Pence’s Faustian Bargain

I just finished reading a sympathetic article in The Guardian by Sydney Blumenthal on former vice president Mike Pence.

Rejected by the Trumpist part of the Republican party, with no political future, I suspect that Pence is finally being forced to deal with the Faustian bargain he entered into a little over four years ago. While I don’t expect him to have read Goethe’s Faust, I believe he may now be getting an inkling of what it means to make a deal with the Devil.

Pence, from his newsletters as US representative and his behavior as vice president, doesn’t seem to be a reflective person. In fact, he comes across as an inflexible religious fundamentalist, incapable of deep reflection. There is little room for reflection when you already know the absolute truth.

If I knew his mailing address, I would send him a copy of Faust as a gift, with the suggestion that he read Part 1 at a minimum, because it explores the meaning of a Faustian bargain and its usual infernal outcome. If he cannot see himself in light of Goethe’s hero, he is hopeless.

A Disheartening Process, Beginning With Ronald Reagan

Since 1981-01-20 when Ronald Reagan became president, subsequent administrations and legislatures have implemented neoliberal policies. In doing so, they have prepared the ground for Donald Trump to sow dragons’ teeth. All this time, the power elite has been promising the American people that their economic distress and the growth of inequality would eventually work for the benefit of everyone. They lied. Their promise of shared prosperity was a cynical ploy to persuade the average person to go along with policies that made wealth flow upward. Anyone who makes a cursory examination of the US Census  records will see inequality rising from Reagan’s first year in office.

Observing this process has been disheartening. It could only result in economic, social, environmental, and political disaster. The only surprise is that all four are happening simultaneously: recession, the disintegration of society, global warming, and a government captured by an irresponsible and short-sighted oligarchy.

I wager that President Joe Biden, an elderly politician with the best of intentions, will attempt to enact economic reforms, but because of his lack of insight, imagination, economic expertise, and political support, will fail to turn the ship of state out of its present course toward disaster.

The Dumbest Statement I’ve Seen Today

“Weather forecasters tell us that the temperature [in Georgia] will be right around 32 degrees Fahrenheit when polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday for a final day of voting in two U.S. Senate runoffs. Even so, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wants you to know that anyone who offers a cup of hot chocolate to any voter standing in line – and any voter who partakes of said cup of warmth – could be guilty of a felony under Georgia law.”

—From Pressing Issues 12/31/2020

Suppose somebody sets up a stand outside the “forbidden” perimeter with hot coffee & hot chocolate and a sign reading “IT IS FORBIDDEN TO STEAL THIS COFFEE OR HOT CHOCOLATE” 

Felony?

An essay by David Graber in Harper's Magazine suitable for Thanksgiving reading

 I came across this essay on the way to something else:

Army of Altruists: On the alienated right to do good.

The essay originally appeared in the January 2007 issue of Harper's Magazine.

Thoughts on Biden, now that he has been elected president

Joe Biden has won the election for president. It will be a narrower margin, however, than the polls originally predicted, to the embarrassment of the pollsters. I lay much of Biden’s underperformance at the feet of the Democratic Party leadership, but that is a subject for another time.

Beyond advanced age, however, Biden has several weaknesses. But as things now stand, there was simply no choice for the knowledgeable and intelligent voter. Another four years of Trump would have brought about the end of the American experiment. Throughout our history, powerful plutocratic forces have attacked our democratic-republican political system over and over. Fortunately, this nation has proved time and again that it can meet the challenges with courage, determination, and luck.

The elevation of Donald Trump to the presidency was only the latest of these attempts by those same forces to turn a democratic republic into an authoritarian state, ruled by the wealthy and powerful.

Joe Biden poses a danger to the republic of a more subtle nature. He is unquestionably a good man, but like all humankind, he is flawed. Some colossal errors of judgment have marked his political career. These errors are a clue to help us predict how President Biden will run his presidency.

When Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act[1], a corrupt and injurious law that benefitted the credit card industry and creditors in general, I vowed never to vote for him under any circumstances. Then I turned around and voted for the Obama/Biden ticket twice. I voted for him again this year, a textbook example of being forced to choose a lesser evil. It is an excellent practice to refrain from making rash vows. Who can foretell the future?[2]

But I digress.

How to win over rural voters and save the environment

1.  Enact programs that enable them to survive economically;

2.  Let them know what you are doing;

3. Invite them to participate in planning the transition.

3.  Factors, Considerations, and Obstacles. If the people of the World are to survive and live decent lives, there is no way we can continue to live the way we presently live. An important step to stave off an ecological catastrophe and possible extinction involves agriculture and ranching:Our nation/world must change some of its eating habits, particularly with respect to our consumption of dairy products, meat, poultry, fish, and other animal products. In addition to their environmental danger they are detrimental to human health;

1. Dairy consumption is declining and will continue to decline. The imperative is to soften the transition to either farming or another environment-friendly employment;
2. These changes, supra, are necessary for health, environment and climate. Dairy farming must be cut back and made more humane. The government must aid dairy farmers and point them to several viable alternatives. The costs of changing from dairy farming to almost any other kind of agriculture are high. Dairy farming equipment has little in common with, for example, the equipment used in horticulture. That’s how it appears to me, although I am neither dairy farmer nor horticulturist;;
3. Government must aid rural areas by supplying financial aid to avoid hardship during the transition;
4. The use of fuel and fertilizer made from petroleum and natural gas, requirements of industrial farming, must be drastically reduced. There is no way to avoid this if we are to stabilize or reduce greenhouse gases;
5. Government must provide research to aid rural areas with knowledge and technology to make the transition away from environmentally destructive activities. The transition will render many businesses unprofitable, and their owners and employees must be aided, as I stated above;
6. A partial transition to animal powered agriculture will not only be possible, but it might be necessary;
7. In the long run (which is becoming shorter), the mass production of beef is not sustainable,¹ but world demand for beef is rising. Unfortunately, the beef industry has usually been  profitable, so widespread resistance to any moves to change its business model is likely. Much research will be necessary to determine the appropriate strategy to change minds, and much of that research must involve sociology and psychology. A ranchers' mindset is a universe away from a farmer’s mindset. The one thing we must avoid is for climate change itself to destroy the cattle business through destruction of either grazing lands or feed crops. The irony of the beef industry destroying itself by irresponsibly contributing to climate change is an irony too awful to contemplate.
8. A similar analysis applies to the poultry industry.²

Endnotes

1. Much of the cost of raising beef cattle is subsidized or externalized through depletion of aquifers, lack of safe disposal of animal waste, and the raising of feed grains, especially corn. Ranching is partly subsidized by the use of public lands at below-market rents. Corn is subsidized by requiring gasoline to include 10% alcohol. Antibiotics, used by ranchers and feedlots to stimulate growth, promotes bacterial resistance and thus constitutes a public health hazard.

2. Producers of industrial chicken give their chickens growth hormones and antibiotics to fatten and protect them from disease caused by the crowded and unsanitary conditions in which they are raised. Today mature chickens must be sold in 15–30 days or they will die from the effects of these substances. There is a growing recognition that these practices constitute a health hazard to consumers and there is supposedly work in progress to develop more benign substitutes.

The CDC, Trump, and the Coronavirus

The Trump administration’s handling of the Coronavirus was criminally negligent, and Trump, along with many of his appointed sycophants in the White House, should go to jail.

After reading Inside the Fall of the CDC on the ProPublica website, I am so enraged that I can barely type. The evidence in the article confirms that many—perhaps even a majority—of the 210,000 deaths from the virus were the direct outcome of actions (and failures to act) by the president, enabled by the pusillanimity of the CDC leadership.

If you voted for Trump, you voted for a pathological narcissist, unprepared and unfit for the office of president or any other office of trust.

You voted for a grifter, a compulsive liar, an authoritarian, and an aspiring dictator, devoid of respect for the American people, the U.S. Constitution, or our laws.

You voted for death.