The Universal Scapegoat

 

This essay is going out a little sooner than I had expected in recognition of the likelihood that later this week the United Nations General Assembly will declare a Palestinian state.ⁱ Political and economic considerations,ⁱⁱ conditioned by two millennia of antisemitism, will make the vote easy for most member nations, who will ignore the facts that the formation of the United Nations was prompted by the Second World War and the Holocaust, and that the Palestinian entity that now exists has been acting aggressively toward Israel – a member of the United Nations – throughout its existence. Apparently most nations and most people, including Jews, either believe or want to believe that there will be peace in the world if the Palestinians, the Iranians, the Syrians, and other similar agitators, get what they demand. I do not share that view.

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Before Jesus was born there were Jews in Rome. Certainly there was a Jewish settlement before there was a Popeⁱⁱⁱ or a home for the Church It originated in 161 BCE, and the Jews were free, and without any special restrictions – just the ones imposed on all foreigners. Only later, when they destroyed the Temple of Solomon, did the Romans treat the Jews as a conquered people. But the victory over them was nationalistic, not religious. And there were Jewish communities in what is now Iraq and Iran, and in Egypt and Saudi Arabia long before Muhammad was born and Islam originated. Whatever ill feeling existed toward the Jews by individuals was not specifically related to their religion, but to personal grievances and the perception of threats posed by the Jewish nation.

Subsequently both Christianity and Islam declared that they superseded Judaism, and each claims it now represents the true faith. And both of them have, through the centuries, belittled Judaism and worked actively to eliminate Jews. They have used philosophical arguments and terminology that hide their underlying hatred, emphasizing the view that the ideas they have expressed and the actions they have taken represent the Divine Will – that, to be clear, they harbor no animosity toward the Jews but they are doing G-d's work, and the Jews have brought it on themselves.

When both new religions were small and struggling themselves, they posed little threat to the Jews. Not that the Jews were without enemies, but communities that were, themselves, being persecuted or trying to deal with internal dissension, had little time to pick fights with others. It wasn't long, however, before both of these new religions gained adherents by one means or another,^iv and, having done so, they have developed theologies that involve blaming a religion that comprises less than a quarter of a percent of the world's population^v for most of the world's problems. And if the fault cannot be placed on the Jews in general, it certainly must rest with Israel or Israel's Prime Minister. In a post-Holocaust world, long after the end of accusations of poisoning the wells and the killing of Christian children for their blood, and even after the rethinking of charges of deicide, there remain the stories of the Jews controlling the banks and the media, of Israel being the cause of all the problems in the Middle East,^vi and of Jews holding sway over the American government and thumbing its nose at everyone else.

Yet the truth contradicts these slanders. The Jews and Israel have contributed far more to the world in which we live than vice versa. But the world refuses to accept the people it has persecuted. It ignores the problems existing around the world – problems it cannot solve – while it focuses on Israel and the claimed injustices, supported by an extensive public relations campaign, of the Palestinians. In the words of Eric Hoffer,^vii a twentieth century philosopher,

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it, Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese-and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace .

Hoffer was probably not Jewish^viii but he recognized what so many others have ignored – that the world doesn't have a single standard when it comes to bias and self-interest.^ix

And that bias lacks any logical consistency.^x To the capitalists, the Jews are communists. To the communist, the Jews are capitalists. To Arab nations, and, for a time, to the United Nations as a whole, Zionism (read Judaism and Israel) was racism, and even now the idea of a Jewish state is anathema^xi to nations that honor Islamic^xii and Arab^xiii Republics. Israel, which includes, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and other religious groups of all races in its population, is “racist” because it views itself as a Jewish state. Yet countries that are proudly judenrein^xiv are free of taint.

What can be done about the problem? Very little. What can be done about the specific accusations? Virtually nothing. Denial is defensiveness, and proof of their validity. Rationality is irrelevant when bias is the issue. If the “cause” for the accusation or treatment is shown to be fallacious, another will be found. Treatments will always be one-sided since blame must be addressed, and fighting back against lies with words will be viewed as defensive, and an attempt to deflect valid criticism. So other means must be found.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources. Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.

Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon [the rest of] us.^xv

But there is a positive side to the whole thing. It pays to be a scapegoat. The blaming of Israel and the Jews for everything is reminiscent of more than two millennia of such scapegoating. The upside is that a scapegoat must be kept alive. If it is eliminated, the real problems– the ones avoided by shifting the blame – must be addressed, and the world doesn't want to face them or do that. So Israel will live to be faulted for something or other another day.

i     The regular weekly schedule will resume on Sunday, September 25^th.

ii    The need for affordable oil and for Arab favor.

iii    Peter was the first Pope and the “Rock” (Cephas) upon which Jesus built his church (Matthew)

iv    Often by the sword.

v     The number of Jews who actually identify with Judaism is, of course, far less. According to numbers found on line, the number of unaffiliated and secular Jews is about 30%. My unscientific impression is that it is higher.

vi     Indeed, throughout the world.

vii    From 1968. Cited by The National Review Online (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fnews/1675470/posts)

viii   I am unable to find any specific information on this subject although his genealogy suggests that he wasn't.

ix    Hoffer, ibid:

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967] he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on .

There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die[d] in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him. The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The bracketed material was added for clarification and because the quote is from 1968. Sadly the double standard is as prevalent as ever.

x     In that respect it's like all biases.

xi    “Don't order us to recognize a Jewish state. We won't accept it.” Mahmoud Abbas

xii    Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mauritania

xiii   Egypt, Syria

xiv    Free of Jews.

xv    Hoffer, ibid.

F U Cn Rd Ths …

 

"I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter."

Thus wrote Blaise Pascal some time in the seventeenth century. But what's the point of a short letter? What's the fun of writing it? Isn't it more enjoyable to dawdle over your words for days; to spend free hours molding meaningful and memorable phrases, sentences, and paragraphs? Isn't the insouciant experience of composing in a relaxed manner worth far more than the time devoted to it?

And more important, where is the pleasure of waiting for such a treasure and reading it? It's so much better to receive a thick envelope and have a handful of papers to fondle, to read and re-read, to crumple and to flatten out again. Better to let your mind wander as you imagine the writer thinking about you and setting down his thoughts in a way designed to bring you pleasure.

But Blaise Pascal was a busy man. He lacked free time to sit back. He had a lot on his mind and little time to consider it all. Certainly there was no opportunity to say all that was on his mind concisely, to condense and clarify his thoughts.ⁱ So the letter was long. And what's wrong with that? Of course the letter may have been long but written hurriedly so that it lacked the poise and tranquility of a nonchalant dispatch. But long is better than short.

When I was in college and a major activity was taking notes, I used my own kind of shorthand code that allowed me to take down most of what I needed to remember while still listening to the lecturer – sort of. I guess all college students used to do that. Those who knew Speedwriting^® or shorthand – more likely Pitman or Greggⁱⁱ than older formsⁱⁱⁱ – would use that ability to record the material raised. The purpose of shorthand was to get down material quickly with the intent of writing it out more fully when time permitted. There were even machines available with which a transcriber could take down enough of a speaker's words to be able to reproduce a verbatim record – like the machines used to record legal testimony.

From there we moved to audio recordings which could be transcribed into more usable notes at a later time. More recently, with the advent of voice recognition technology, we have reached a point where a machine can listen to the lecture for us and produce written notes.^iv With all the technology available nowadays you don't even have to pay attention.^v

But the shorthand persisted. However it stopped being a communication that one addressed to himself – one which would be expanded at a later time. With recent movie titles,^vi texting and Tweeting, and with personal and want ads, private verbal shortcuts have been converted into external “communication.” “LOL” and “OMG,” among other such monstrosities, have found their way into the OED.^vii Orthography and grammar have no place in the twenty-first century. We live in the age of Facebook^®. Wisdom and style have fallen victim to inanity and speed. And everything has become fair game for Big Brother who can monitor most of our communications without our knowledge or concern. We don't even have to know much about spelling as long as we can get the first and last letters of words right, since it appears that people don't pay much attention to full words.^viii Speedy writing and reading are more important than intelligence and comprehension. More and more children have less and less understanding of the past and of the ideas once taught. When, for example, all they've ever encountered are digital clocks, it's easy to understand why the concepts of “clockwise” and “counter-clockwise” are not always fathomed.

Interestingly, however, although communications have become shorter and less informative, they have also become far more numerous. The streets^ix are filled with people either texting or chattering on their telephones. For many it's an addiction. Some people can't tolerate time when they're not in communication^x with someone else.^xi And the communications may be visual – photographs and videos. You Tube and television programs which invite videos cater to this form of narcissism and “documentation,” while the ease of photography with telephones and digital cameras, as well as the availability of computer memory into which the pictures can be put, never to be seen again. The action is more important than the content. And the speed more important than either.

We live in an age dedicated to instant gratification. We're always looking for shortcuts and for easier ways of doing things with no loss of rewards. That may mean plagiarism or the use of ready-made term papers, graphic novels, grade inflation, and “dumbing down” in general. In a way it's reminiscent of the “relevance” movement^xii that swept through educational facilities in the 1960's, and all the educational “improvements” foisted on us both in the past^xiii and at present. Whatever looks like it may make life easier and shorten the time necessary to complete a task must be good. If it doesn't work we'll find another untested method. And when that doesn't work we'll try another.^xiv

As for speed, the laconic popular songs of the past have been replaced by rapid-fire rap, and the clear and carefully enunciated radio advertisements have yielded to fast one with the hurried and unintelligible speech of the disclaimers that appear in announcements now heard. It's much like the fine print in contracts – present but of little value since it can't be understood.

But enough of the negative. Daylight Savings Time, designed to make better use of time, has surely been a boon to our society. And there's a lot to be said for bar codes and EZ Pass. The greatest benefit, however, has been in the proliferation of radio frequencies and especially increased “band width.” The sale of these frequencies by the government brings in a lot of money for the treasury.^xv And the greater the band width the faster we can download rap and You Tube videos.

What's not 2 lyk?

Next episode: “The Universal Scapegoat” –When all else fails, blame someone else.

i     Among other things he was a philosopher, so there were times when his thoughts were quite complex.

ii    Both lived in the nineteenth century.

iii    Shorthand dates back at least to the ancient Greece. Perhaps it existed before that but there is no good written record – in short- or longhand.

iv    It is, however, hard to ignore the reality that such systems are far less than perfect and there are times when the written (typed) record is indecipherable. At other times it is funny.

v     Which will give you more time for telephone calls and texting. Or sleeping late, if you can get a friend to take your electronics to the lecture.

vi    I suspect that movie producers consider them clever and good for the box office. Rather they are a concession to the worst aspects of modern “culture.”

vii    OK. I'm a hypocrite. That abbreviation I accept.

viii    http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/cambridge.asp

ix    And the homes.

x     “Contact” is probably a better word. Regarding it as “communication” is giving real communication a bad name.

xi    Compare them to hermits, monks, and others who prefer silence to sound, and who have no use for either telephones of text messages. Those of them who have children can employ the latest fad and teach the babies sign language so they don't have to talk to them.

xii    Why waste time on such unimportant subjects as math, science, and the classics. You'll never use them. It's better to devote your time in school to rock music, sexuality, protest movements and other practical matters.

xiii    The “New Math” and chisanbop spring to mind immediately. Learning to add and subtract are old hat. The multiplication tables should be folded up and put in the closet.

xiv    “Don't just stand there. Do something.” Unfortunately it doesn't matter what you do. It's more important that there be change than that the change be beneficial. Even harmful change sometimes seems to be preferable to leaving things as they are. “If it isn't broken, don't fix it.”

xv    And the sale of various electronic devices and the service contracts needed to run them make a fortune for service providers. I guess that's good for the economy.

Washington Arms

 

We face a fiscal crisis. Not just in the United States but in many countries around the world. So if there are problems in Europe there will be repercussions here – and vice versa. There's not much we can do about Greece or Spain. Europe, and its Economic Union, have to solve those problems and, without doubt, they're working on it. We can only hope that they're successful. Which leaves us to focus on our own situation.

The debt crisis and debt ceiling are issues that aren't as much in the news as they were a few months ago – at least in the media – but we don't seem to be any closer to a solution of those problems than we were then. So this may be a good time to review the situation and, perhaps, offer a few suggestions to improve our condition. In the absence of a method for creating real governmental wealth,^i,ii the two main mechanisms for managing the situation are the same on a national basis as they are in more modest settings – what goes out should not exceed what comes in. At least that's what used to be viewed as responsible money management.ⁱⁱⁱ So that's the route I'll follow.

First of all there's income. The vast majority of that comes from taxes of one sort or another. As is the case with any rule, some have found a way around them. There are tax breaks and benefits enjoyed by the rich – both as individuals and companies. So the first step is to eliminate those benefits. It may not help that much^iv – there aren't all that many “super rich” – but we'll all feel better if we make them suffer like everyone else.^v So the real help will have to come from the rest of us. But, as I've noted in the past, Congress has taken taxation far beyond what the Founding Fathers originally included in the Constitution, and the general population^vi will react negatively to any increased taxes.^vii Nonetheless, some nominal increase will have to be imposed – if only to demonstrate the idea of shared responsibility.

The real change though – the one that can bring us closer to a balanced budget – has to relate to the outgo rather than the income. And it is not unreasonable to look for an improvement in the lives of our citizens along with a cut in costs. We have always assumed that we can solve problems by “throwing money” at them, but perhaps the opposite is true. Perhaps we can save money by solving some of the problems at which we now throw money. Here are a few suggestions.

Eliminate Congress and the Pentagon. No. Not the functions^viii but the physical plants. At least move the activities to lower cost property. In fact, with video conferencing and the ability to vote over the internet, it is difficult to imagine why members of Congress need to leave their houses at all. The savings in travel and housing should be significant, and the Representatives will have more opportunity to hear from their constituents^ix if they are at all interested. Of course that will mean an increase in costs to the lobbyists, but their employers will pass them on to consumers resulting in higher prices and a boost to the economy.

There is also no need to use expensive property in Virginia to house the military complex. The government owns lots of land in more desolate areas, and the construction of scattered buildings in various wilderness areas would improve the local economies in those places^x and make terrorist attacks more difficult. No single attack could damage more than a small part of our military facilities. Communications systems between them, like those for Congress, could be handled electronically – especially since they're probably managed that way now, with telephone calls from office to office. The scattering of generals and admirals around the country, though it may improve their safety, could provoke terrorists to attack civilians, but there are so many of them that it won't matter much.

What about those civilians? Although the Founding Fathers (and presumably the Mothers as well) didn't envision the new government taking responsibility for all their needs, entitlements are now a given. Do entitlements extend beyond Medicare, Medicaid, Food stamps, welfare, and the like? All of them are burdens on our economy. How can we get them working for us? Perhaps we could take the now abandoned Pentagon and Congressional Office Buildings and subdivide them into apartments for the poor and homeless. Make those buildings into taxpayers instead of drains. A lot of those who now receive disbursements from the Treasury could get jobs in the construction trades working on those buildings and wind up paying taxes. And they would eventually get places to live in central locations.^xi Another possible piece of real estate which could be used is the White House. The President, like Congress, could work from home. Think of the money we'd save. (Each of those buildings also has a lot of unused land around it and the addition of more apartments would be a great benefit in all the ways already mentioned. Land developers would have a field day.) The prestige of the locations would encourage bidding for the apartments newly available and may even result in their being turned into condos.^xii The Pentagon could be renamed “The Washington Arms,” the Senate and House of Representatives might be relabeled “Congressional Alms,” and the White House, well the White House would certainly keep its old name.

Social Security is also very costly. We talk about increasing the age necessary to receive benefits but there are too many opposed to such an action. And rightly so. All it does is increase the number of working years, resulting in increased competition for jobs and a high rate of unemployment. We'd be better served if we lowered retirement age, paring back the payments if necessary. It might be necessary to increase the Social Security levy in order to do so, but people would probably be willing to pay to retire early. That would make more jobs available for the unemployed and increase tax revenues. And it would cut the costs of unemployment payments, food stamps, and welfare. Many of those unemployed could probably be trained to be medical providers and, even with limited training, they could provide many of the services now offered by doctors through Medicaid and Medicare, at lower cost. If the medical care they receive isn't very good and they die young, all the better – at least in terms of costs. We spend too much trying to make people better. Rationed care, as is offered in many other countries, would save us a lot.

Another big cost is that for defense. Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run if we built up our supply of armaments and then used them to destroy everyone else. Savings would be significant if we no longer had to send troops to protect other countries – and we wouldn't have to do so if we had destroyed our enemies, and our friends no longer existed. It would not be necessary to spend the huge costs of weapons development and maintenance of personnel. We could decrease the size of our armed forces. That would mean the addition of many to the work force, but they could be employed rebuilding the countries we destroyed. Costs would be paid out of the resources of those countries, resources that would now be ours. And once some of those countries reconstituted themselves, we could rent them our military as mercenaries. It would be to naïve to suggest that we would no longer need a military, but its size, and the expenses it incurs, could certainly be reduced.

There are certain means available to the government that might be used to increase revenue – apart from taxation. The first step I'd take is the nationalization of the paper industry. Irrespective of computer advances, the government is addicted to paper printouts of everything. And that's a lot. All Congress has to do is to authorize a department to regulate something and there are certain to be thousands of pages of regulations resulting. When they are printed, with thousands of copies required, a lot of paper has been consumed. Since there is no end to what Congress can regulate, there is no end to our need for paper. Why pay for it when we can own it? And while we're at it, we should be regulating private industry and selling them the thousands of pages of regulations we print.

Private industry would also be a likely target for the sale of government information – no, not the material we label as secret to hide mistakes and mismanagement, but census information which would be useful to marketers. And we should take the DNA of every newborn and naturalized citizen both for our own use and for sale. Sale of excess government land and National Parks would also bring in a great deal of money. We're only hoarding it for a bunch of well-off hikers.

Another big problem we can solve while saving money is that of hunger. If Congress feels the need to give special subsidies to the agricultural giants that are fixing prices and impoverishing all of us, they could be made to provide food for the poor so the government doesn't have to do so. Of course that means that our prices will be higher, but we won't be able to blame it on taxes – only on those giant corporations, and they don't care what we think anyway. In an analogous way, gasoline companies might be required to provide fuel for government vehicles. That would save a lot of money when it comes to the Federal budget. It may hit our personal budgets when we pay higher prices for gas, but we have to drive so we'll continue to do so.

Anyway, that's a start. I'm sure there are other steps we can take to control our debt. At least the public debt if not our private ones. Modern times offer us modern opportunities.

 

Next episode: “F U cn rd ths …” – If you can't, go back to prehistoric times.

 

 

i     Not just printing more money.

ii    There are some, however, and I'll offer some suggestions presently.

iii    It is hard to deny that not everyone accepts this formulation. There are many who contend that borrowing to invest in the future is the only way to strengthen the economy. The fourteen and a half trillion dollar debt we've amassed should not be viewed as in any way negating this philosophy. All we need to do to get out of the mess we're in is to double down. Or, at least, up the ante.

iv    A letter to the New York Times dated August 17, 2011 states: “The Internal Revenue Service's own statistics indicate that if the top 1 percent of all taxpayers (households with annual income of more than $380,000) were taxed at a rate of 100 percent, it would net $938 million, which would barely make a dent in the nation's multitrillion dollar annual budget.” And, of course, no one is proposing a tax rate that high – even for (or against, depending on your perspective) the rich.

v     In fact, they should suffer even more than we do. They can afford it.

vi     Not to mention the Republicans.

vii    Many view the disbursement of “entitlements” as charity which, however meritorious, should be a private matter, not a public one. Individuals should not be forced to give charity. But such a parsimonious attitude doesn't deserve consideration. Of course taxpayers should be required to pick up the tab to ensure equality.

viii    And of course not their “perqs” and benefits, which they get directly and in the form of inside information on which they can act before it becomes public. And the valuable inducements they receive from lobbyists and others eager to earn their favor.

ix    Original discussions of the Constitution placed representation at no more than one Representative per 30 thousand constituents (a number some viewed as too high). It's about one per 718 thousand now. If we can't increase representation, perhaps we can get our “Representatives” closer to us.

x     It's likely that new communities would rise around the new office buildings, and land developers would be quick to build additional homes, malls, and offices there. That would require, among other things, more transportation facilities, cell phone towers, energy sources (green), and roads. A building boom with lots of jobs is certain to result.

xi    Alternatively they could be moved to other government land where they could get forty acres and a used car. We need more farmers, though multinational corporations are doing very well (for their stockholders) in that regard. They would probably buy the land given to the homesteaders and thus enrich them. But only someone who is biased would believe that the poor are not as entitled as we to live in prime locations. And they may not wish to be farmers. They may prefer to be politicians. However the more spread out the politicians are, the better.

xii     And if the bidding gets too high because those who are better off want those addresses, the spaces they leave would probably become available at reasonable prices for the poor.

Bubbemeisehs

 

For the uninitiated, that's the Yiddish term which, literally, means “grandmother stories.” The closest English expression is “old wives' tales,”ⁱ but there's much more to it than that. The term also refers to other nonsense – to misconceptions and misleading ideas which may be modern, not just the ones passed down through the generations. For example, the recent teaching of Linus Pauling – that high doses of vitamin C will protect you from a variety of diseases – is a bubbemeiseh. All the scientific studies initiated to prove this point have failed to do so. There just isn't any truth to it.ⁱⁱ

One of my favorites is the concept that going out in the cold will cause you to have a cold. (“Put on your coat. I'm cold.”) It may sound good, and it may have been passed on to you earnestly,ⁱⁱⁱ but there's no truth to it. Absent a cold virus you can go dancing naked in the snow and you won't catch cold. You may be cold, but you won't catch cold. It's the virus, not the weather, that causes the problem. But the idea persists. It's intuitive – it makes sense – so it must be right.

Another commonly held notion is the idea that orange juice or chicken soup or tea not only will cure a cold but can be used for almost any disease.^iv One of the classic, if tongue-in-cheek, therapies I remember from medical school was the two-hat treatment for the cold. According to this strategy, the afflicted one should hang his hat on the bedpost^v and start drinking bourbon. When he saw two hats hanging there he should go to sleep. That remedy could be repeated until the cold passed. It might not help very quickly, but he wouldn't care. He might not even discontinue the therapy after the cold is gone.

Nowadays we have new ideas and fads. Many of them are just as silly as the ones we've inherited, but they're repeated with such earnestness that it's hard not to listen attentively. With some, however, it's harder to keep a straight face. The idea that people take many of these beliefs^vi seriously is a reflection on a society that is searching for “answers,” because logic is less important than whatever sounds or feels good, or feeds into the current vogue. And the word of the day is “healthful.”^vii

Listen to the radio, or your friends, and you will find out that you need a certain amount of (bottled) water every day, or more fiber and anti-oxidants, or less fat, or, perhaps, a certain number of fruits or vegetables. Or the secret of long life may be Greek yogurt, probiotics, or more vitamins, or whole grains, or less gluten.

One way of ensuring your continued good health is to make sure that all the food you eat is natural. If you're not sure what that means, it's worth looking it up in, for example, Wikipedia.^viii There you'll find an article which contains the following paragraph:

"'Natural foods' and 'all natural foods' are widely used terms in food labeling and marketing with a variety of definitions, some of which are vague. The term is assumed to imply foods that are minimally processed and do not contain manufactured ingredients, but the lack of standards in some jurisdictions means that the term assures nothing. The term "organic" has similar implications and has an established legal definition in many countries and an international standard.^ix In some places, the term "natural" is defined and enforced. In others, such as the United States, it has no meaning.

That reality, of course, in no way discourages the believers from looking for such a designation on the labels of the products they buy, and belittling those who do not buy “natural.”^x The designation is one that permits higher prices whether or not there is anything beneficial in the products it adorns. Similarly “organic.” It may be more difficult and time consuming to raise crops without the aid of modern fertilizers and pesticides, but that only makes them more expensive – not better. I'd rather have a small amount of a pesticide that may cause cancer^xi than a small amount of a lethal E. coli strain that might have been eliminated by the pesticide. Oh well, à chacun son goût.

There are other frequent beliefs that ought to be taken with a grain of (sea) salt. These include the ideas that living near power wires causes cancer, as does the use of cellular telephones. And drinking coffee will cause a child to stop growing. Those risks are real as superstitions like walking under a ladder, or letting a black cat cross your path, or breaking a mirror, will bring bad luck. No one takes superstitions seriously. The jury is out on astrology as well, but there are certain “facts” that we'd be fools to ignore – like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger,^xii wind power can solve the energy crisis, or immunizations cause autism.

The idea that bubbemeisehs are old and outdated myths ignores the truth that they are created every day. They make reality easier to face because they provide the answers we need to get along – comforting “truths” by which we live. They make clear everything that “they” – the powers that be, or anyone else – are trying to hide from us. We may change our ideas tomorrow and realize that what we accept today are just silly concepts that really aren't true, but all we'll do is substitute new myths. Those new tales will provide all the solace we need until they, too, are disproved and replaced. There will always be bubbemeisehs. Grandma knew what she was talking about – and so do we. At least we think we do.

Next episode: “Washington Arms” – A fundamental change in America.

i     An expression dating back to days when mothers married.

ii    Vitamin C does protect people from scurvy, but high doses aren't needed.

iii    Probably by your mother, not your grandmother. However your mother heard it from her own mother. And she believed it.

iv    The main concern is that the person who is sick have a lot of fluids to prevent dehydration at a time when he does not feel like eating. I find the chicken soup rather comforting however.

v      Do beds still have posts, or am I living in the past?

vi    And, indeed, they are beliefs. Some are based on “science” – usually “junk science” or a single unconfirmed study – but most are based on hype cooked up by someone who has written a book, or someone who has something to sell.

vii     Actually most people say “healthy” when they mean “healthful,” but language change is also common nowadays.

viii    Notwithstanding its bad reputation, Wikipedia is a good starting point for many inquiries.

ix     Indeed, the legal requirements are sometimes quite complex and they differ from country to country. Whether there's any scientific basis for them, or whether they represent a response to a public demand, is arguable. According to the Creighton University School of Medicine in it's view of “Perceived Pros and Cons of Organic Foods”: “Arguments for or against organic foods are largely anecdotal and left to word of mouth.”

x     Poison oak is natural, isn't it? And so's uranium. There's got to be more to it than that.

xi     In twenty years, when taken in amounts that are inconceivable in actual use.

xii      Actually, even if it doesn't kill you it can make you very sick.

Forever

 

What would we do without the computer? When I was young no such thing existed and all its benefits were not only unknown, but difficult to imagine.ⁱ Apart from all the information it could produce and all the skills that it would impart to us, who could have predicted that it would allow us to go paperless?

Everything we produce can now be maintained without our printing it out, saving forestsⁱⁱ outside, and storage space within. What could be better? It's a win-win for the environment and for us. Paper, which used to be expensive, may no be longer so, but since it's unnecessary that is not a relevant point. And since printing documents can take place whenever they are needed, the value of this medium is unarguable. Saving the same information digitally, and making “hard” copies only when they are absolutely necessary, lessens the need both for paper and storage space, but doesn't eliminate the possibility of doing so if printed versions are required.

At least that's what I used to think.

Then we changed word processors, storage media, and computers. The rapidity of change was really impressive.ⁱⁱⁱ And now I have stacks of diskettes I can't read with documents I can only vaguely remember. Even having spent large sums on external drives to help me access the disks, I find out that the word processor I'm using now can't translate most of them. I'm reluctant to throw the diskettes out but I know rationally that they're useless and I'll never see their contents again. They remind me of the audio cassettes that are sitting around my house even though I know I'll never listen to them again. And I have to admit that I have some reel-to-reel tapes which predate the cassettes.

Even the hard disks on outdated computers are, at best, difficult to use. I've removed them from their old housings and purchased drives which allow me to read them, but here, too, I'm faced with the problem of word processing programs which are unrecognizable and other programs which my newer computers can't operate. DOS no longer rules the roost and all the work I did using DOS programs is, for all practical purposes, lost. And the same will be true of whatever operating systems, programs, and media I'm using now.^iv Unless, of course, I print out everything of importance to me and file it away. Then I can retype it or copy it if absolutely necessary. It's possible that it will yellow over the years,^v but with reasonable care I should be left with some kind of paper trail. Not so with one of my computer hard disks which failed, and which my local repair shop was unable to recover. They suggested I get a new machine, which I did. But the documents on the previous one – at least those documents I had not backed up – are lost forever.

It's not a new problem. In my attic are 16 millimeter movies that my father made when I was young.^vi And vinyl recordings etched by a machine we no longer have – recordings made using sharp steel needles. On them are the sounds I made and the words I spoke in the 1940s. But I'd need a 78 RPM record player to listen to them, and who has one of them now.^vii Nor do I have a 16 mm projector to show the movies. Even 8 mm movies are no longer used.

More recently there have been, among other rivalries, the competition between Beta and VHS and between eight track and cassette tapes, the end of film cameras and slide projectors, the gradual disappearance of land telephone lines including dial-up connections for computers, generation after generation of mobile telephones, and a wide variety of hand held devices, from calculators and little computers to book readers. And whatever you have – even if you got it today – is outdated.

I don't mean to suggest that progress is bad. I'm not a Luddite. But if I've learned one thing over the years it's that such progress will continue,^viii often beyond my ability to use it, and certainly beyond the ability to use whatever it replaced. And the same is probably true for you. So make hard copies of whatever is important. And back up whatever you have as soon as the technology changes in the newer format, before the ability to do so is eliminated as an option. And it will be. Manufacturers have to stay ahead of the competition. And it's too expensive for them to try to preserve everything.

Next episode: “God, save our flight!” – The Religion Of Atheism

i     A secret code ring was all you needed to stay ahead of your friends.

ii    And their eco-systems.

iii    Although computers have been around a long time, the introduction of IBM's PC in 1981 was the real start of the movement from the perspective of the consumer. Now there are computer applications in almost every field, and a variety of hand-held devices of all sorts that are carried around by most of the American population and numerous people elsewhere. All this in thirty years.

iv    CDs are unlikely to be around much longer.

v     And the problem of storage space will return.

vi    There were also commercially-made cartoons. I don't know where they are.

vii    In fact all record players are on the way out. There are units that will digitize your recordings and put them on your computer. There are also gizmos that you can use to digitize your negatives and slides so you can upload them. But that will probably take more time than it's worth.

viii    The more things change, the more money you can make by ensuring that they're not backward compatible.

You Get What You Pay For? Part 2

Casey Stengel said, “You can look it up.”

So I did.

And what I found in Wikipedia told me that the personal taxes in 2005 “as a Percentage of Income” in the United States averaged about 29% and the corporate taxes were just under 40% – a little behind Japan which has the highest such taxes.

But I also found, in HuffPost, a chart from the Center for American Progress which stated that the United States raised only 2.1% of its revenue from corporate income taxes, and that this was well below the average of OECDⁱ countries. The highest was Norway at 8.2%.

It's confusing. I don't know what either set of the “facts” means. I raise the issue, however, not to compare countries or clarify that difference, but because so much of our thinking is based on our perceptions of our economic situationⁱⁱ and the information on that subject is so easily “spun” by advocates of one point of view or another. And, of course, the level of tax rates is the wrong question anyway. More critical issues are the legitimacy of taxation in the first place and, assuming taxation is appropriate, what does the taxpayer get for his money. A tax of 60% for which all of a citizen's wishes are provided will be better received than a tax of 50% with none of his needs addressed. In some countries there may be fully paid health care, in others food stamps, while still others will provide for different needs, in addition to education, highways, weather forecasts, and postal services, as well as a variety of other amenities and utilities. In some nations a citizenⁱⁱⁱ may be entitled to many, or all of these – or more.

The idea of a tax is to pay for the government to perform its work. The cost, therefore, depends on what work the government has. The more responsibilities it takes on, the higher the expense and the higher the taxes. But, as the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” If the government were anything like a business, it would attempt to keep disbursements down, unless by raising costs it could anticipate an even larger income. And it would somehow link the charges to the customer (read: “taxpayer”) to the benefits it provided that customer. How much greater is the benefit of the weather report to the wealthy than to the average person? And how much more expensive are his food stamps? There has to be some other rationale for taxes, especially progressive taxes.

Karl Marx adopted the Robin Hood logic for running a society: “From each according to his ability to each according to his need.” The idea was that the rich are responsible for the poor,^iv and that force was an acceptable way of administering such a system. Marx understood the word “ability” to refer to means rather than skill, effort, or expertise.^v In modern terms, the government is responsible for helping those in need and, may do so by forcing those who have fiscal resources to support those who don't. The goal is a leveling of society – the elimination of classes.^vi

The idea that it is incumbent on those who are better off to help those who are not, was not a new one in Marx's time. The Bible spoke of the obligation to help the widow and the orphan and, indeed, all those in need, but compulsion was moral, not legal.^vii Charity was admirable – and voluntary giving still is.

Taxes, too, had an ancient origin but tax collectors and those who employed them^viii had little interest in helping anyone but themselves with the revenues. Having “legal” support behind them, however, tax collectors usually got their way. And their pay.

The American Constitution gave Congress the power to tax^ix for “the general Welfare” but, as I noted last week, the term was understood to refer to military protection, not to “welfare” in the sense we understand it now.^x Views change, of course, and we now consider all of our citizens entitled to whatever needs Congress views as essential, irrespective of the cost and whatever the arguments against. But it should be remembered that this was not the intent of those who framed the Constitution.

Who will pay for this largesse? There is general agreement that this should be the responsibility of the rich – both individuals and businesses.^xi Or perhaps our children and grandchildren. Tax them. But not us. They have the ability. We have the need.

Next episode: “Forever” – Toward a paperless society.

i      Organisation [sic] for Economic C-operation and Development.

ii     As former President Clinton said, “It's the economy, stupid.”

iii     Or even a resident – legal or illegal – who is not a citizen.

iv     Actually, the basic premise is that the rich made the poor poor. Whether or not this is true, it is irrelevant. The common view is that they can afford to pay the costs. No one seems concerned – or even aware – that they will be passed on to all of us.

v     To each according to his expertise makes more sense. Unless the goal is equality not of opportunity but of results.

vi    Actually, communism emphasized class distinctions rather than eliminated them. It taught the hatred of classes higher than your own, and revolution against them. If there were not always the bogeyman of a capitalist class which needed to be defeated, communism would not last. The ideal of a classless society was its opium.

vii    The obligation to help others held strong moral sway. For example, in Jewish communities it was clearly understood that all had such responsibility – even those themselves receiving charity. It was an accepted idea that there was always someone worse off than yourself, and that something, however minimal, had to be set aside for that person.

viii    And, consequently, were insulated from any contact with the taxpayers, and any knowledge of their concerns or their situations.

ix     Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 1:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence [sic] and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States

x     However righteously indignant an individual may feel, a refusal to pay taxes and thus contribute to war and bloodshed contradicts the Constitution. A refusal to be forced to give charity, however, is not permissible because Congress has so decided.

xi    See the last two sentences of note number iv (4 for those who don't read Latin).