The Glide Path of Inequality

 

It was fifteen years ago that I wrote one of my first pieces on economic inequality in this country, and since then that inequality has soared on an exponential basis.

 

It is no longer the millionaire next door; it’s the billionaire—and now, with Elon Musk’s potential pay package, the trillionaire next door. That’s larger than most countries’ gross national product. That earlier piece was about a book I published years ago, Herbert Inhaber’s and Sidney Carroll’s How Rich Is Too Rich, and although its focus was on the inheritance tax (or lack of it), its ingenious first chapter vividly depicts the parabolic rise of wealth in our population in the form of a parade—each marcher’s size proportional to their income. Imagine what that parade would look like today.

 

Back then I pointed to the policies of the Tea Party. How quaint that Party now seems next to the present Republican Party of plutocrats, whose leader even held an extravagant Halloween Great Gatsby celebration at Moolah-Lago—as millions of Americans lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. It’s hard to accept that as “coincidence.” It is abject cruelty. Meanwhile, ICE roams the nation, snatching people of color it thinks may be illegal immigrants—under the guise that all such people are violent criminals, their families be damned. This is heartbreakingly captured by Mike Luckovich in a recent political cartoon in the Atlanta Constitution.

 

This especially hit home last Thursday. I was playing tennis, still recovering from my injury, and as I looked up to serve, I stopped: overhead was a low-flying C-17 Globemaster, a hulking military transport. Were we being invaded? Well, yes—in a sense. The tennis courts happen to sit on that particular plane’s low glide path into Palm Beach International Airport. And since it was Thursday morning, I knew what it meant: another weekend visit by our President, come to play golf and consort with the rich and famous and—with his steady stream of pardons for those who helped make J6 a reality or enriched themselves with crypto duplicity—the infamous as well. That transport carries “the Beast”—his armored car—as well as other security vehicles, devices, and, who knows, his favorite golf clubs.

 

We were once a country of compassion. Our tax laws have always been open to debate, but never before have they been so one-sided—or the government run so shamelessly as a personal plaything. It makes you wonder who will prevail at Sotheby’s impending auction of “America” AKA the Golden Toilet Bowl (Maurizio Cattelan, “America” --ca. 2016) reportedly being sold by billionaire Steve Cohen (also NY Mets owner). Perhaps it will be won by an absentee bid, destined for the Classified Documents bathroom. 

 

 

Lyrics for Our Times

 

From Cabaret, the profound lyrics of Fred Ebb:

 

Money makes the world go around

It makes the world go 'round.

A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound

A buck or a yen

A buck or a pound.

Is all that makes the world go around

That clinking, clanking sound

Can make the world go 'round

Money money money money

 

These lyrics came to mind when I read our local Palm Beach Post story (Sunday, Feb. 14), Why upstart political 'sommelier' Blair Brandt says GOP money base is Palm Beach.  Essentially, although Brandt was “saddened and shocked at what he saw” on Jan. 6, he anticipates it will have an impact on his clients, “donors and corporations he advises on political strategy and giving.”  He has found “’people are more interested and curious than ever in terms of what races to support and who is the right candidate.’"

 

“What he insists, however, is that the future of his ‘political sommelier’ venture is firmly rooted in Palm Beach, a Mecca for the new Republican Party. And as he listens to clients, donors and prospective candidates alike, the focus is all about flipping control of the Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.”

 

After college he started “a concierge-style real estate service” in Manhattan which catered “to wealthy millennia’s.”  That was such a success that he landed on the Forbes list of “up and coming entrepreneurs.”  That led to “a reality television show on the ABC Family network.”  Sound familiar?

 

“Today, Brandt is back in Palm Beach, where he has meshed his entrepreneurial instincts with his new-found passion for conservative politics to create a sort of concierge-style political consulting and fundraising firm, The Brandt Group LLC.”  According to Brandt, "’I kind of view myself as a political sommelier. It's like being a concierge at a hotel, or a Sherpa — you’re kind of guiding people through a massive maze.’"  (The maze being matching wealthy donors to the correct conservative political choices).  Because he grew up on Palm Beach and now lives there with his family, he “had connections. Local donors took his calls and Brandt knew which donors should be invited to exclusive fundraisers.”

 

The article dovetails with yet another one in the same edition of the Post: You won't believe the total sales at the most expensive condominium ever built in Palm Beach County.  There was much controversy over The Bristol condominium in West Palm Beach when it was proposed in 2013, particularly whether such a massive downtown structure was appropriate, or even financially viable.  Well in this era of fast money and $50k Bitcoins, it has sold out.  The total sales make it the “most expensive condominium ever built in Palm Beach County hitting just under $600 million.”

 

“Units at The Bristol ranged in price from under $5 million to $43 million.”  And this is not Manhattan, folks, we’re talking Florida.  But, as the article correctly highlights, “Palm Beach County is in the national spotlight these days as a destination for individuals and companies seeking to relocate to a state with low taxes, warm weather and plenty of luxury touches, from top restaurants to numerous cultural attractions.”  Also the pandemic “sparked a surge in residential real estate sales and the relocation of financial firms seeking to serve wealthy residents in the area.” 

 

The thread tying these two articles together is the tsunami of wealth that has flooded the area with zero interest rates favoring those very individuals who need help the least.  And aside from real estate and the toys of the über wealthy, money-money-money gets channeled into politics, frequently as a means of preserving wealth, one back scratching the other.  This is yet an added Democracy headwind.

 

What else could explain Mitch McConnell’s acquittal of Trump in the Impeachment proceedings, and two minutes later delivering a blistering attack which would have been suitable if he was a House Impeachment Manager? (“Give 'em the old razzle dazzle / Razzle Dazzle 'em… How can they hear the truth above the roar?”  Again Lyrics by Fred Ebb, this time from Chicago.)  This way he can appeal to Republican donors for the 2022 mid-terms based on which part of the fractious Party he is addressing.

 

The point is, everything is tied together by the very sick practice of political contributions, and this goes for both sides of the aisle, the now much maligned anti-Trump PAC, The Lincoln Project alone raising $90 million during the last election.  Publix, the major super market chain in Florida, recently gave $100K to Friends of Ron DeSantis for his re-election campaign.  Days later, DeSantis, who has badly botched the distribution of the Covid vaccine ignoring the CDC’s guidelines, designated Publix as practically the sole distribution point for vaccinations, a job for which the Publix appointment scheduling system was totally unprepared.  What resulted for seniors is a version of the Hunger Games. 

 

Some nine years ago after the Supreme Court brought the Super PAC into being by ruling that unlimited contributions can be made by corporations as well as wealthy individuals – that they had such rights under the Constitution -- I wrote about this terrible decision.  The content is as valid today as when it was first written, so here is a truncated version:

 

"Stay tuned, but now a word from the sponsor" --- the despicable political advertising condoned by the Supreme Court. The Founding Fathers obviously anticipated ungodly sums of money being raised by corporations and unions for political PACs so elections can be bought and sold by these "people" whose first amendment rights would otherwise be violated. Or at least I guess that is the Court's interpretation.

 

The American electorate is electronic media addicted; broadcast emails, streaming video, Tweets, YouTube, network and cable TV. Outside sleep and work, "video consumption" is the #1 activity, or, if written, preferably 140 characters or less please. Robocalls are part of the political media bombardment. Sound bites over substance.

 

When motivational research was being pioneered by the likes of Ernest Dichter and James Vicary in the 1950s and popularized by Vance Packard in his Hidden Persuaders, little did they know that some of those principles would become part of a giant advertising machine aimed at buying elections. Advertising 101: sell the emotion, not the pragmatic benefit of the product.

 

And, so in this political season, we're selling religion and all the emotions that are attached to the same (and in a negative way, not the way it was used in WW II advertising to spur solidarity and sacrifice):

 

But the real selling job is just getting underway. Sell fear. Just wait until the Super P's roll out their shadowy images of their opponent bathed in a light to look like Jack the Ripper.

 

It is no wonder that a society that consumes movies that are more computer animated than acted, and cannot live without 24/7 video is a perfect target for Super PAC persuasion. Just fork over the bucks and try to buy an election! Sanctioned by the Supreme Court, the same folks who "sponsored" the results of the 2000 presidential election.

 

After four years of Trump and gas lighting, a more virulent version of political persuasion has been created.  I give Trump credit for only one thing, his media instincts.  He capitalizes on a form of agnotology, a culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully aimed to create confusion and suppress the truth.  He even has his Republican sycophants protecting him from being guilty of his Impeachment charges.  Any reasonable person would conclude that he was responsible for the turmoil of January.

 

I’m not the first to note it, but Trump has become the Jim Jones of politics, a cult leader who can say,” march on Washington on Jan. 6” and his obedient somnambulants obeyed under the guise of being patriots.  He incited them to violence after creating the movement.  His mass persuasion tactics are more instinctive than studied, but they work.  As do the names he gives opponents such as “Little Marco” (Rubio), “Lyin' Ted" (Cruz) who now crawl to his beck and call.  The cult views him as Satan’s adversary.  Gotta get a little religion into the mix.  Might has well give Trump the title of “Reverend,” as was Jim Jones’ moniker. 

 

In his “Rally to Save America” he spewed his election conspiracy theories and his cult followers adopted more punchy one liners from his speech and innuendo such as “Stop The Steal!,” “Hang Mike Pence!,” “Fight For Trump!” 

 

These slogans and nicknames are potent manipulative tactics.  This is not new science.  Gustave Le Bon's 1895 pioneering book of social psychology, The Crowd; A Study of the Popular Mind, stated "The power of words is bound up with the images they evoke, and is quite independent of their real significance. Words whose sense is the most ill-defined are sometimes those that possess the most influence. Yet it is certain that a truly magical power is attached to those short syllables" [e.g. “Stop the Steal”] "as they contained the solution to all problems. They synthesize the most diverse unconscious aspirations and the hope of their realization. Reason and arguments are incapable of combating certain words and formulas. They are uttered with solemnity...and as soon as they have been pronounced an expression of respect is visible on every countenance, and all heads bowed. By many they are considered as natural forces, as supernatural powers. They evoke grandiose and vague images in men's minds, but this very vagueness that wraps them in obscurity augments their mysterious power."

 

How in the world did we get to this point?  We’re lucky to have escaped the complete implosion of Democracy on Jan. 6, but the donors are lining up for 2022 and the Palm Beach crowd will be there to urge on the Trump-inspired cultists, and the PACs will be lining up to make THEIR world go ‘round, by gladly taking their money, money, money.

 

Isn’t it time to put political candidates on a more even playing field?  Grant political candidates an equal amount of $$ to spend on elections.  Make it a government supported stipend.  After you spend it, your advertising days are over, so do so wisely: even better, public televised debates and no political advertising.  Time has come to starve the PAC beast.  It will put some fund-raising firms out of work.  Let them raise money for those who need it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Inevitable Year of Reckoning, a Year That Never Was

A contradictory heading.  How can both be true?  How can a year be and not be, or should not have been but is?

The answer lies in one’s perspective, and as I am now entering the outfield of old age, the game has been called.  It’s a matter of simple math.  Removing a year from your life when you’re approaching 80 represents a huge fraction of one’s remaining life.  So, waiting for COVID-19 to abate or to be solved is tantamount to a kind of purgatory, a state of being between life and death.

Purgatory implies some kind of judgement.  I’d say we are among the fortunate who can afford to stay in our house, surrounded by our books and streaming choices of theatre and  music, and for me my precious piano,  Judgement day is looking up, if you believe in religious fabrication.  I don’t; and have always argued that we make our own heaven or hell right here and now.

At first we hung onto every word of Dr. Fauci, for guidance and for any hopeful signs of a vaccination.  Any good news would release us, the most vulnerable, from being confined to our home.  Instead, what we feared, a therapeutic and better yet, a vaccination, will be a long time coming.

Ok, “normal” life will continue without us.  As “reopening” occurred, we watched boats pass by our house, their Trump flags flying, celebrating reverence for their King releasing them from bondage, going right back to their previous ways of ignoring social distancing, just making it more dangerous for the rest of us, but, hey, it’s their “freedom” not ours.

Until the thunderbolt of America’s original sin struck in Minneapolis of all places.  Racism, lack of opportunity, income inequality, white privilege, police violence, and the message that black lives really don’t matter, came crashing down on the country’s collective conscience with the murder of just one black person, George Floyd, by an imperious white policeman, Derek Chauvin, filmed for all the world to see.  The country burst into the same Chicago flames as in 1968 after Martin Luther King’s assassination.  Then too we had another elephant in the room, the Vietnam War which had fomented its own trauma.  There were also the Watts Riots of 1965, involving the police and a black man and they foreshadowed the 1992 LA riots which were sparked by the arrest and beating of Rodney King, all of which was filmed.  Cell phones were not around then, but a TV cameraman captured the gruesome details.

But the killing of the seemingly gentle giant George Floyd was different.  It came soon after filmed killings either by police or white vigilantes of other blacks and, over the past years hundreds, more like them.  It came after Dylann Roof’s mass murder in a Charleston black Baptist Church.  It came immediately after the filmed confrontation of a black man who was bird watching in Central Park and a white woman who felt entitled to call the police when he asked her to put her dog on a leash in an area where birds were protected.  But she chose to turn the call into a racial one, saying "I'm taking a picture and calling the cops, I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life."  It was an open invitation for the police to take action which would not have been justified.  The mere fact that he was black gave the woman a sense of entitlement, the power, to make such a call.  Had she had a gun and was in Florida she might have shot him and been vindicated under its racially charged “Stand Your Ground” law.  It reveals the basis of a problem which has existed forever in this country, remaining unaddressed.

We all know the systemic basis for it all and this country’s failure to do anything while propping up the stock market to benefit the few is a sin.

Its failure to address gun control is just another, but related, sin. 

Its failure to invest in education as part of the long term solution overarches the entire topic. 

Hopelessness breeds a certain kind of despair which can burst into flames when a match is thrown into the kindling.  But this is no mere match, as the video of the white policeman shows him kneeling on the neck of this poor man, suffocating the life out of him, the half shit grin knowing he was being filmed, the casual hand in the pocket.  It had the characteristics of the hunter proudly dominating his dead prey.  Like the ones of the Trump brothers grinning over their dead leopard, elk, elephant, or endangered sheep, the same shit eating grin of domination by gun or authority.

Many knew that with the election of a sociopathic reality TV star a Trumpocalypse might result.  Being so close to the election now, I was starting to think we might escape with merely part of our world being dismantled but COVID-19 gave him another way to pursue his egotistical ends, forcing himself into our homes each day with frequent preposterous claims about the virus, not giving the experts the floor, and refusing to wear a mask although that is the guidelines our health experts advocated.  Nothing applies to him and it makes him look weak.  One must wonder how he felt when he had to be taken to the bunker in the White House because of protests.

Well, he decided, I’ll look strong by clearing a way to St. John's Church across the park from the White House to pose for photos holding up a bible, as if he has spent his Sundays in church.  If this photo op meant pepper spraying protestors or using rubber bullets against them, so be it.  He wants us to know he’s a tough guy.  It invites commentary, the absurdity and the arrogance of it all and it would be funny if it were not so tragic, that that is the action our “President” thinks meaningful in light of this wake up moment in our history.

It is more than ironic that George Floyd’s brother, Terrence Floyd, was the one who took the conciliatory Presidential fork in the road, exhorting the crowds to not turn to violence and looting, urging protests in a peaceful way to honor his brother.  He also asked that the crowds turn to the voting booth to make their voices heard.  "Educate yourselves. Don't wait for somebody else to tell you who's who, educate yourself and know who you're voting for. That's how we're going to help. It's a lot of us! ... Let's switch it up and do this peacefully.''

Trump, meanwhile took the low road, urging the Governors of those States to “dominate” with force, warning that if they didn’t do it, he’d call up the military.  He said "I’m your president of law and order.''

It would have been an ideal opportunity for a normal President of the United States to show empathy, compassion, urging Congress to bring a bill to his desk to ensure a massive investment in education and in the short term economic relief for the most poverty stricken and unemployed.  But we know that this President was not born with an empathic bone in his body, only bone spurs.

He is like CV19 itself.  It knows nothing about empathy and only “thinks” of its own existence by replicating through infecting others.  It is not an “equal opportunity” infector, more seriously impacting those without access to good diets and medical care as well us elderly.  It ruins lives.  It kills.  And once a large number of unprotected citizens are infected, it leads to disastrous societal and economic consequences. Trump’s strong-arm behavior only exacerbates an already incendiary situation.  I fear it will worsen.

Yet, this is our moment to stand in solidarity with all people of color, to work towards an election of bringing people to Congress who will work together to find solutions to the systemic problem of racism and income disparity and full employment for all.  If we can afford to go to Mars, we can afford to do this. And it is time to remove the virulent President.  Indeed, make this a year of reckoning, one that might have been a year that never was, but now can count for something constructive.