they are so contrary to the future well being of us all, but which will not break, despite what seems to me to be clear evidence of an evil outcome. One of these is the hatred -- or at least the dislike and shunning -- by the white sector of our society (declining) toward the other sectors, black and brown (increasing) .

The second knot is the ever increasing dichotomy between the haves (whose resources are constantly increasing) and the middle class (whose resources are constantly decreasing.) Everything indicates that those with the money are increasingly running the show and building more and more barriers against the possible sharing of power with the less well-to-do. In the effort to free themselves of obligations such as taxes (lower estate taxes and lower capital gains taxes) and elections (more and more "safe" districts and less control of corruption in politics), the wealthy are building themselves a structure which gives them more privilege, while increasingly shutting out other people.

I wonder what can be done to avert a violent collision between the sides?

Monday!  I wish this was a coffee club morning.

Grandpa and Amos

What I'm reading now: 

chuckle

"Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed when he learned that the firehouse is not where you get to fire people." –Jimmy Fallon

It's very good to have friends who make me laugh, or at least smile, or perhaps, even just groan.

With so much negativity in the news these days, and not many movies or TV shows that elevate my mood, friends are the first line of defense against the pressures of melancholy. (But I DO laugh at Jeff Dunham.)

executive privilege

According to headlines this morning, Obama has decided to invoke "executive privelege" to keep certain documents away from Congress.

Not acceptable to me, but then, no one ever asks me.

Too often in the past, the invoking of this privilege is a means for covering up wrong doing in the executive branch. These are things the public has every right to know about.

Message from IRISH MIKE

In the recent recall attempt in Wisconsin, of Governor Walker, as everyone knows, the public employees including the teachers, were trying to protect their interests against the Republican party. The public employees have lost. There are powerful money interests currently supporting the Republicans who seem to have unlimited ability to spend in the pursuit of controlling American government.

Our good friend IRISH MIKE has sent the following analysis, with which I agree.

There are 59,552 public school teachers in Wisconsin. Average Wisconsin teacher salary is $46,390 (Ranked 28th among all states). There are over 90,000 millionaires in Wisconsin. So how do we balance the budget? Of course we go after the greedy 59,552 teachers and cut their benefits and salary. After all they're making a whopping $46,000 a year. AND it would just be wrong to ask those 90,000 plus millionaires to contribute some of their wealth in a tax increase.

Recommended Reading

SPARTY recommends this article from the New York Times . It concerns the topic of a posting I made below ("The SUM king") and upon which some people have commented.

CLICK FOR RACISM ARTICLE

Your continued comments are welcomed.

The line that most struck me, was this one:

"Add up the totals throughout the country, and racial animus cost Mr. Obama three to five percentage points of the popular vote. In other words, racial prejudice gave John McCainthe equivalent of a home-state advantage nationally."

Goodbye Ray Bradbury

"There are worse crimes than burning books.

One of them is not reading them."

The SUM king?

Alright, I know we aren't going to make Romney king, even if he wins the election, which at this point, I believe is entirely likely. But that is not really the point of this cartoon.

The country is moving rapidly toward rule by the wealthy. They have, in many regards, purchased the government and the Republican Party (where they have always resided, anyway.) The "lumpen proletariat" (which used to mean those very numerous people at the low end of society who could not be organized or enlightened to the cause of resisting the wealthy) has now become the "lumpen middle class".

I see the middle class as now composed of a great number of people who cannot be expected to vote in their own interest, who cannot be expected to think about constructing the future. They are so busy trying to cling to whatever it is they now have - to preserve their shaky hold on simple prosperity - to be expected to look at the future as a better place. I suppose they hope that someone will magically fix things in the long run, someone else, of course. 

There is no point in pretending that most of the people we are talking about are not the white people. These are the folks who let their industries move away, who saw their state and federal treasuries looted by the economic aristocracy, and who now sit back lackadaisically and watch their public schools being destroyed. In fact, many of these white people have gladly contributed to the demise of their institutions because they hate other races so much. They never wanted those minorities in their neighborhoods, their schools, their unions, or anywhere else near to them. Now their very democracy is sliding away. 

So, welcome king Romney! not as an ordinary king, but as a representative of a class who are now seizing the United States.