When I wrote the following rambling missive to a friend, I didn't realize how well it could work as a blog post. Thinking about this letter (and my friend's unpublished response), I realize that I am a Jeffersonian at heart, while my friend is a Hamiltonian. In short, I believe in the will of the people, although I believe that it must occasionally be checked and balanced. My friend sees the elite as a needed safeguard against the rabble running amok.
For the most part, our views are two sides of the same coin - both of recognize the public's need to have a say in their own affairs, but we both recognize the need for a buffer to keep the common person from destroying the society in which he lives. And both of us have been lucky enough to avoid the encumbrances that would make us slaves to the society in which we live, instead of controlling our own destinies to a large degree.
Right now, I see the Trump and Sanders campaigns having their successes rooted in the general belief that the public is mad as hell and isn't going to take it any more. A Trump or Clinton win would result in a one term presidency - and would leave the body politic much more unstable than we can afford at this time in history. Yet, I like instability (to some degree) as I like to see the body politic refreshed by healthy blood - something we haven't seen in a while.
So I hope you enjoy today's missive, in the form of rambling thoughts I've written to a friend to provoke conversation....
If I were going to do a War Of The Worlds story today, I'd make the "aliens" look more like us, so that the alien invasion would not be that of a faceless enemy, but of an enemy that lives with us. (This reminds me of a movie that Roddy Piper made - "They Live.") The story would be more of the dilemmas a space faring civilization faces when encountering a "sort of" sentient species, and then the ultimate realization that this planet is too toxic for that species to inhabit - leaving the formerly colonized to think that they had the upper hand in their own right. Of course, one could throw a lot of social metaphors into the story to give the story more gravitas than it deserves, and to score higher ratings from the critics.
The problem with a lot of mass media these days is that it has been dumbed down for a lot of Americans to consume. For example, how many shows will they make about antique and pawn shops, along with the people who run and supply them? How many shows can they make about dwarfs and their families? How many shows can they make of "unusual" families? Of course, I'm biased. I feel that narrowcasting has allowed a significant portion of the American public to avoid exposure to ideas to which they feel uncomfortable.
I think the problem starts in the schools and in the homes. Both liberals and conservatives can make good arguments about the problems in educating our children. But I also think we're seeing signs of structural unemployment which can't be ignored. Low end jobs are being outsourced to low wage places, leaving America to increase the size of its social safety net, lest we have major social unrest. Couple that with middle to high end jobs now gradually being replaced by computer functions, and we may be looking at a situation (which could become worldwide) where there are more people than jobs. How can a society cope?
Before you think that my idea of people outnumbering available jobs is a problem that could result in a radical solution, think of this. Before the Black Plague, "serfs" (I could equate them to newly freed slaves becoming tenant farmers) had no social power, owed most of their production to the manors, and could afford to take no chances with what they grew. There was always another serf to take his place. The plague took away all that excess labor that the manoral economy depended on, took away many of the lords and ladies, and left the remaining labor with the upper hand. They started to grow a wider range of crops, ate better, and were part of an economy that started to develop labor saving inventions because there were more jobs than labor. What could happen in America with roughly one gun in circulation for each of its citizens, if our elites don't address the problems of an economy where there are more jobs than people? Any slight event could radically destabilize things, resulting in great population loss before a new stable state is achieved.
So we go back to the schools and the homes. Religious fundamentalism has shown itself to be a plague on mankind. We have home schooled students who can't prove they know enough to enter trade schools. In fact, many of them can't do the math required for these schools, because their parents decreed that the bible contains everything the child needs to learn. We're already seeing what happens to some states when these clowns get to power - education gets shafted, in one case, the cutbacks meant that there was no local school available for the children of one town. (I wish I remembered the full details of this situation - I think it was in Kansas, but I'm not sure.) I shouldn't pin the blame on religious fundamentalism alone. We've seen the same neglect for our school systems and families in non religious areas of the country. We're seeing an America divided on Rural vs. Urban lines, and the Rural populations are winning for now. They are making the mistake that the solutions that worked 50-75 years ago, when the US was at its greatest level of prosperity vs. the world, are still valid today. Simply praying to god a bit more, and resisting social change (acceptance of the GLBT population as having equal rights), will not solve their problems. Something more is needed from both Rural and Urban populations....
We now have ready made scapegoats for people like Trump to exploit. Before you say I'm about to go into a diatribe against "the Donald", reflect on this - he did bring issues into the political conversation that the political elite would rather not address - albeit in an inelegant, crude way. I'd rather see him as president than Cruz. A vote for Trump is the hard core Republican's way of giving a vote of "No Confidence" to the GOP and its candidates. Sanders is the equivalent from the hard core Democrat's side of things, especially when it's a vote against Hillary Clinton. Although Sanders has not fleshed out his ideas that well, he might be the least dangerous person to elect because a GOP dominated legislature will block his every action.
Both political parties have their own reasons for keeping the insurgents from taking power. But it's harder to see the benefits of the insurgents gaining power. If Trump were to be elected, he'd be a wild card, a joker waiting to do something that would trigger impeachment and conviction - removal from office. It would also mean that the GOP would be able to get rid of its extremist elements and could produce a party ready to govern again. If Sanders were to be elected, it would give the Democrats a reason to stop a continued slide to the political right, and renew its position as a moderate leftist party again. And with both Trump and Sanders, I expect that they would have their reasons to deal with Wall Street and the corrupting influence of its money and power. Trump, to remove power from his enemies. Sanders, to clean up a system which caused the mess we are in....
As I noted, this was the start of a conversation that has lasted several sets of email exchanges so far. The ideas are not well formed yet, but they touch on problems that have been long ignored by our elites. I only wonder whether our leaders will bother to do their job, or continue to push America towards the decline of its empire....
