Book Review: Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

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Black Rage, Brittney Cooper, Racism, White Rage

I was really impressed with Brittney Cooper’s writing.  And it’s not just because she reminded me so much of me… but that helped me enjoy the story.  She has a way with articulating her ideas with storytelling and clear statements, often easing into Black girl talk – I think she might have referred to it as Hip Hop talk. She really gave insight to Black experience and cultural ways of communicating that I found very powerful.  One of my favorite statements in the book was, “When Black girls get in formation, the nation should follow.”  Here, here. And, in case you missed it recently, Brittney did a Ted Talk.

Photo Credit: Brittney Cooper Twitter

Anyway, here’s some of what I gleaned from this wonderful work.

In her chapter The Smartest Man I Never Knew, she says:

Our nation’s story is one of men using violence – against Native folks, against Black folks, and against women – to build and fund a grand “experiment in democracy.”  ~p. 69

I love her idea of the US wielding its “big stick” around militarily being inherently phallic.  Later in the chapter, she addresses the idea of size as a form of aggression, bringing a conscious epiphany to me that I’ve had many times subconsciously (or unconsciously perhaps as well).  I wonder if I keep my fat in part because of the “safety” it infers or as a fallacious idea that it would keep me unattractive and prevent another rape. Shortly thereafter she notes that, while society can view the idea of Black women advocating for themselves as “imperial”, this is an “absolutely untenable” idea.  In the US she notes:

“our reproductive capacities were conscripted to build the capital base for the assertion of U.S. empire.  After slavery, our bodies and the children they produced were tethered to multiple generations of low-wage work and poverty, providing staffing for the perpetuation of the U.S. underclass.  The desire for protection and safety is not an imperial desire.  Asking the leaders of our country and members of your race to fight for you (if you’re a Black woman) is not a colonizing act.  They are demands for recognition of citizenship and humanity.” (p. 85-86)

See what I mean about her writing?  It’s so direct and sound.

Likewise, telling Black girls the solution is to “love yourself” (p. 91) implies that this would somehow end patriarchy which will “demand that she be killed for having the audacity to think she was somebody”.  So sadly true.

Her chapter Bag Lady revealed to me the story of Korryn Gaines and her freedom project.  What she did basically was replace her license plates with signs reading “Any government official who compromises this pursuit to happiness and right to travel will be held criminally responsible and fined, as this is a natural right and freedom.” Understandable in the wake of the death of Sandra Bland.  As Cooper notes, “The struggle by Black people to obtain the free and full exercise of their natural rights and continual forms of structural opposition to these rights have been a fundamental feature of what it is to be Black in America.” (p. 107) And there it is.  In one little sentence, a powerful statement about why the Black Lives Matter campaign should be working.  But the racism is endemic and the power structures loom large.

And the struggle rings true as she notes “individual transformation is neither a substitute or a harbinger of structural transformation.” (p. 115) How Black women see themselves is obviously affected by the racist narrative of the patriarchy, i.e., “welfare queens”, which shames some Black women to abort children they might otherwise consider having.  Cooper also notes: “Individual solutions to collective problems cannot work” (p. 123) as empowerment and power are not the same thing.  How Black women overcome at ALL remains a mystery to me.  Sadly, far too many have died in this fight to overcome.

Perhaps my favorite chapter was Grown Woman Theology where she deep dives into sex.  My usual discomfort with talk on religion was non-existent as she waxed eloquent (see what I did there?) on the subject still often seen as taboo by many.  In fact, I kind of love the way she addressed religion’s role in the ideas women can have about their sexuality.  On page 129 she references the Southern Baptist Convention “formal apology for slavey” issued in 1995 being from the “white Baptists – the ones who were pro-slavery and pro-segregation”; her Baptist church was not a part of the SBC. Going further, she writes:

“The purity discourse that emerged from Southern white evangelicalism is not separable from the racialized discourse of sexuality and purity that these same Christians have shaped for the whole of American history.  The regulation of sexuality by white Christians in the United States has always been about the propagation of a socially acceptable and pristine nuclear family worthy of having the American dream, a family that was heterosexual, middle class, and white.”  Yep, so much of this book was packed with this kind of thoughtful analysis. Because she grew up with white girls, she became involved in the purity movement.  The thought striking me was how it reminds of the efforts to delegitimize the Indigenous as their lives, intimately connected to Mother Nature, were inherently “sexual” as all of nature is sex. (And death of course, another favorite subject.)

On page 137 Ms. Cooper shares well-written and revealing perspective on the story of Boaz from the Bible.

“Many Black Christian girls are seduced by white evangelicalism, because, hell, it seems to be working out so well for white people.” (p. 139) Her grandmother’s “fully embodied theology” gave her pause to truly think about her beliefs. “Sometimes this means we have to reject the kind-of Christian teaching that sets up a false binary between flesh and spirit, mind and body, and sacred and secular.” (p. 140) Love it! And interestingly, she explains: “The primarily white male theologians who created the systematic theology of evangelical Christianity were trying to make sense of a theology that fit their own lives and their own worldview.”  Thus making clear how some white Christians can read the Bible and still vote Republican – “nothing about the Bible challenges the fundamental principles of white supremacy or male domination.”  The support of Blacks for this white evangelical agenda is counterproductive as it’s a “theology that does the dirty work of racism, patriarchy, and homophobia.” (p. 141)

I was thrilled with her draw on Brian McLaren’s work: “Repentence to me means to ‘re-think’. That’s literally what it means.  To think again and to think in a different direction.”  (p. 145)

Moving into Orchestrated Fury, Cooper writes an eye-opening chapter focused in part on a topic that fascinates many: Black women’s hair. [And you thought the topic of sex was taboo.]

Her analysis of Michelle Obama’s hair as narrative was delicious!  Fuck-deficit, indeed.  Cooper’s subsequent discussion on “responsibility politics” as “a rage-management project” (p. 151) that in large part simply divided Blacks was also informative.  Her story of her own Black mother’s quiet intervention with a Black male preacher made clear: “Eloquent rage isn’t always loud, but it is always effective.” (p. 161)

Maybe most lovely to me were her ideas on “cussing and praying… mixing the profane and sacred” noting “No one can cuss you out more eloquently than a Black woman can.”  Maybe a stereotype. Still true.  The 2015 South Carolina story of Shakara and Niya Kenny gave much insight to the brutality of white power structures and the way inaction on behalf of Blacks allows it to continue. More recent update here.  And Minnesota sure doesn’t look good in this NPR coverage of the issue. Thank goodness for Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi birthing the Black Lives Matter concept.

And I must agree with Cooper that Black fear and rage is more honest (based on it being a reaction to the violence of white supremacy) than white fear and rage which is simply based in losing power. (p. 169) “Black women’s rage … when we … focus it on the powers that would crush us into submission … is a kind of power that America would do well to heed if it wants to finally live up to its stated democratic aims.” Indeed.

I thought Cooper’s chapter on White-Girl Tears might be a challenge but I found myself agreeing with her assessment of the effects of the “mythic nature of white female vulnerability”. Though I might add something about size or beauty in there too, if only to feel more accurately into it.  No one gets more attention in America than the pretty, skinny, white girl in tears.  And fat or ugly white girls still get more attention than Black girls on the whole.  There is definitely a skew in America to value “the perfect” and “superficial beauty”, which is often depicted as upper/middle class, white, slender, big-boobed, and pretty with perfectly coifed hair and nails. Oh, and dressed to the nines never hurts.

There is a nice assessment of cultural appropriation as well where Cooper notes:

“White people don’t share.  They take over. They colonize.” (p. 177)

I’ve been learning more and more about white privilege and how it shapes so much of how America works, especially in the efforts to basically keep it in place.  It seems to me that once white people figured out how to gain advantage, they never stopped, to a point where now three white males in America own as much wealth as half the rest of the population.  Think about this.  To steal and modify (#WhitePeopleShit) a quote from a recent book on the Indigenous (maybe this one?): We’re all Black now, Sister! And I will say here that I am really needing to learn more about American Shero Ida B. Wells.  Cooper sprinkles her ideas and commentary throughout leaving me feeling I missed an important aspect of history by not being required to read more on Black leaders.  And so it goes. *

Cooper’s deep dive into white fear includes a review of a case, new to me, of Betty Shelby, a white police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma who “shot and killed Terrence Crutcher , a forty-year-old unarmed black man, during a traffic stop.” (p. 185) Again, the danger Black people face by simply driving a car is disgraceful.  How many have died because America has created such a blatant culture of fear?  Far too many.  And the fear mongers are never-ending. 

The issues are complex and Cooper does an excellent job weaving together white fear and its deadly effects, the trial for the killer of Trayvon Martin, Black women’s willingness to call out Black men’s shit, and the infamous Cosby and a lesser known to me Elderidge Cleaver as she hammers out the racism and power dynamics.  Cosby’s conviction received much coverage and dissection, unlike the trials of the many thousands of Black men who were falsely convicted of raping white women.  While Cooper acknowledges that sins occur in all camps, there is a clear understanding in her work of the bias that profoundly affects Blacks in America.

But I must say, on some level, I can jive with Cleaver’s 1968 dialogue, though the quoted material Cooper shares is horrific.  I can comprehend how decades of trauma, disrespect that included blatant killing (and which continues to this day), and nefarious and baseless charges against Blacks would lead one to such hate-filled behavior.  I have said more times than I can any longer count that, “If I was born Indigenous or Black, I’d probably be in prison.” And, yes, I do comprehend the aspect of my white privilege which allows me to feel that, had this been true, that I’d have had the courage to speak up or act in ways that would put me in prison.  And perhaps I’m fooling myself in thinking I’d have been this defiant, as evidenced by the many ways I’ve backed down or allowed myself to be shut down as a woman.

Perhaps most surprising was Cooper’s discourse on inter-racial relationships.  Her reasoning on whether or not it’s ok for a Black man to choose white women and her welcoming of Black women to choose as they will seemed very logical to me. 

Never Scared is a short 20 pages (p. 201-221) but delves into the 2016 election, the idea that fear is the root of all anger, and the sketchy nature of feelings – and that’s just in the first couple pages! 

A favorite quote of mine in this book is that “my approach to life is that feelings can’t be trusted” and she subjects them to “intense micromanagement”. (p. 204) She states clearly that growing up Black means your world is a place “where white feelings can become dangerous weapons.”  And I realized she is talking about me when noting that “I resent others who allow their feelings to roam around unmanaged, demanding everybody’s attention.”  Another aspect of white privilege that I must mindfully keep in check – and at which I fail repeatedly.  Because I’m white, this has not yet resulted in my death.  Something much harder for people of color to claim.  No wonder they are often so quiet.  I am stunned now, as I write, by the idea of what an amazing place this America could be, if only we’d had an even playing field where Indigenous and Blacks had as much opportunity to set our course as (often wealthy and powerful) white men. The differences in her latch key childhood and mine were a tough read as well.

As she approaches the idea of fear and faith co-existing she enters a place where she explains how white fear is accepted as fact when very often it is not.  Cases in point are two from 2014: John Crawford, shot and killed while shopping (in my hometown stomping grounds), and Jordan Edwards, shot and killed while fleeing for his life with his brothers. (p. 209)

The figures given on net median wealth are astounding and explain much about the struggles of Black women, almost as much as the struggles of Black women explain about the wealth gap.  Cooper’s notion that curiosity is often “the first casualty of the politics of fear” (p. 211) leads to a list of some very good questions that we’re missing out on discussing.  This again points to the Obama presidency where many whites were challenged in their beliefs on whether a Black man could lead out country.  I’d report that he surely can and imagine what could have been done had we actually given him more support.  And I LOVE this woman for being willing to speak to white people fear so well.  

Yet she faces criticism for her stands, even in the classroom.

And this leads to the idea of Black women being “simultaneously hypervisible and invisible.”

This makes me recall laughing out loud the other night as, I believe it was Leslie Jones in an SNL sketch, said, “I don’t apologize to white people.”  Fuck Yeah!!

Ms. Cooper struck home for me when she talked about how men resort to physical belittlement of women when they can’t hold their own on substance.  I know the “smart ugly” (p. 223) idea and it has nothing to do with real physical beauty, it’s a scapegoating…

And I could definitely relate to her sharing on how difficult it can be for a successful and intelligent woman to find love.  It’s not always easy. But Dan will be the first to tell you he’s comfortable enough in his manhood to write “Housewife” on the IRS return. And he knows the benes that come with loving this smart girl. 😉 

That said, Cooper helped me understand the real and substantial obstacles Black women face. And who does Brittney blame?  Bill Clinton. (p. 226) In his criminalization of black adolescents, who he and Hillary referred to as “superpredators”, he wrote a heartbreaking story of a destination for the Black race as a whole.  In Love in a Hopeless Place, she also discussed her long stretches of celibacy, another commonality we share.  But the chapter Favor Ain’t Fair gives much more insight into these ideas, especially with regard to how wealth is a factor.  As she comments on the idea of people noting the resiliency of children in addressing the ideas of inequality:

“Celebrating the resilience of poor folks is a perverse way of acknowledging the unreasonable demands placed upon people who already are struggling to make it.” (can’t remember the page…)

Like maybe we should see how long until we can finally break them completely? Sick…

When she talks about elite Blacks “valorizing their hoods”, it makes me think of white people who say, “I have Black friends.”

But she closes with Joy.  It’s a blessing I think we can all appreciate.

“May you have joy.

May you have gut-busting belly laughter, every day.

May you ask more and better questions.

May your rage be a force for good.

You got this.  We got this.”

For our sake, I hope she’s right.

Book Review: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

I read this book in late 2018 and recently needed to return it, finding my many tabs marking what I felt were important sections of prose.  I decided that I’d write a brief review to capture those ideas.

If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s written by a neurosurgeon and writer who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer as he was finishing his residency and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience. The memoir describes his life experience that led to him becoming a neurosurgeon as well as his contemplation on how to face his swiftly oncoming mortality. 

Early on, he questions, “What makes human life meaningful?”  He reckoned that literature gave the best accounting of the life of the mind while neuroscience laid out the rules of the brain.  He notes in particular T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land which relates meaninglessness and isolation and how Nabokov helps us see how our suffering can make us callous to the obvious suffering of others.  But my favorite reference was to Conrad, perhaps because of some minor ongoing communication problems between Dan and I at the time – noting “his hypertuned sense of how miscommunication between people can so profoundly impact their lives.  I find this idea quite interesting as I contemplate the many times through the years where I carried, perhaps unnecessarily, hurt or anger for something said by someone who had no intention of harming me.  Or the many times I have felt guilt for things I’ve done which were subsequently confirmed as unmemorable by the one toward whom I felt said guilt.  I’m sure there are an equal number of times I’ve caused pain but had no intention or recollection of harming another.

After recounting an amazing experience he had during a summer working as a prep chef at Sierra Camp on the shores of Fallen Leaf Lake.  He notes a friend’s summation of their time there:

Suddenly now, I know what I want.  I want the counselor’s to build a pyre…and let my ashes drop and mingle with the sand. Lose my bones amongst the driftwood, my teeth amongst the sand.   I don’t believe in the wisdom of children, nor in the wisdom of the old.  There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living.  We are never so wise as when we live in the moment.

Pages 34-35, When Breath Becomes Air

His move from literature to biology is clearly shown in this paragraph. 

His praise for Shep Nuland’s How We Die (p. 52) has resulted in my pulling it from the shelf for the To Read pile.

I love his discussion on how brain surgery, as with other major life events, causes us to ask important questions along the lines of what is most important to us.  He eloquently writes:

Would you trade your ability – or your mother’s – to talk for a few extra months of mute life? … The expansion of your visual blind spot in exchange for eliminating the small possibility of a fatal brain hemorrhage? Your right hand’s function to stop seizures? How much neurologic suffering would you let your child endure before saying that death is preferable?  

Page 71, When Breath Becomes Air

And he shows the vulnerability of us all as he describes having a conversation with someone he respected greatly describing the person as “a moral exemplar” who asked him, “Paul, do you think my life has meaning? Did I make the right choices?”  I guess we all question whether we did what’s right, whether we did our best, as we face what appears to be pending death.  After this same friend had completed a year of treatment and was back to work, he told Kalanithi that “today is the first day that all the suffering seems worth it.”  And this gave him a realization of how little physicians “understand the hells through which we put patients.”

He vulnerably details the effect of his medications on his physical self, and how this affected his relationship with his wife as well as his own self-image.  He discusses the emotional battles and describes the importance of his relationship with his oncologist.  And he again turns to literature as he tries to make sense of it all.

I was searching for a vocabulary with which to make sense of death…

Page 148, When Breath Becomes Air

He denotes going through the process of grief [Denial – Anger – Bargaining – Depression – Acceptance] in reverse order (page 161-162).  This makes perfect sense to me as I’ve studied a bit about grief and realize there is no real true diagram of a grief process.  Unless it’s this:

Photo Credit: Andrea Weir

His wife Lucy writes the epilogue for the book, completed after his death.  I love that it so openly shares the experience, especially of the time of his passing.  She writes in a paragraph at the bottom of page 215: “Paul’s decision not to avert his eyes from death epitomizes a fortitude we don’t celebrate enough in our death-avoidant culture. His strength was defined by ambition and effort, but also by softness, the opposite of bitterness.  He spent much of his life wrestling with the question of how to live a meaningful life, and his book explores that essential territory.”

She talks of how he faced “his illness with grace – not with bravado or a misguided faith that he would “overcome” or “beat” cancer but with an authenticity that allowed him to grieve the loss of the future he had planned and forego a new one.”

I love that she talks about the love she feels, even after his being gone from this plane.  I respect that she recounts the struggles of their confrontation with the disease as well as the beauty of the time they had together.  And I truly believe it was the courage to find and face truth, looking at what brings meaning, that made his life not only meaningful for them, but for all of us who share in reading their story.

Book Review: This Blessed Earth by Ted Genoways

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books

I recently joined the Non-Fiction Book Club of Alexandria, Minnesota in reading This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm.  This is a beautifully written and very informative book on the history of agriculture in the United States.  And it includes stories from the Hammonds, a Nebraska farming family that grows crops and runs cattle.  I highly recommend it.  I only wish I could have had internet to be able to join the club for their meeting to discuss this work as I’m sure it would have informed this blog…

The writing is a mix of investigative reporting and chronicle of life for Rick and Heidi as well as their daughter Meghan and her husband Kyle, the next generation in this farm family.  I learned about moisture levels and pricing, irrigation and Roundup, community and the importance of family.  But first?  Soybeans.  A timely subject matter.

The book begins with the tale of how soybeans became “the most successful crop introduced to the American farm in the last century.”  Going from less than a million acres in 1920 to over 85 million acres today, you might be surprised to learn that Henry Ford played the biggest role in this transition.  His vision of a decentralized production plant was revolutionary, as was his use of soybeans for everything from lubricants to raw materials for gear shift knobs. If it hadn’t been for the discovery of the oil reserves in Saudi Arabia in 1938, the soybean might have held prominence for decades.  Genoways gives a detailed history of how Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill (Monsanto came later) became who they are in large part due to the bean.  The government too had much to do with the way things developed.  But the farmer’s own work ethic and willingness to buy into the “bigger is better” mentality may have been the biggest factors in their own demise over time as family farms were replaced by giant corporate farms.

The story is not just crops but also cattle. The coverage of the pros and cons of branding is eye-opening but particularly interesting is that on implants.  If a producer is NI, no implants, it means that their cattle do not have implanted growth stimulant pellets.  These cattle often fetch a slightly higher price at auction.  However, these cattle may very well end up being injected with hormones at the feedlot – where they will have a big reaction to them – thus making them just like all the other cattle in the lot which have been raised with hormones all along.

The history of how Centennial Hill became this family’s farm is an interesting one and likely similar to that of many family farms that grew out of the Homestead Act. Thomas Barber (Heidi’s great-great-grandfather) came from Suffolk, England and, through hard work and saving (along with bad environmental luck of those already settled in Nebraska), he was able to secure a piece of land in 1874.  Though he ended up losing the farm, it was reacquired later through extraordinary means. As Genoways tells the stories of land ownership changes, he notes, “it is a kind of geography of the gone… all the people and families that disappeared off the land, leaving only their names, like tombstones, as a record of the generations spent there.”

Also interwoven is the story of Meghan’s high school sweetheart who was killed in Iraq, re-iterating the importance of community.  And the brief explanations of the family’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, shows how quickly that community support can fade.

Rick knew from natural gas lines in his Curtis, Nebraska farm how pipelines ruin the land so when the TransCanada land agent assured the community that he would give them a fair deal, Rick was doubtful.  He researched tar sands and the summer of 2010 brought the massive failure of Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline in Marshall, Michigan, making the dangers even more clear.  He was angry.  And afraid.

Along with TransCanada’s talk of fairness were threats of land seizures if landowners dared resist.  In the end, after being threatened twice with eminent domain, Rick signed the easement, regretting it immediately.  He felt he could not win against their lawyers.  All he had was a gut feeling that what they were doing was illegal.  In the end, TransCanada moved the pipeline route.  But they refused to give back the easement Rick had signed over to them. And repercussions didn’t end there.  The new route was even worse for his family’s farm business and, when they worked to resist the pipeline, their neighbors to the south withdrew from the contract that had allowed the Hammonds to farm the land.

This Blessed Earth gives as in-depth presentation on the development and controls around seed corn, including the geopolitical ramifications.  Genoway’s discussion on the development and health hazards of farm chemicals is disturbing, as is the sad state of where we are now agriculturally.  There are no easy answers.

There is a thorough discussion of irrigation, including the history of the author’s own family in this arena. The water shortages faced by families like the Hammonds should be of concern for every American, or at least those of us who don’t grow all our own food.  The fact that we irrigate much of our farmland is obvious from the crop circles you can see as you fly across America.  Each bright green circle represents an irrigation system that pivots around a center point, bringing growth.  But many of us do not comprehend the entire system.  Aquifer data is scary as we use more and more water for cattle and crops.  And little heed seems to be given to those crying, “Conserve!”

Ted notes a 2015 US Geological Survey study that reported on aquifer levels compared to the two decades previous which found alarming decreases of 64% across all wells.  Some areas were harder hit than others.  Southwestern Kansas, after 70 years of tapping the aquifer, showed water at 25% of the original level and in the southern High Plains of Texas some farmers had no water at all.  Without serious conservation efforts, the Hammond family reports, there will not be enough rain to grow crops like we have been.

Again, Genoways delves into a historical review of water usage in agriculture, including the discovery of the Ogallala aquifer.  Depending on where a farm is in relation to the aquifer determines availability of water and how fast the source recharges.  In places where the water does not recharge, the water is referred to as “fossil water”… like oil, a nonrenewable and finite resource.  And while we don’t think of it, just having the water in the aquifer is not the only need.  If we want to use it for growing, we need to have a way to bring it to the surface.

The Great Cattle Bust of the mid-twentieth century should have been a sign.  But as with most history, it is not always widely shared and, oftener than not, quickly forgotten.  Some though, including David Eigenberg of the Upper Big Blue Natural Resource District (NRD), are working to try to educate farmers on the importance of conservation.  In Nebraska they use a system of “reasonable use” as opposed to Texas’ method of “rule of capture”.  Reasonable use ensures oversight by locally elected boards while rule of capture allows each farmer to use what they can tap from their property – which can be very much based in luck of the draw and often leads to competitive overuse.  In 2012, a study comparing an NRD managed field (using soil-moisture monitors) with one managed by a farmer applying water to his own judgment found similar crop yields with the NRD field using only a third of the water used by the farmer.

As climate change effects continue to develop, we could be facing catastrophe.  A 2013 study by Don Wilhite (founding director of both the International Drought Mitigation Center and the International Drought Information Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln) foresaw an increase of as much as 9 degrees in Nebraska temperatures in less than a few years.  Temps will regularly exceed 100°F by 2060 and the water available will not be capable of supporting demand at those temperatures.

And worse yet, we’ve been fooling ourselves to a degree by pumping up cold water from the aquifer, thus reducing temps and increasing humidity.  By masking the effects of climate change, we’ve doomed ourselves to a more sudden wake up once we are past the current mitigation capabilities.

Another key example is the Texas Water Report of May 2015 which showed the drop in water level for their aquifer fell 300 feet since the 1940s but a third of that happened between 2001 & 2011.  California too has been known to pump their water until it is gone.  The cautionary tales are being ignored in large part.

Even the saying “knee high by the 4^th of July” seems dead in this era of chest or even head high by July hybrids… another illusion of technology that blinds us to the coming hardships caused by climate change.  As water supplies diminish, farmers continue to think only as far ahead as next season rather than further down the road. And with the enormous debt in land and machinery that farming entails, that can be catastrophic when the bills come due.  Especially now.  With all the farms that foreclosed in the Farm Crisis of the late 1980s, each farm that dies today carries the weight that four did back then.

How do we fix this?  Genoways writes: “To address the problem adequately, we may need to rethink what kind of food we grow where, and how much agriculture is feasible in certain landscapes.”  And current trends do not look good.  Rick Hammond, in 2014, warned of big trouble if record harvests continued for two more years… and that is exactly what happened.  Excess production drives pricing down,  As pricing on livestock fell as well, there was no capitalizing on the low grain prices.  Farmers are holding tight at present – no new equipment, no new trucks, no visits to town for dinner and a movie.  And this not only affects the rural economy but our economy as a whole.

Perhaps the most damning lines in the book ~ and possibly the most sadly ironic for farmers that voted in force for “Trump and his protectionist, antiglobalist policies” ~ are on the last page.

“Now Trump is threatening to cancel manufacturing trade deals with China, and China is responding by threatening to cancel its purchases of American grains.  If such a thing were ever to happen, it would make the Farm Crisis seem like a minor economic ripple.” This Blessed Earth, p. 221

Sorry, soybean farmers.  The future may be more dire than the next year looks to you right now.  And sadly, it’s likely you aren’t looking any farther ahead than that.

Book Review: Lights Out by Ted Koppel

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books, DIY, planning

So this past week the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted to approve the Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline through a new corridor in Minnesota even though multiple departments for the State of Minnesota had reported it as unnecessary and dangerous to the state’s people and environment.  Since I was out of commission all last week, I haven’t seen all the details.  But I had a backup blog ready and thought it quite ironic that the title of this book says how I feel about the PUC decision…  I’m hopeful we can pull out a win in the end and prevent this new pipeline corridor from becoming a reality.  More on that next week.

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Let me start by saying that I was never a Ted Koppel fan.  I actually was a dissenter.  I just didn’t like him.  I can’t tell you exactly why, but it’s probably a bit of a lot of things.  I know at one point, he reported on something that I felt he showed bias and I was like, “I’m done with that guy.”  So I was not super keen to read his book, Lights Out.  But his topic was REALLY interesting.  Plus Dan read it and kept telling me, “You need to read this.”  So I did.  I read the first half about 6 months ago and then we loaned the book to a friend.  We got it back recently and I decided to finish it last week.  And I am glad I did.

Part I of Lights Out is mainly a review of how vulnerable our electric grid is and how easy it might be attacked and put out of business.  This is a scary but interesting review of how power stations are connected to government agencies and is mainly a condemnation of how poorly the whole thing is organized.  There are many holes, most notably in what, if anything could be done in the event of an attack.

Ted reviews one coordinated attack of PG&E’s Metcalf substation near San Jose, California on April 16, 2013 that took twenty-seven days to repair and bring the substation back online.  While this didn’t take the grid offline, even regionally, a better or more coordinated attack could prove much more damaging.  A subsequent analysis of the event by Jon Wellinghoff, at that time chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), revealed a highly competent operation that he describes as “a targeting package just like the [Navy SEALs] would put together for an attack”.

Wellinghoff cited an analysis by FERC concluding that if nine of the country’s most critical substations were knocked out at the same time, it could cause a blackout encompassing most of the United States.  ~ Lights Out, Ted Koppel p.19

Ted references William Forstchen’s novel, One Second After, which depicts an EMP attack by the Iranians and the North Koreans that knocks out the electric power across much of the country.  The novel describes how a community might struggle to survive in this aftermath.  While this is a fictional account, Lights Out notes that it aligns with a congressional commission report identifying the effects of an EMP attack on civilian infrastructure.  Their conclusion?  That “only one in ten of us would survive a year into a nationwide blackout”.

His review of the electrical industry and the federal regulations and organizations that govern them details those responsible for national security and emergency response.  What he finds is an unprepared system, perhaps worse, one unwilling or unable to do what is needed to become prepared, if such a thing is even possible.

“Homeland Security proposes that families settle on a predeteremined meeting place and that they equip themselves with sufficient food, water, appropriate clothing, money, and medicine to survive seventy-two hours – and yes, of course, the radio, a flashlight, and adequate batteries for both.”  Lights Out, p. 207

The electric power industry in the U.S. is highly complex and, because it is governed on one level federally but on another level by state, there is no cohesive set of controls or systems with which to assure competence for security or uninterrupted supply.  And because it is complex and unconnected, there are many points at which it is vulnerable.

While Lights Out reviews some of the efforts in place to alleviate the problems, the odds are stacked against us in any of the many possible scenarios that might affect our power grid.  Ted argues that our most likely issues will come from a cyberattack.  But concerns about proprietary information and privacy prevent much advancement in fighting against such an attack.  The Internet was designed to be a free and open market and it seems there is no way of securing that which was never designed to be secure.  And it seems that both the U.S. and its enemies are working diligently to infiltrate power systems and likely plant attacks in such systems that can be deployed on command.  It may well be, similar to our nuclear cold war, that it is only this threat of mutual destruction that prevents either side from acting.

However, with an Internet attack, it may not be an organized government with hierarchical structures that finds a way to sabotage.  And for a mad hacker, there may be little incentive to NOT pull the trigger.  If the only goal is terrorism, and the attack can be untraceable such that it prevents retaliation, there is only one option… Do it.  [I must interject here, that with recent news coverage being as plugged into The Orange One’s diatribes as it is and the resulting endless repetitive chatter, I’d almost welcome a TV blackout.]

One event that highlights our vulnerabilities is Ted’s mention on page 83 of the Sony debacle with their film release for The Interview.  Hackers not only rendered their corporate computer system inoperable (for months), they released some first-run films to the Internet along with information on compensation and medical records for executives and actors.  In effect, the hackers were able to prevent the release of this film with the threat that there would be more to come, even potentially a 9/11-type attack.  While Sony was condemned for bowing to the demands, it is unclear what the possible outcome may have been had they decided to tempt fate with the original version of the film.  Though even more interesting may be the subsequent North Korean loss of Internet access days after President Obama’s “pledging that the United States would, at a time of its choosing, ‘respond proportionately’ against North Korea”.  Perhaps the U.S. counter-attacked?  Perhaps Anonymous intervened?  With the Internet, we will likely never know for sure.  One thing we know for sure, this event highlighted the vulnerable nature of our world and the complexity of the many socio-political factors involved.

“We have come to know how nuclear weapons can destroy societies and human civilization.  We have not yet begun to understand how cyber warfare might destroy our way of life.” ~ Kennette Benedict, Executive Director, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (as referenced in Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter)

Once we more fully comprehend the risks and dangers of a large scale electrical grid failure, Part II in Lights Out proceeds to explain how thoroughly unprepared we are to deal with it.  From the Department of Energy (DOE), to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense (DOD) – NO ONE HAS A PLAN!  Perhaps most damning is his discussion with Jeh Johnson, then DHS Secretary, and his Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Caitlin Durkovich on pages 96-98 & 108-112.  While there were some more encouraging interviews with, for example, Craig Fugate, Administrator of FEMA, even then, there was little to instill faith that we could navigate this “uncharted territory”:

“Where normalcy [wouldn’t] get established quickly, [we would be] trying to hang on and keep as many people [as possible] from dying until the system comes back.” Craig Fugate, Lights Out p. 118

Even if we had some plans, the resources to provide are insufficient. As Fugate notes, “Basically, people have to drink water, they have to eat, that waste has to go somewhere, they need medical care, they need a safe environment.  There has to be order of law there.”

• When it comes to power, even if a city can maintain generators to pump, treat, and distribute water, most homeowners would not have the power needed to pull more than about 40 gallons of fresh water (when most pressure tanks would be depleted) or even flush a toilet more than once.  And if the event occurs in winter?  Maybe the only blessing will be that freezing to death appears to be one of the most pleasant ways to die.
• As he notes on page 125, “There is a limit to how much fresh food is available for processing at any given time.”  In order to prepare enough MREs or freeze-dried/dehydrated foods to sustain a large population, we would need years of time in advance preparation, something in which no one in government is currently motivated to invest.
• First responders, in a large-scale emergency, especially one deemed to be a long-term situation, are going to logically be more concerned with their own family’s survival than their jobs.  This leaves not only hospitals and clinics short-staffed but also police and fire forces without the needed people to deal with the catastrophe, not to mention the looting.

“There have been, as of this writing, only four secretaries of homeland security.  Each of them has conceded the likelihood of a castastrophic cyberattack affecting the power grid; none has developed a plan designed to deal with the aftermath.”  Lights Out, p. 104

What’s the bright side?  Part III covers “Surviving the Aftermath”.  It is a more hopeful section of the book, if only to know that some people are preparing in a way that may lead to their survival.  But for most Americans, it is salt in the wound of our gaping unpreparedness.

Ted begins by discussing the growing number of “Preppers”.  But he notes that many are off-track, focusing on buying ‘bug-out kits’ and not truly being prepared for a world without electricity or fossil fuels.  For instance, he presented the contents of one “Two Person Beginner’s Bug-Out Kit… noting the absence of a simple flashlight.

From what I read, much of the Prepper Retail Industry is geared for FEAR and PROFIT.  They instill fear so you will make them profits.  And I am certain there are many people who have spent hundreds, if not thousands or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars “preparing” who have no idea where they are going or what they’re doing should they find themselves facing an “abrupt departure into the unknown”, as one Prepper paraphernalia retailer puts it.  I personally believe it’s not the physical so much that will get us, it’s the emotional, and I’m not seeing a single kit stocked with a year’s worth of Valium or Prozac to get you through that transition.

But Ted does focus on this aspect by continually asking each person how he or she would respond to someone who hadn’t prepared, someone who needed help.  The answers varied but typically end with something along the lines of “your failure to prepare for crisis does not mean I have any obligation to help you now.”  But one interviewee definitely mentions the fact that, at some point, if there is no recovery plan rolled out, anarchy may well result in someone showing up to “kill you for your food.”

While some are preparing to be self-sufficient, to whatever degree possible, others are preparing as a community. The best prepared individuals have housing with wind turbine or solar power capability, water availability and wood heat along with replenishable (hunting/fishing/growing/foraging) food stores. [And, I’d add, privies that function without electricity and water.]  But many have minimal plans that don’t address likely crisis scenarios.

The example community of Preppers Ted discusses at length are the Mormons.  Whatever you think of the Mormans, you have to respect their preparedness and ability to deal with crisis. When Katrina hit, they had evacuated New Orleans of all but seven of their ~2500 congregants before the storm even arrived.  And, the LDS church was in place with tents, tarps, water and gas for those in most need before FEMA even had a plan.  In its constant state of preparedness, the church readily addresses the needs of any member down on their luck or community in need, thus rotating the stocks of their stores over time. And not only do they store the food, they produce it with “fifty-two farms, ranches, and orchards; twelve canneries and processing plants.” THIS is prepared.  But they too struggle with the question of what to do when others in need come calling.

Ted notes the over two thousand Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) affiliated with FEMA throughout the country but also that they don’t have much presence in America’s cities with only one CERT in the nation’s capital.

As a side project, I went to the CERT website to find the group closest to me and got nowhere.  First, there is a screen cautioning me to go back… that also notes the “security certificate expired 307 days ago…

When I persist, I get this lovely message:

 

 

 

 

So… good luck with the CERT program.

Instead, Ted recommends neighborliness.  Two main steps include determining the needs of the most vulnerable and knowing the skills and assets of those willing to share either or both in your community.  He mentions that local law enforcement, fire fighters, and local medical teams are good sources for help, though for some these days, local law enforcement have ruined their reputation for serving the public with their over-militarization and confrontational behaviors.

There are those who comprehend the scope of the issue, including Keith Alexander, retired director of the NSA who now owns a cybersecurity business in D.C. [Some questioned why his great ideas weren’t implemented while he worked for the government and accuse him of subsequently capitalizing on government needs after becoming intimate with the concerns.]  However, many of the ideas for protection are thwarted by concerns about privacy and information sharing between industry, government, and private citizens.  As Snowden made clear, our privacy is largely an illusion.

Unfortunately, when disaster does strike, it may largely be left to the military as the only organization with the required equipment and manpower. And while some are working to equip bases with their own power systems (which was standard practice thirty years ago), it may not be possible to implement these changes before disaster strikes.  And the task of reacting will be made more difficult as the general public has little idea of what to do.  I’m starting to think that a 10% survival rate may be a high estimate.

It would be the ultimate irony if the most connected, the most media-saturated population in history failed to disseminate the most elementary survival plan until the power was out and it no longer had the capacity to do so. ~ Lights Out, p. 222

And should we lose power, many would not know if it was a simple system anomaly we sometimes encounter, like a car accident taking out a transformer or a tree taking down a power line, or an act of cyberterrorism… an act of war.  And should it be the latter, we may never know the source of the attack.  And should it happen, we’d likely never know the number of affected people.

Many of the interviewees seemed to have a common idea: there have been many disasters for which we were not prepared… Katrina, Sandy, Snowmagedden… and we made it through them.  But we didn’t ALL make it through, did we?  How many thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, heck, even Snowmagedden, did we not count?  My guess is that we lost hundreds, if not thousands, of people for whom we have no record. The Homeless are the “invisible” people we rarely consider.  Maybe when we are all refugees of a power grid crisis, homeless people will finally be a part of the accounting, if only because so many will essentially be “homeless”.

And the questions are much bigger.  How are federal and state resources managed and utilized?  How are military and national guard personnel mustered without communication systems?  How long will it take to determine plans and will that be fast enough to protect resources like fuel stations, groceries, and water utilities?  There is much to consider and, I fear, we will never honestly and openly discuss the factors, let alone find ourselves prepared.

Ted closes with a description of WWII England where preparations, even with resources that seemed “woefully inadequate”, in the end gave a sense of purpose and feeling of confidence that in some ways saved the day.  Men armed with long-handled brooms and garbage can lids would patrol the streets.  While these are seemingly innocuous tools, they did allow an incendiary device to be swept from the roof of a building and smothered with the lid.  The discipline instilled in the civilian population helped everyone at least feel like they were doing something helpful.  And, in a case of a crisis, this feeling can go a long way in helping people not lose hope.

Book Review: “What Every Person Should Know About WAR” by Chris Hedges

Tags

Death, military, rape, war, weapons

While this book is dated, being published in 2003, it remains relevant in the clarity it brings to the facts of war.  Most striking in Chris Hedges‘ introduction are a paragraph about the book content and a closing about how hard it might be to read.  I highly recommend it for anyone seeking to join the U.S. Military or National Guard.

I think the review by Goodreads was quite accurate:

Utterly lacking in rhetoric or dogma, this manual relies instead on bare fact, frank description, and a spare question-and-answer format. Hedges allows U.S. military documentation of the brutalizing physical and psychological consequences of combat to speak for itself. …

This profound and devastating portrayal of the horrors to which we subject our armed forces stands as a ringing indictment of the glorification of war and the concealment of its barbarity.

Some of the things I learned (again, based on this 2003 edition):

• From 1940-1996 (war & peace cycles, arms race of the cold war), America spent $16.23 Trillion on military ($5.82T on nukes), versus $1.7T on health care and $1.24T on international affairs. [So… if we’d spent all the money we spent on military/war instead on programs for our citizens, this could have become a pretty nice place to live.  Reminds me of Vonnegut, aptly enough as we discuss war, who noted, “The good Earth — we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.”]
• The U.S. is the world’s largest arms manufacturer, supplying almost half of all arms sold in the world market.  [This might be why they hate us…]
• One is more likely to abuse your spouse if in the military.  The Pentagon has disclosed that an average of one child or spouse dies each week at the hands of a relative in the military.  [Wonder what the current statistics show…]
• Artillery shells can kill you by heat, blast effect, or shrapnel, which sprays ~200′ in all directions and can strike at twice the velocity of an AK-47 round (1,798 meters/sec or almost 6000 feet/second).
• Explosions create pressure waves moving at 6000 miles/hour.  In enclosed spaces, even a hand grenade can cause serious internal injury.
• Pressure can rupture air sacs in your lungs meaning, even if you think you are fine, you have have respiratory stress up to 48 hours later that can be fatal. Your organs can rupture even if your skin is not broken.
• Land mines of 30-grams will blow off your foot or damage it so it will require amputation.  A 150-gram land mine will shred your legs to midthigh.
• Fragmentation mines are often interconnected in a series of three to six mines and have explosion velocity of about 1000 meters/second (3280 feet/second).
• Hand grenades can be lethal to a radius of 150 feet, explosing a thousand fragments at 2000 meters/second.
• If you are hit by an explosive that does not detonate, and the surgeon thinks you can survive and the round will not detonate, it will be removed.  [Else, you just sit there until you die?  They shoot you in the head?  This left me guessing…]
• Incendiary devices are quite awful.  Magnesium and thermite burns are small but deep.  Phosphorus can burn for hours and has toxic effects on liver, kidneys, and heart. Napalm burns more of the body and often suffocates its victims as it burns for a long time creating toxic vapors.
• Dumdum bullets were so devastating that they were outlawed in 1899 at the Hague Conference.  New M16A2 bullets are even more damaging.
• Exit wound from a 5.56 mm (0.22″) dumdum bullet can leave an exit wound of 4″ diameter.
• Guns are the most effective weapon as they most likely take a soldier from the battlefield.  1/3 of hit soldiers die, 1/3 are removed from battlefield (many permanently discharged) and 1/3 return to battle quickly.
• There are many Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) from nuclear to biological to chemical (often referred to as NBC).
• Nukes can kill you in many ways from the blast, to thermal radiation, to initial and residual nuclear radiation, to electrical power surge.  Typically you will die within 2 weeks from nuclear exposure.
• The only nation to ever use a nuclear bomb was the U.S.  In fact, we detonated TWO bombs in short order on Hiroshima (4/6/45) and Nagasaki (4/9/45) killing 64,000 and 39,000, respectively.
• Botulinum nerve toxin is the most toxic substance known to science, though sarin nerve gas can kill within minutes (asphyxiation, sweating, drooling, vomiting, dimming of vision, heart failure, epileptic seizures).
• When you kill someone, you likely go through several emotional reactions, generally sequential but not universal: freeze up (unable to pull trigger), kill with possible exhilaration due to adrenaline (which can create a “killing addiction”), followed by remorse/revulsion, and finally rationalization and acceptance.  If you cannot rationalize your killing it can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• About 2% of the population are considered “natural killers” (3-4% of men and 1% of women) and these typically account for up to 50% of the killing done by a military unit.
• It is harder to kill when you are afraid because, when afraid or angry, you think not with the forebrain but with the midbrain, which harbors a deep instinct against killing one’s own kind.
  • “The military combats this with repeated training.  You will be rewarded for being able to overcome this instinct. It is the same principle used to train dogs.” ~ p. 77
• Most military personnel are NOT decorated for bravery.  Only 1.8 M decorations were awarded in WWII for a force as large as 8.3 M in May 1945.
• If an officer gives a command that you believe is illegal, you must refuse to execute it.  However, refusing to follow a lawful order in combat, even if you believe it will get you killed, can result in a court-martial, or military trial.  [Court-martial is a jury of 12 officers, not your peers, while a special court-martial is just in front of a judge.  This contribution is from Dan.]
• Troops kill officers in every war, usually for recklessness or incompetence.  This is referred to as “fragging” since Vietnam where at least 600 officers were murdered by their own troops.  An additional 1400 officer deaths could not be explained suggesting that 20-25% of all officers in Vietnam were killed by enlisted men.  [Makes one wonder why the government is so loathe to take care of military folks once they return.  We have trained them to kill efficiently and effectively…]
• 77% of all combat vehicles lost int he Gulf War were destroyed by friendly fire, or weapon fire coming from one’s own forces.
• Combat stress, a negative reaction to combat, occurs in 15-30% of soldiers during and immediately after combat.  This condition may result in negative behaviors such as raping, torturing, or killing noncombatants (civilians, chaplains, or medical personnel) or prisoners.  Alternatively, you may resort to drug or alcohol abuse, refuse to fight, or injure yourself.
• A combat high is when a large amount of adrenaline is released into your system and is equated with getting an injection of morphine – “you float around, joking, having a great time, totally oblivious to the dangers around you”, an intense experience… “if you live to tell about it.”
• Chapter 7 covers capture, torture and rape, though I was concerned that all the rape figures given were of women: In Kosovo, approximately 20,000 women were raped between 1992 and 1994. In Rwanda, between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide.”  [What about the men that were raped???]  Also interesting to note that, while rape is a war crime, the UN notes: “Rape remains the least condemned war crime.”  It was only declared a crime against humanity in 1993…
• It was noted that in peacetime, US military personnel are less likely to commit rape than male civilians of the same age.  [Not sure I believe that, except that perhaps it is a result of being segregated by sex in the service.  Again, why is rape assumed to be only against women?  A 2014 RAND study found that women in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps were 1.7 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than women in the Air Force (as reported here) and reported this:
  

  An estimated 20,300 active-component members were sexually assaulted in the past year, out of approximately 1.3 million active-component service members

  • This includes approximately 1.0 percent of men and 4.9 percent of women.]
• The last words of most dying soldiers are calls for a mother (wife or girlfriend).  [See women?  They do need us! 😀 ]
• There is a possibility that your body will not be recovered (if you die over water or geographic, climactic, or political conditions prevent it).  Or if the enemy steals it.  And, if they do, they will likely take anything of value from your body, including possibly an ear or finger, even though mutilating the dead is a violation of the general laws of warfare. [Is it funny to anyone else that there are “general laws of warfare”?  I mean, how can we have some level of civility on something that is brutally focused on killing in the name of righteousness?]
• The process of notifying the family includes instruction to not physically touch the family members in any way unless they suffer shock or faint.
• Your body will be prepared for burial by trimming the nails, shaving the face, suturing wounds, restoring distorted features, disinfecting your orifices and stuffing them with cotton (destroying maggots and other insect larvae), removing gas from your head, chest and abdomen, draining your fluids and replacing them with preservatives.
• Prior to being sent to the one person who receives your personal effects, these items are reviewed to remove anything the officer in charge believes will cause “embarrassment or added sorrow, including anything obscene, unsanitary, multilated, burned, or bloodstained.  All letters, papers, photos, and videotapes are screened.  [Wonder how they determine which are photos of your girlfriend and your wife…  Or husband and boyfriend, as the case may be.]
• A bonus to military service?  “The U.S. government pays for your body’s transportation, religious services, grave site, and other burial expenses. It provides a free tombstone.”  Per the Department of Veterans Affairs: “Veterans discharged from active duty under conditions other than dishonorable; Service members who die while on active duty, active duty for training, or inactive duty training; and spouses and dependent children of Veterans and active duty service members, may be eligible for VA burial and memorial benefits.”
• Post combat procedures should include a discussion of what happened during the war including performance of ceremonies or rituals to simulate the “long march home” thus giving time to process the war experience prior to returning to civilian life.  [Found this online: “During and after the U.S. invasion of Panama and the Persian Gulf War, U.S. Army mental health teams conducted a number of unit debriefings, although there was no formal doctrinal mandate or training program. With the deployment to Somalia in January 1994 of U.S. Army division mental health and combat stress control detachment teams, critical event debriefings became common practice. They were conducted following deaths in a unit from enemy action, accident or suicide, or after other distressing events involving deaths of civilians or mass casualties of multinational force allies at U.S. medical facilities.”]
• The return home is typically awkward as the family adjusts to the soldier’s return.  There are greater risks for physical disorders as well as drug-related disorders and alcoholism, depression, hysteria, and hypochondria in combat veterans.
• This 2003 assessment indicated only a slight increase for combat vets in committing suicide.  [More recent studies are conflicted.  One showed similar percentages of military and civilian suicide rates with “no link to combat deployment and suicides”:

  Those figures translate into a suicide rate of 17.78 per 100,000 person years for those who did not deploy and 18.86 per 100,000 person years for those who did — a difference that is not considered statistically significant.

  Multiple deployments appeared to influence the rate somewhat, with those who deployed more than once experiencing a rate of 19.92 per 100,000.

  Among those who separated early, however, the rate difference was significant. Those who separated from the military without having deployed had a nearly rate of 26 per 100,000 person years rate and those who had deployed had a rate of 26.48 per 100,000 person years.

  …

  The civilian rate, adjusted for age, gender and socioeconomic factors similar the the military population, is 18.8 per 100,000, according to Army and National Institutes of Mental Health calculations.
  Subgroups at highest risk, besides those who had served less than a year, included Marines who did not deploy and separated from the Corps early, with a rate of 32.6 per 100,000, and Army soldiers who deployed and separated — 28.1 per 100,000.

  while another finding significant increases in suicide risk (but overall lower risk of death in general, surprisingly enough) compared to the civilian population:

  Among deployed and non-deployed active duty Veterans who served during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars between 2001 and 2007, the rate of suicide was greatest the first three years after leaving service…
  Compared to the U.S. population, both deployed and non-deployed Veterans had a higher risk of suicide, but a lower risk of death from other causes combined. Deployed Veterans also had a lower risk of suicide compared to non-deployed Veterans.]

• The book also reports no increased likelihood for homelessness noting: “Although one third of America’s homeless are veterans, 250,000 on any given day, studies indicate that neither military service nor exposure to combat are related to an increased risk of homelessness.”  [More on homelessness below…]
• On comradeship, it is unlikely that soldiers will stay in touch with their comrades.  It seems that while “friendship creates ‘a heightened awareness of the self’, … comradeship is predicated on ‘the suppression of self-awareness.'”    While in combat, soldiers may love each other like brothers.  But once combat is over, “when other experiences intervene and common memories dim, they gradually become strangers.”
• Yes, you do get to keep your uniform.  However, when disposing of it, “you are to make sure no nonveteran acquires it.” [Yeah, that always happens. 🙂 ]

I found the figures on homelessness surprising as I was under the impression that a larger percentage of our homeless were ex-military.   Perhaps part of the issue is classification as the “veteran” population does not include those dishonorably discharged.  Another issue is data availability.  For example,  domestic violence providers are prohibited from providing data in accordance with the Violence Against Women Act, leading to potential underestimates of homeless women and children.  And it seems we’re having more women homeless vets since the Iraq/Afghanistan wars.

This link has housing situation information, though also dated (from 2009).

• In 2008, foreclosures in military towns were increasing at four times the national rate.
• About 8% of vets are paying more than half their income for housing – a high risk for homelessness.
• While veterans make up about 10% of the adult population, they make up 30% of the homeless population.
• Nearly 20% of Iraq/Afghanistan vets return with PTSD or mental health issues – both of these are highly correlated with a risk for homelessness.

VETERAN HOMELESSNESS resource from April 2015 noted:

• Just under 40,000 vets are homeless with these demographics – largely male (91%), single (98%), live in a city (76%), have a mental and/or physical disability (54%) and are between the ages of 51 and 61 (43%) – so lots of Vietnam era vets.
• While we’ve made great strides since 2010, the problem is still ongoing.  New Orleans announced in January 2015 that they’d ended veteran homelessness and since then, 3 states and 60 communities have joined them.

You can find a detailed 2017 report here.

The Financial Services Committee in DC reported 5/17/18 “It has been reported by the Department on Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that from 2008 to 2016, the number of people experiencing homelessness has declined.”  The information on this website is a bit misleading as the current Housing and Urban Development report (December 2017) reports homelessness is recently going back up, including for vets.

• Homelessness increased for the first time in seven years. The number of people experiencing homelessness increased by a little less than one percent between 2016 and 2017. This increase reflected a nine percent increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered locations, which was partially offset by a
  three percent decline in the number of people experiencing homelessness in sheltered locations.
• Between 2016 and 2017, the number of veterans experiencing homelessness increased for the first time since 2010. Nonetheless, homelessness among veterans dropped 45 percent since 2009. The two percent increase during the past year was almost entirely accounted for by increases among unsheltered veterans in major cities.

The good news is that families with children may be finding homes (or their kids are aging out or going out on their own as the data appears to be new for unaccompanied homeless youth).  This may be due in part to the Supportive Services for Veteran Families’ (SSVF), initiated in 2011, that aims “to rapidly re-house homeless Veteran families and prevent homelessness for those at imminent risk due to a housing crisis.”  [Though I noted that Volunteers of America is a supporter in this effort – a 501c3 which is also a “ministry”.  So much for the separation of church and state…]

There were over 500,000 homeless people in January 2017 based on the annual Point in Time figures.  Note that Part 2 of this report for 2017 will come late in 2018.  You can find a link to recent annual reports here.  While figures were much improved from 2010-2016, we’re now seeing an uptick of 1% in homeless individuals.  1% may not sound like much but we’re talking about 5,000 people.

So, I learned a lot reading this book, dated as it was.  It was a departure from Hedges normal fiery rhetoric… but as informative as ever.  I would recommend it for anyone considering joining the military service or National Guard in the U.S.  It gives an accurate description of what to expect as it answers many of the questions someone might have when considering enlistment, especially in this age of perpetual war.

The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things

Tags

books

A review of The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things: Fourteen Natural Steps to Health and Happiness by Larry Dossey, M.D.

A wonderful read sure to enlighten and inform. Covering topics from Optimism and Risk to Tears and Dirt, a wide range of ideas is shared about how the ordinary things in life can bring healing and happiness to us all.  Written by a medical doctor, this work can be scathing at times in calling out the hostility of modern medicine to accept and respect the mundane. Perhaps it is the ever increasing complexity of medicine that poo-poos the simple.  Nonetheless, simplicity is making a resurgence in many ways… likely the result of the increasing complexity of much of modern life!

Below are are some of the wonderful things I learned.  But note that this is a tip of the iceberg to what is included in this 265-page book (298 pages if you include all the Notes).

Optimism: Optimists get sick less often and live longer than pessimists!!  And people enjoy the company of optimists more than pessimists.  Makes me want to be optimistic ALL the time!!  There are a couple extreme stories of optimism and pessimism leading to life or death after a diagnosis.  But… some can find the unending view of the silver lining annoying.  Funniest quote?  Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915): “A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.”  (I think Dan liked this… or maybe just related well to it!)  He discusses this idea of optimism in much detail, including the downsides of optimism.  One of the critical points made is that optimism can be learned, as can pessimism.  He notes that the learning of pessimism happens “any time we foster social conditions that make it more difficult for people to climb out of poverty, acquire an education, and support their families.”  It’s easy for the privileged to insist in looking on the bright side but for many, it’s easier said than done.

Forgetting: So much ground covered in this chapter!!  The power of a physician “forgetting” the diagnosis from medical records forwarded when giving a second opinion, jurors forgetting the media coverage when determining culpability of a defendant, the sports flub that not being forgotten extinguishes a future successful career.  Dossey also gives tips for preventing age-related memory loss and briefs current research on gene manipulation to improve memory.  Forgetting is critical if we are not to be bogged down by all life’s disappointments and all those little things that happen in the course of being human.  Besides, much of what we think we know is often fiction.

Novelty:  There is no surprise in the idea of new things being fun when you dive into Fechner’s Psychophysical Law, which explains why novelty wears after repeated exposure and pleasure fades over time, even for something extremely exciting on discovery.  I was fascinated how this idea may explain why millionaires require more and more money as they get richer, similar to how addicts require more drugs over time, for the same exhilaration.  Why is there no treatment for money addiction?  Dossey gives many examples and discusses other aspects of novelty: Buckminster Fuller’s idea that we should all change careers every ten years – may not be profitable but we’d sure learn more; mindful eating for better pleasure making each bite “new”; the research showing that neophobes (those who fear new things) die earlier than those who embrace the new.  Interesting was the discussion of how the Psychophysical Law may explain why ideas change too.  Even bigots and haters, who so enjoy their prejudices, can lose interest as they age.  Of course, the opposite can occur… Hitler and Idi Amin simply increased their atrocities over time.

Tears: Dossey discusses the theory of letting babies “cry-it-out” to the history of tears (did you know there is a lachrymatory renaissance in the U.S.?) to how tears for cleansing differ from those caused by emotion.  If you’ve ever felt refreshed after crying, it’s likely because one function of tears is removing toxins from the body.  However, if you have unprovoked laughter or crying, that without any emotional content, it could signal a brain abnormality that you might want to get checked.

Dirt: While I was surprised that he did not cover the microbes in dirt which apparently make us feel happy (they have a similar effect as Prozac to our bodies), he did cover the history of our filth phobia and germ consciousness and how they have led us, in part, to our disposable society and the vocabulary with which some refer to immigrants, i.e., “dirty” Mexicans.  He reminisces about how he and his brother, like others in their community, were urged to play with the kids with chicken pox and the evidence that this likely made immune systems stronger.  Our ideas about dirt may need revision lest we someday have to inject ourselves with bacteria!

Music: A Googling exercise found sex to command 185 million internet listings but music wasn’t far behind, with both having profound effects on human behavior.  Dossey notes that “Crackdowns on music are common wherever repressive regimes are found.” But he also notes the use of music by right-wing extremists to mold minds  like William Pierce, neo-Nazi owner of Resistance Records, a vendor of “hate-core” music.  What institutions fear about music is its “capacity… to point to a reality that transcends the authority of any government or religion.”  Singing has also been found to restore health in some grave situations.  And did you know that humming may relieve sinusitis?  Dossey also provides fascinating forays into the music of DNA, geometry, and nature, as well as how it calms both the surgeon and those with Alzheimer’s disease.

Risk: If you attempt to avoid all risk, you must also forego any opportunity.  And those who warn of risk are often full of hot air.  As Dossey explains, when women entered the workforce, observers (almost all male) noted that “leaving one’s sheltered role… would… put them at risk for health problems.”  But studies showed higher levels of HDL “good” choloesterol, lower levels of LDL “bad” cholesterol, and lower levels of triglycerides as well as better health (for those with positive attitudes toward their jobs).  Of course, there are levels of risk and ways to take risks with planning and forethought as opposed to just jumping the canyon, so to speak.  I think of the times I’ve risked entering into something I wasn’t sure I could do and the exhilaration that follows a successful foray.

Plants: We all know the healing value of plants as many of our medicines are plant derivatives.  However, what about a more emotional connection?  Did you know that some plants are so connected to humans that they will blossom when “their” human dies?  While scientist long ago believed that animals did not feel pain, it is now becoming clear that plants also “feel”.  I find great comfort in talking with my plants and trees and I bet their are many plant people I know who find their plants respond to kindness and caring as well as water and sunlight.

Bugs: A very interesting review of the resurgence of leeches and maggots in health care.  Sometimes the very simple and inexpensive is effective when no matter of costly medical technology can heal…

Unhappiness: Just as we know there are far more ways for a venture to fail than to succeed, there are far more ways for something to turn out bad than for it to be good.  Think about your hotel room for an upcoming vacation… it could be perfectly fine!  But there are a lot of ways in which it might fail to please.  There is an argument that dwelling on the possible unhappiness may prepare a creature for the unexpected.  We often find we are drawn to the accident, the fight, the violence while the normal and everyday is passed over without a second glance.  And, if it weren’t for unhappiness, how would we know happiness?  While finding wisdom can come from an epiphany of enlightenment, it often comes as a result of suffering or unhappiness.

Nothing:  This was perhaps the most needed chapter for me to read.  As a Enneagram 7, I am driven to Doing Something… Anything! But there is much value in doing nothing.  It is often where creativity strikes.  With regard to medicine, sometimes doing nothing is the best approach, rather than offering “solutions” which truly only cause side-effects and offer no real cure.  Often, people outgrow problematic behavior that, if focused on and “treated”, could become a more long-term issue.  Think about the three-year-old who throws a tantrum.  When we attend to them, they learn the value of tantrums.  When we ignore them, they eventually tire of the activity and stop it.  Many spiritual paths focus on silence and stillness, only there will we find pure consciousness, that ultimate state of transformational enlightenment!  As Taoism tells us:

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.

In the pursuit of the Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done

Until non-action is achieved.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

This chapter also revealed a quite interesting concept regarding energy debate:

Dossey argues, along these same lines, that prevention is the analog to conservation in medicine and it’s often seen as “boring and unglamourous”.  There is also a nice discussion of how the Big Bang came from Nothing… and Scientists think Mystics are the crazy ones!!

Voices: This chapter gives many examples of hearing voices that result in health or life-saving.  It also discusses where these voices might originate and touches on the idea of consciousness and cellular memory, especially with regard to transplanted organs.  I love this paragraph:

The ancient Greeks would have considered our refusal of the help offered by voices as dangerously arrogant. They would have said that our denial of a Source outside ourselves amounts to hubris.  And they would have predicted our downfall, for that is the punishment the gods reserve for those who adopt such prideful positions.”

Mystery: This chapter gives interesting insight into what made Dossey want to become a doctor – it is the mystery of it all; though he found most of the training failed to address the questions he most wanted answered.  Mystery, or maybe curiosity about the mystery, has been vital to our understanding of health.  And for that matter, anything.  Dossey argues that fundamentalism strives to remove the mystery of religion through the use of rules and dogmas, which I believe may be why it is reducing the interest in religion these days.  Who wants a bunch of rules placed on them?  I think we’d prefer mystery.  And even in science, mystery is the cutting edge.  When we think we have it all figured out (as some scientists clearly do), we lose our edge in progress.  It is in the questioning and uncertainty that we find the next discovery, the next truth.  Dossey notes that “‘Mystery’ is related to the Greek myein… to be quiet, to surrender one’s self-importance.” As such,  Wilderness is a great mystery and perhaps the reason I have been so drawn to moving to the woods.  There is much to discover about life here, including, perhaps, what the purpose of it all might be.

Miracles: Miraculous healings of all kinds are discussed here, along with the incomprehensible rejection of them by many in medicine.  Perhaps if we’d give a bit more curiosity to the spontaneous remissions of cancer and miracles of faith healing, we might discover some methodologies that we could replicate…  There are many in the medical field who have witnessed such things, though few feel comfortable acknowledging them, let alone investigating them.  One thing is clear: “Skeptics” who attack such things as irrational and impossible are not truly skeptics which infers thoughtful inquiring.  Many of these so-called skeptics have long ago made up their mind about these kinds of things – they are simply impossible.  A true skeptic is always open to new insights. Dossey argues that the vehemence with which these people oppose is due to worldview.  Our assumptions about why and how the world works are often held so closely that to question them is to question us.  To suggest our worldview – miracles are impossible – is wrong is equivalent to questioning our sanity.  Dossey notes: “Those who protest miracles are like a man dying of thirst who complains about the temperature of the water he’s offered. You think we’d be more grateful.”  Regardless of how vehemently some will deny them, miracles continue to occur.  Dossey quotes Michael Grosso who notes about Miracles:

“their importance lies in the fact that they foreshadow a revolution in our understanding the structure of human reality itself.”

Even Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life: one is as thought nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.”

As Dossey says, “Miracles will endure, most current theories won’t. … Wilbur and Orville Wright invented the airplane (as) experts considered human flight impossible.  … they flew their plane… even though commuters could look out the windows of the trains and see them doing so, (as) the newspapers they were reading at that very moment decreed that is was completely impossible for a machine heavier than air to fly.”  And today, “While experts assure use that they are impossible, (miracles) keep on happening.”

I have given you some bits and pieces from this work but there is so much more history, detailed examples, and interesting insight to be gained by a reading of your own.  I highly recommend it.

Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Acceleration ~ A Review and Commentary

Tags

books, common sense

Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Acceleration was was my first full read of a Thomas Friedman book.  [Probably a good thing to accomplish, now that I’m officially a Minnesotan.]  His writing style was efficient, packing in loads of detail and information.  But it was also full of story and flowed along, bringing you to each new point in a very logical and entertaining way.  I was especially impressed with the early discussion on technology.  Though I grew up with computers as a young girl, Bitcoin is still a mystery to me, and I feel I’m losing in the race to keep up with the latest gadgets, software, and ideas.  But his explanations, including expert narrative from the field, made me feel like I could comprehend, in large part, what’s been happening in the last few decades of development.

Friedman’s book is laid out with two small bookends on two large areas of discussion.  His intro, Reflecting, is a wonderful story full of serendipity [one of my favorite topics] fueled by focused action.  His ability to see value, in those who others may not, led to a wonderful interaction and I feel like this has been a story throughout my life.  I’m amazed at the people I meet, some who others would typically dismiss, and the great gift I get from them.  It was heartwarming to read of Friedman’s good fortune resulting from his reaching out to a stranger who became the unlikely source for this book.

The meaty middle sections deal with Acceleration and Innovation.

In Accelerating we learn about three main areas, Technology or The Supernova, The Market, and Mother Nature, which are driving the pace of life faster and faster.  And we learn why the start of much of what is happening points back to 2007.  A fascinating read in hindsight, to consider the massive rate of change that we have seen in the last decade.  But a startling realization at what we are not giving enough attention to, as we rush forward, is a warning of our possible demise.

Moore’s Law, which originally predicted that the level of complexity of components would double every two years, with a corresponding reduction in cost, was proven with an improvement from sixty elements to sixty thousand elements in a single integrated circuit over ten years.  That rate being unsustainable, Moore’s Law was later revised to envisage the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubling approximately every two years; still a very rapid pace of development.

Friedman gives many examples of how technological development led to better and cheaper devices, pushing accessibility to the masses and resulting in the “The Cloud”, which offers an ever-expanding availability of data and resources via the Internet.  Friedman more accurately refers to this as “The Supernova” and he explains how it, along with Globalization, has changed our world, and also our Economies.  The Market chapter delves deeper into how this has been happening and then the chapter Mother Nature discusses some of the ramifications of our fast-paced, resource-depleting, way of life is affecting us environmentally.

Glenn Prickett from the Nature Conservancy sums it up nicely at the end of this section: “Nature doesn’t need us but we sure as hell need nature… Losing sight of that simple fact could be disastrous for the human species”. Amen.

In the end, there may be only one way forward.  To simply go on doing what we’re doing, until we find ourselves extinct.  Nature knows that life will go on, in fact will likely thrive again, once humanity is gone.  Or at least has its numbers reduced to a sustainable level.  The trees will take over and dominate much of the US east of the Mississippi.  The grasslands and herds will recover in the west. Coastal cities may well be submerged but most of the coast has been depleted of wildlife as urbanization and population grew, so much of Nature will remain unaffected.  Well, I guess sharks and fish and turtles will gain new real estate!

It will be interesting to watch over the coming decades… or as long as we get on this planet.  Though Dan and I know it’s not perfect, we are hopeful that our home is more sustainable than some.  And while life will be pretty rough if we lose the grid, gas, and stores, we hope to have a food forest in place to feed ourselves and some small livestock to keep us with enough protein.  And, if not, there are always the deer and other critters, wild plants and mushrooms, and white pine needle tea.

Friedman argues that now is the time for us to decide if we will use the powers we have to destroy… or to protect and preserve.  He noted that humanity has risen to the occasion following geopolitical upheavals in the past (Hitler, Pearl Harbor, 9/11) but this time the threat is of our own making and we will need to act on a scale never before imagined, for a generation not yet born, and before we reach the limits of our planet’s capacity to sustain us.  This is a monumental task and not one we can fix if we do too little or wait too long.  As he notes: “We cannot rebuild the Greenland ice sheet, the Amazon rain forest, or the Great Barrier Reef.” And there is no 3-D printer that can regenerate “rhinos, macaws, and orangutans”.

Friedman’s second large section, Innovating, covers the meat of his title – what Optimists need to do to Thrive in this Accelerated Age.

He begins by noting that things are just moving Too Damned Fast.  Yes!! Friedman argues that we cannot slow down – that putting our paddle in without continuing to pull hard is like dropping in a rudder and we will not be able to keep up and compete.  On this I am not so sure I agree. I believe a little slowing down and reverting to less technology may be our best way forward.

I am realizing that this fast pace is, in part, what drove me from the Rat Race.  I was getting lots done for my job and crafting as much as I could, but I never truly had time for a full focus on either.  Or time to reflect.  And I never got enough time to really develop what I felt in my heart was most important… me.  If we all spent more time in personal development, I believe we’d all find ourselves working together more compassionately and effectively.

I realized that in moving to rural Minnesota, I took an even bigger step back from the Acceleration.  People living here still have a sense of taking time.  Things are not so rushed.  And you see it in how they often care for one another.  I worried I would not be able to adjust but I have LOVED the slower pace (in large part).  I have seen since leaving the Rat Race that I still have access to fast-paced life with Bemidji less than an hour away, but I can choose to stay secluded in nature, spend time on the farms of friends, craft with neighbors, and more enjoy LIFE.  Taking time to consider what is going on in the world at large has enabled me to blog about some of the happenings and this has deepened my experience and understanding.

Friedman’s first section on how we Innovate is entitled Turning AI into IA, where he addresses the changing nature of how we use robotics, computers and telecommunications and how they are ubiquitous in our lives. He discusses how life-long learning will be necessary and how technology has allowed more people access to learning at cheaper rates than ever before. And he argues that Intelligent Assistants will help us forward.

Interestingly, he depicts how sometimes, when we add automation (like weaving machines or ATMs) the result is not what we expect (less weavers or bank tellers).  In fact, the number of jobs increased in these arenas… but with new skills and responsibilities instead.  When automation drives up availability, more demand means we have more need for workers in a given area.  But with automation, there are new skill requirements, and often our old system of business hinders our next wave of workers.  For example, an executive assistant (EA) job now requires a Bachelor of Arts degree.  However, only 19% of current EAs have a B.A., meaning if any of them want to change jobs, we would require him to “quit, go into debt for eighty thousand dollars to get a BA, and then interview for another opening for the exact job (he is) already doing.”

It’s no wonder the new economy is becoming “badge-based”.  Organizations like LinkedIn and Opportnity@Work are offering jobs to people because of their skills, regardless of how these skills were achieved.  Brick-and-morter colleges are struggling to keep up with coursework development that keeps pace with the changing needs while online training courses are much more quickly providing the needed skills to those willing to invest their time (on their own schedule and typically at a much lower cost than traditional education) to earn badges they can use to denote skills on their resumes.

I finally started to truly see the Optimist aspect of Friedman’s book on page 255 in a section entitled Come the Revolution.  He explains that good middle-class jobs today are “stempathy” jobs – those which blend technology and human interpersonal skills.  He explains how we went from 19^th century jobs working mainly with animals and plants to 20^th century paper-pushing jobs to 21^st century jobs where we will mostly work with people… Dov Seidman (American author, attorney, columnist, and businessman) refers to it as moving from “hands to heads to hearts”.  While we automate so much of our work, there is always going to be a need for a “heart”, something machines cannot have.  I am hopeful this will bring us to a place of more humanity, more compassion, and more community.

After reading this section, I texted Jill (who loaned me this book), that page 255 was my favorite page and she replied:

Yes, and here’s where I think this is going:

– Comment to Captain Picard when he brings an Earthling aboard his ship from the 20th century: “Captain of a Starship. You must make a lot of money.”

– Picard: “In the 23rd century we don’t work for money. We work to better ourselves.”

We’ve got a few centuries to go, but I think it’s moving in that direction.

It will be the end of 4-year B.A. programs where your degree is obsolete on or just after graduation.  It will require a constant updating of skills to keep pace with change.  It will mean we no longer find our jobs, but invent them.  We will go from a time when the first question we ask someone is, “What do you do?” (as in, for a living) to, “What is your passion and how do you leverage it to make a living?”  In the long game, I foresee a time when we no longer rely so much on money exchange as we do on trading of products and services. Our lives will be more intimate as we work more locally and with stronger community to provide our sustenance, our housing, and perhaps even our healthcare.  But our lives will likely also become more global as technology allows interactions around the world to solve problems.  There will need to be some form of exchange to compensate efforts in these veins though I predict it will not be dollars, yen and rupees.

This section wraps with a call to look not to what we are losing (jobs to automation) but what we are gaining, which is yet to be revealed but could promise our becoming the people we want to be.  A 2014 Gallup poll revealed that the biggest factor in having a successful career was having mentors who had taken an interest in your aspirations and having an internship associated with what you were learning.  People helping people.  Imagine that.

In Control vs. Kaos, Friedman describes the changing geopolitics of the acceleration age.  With globalization, the interdependence of countries has resulted in the need for America to assure that its old (and current) enemies don’t fail.  He argues that a collapsing Russia or China could mean our own downfall.  I’ve said for years that maintaining our own manufacturing would be smarter than outsourcing everything to cheap labor countries.

If China fails, you’ll be wearing that same pair of shoes for a lot longer and much of the fear of nuclear threat will return if Russia loses controls over its nine time zones of warheads.  Do we stop propping up disintegrating states to prevent further disorder?  Or do we intervene and find ourselves stymied by bills we may not be able to pay? It’s no wonder we don’t see much progress… it’s hard to know what to do.

There was a long period of steady and stable growth following WWII but destabilization today, especially in the “straight line” border countries created by colonialism and imperialism, is seeing many stressed by the Market, Mother Nature and Moore’s Law.  Friedman reviews Madagascar, Syria, Senegal, and Niger to give examples of some of the effects taking shape in recent past.

The major issues?  Population growth that exceeds resources.  Deforestation that outpaces replacement capacity. Depletion of natural resources by political cronies and outsiders, made worse by the drought resulting from climate change.  The results?  Desertification. Mass migration of refugees.  And hungry people easily radicalized.  When a jihadist group can offer a couple hundred dollars a month and you are used to living on $2/day, you take the money and send all you can to struggling family back home.

But Friedman argues that the acceleration empowers not only “political breakers” bent on tearing down governments to install religious or ideological tyranny, but also “political makers” who want to remake autocratic (and I’d argue also democratic, or say… oligarchic) societies into more consensual ones. Though this gets complicated.  While most of the discussion was pretty pessimistic, it took me to page 313, another of my favorite pages in the book, where he talks about how radicalization happens when youth have few options.  He proposes a plan called ADD: Amplify, Deter, & Degrade.  Amplify talks about investing in “islands of decency and engines of capacity-building in countries in, or bordering on, the World of Disorder.” Whether it is education, gardens, chickens, or internet access, this investment pays big dividends for the US.

“When we invest in the tools that enable young people to realize their full potential, we are countering the spread of humiliation, which is the single biggest motivator for people to go out and break things.” ~ Thank You for Being Late, p. 313

The US is currently backward in our investment: Friedman cites $1.3B in tanks to Egypt’s military being far less productive than the $13.5M in college scholarships for Lebanese public schools. He quotes Jumana Jabr, an English teacher in Amman public school in Jordan who said:

One is for making people and the other is for killing people.

How simply and beautifully put.  It reminds me of something Dan and I keep saying, “They don’t hate us for our freedom.  They hate us because we are killing them.”

When it comes to Deter and Degrade, Friedman offers much less detailed guidance and, as a child of the Cold War, I’m not so keen on a nuclear deterrent as our best option.

Mother Nature as Political Mentor focuses on the fact that in developed democracies we have, in large part lost out pillars of stability:

• the expectation of the next generation being able to achieve a middle-class lifestyle with better standards of living than the previous
• steady flows of immigrants to provide low-skilled/high-energy and high-skilled workers
• equal opportunities for a decent middle-class life in rural and urban areas

This chapter focuses on the political innovation we will need, and which our current center-right and center-left politicians have been unable to navigate.  But I wasn’t feeling very optimistic at the outset as he said it would require a “brutally honest assessment” of climate change.

Maybe I shouldn’t lose faith.  Who will he go to as a mentor as he develops a list of solutions?

“I can think of no better political mentor than (Mother Nature)… a bio-geophysical, rationally functioning, complex system of oceans, atmosphere, forests, rivers, soils, plants, and animals that has evolved on Planet Earth since the first hints of life emerged.” Thank You For Being Late p. 328

His description of Mother Nature’s Killer Apps shows why she deserves our respect and why our best hope is to mimic her. And he expands into solutions around five of these apps:

• Being Adaptive When Confronted with a Stranger – listening to input from one who is thriving and then adapting this input, rather than simply feeling humiliated by someone who appears to have more success… basically, being able to adapt your culture.

Culture is defined (BusinessDictionary.com) as the “pattern of responses discovered, developed, or invented during the group’s history of handling problems which arise from interactions among its members, and between them and their environment. These responses are considered the correct way to perceive, feel, think, and act, and are passed on to the new members through immersion and teaching. Culture determines what is acceptable or unacceptable, important or unimportant, right or wrong, workable or unworkable.”

• Embracing Diversity – like Polyculture where diversity promotes resistance to disease and pests (unlike Monoculture), while also better maintaining the topsoil. Did I mention that Jared Diamond (among others) has found that almost all civilizations that collapse have failed to steward their topsoil?  Friedman compares how the monoculture of ideas pushed by Al Qaeda and the Tea Party (funded largely by fossil fuel money and oil billionaires) create susceptibility to “diseased ideas: climate change is a hoax, evolution never happened, we don’t need immigration reform” thus allowing an “invasive species” like 45 into the garden.
• Assuming Ownership of the Future and One’s Own Problems – because when we own something, we are invested in its success.  Ownership enables “adaptation, self-propulsion, resilience, and healthy interdependencies”.  Revolutions are always about owning one’s future.
• Balancing Between the Federal and the Local (Ecosystem Interaction) – because in the age of acceleration, locals will have a better finger on the pulse of needed change and we will need to reconfigure the interaction of local and national government forces to allow more local controls (where trust is higher) while also still supporting national programs (where we can reduce the bureaucracy by limiting it to higher level issues).
• Mixing and Coevolving Ideas to Create Resilience and Propulsion – basically allowing all kinds of ideas to coevolve, like plants and animals coevolve in nature.  After reminding us that our current two-party system is unable to think outside their entrenched ideas (which haven’t been working and which mainly just divide – Republicans with tax cuts, deregulation & opposition to immigration…Dems with more regulation, more social welfare, and more identity politics), Friedman gives us 19 ideas on how Mother Nature would make “the Future Work for Everybody”. While I don’t agree with all of his ideas, I definitely agree that thinking along Nature’s way could go a long way in making humans in the U.S. more successful.

Friedman next asks Is God in Cyberspace?, a laws-free, values-free, and seemingly God-free space. His answers are intriguing. Just be aware that, if you haven’t yet seen The Martian, like I haven’t, there are some spoilers…

Being raised in St. Louis Park, he celebrates his heritage in Always Looking for Minnesota.  This is a wonderful chapter focusing on the value of community and the power of trust.  I have a good friend who grew up in St. Louis Park and he’s a dear.  I was thrilled to learn about so many more famous Minnesotans who grew up in this bastion of acceptance and community with a strong focus on education.  Friedman wraps up his Innovating section by saying You Can Always Go Home Again (and You Should!) where he discusses the many ways that St. Louis Park is still such a strong and well-working community. With stories from City Hall and the local High School he gives various examples of the trust and security found in this community.  And he gives insight into how the Itasca Project addresses “regional economic vitality, quality of life, and prosperity for all.”  Very interesting read.

His wrap-up is called Anchoring, and in it he reviews the importance of leadership and the “bitch” of transitions.  But his real optimism comes through in his Afterword.  Especially because it was written post-2016 election and in full view of the unfolding presidency that resulted.

While arguing that 45’s election and the Brexit vote are both the result of the age of acceleration and the associated unmooring of many, most especially less-educated, working-class whites, he argues once again for the solution of community.  In maybe my favorite passage in the book he notes the post-Brexit emergence of young people in Europe who voted to voice their opposition to the message Trump and Brexit are sending.  They don’t want to “disconnect in a connected world”, “go backward to monocultures after growing up in increasingly diverse urban areas”. Instead, they want to understand  the “necessity of building resilience and propulsion for middle-skilled worked in new ways – and they want leaders” who can take them forward.  They voted for “open” parties over “closed” parties and see the solutions not in top down systems but in bottom up building of communities.  He concludes:

“And that is pretty much the new divide in global politics today – the open parties verses the closed parties… the communities that are creating complex adaptive coalitions and rising from the bottom up and those where the bottom is falling out.” Thank You For Being Late p. 504

While 45 delivered an inaugural speech describing an America in “carnage” (that surprisingly brings Friedman and G.W. Bush [and me] to a point of agreement… that “That was some really weird shit.”), the reality is that the young people of today are full of hope, acceptance, optimism, technological possibilities, and global opportunities.

“Only strong communities, not a strong man, will make America great again.” Thank You For Being Late p. 512

And I would argue that this does give an optimistic spin on the entire adventure through which Friedman has led me.

This book is one of Wall Street Journal’s “10 Books to Read Now” and it has been reviewed as one of the best Nonfiction books of 2016.  I do believe it will bring a better understanding of our current global situation and insight into how we can best find solutions moving forward.

 

Book Review ~ This is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century

Tags

activism, books

Before I begin, I want to put in a plug for the Bemidji Library because I happened upon this book there and I am often amazed at the progressive array of books they seem to always have facing out on the displays.  It’s pretty incredible how much I love the books I see as I walk through their aisles.  I don’t recall ever being in a library where I feel more resonance with the displayed books than I do in the Bemidji Library.  So thank you, Librarians!  You’re making this library great for me.

As an activist, I often struggle to comprehend how things work or how to best move forward, and I frequently feel like I can never do enough.  Change takes time.  And sometimes, like when a company wants to build a tar sands pipeline through your watershed, for the river that supports a large part of your nation, you can feel like you’re running out of time.  In This is an Uprising by Mark and Paul Engler, I found much solace, encouragement, and a feeling of empowerment.

This is an Uprising weaves itself around several examples through time, breaking down how the use of non-violent action has been, and is likely to remain, the best way to overcome oppressive governments and outdated cultural beliefs.  It discusses how we make change by being courageous and standing up for our beliefs, even when we seem like the minority.  In the end, we often find that people can be far more tolerant and open-minded as time progresses and we evolve as a society.  And that they are most likely to see our way if we approach with a message of non-violence.

The book does a review of the two main strategies of structurally based organizations and movements and how a hybrid of the two can be most effective.  The generally accepted founder of structural community organizing is Saul Alinsky, author of the 1971 Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, considered by many to be the Bible for Activism.  His work is contrasted with that of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward who co-authored the 1977 Poor People’s Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail.  Movements are more fluid and free-forming, often making the bigger and/or faster steps forward, while structural organizations have the capacity to build the communities and administrative practices that allow groups to hold gains as they progress.  The book’s discussion on the pillars that uphold the culture in our society depicts how they can be toppled in moving to a new evolution of our culture; one more tolerant and supportive of those whose voices were previously not being heard.

In fact, research done by Erica Chenoweth (University of Denver Professor of Political Science) and Maria Stephan (U.S. Department of State Strategic Planner) showed that nonviolent movements have been twice as likely to succeed as violent insurgencies. In fact, while violent insurgency may occasionally succeed, non-violent uprisings bring about more lasting and peaceful results.  Old data claimed that if 5% of a population stood up, they could successfully challenge their government.  Evaluating a database of social movements worldwide over the last 100+ years, Chenowith and Stephan discovered that a mere 3.5% of the population is needed to challenge it; no government can withstand a movement of this small size.   In the United States, that would be 11 million people.  Mass non-cooperation CAN bring change.  Just ask Slobodan Milosevic.  And by allowing people of diverse backgrounds an ability to participate, civil resistance, as opposed to physical violence, can more easily make peaceful and lasting change.  Erica asks in her Tedx talk:

What if our history courses emphasized the decade of mass civil disobedience that came BEFORE the Declaration of Independence, rather than the war that came after?  What if our social studies textbooks emphasized Ghandi and King in the first chapter, rather than as an afterthought?  What if every child left elementary school knowing more about the Suffragist Movement than they did about the Battle of Bunker Hill?

This takes us to the ideas of the Pillars of Support.  Education is one of the key pillars supporting our culture.  If we change how we educate, the focus of cultural knowledge changes, ideas of how things work expand.  Other pillars include Media and Religion.  When the Media finally broke the stories on Standing Rock, the movement gained recognition, validation, and a mass influx of new funding and supporters.  Subsequent to the camp being dismantled, several new camps have arisen, carrying on the cause.   Standing Rock is like a plant that, having blossomed and sent out its seeds, created exponential growth in its influence by recreating itself many times over.

The Marriage Equality Movement was greatly helped as Religions continued to incorporate more ideals around the acceptance of people without regard to their sexual orientation. Once the old bias of the faithful against homosexuality had become less and less acceptable, the numbers of people supporting legislation for gay marriage overwhelmed those who continued with the old tenets of intolerance.

Other pillars are more coercive and controlling: the Police, the Courts, and the Military.  These groups are made up of individuals who, when faced with immoral and violent acts against peaceful protesters, will likely side with the resistance, rather than the oppressors for whom they work.  In order for an Empire to maintain control over its citizens, they must be obedient… and the powers that be rely on the above three groups to maintain obedience.  Any action to upset the status quo be must be quelled.

Interestingly, while Police and Military showed some support for the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, it remains to be seen whether there will be successful civil suits filed in the Courts against the likes of TigerSwan, a firm working security for Dakota Access without license in North Dakota.

Gene Sharp writes, “Obedience is at the heart of political power.”  The book contends “And if popular disobedience is sufficiently widespread and prolonged, no regime can survive.”

In the second half of This is an Uprising, the focus is on how non-violent groups move forward successfully and the techniques and shortcomings that can cause efforts to backfire and/or lead to downfall.  There are two major concerns that can derail movements, infiltration and violent disruption.

With regard to the temptation to turn to violence, Michael Albert, leftist activist warns:

It’s really quite simple.  The state has a monopoly of violence.  What that means is that there is no way for the public, particularly in the developed First World societies, to compete on the field of violence with their governments. That ought to be obvious.  Our strong suit is information, facts, justice, disobedience, and especially numbers.  Their strong suit is lying and especially exerting military power.

A contest of escalating violence is a contest we are doomed to lose.  A contest in which numbers, commitment, and increasingly militant nonviolent activism confronts state power is a contest we can win.

Ghandi argued that to resort to violence is to “cooperate with the Government in the most active manner.”  Which brings us to the other concern: infiltrators, or agent provocateurs.  Did you know that a paid FBI informant supplied the first firearms to the Black Panthers?

A friend of mine has asked, when attending meetings of the new movements forming since the election of 45, “When will we be having training in non-violence?”  She understands that, for a movement to succeed, the participants must be trained formally in civil resistance.  Once emotion rises, it’s too easy to revert to violent response.  Training is vital to developing skills needed to not succumb to reactionary tactics in the heat of the moment.  For true success, there must be a total commitment to non-violence, and it must include training that practices with mock demonstrations.  This is where the structured organizing tactics are critical as they have designated practices for bringing in new members.  The Movement supplies the passion but the Organization administers the path to success.

Activists and concerned citizens alike will find this book a readable explanation of how non-violent civil resistance can bring about change.  It may very likely give you hope a bit of for the future.

Reading Goal for 2017 On Track

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books

So I set a goal to read 144 books this year.  At first this seemed reasonable.  I mean, I’ve got all this time at the Harn on my own.  That’s only 12 books a month and I can include some kids books to pump up my numbers, right?  Well, I’m also reading some pretty hefty tomes – think textbook level reading – on Permaculture, Forest Gardening, and the like.  Those kid books are REALLY gonna come in handy!

I started thinking that, in the summer there’s more work to be done outside… so I need to focus on getting ahead of the goal in winter, right?  I figured I needed a few extras in January & February.  So how am I doing?

Books read in January:

1. The Book that Matters Most by Ann Hood  – Good but a bit predictable
2. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly – Fun Juvie read.  Looking forward to reading the second book now.
3. The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka – Excellent.  A Master of Growing.
4. Re-Creative: 50 Projects for Turning Found Items into Contemporary Design by Steve Dodds – Lots of cute ideas for when I get a break from reading.
5. The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton – Sweet and timely.
6. Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber – Good encouragement for kids to have confidence and see that we’re all a little vulnerable.
7. I Miss You: A First Look at Death by Pat Thomas – Well done.
8. Rising Strong by Brene Brown – Must read.  Again, I’m a huge Brene Brown fan.
9. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley – Lots of science here and it was a good story – though I felt a bit overwhelmed at times with the details.  Glad to check one off the Authors to Read list.  Still need to get to Still Life…
10. Zero-Waste Home by Bea Johnson – Wonderful, challenging book.  Everyone should read this as we all generate too much waste and can do with some culling back on our consumerism.
11. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys – Again, love this author.  Terrific story though a tough subject.
12. Two if By Sea by Jaqueline Mitchard – Good story – sucks you in.  Goes in a lot of directions and enjoyable but don’t know if I’ll read another by her.
13. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson – SUPER FUNNY about Hard Stories.  She is really vulnerable in here and I am sure this book will make you feel a little happier and less crazy, no matter how crazy and sad some of us sometimes feel.  Bought it for a friend – it’s in paperback!
14. Time, Love, and Memory: A Great Biologist and His Quest for the Origins of Behavior by Jonathan Weiner (Heavy Science)  – NFBC Read – Good look at genetics and really shows how geeky scientists are human too.
15. Lucia and the Light by Phyllis Root – Lovely folk tale type read.

Good – 3 ahead! Those 4 kid books really helped!

Books read in February:

1. Edible Forest Gardens Volume 1 by Dave Jacke (Textbook!) – Excellent read with loads of details and technical stuff but also some really good case studies.  This is the theory volume.
2. Sacred Balance by David Suzuki (Heavy Science) – Great overview of lots of science and how us humans are intimately connected to the earth, our planet, our home.  Wonderful closing stories of people making real differences.
3. Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead – Great look at slavery and some of the BS that was involved.  But there are beautiful heroes too.
4. Taking Flight by Kelly Rae Roberts – Inspiring book about how each of us can bring the artist inside to life.  Really terrific demos on How-To make art like hers. You can read the first chapter on her website – it might suck you in like it did me… http://www.kellyraeroberts.com/
5. Locally Laid: We Built a Plucky, Industry-Changing Egg Farm – From Scratch by Lucie B. Amundsen  – Excellent book on the trials of taking on a huge challenge and winning.  Tons of funny stories about her and her husband.  You gotta check this one out – plus it’s by a Minnesota Author!  https://www.facebook.com/locallylaid/
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell – Classic.  This was a timely read.
7. The Iron Heel by Jack London – You may remember this from last week’s blog.
8. Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane – Beautfully illustrated and a fun Halloween tale.
9. Gracie and Grandma and the Itsy, Bitsy Seed by Iben Sandemose – Cute.
10. Farming the Woods: An Integrated Permaculture Approach to Growing Food and Medicinals in Temperate Forests by Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel (Textbook!) – Way more data-oriented and mushroom-focused than I’d like.  But it did have good photos of a guy I LOVE on YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/user/EdibleAcres
11. The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking – A fun look at Danish Happiness with complete details on how you can join in the fun.

Man, one short!  Even with 2 kid books.

I am currently reading:

1. Early Retirement Extreme: A philosophical and practical guide to financial independence by Jacob Lund Fisker (done!) – Loved this book (Oh, you can also read his first chapter for free at his site too!) and am now enjoying the forums at his blog… http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/index.php?sid=27dc4fee105c5df4d0c2aa72882f1d4b  You should check out his page if you want to quite being a wage slave. http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ Which will lead you to this –  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development – very interesting to consider as we look at the 45 Administration.
2. The 100 Thing Challenge by Dave Bruno – Again, this guy is very vulnerable but also confident about justifying the criticism he gets. I like the concept,  lessons learned, and it’s just short of preachy.
3. Living with Less so your family has more by Jill Savage – just couldn’t so this – way too churchy for me. A little obvious with many of the lessons.  I skimmed through the whole thing but couldn’t read it word for word – just to much scripture.
4. Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale Farming and Gardening* – LOVE Sepp Holzer.  He is a genius and I’m about halfway through this one.  Lots of great info, though some re-reading is required, possibly due to translation.
5. Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway*
6. Edible Forest Gardens: Volume 2 by Dave Jacke (Textbook – even thicker than Volume 1!)
7. Calm Surrender by Kent Nerburn*
8. Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood*
9. All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister – for NFBC

• Some of these have been in the works for a while…  I’ll eventually finish them!

So, only being a couple days into the month, I’m doing OK for March.  But I’m gonna have to step up my game or start reading lots of Pre-K books to make the goal!!

Dystopian Fiction Review and Consideration

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Socialism

Just finished The Iron Heel by Jack London this week.  Spoiler alert!! I delve into quite a bit of the detail of the story.  While I don’t ruin the ending – which is like, great and sucks at the same time – but I will give some amount of insight into much of the gist of the book.

Jack London lived from 1876-1916, and in a short life, he managed quite a bit of adventure.  I had no idea what a socialist he was… else I’d have read him earlier!  The Iron Heel is a lesson in history as much of what he references are actual facts and quotes from his era and U.S. History.

The story is ostensibly a memoir written by a wife (Avis) of her husband (Ernest Everhard), a revolutionist. However, it is presented with a background narrator providing footnotes throughout.  Said narrator is looking back from seven centuries in the future on these happenings in the early 20th century memoir.  With this frame of reference comes an ability to give interesting detail on some of the historical details of the story, including things learned through history, which dispel mystery on some events.  And, as Mankind has progressed much in the centuries since its writing, there is much ridicule and commentary on the nature of humankind at this point in our evolution.  More on that later…

The story begins on the first meeting of Avis and Ernest and describes how she, a wealthy, dividend-loving, young woman, is transformed by her interactions with him.  He challenges her, noting that her fancy gown and roof-beams, even the food she eats, is tainted with the blood of the workingman (and child, for at that time, child labor was ubiquitous). Avis is incensed, but investigates Ernest’s charge of corruption of corporations against their workers, specifically looking into a case of man named Jackson who lost an arm near the end of his shift as he tried to protect the equipment.  Along the way, she finds that everyone involved is a hostage to the wages paid by the corporation and, as such, they can do nothing to help Jackson secure payment for his injury or even ongoing employment as a Watchman with the company.  From fellow workers who testify on behalf of the company, to the lawyer who represents Jackson but is also a working man at the company, to the lawyers who work for the company itself, all must abandon their sense of righteousness in order to assure ongoing wages with the company. None can defend what is right about the case, else they forfeit their livelihood.  In the end she must admit that the roof-beams of her home and the beautiful gowns she wears DO drip with the blood of The Working Man.

Her next foray is to the press.  In an effort to raise awareness of these issues of the working class and hopefully bring relief to their condition, she writes commentary for publication.  But who will print her story?  None. Everywhere she turns, she finds herself stonewalled. Her account of Jackson’s case is turned down by every editor of every local paper. Of course they too are beholden to the corporations who advertise on their pages.

”I was beginning to see through the appearances of the society in which I had always lived and to find the frightful realities that were beneath. There seemed a tacit conspiracy against Jackson, and I was aware of a thrill of sympathy for the whining lawyer who had ingloriously fought his case. But this tacit conspiracy grew large. Not alone was it aimed against Jackson. It was aimed against every workingman who was maimed in the mills. And if against every man in the mills, why not against every man in all the other mills and factories? In fact, was it not true of all the industries?  And if this was so, then Society was a lie.” ~ Avis Everhard on realizing the plight of the working man

When meeting with the two men who held the most stock in the mill, Avis was talked to in a patronizing way and became hopeless as these two men were convinced that they were the saviors of society.  In fact, they felt they were superior in all humankind, making happiness for the many as they offered the only hope of employment to the working class.
When the wives of these stockholders were asked for some recompense to Jackson for the loss of his arm, the response was that they would put no premium “on carelessness”, nor, “by paying for the accident, tempt the poor to hurt themselves in the machinery.”  Regardless of the fact that injuries did not happen early in the shift but almost always in the last hour of an excessively long shift, the perception was of carelessness of the worker instead of fatigue or overwork.  It was the worker’s own fault for being injured.

The subject of the memoir, Ernest Everhard, asserts that “one of the weaknesses of the human mind is that the wish is parent to the thought”. Once we have a desire for something, the sanction of this thing as “right” always comes. Thus, these high society people could justify themselves in such a way as Saints.  Which makes me wonder how often I have found justification for my own wishes simply through the power of the mind.  I mean, does simply wishing for something attune the mind to find evidence for why this thing is righteous or desirable?  I am pondering this…

On being offered a prime position as the US Commissioner of Labor, Ernest promptly refuses this attempt to steal a “(captain) from the army of labor”. So many “leaders (had) been bought out in similar ways in the past”, but not Ernest.  He will be true to the Cause to the end.  Or so we are to believe.

Through chapter 13, this story reads as if current events. It is amazing to me the many similarities between early 20^th century happenings and our own current events. I watched a Ted Talk recently that noted the headlines about the financial crisis in 2008 were quite reminiscent to those of the 1930’s… but we’re in too much of a state of denial to recognize it.  It wasn’t until the 1950’s that the Crash and what followed was referred to as “The Great Depression”.  In another 10-15 years, perhaps we will know the name of our own financial crisis.

What follows in the latter chapters of the book, I surely hope is not foretelling of our own future events.  With 700 years of hindsight, there is a report of the “Brotherhood of Man” era that sounds quite utopian and seems to have developed about three centuries after the annihilation in chapters 13 and beyond.  However, the destruction prior to this era is hellish. I can only imagine 300 years of Oligarchy ruling with an Iron Heel. But, as London relates bits and pieces of our own U.S. history throughout his story, it does seem there’s a possibility that we will, at least some of us, survive it… as we have survived so much oppression through the centuries in the Grand Old US of A.

One aspect of the book that relates to our own times, and was common to the times during which the story was written, is the use of the terms “sedition” & “anarchist” to represent anyone in thought opposition to the Oligarchy.  It is quite a convenient and powerful tool to be able to label your opposition so easily and negatively with a word, regardless of how righteous and just their cause. Another throwback referenced was the use of violence by operatives of the Oligarchy, which was then blamed on the Proletariat. This reminds me of Standing Rock, where the Water Protectors were claimed to have “pipe bombs” when in fact they were smoking peace pipes and the only ones with weapons were the police and sheriffs.  These men, whose normal day job is supposedly to Protect and Serve the People, were instead operating in obedience and subservience to the oil company executives.  If you read history in detail, or just the little in this story by London, you will hear reference to this practice of using government forces and local law enforcement to protect the assets and profits of the rich.  From Pinkerton to the National Guard, forces are often called in to quell the masses and save the profits of the powerful.

One new concept for me in this story was a passport system “so perfect that no man, woman, or child and all the land was unregistered and unaccounted-for in his or her movements”.  From the novel, it seems such a system was operating in Russia at the time of publication for this story.  And it makes me wonder about the new IDs they are wanting for Minnesota…  Seems like a Real ID would give the authorities enough data to track you anywhere.  But, hey, no biggie, right?  They already have this with our credit cards and cell phones.  As my son often tells me, “Mom, just click the agreement box for online stuff – they already have all control anyway.”

Throughout the book are entertaining footnotes to define or explain words used in the memoir by Avis Everhard. One footnote defines Society as “a common usage of the times to denote the gilded drones that did no labor, but only glutted themselves at the honey-vats of the workers. Neither the businessmen nor the labors had time or opportunity for Society. Society was the creation of the idle rich who toiled not and who in this way played.”

Also defined were Grub (food), Bluff (lie) and, most interesting in today’s day of 45 tweets, Fake (false).  Oddly, not defined was Gamin, which is a street urchin, likely a term familiar with readers at the time of publication.

One of my favorite footnotes regarded the term Watchman: “In those days thievery was incredibly prevalent. Everybody stole property from everybody else. The lords of society stole legally or else legalized their stealing, while the poorer classes stole illegally. Nothing was safe unless guarded. Enormous numbers of men were employed as Watchman to protect property. The houses of the well-to-do or a combination of safe deposit vault and fortress.”  In discussing the homes of the day, the footnote states, ” in those days it was still the custom to fill the living rooms with bric-a-brac. They had not discovered simplicity of living. Such rooms or museums, entailing endless labor to keep clean. The dust demon was the lord of the household. There were a myriad devices for catching dust, and only a few devices for getting rid of it.”

London’s overseer footnotes also often reference the words of real life people. For example, Abraham Lincoln’s quote:

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

I verified this quote as from U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins.

Or this one:

“The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of the country.” ~George Baer, President Anthracite Coal Trust

I urge people to take a look at this novel.  It’s interesting to read a detailed account of how government can work along with the powerful to subvert those trying to protect the working class.  It is quite familiar to current times with so many ties between wealthy business owners (think 45’s cabinet and advisers) and the top levels of government.  I don’t know how they continue to convince working people that government is going to act in the best interests of the hard-working poor.  They don’t support a $15 minimum wage, but wouldn’t that be good for working people?  (It would actually be good for our entire economy as it would allow people who spend most every penny they earn to put more money into growing the economy.)

The book highlights tactics used by government, corporations, the press, the church, the university, and the wealthy.  Those who walk or talk outside the needed ideology that assures ongoing success for those currently in power, anyone who sees the complex way that people find themselves down on their luck, anyone who wants to try to help these people find resolution for their plight,  all of these are stymied and crushed out of existence.  Watching 45’s tactics with the press are surely in line with preventing anything outside his own commentary from being expressed.  Here’s an interesting commentary by Robert Reich, including a great short video: http://robertreich.org/post/154819980595.

I know that dystopian fiction is extremely popular now and I believe this is largely due to the fears people have regarding the current state of our country.  There are many events, tweets, posts, stories that seem to be unbelievable as we hear, see, and experience them.  I think we all need to be vigilant in finding truth, standing for our beliefs, expressing concerns to our government representatives, in our local newspapers, and by word of mouth with our friends and family.

We need to follow stories to their source.  We need to check facts and evidence for things we believe.  We need to THINK CRITICALLY.  I highly recommend a short and good book by Robert Jensen Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialog.  If you don’t have time for or access to the full book, here are a couple great links to examine. 

• http://www.utne.com/arts/critical-thinking-ze0z1305zcalt 
• https://sites.utexas.edu/shelflife/2013/05/08/qa-professor-robert-jensen-on-arguing-for-our-lives-a-users-guide-to-constructive-dialog/

If we are not careful, we will find ourselves in a situation where we are adhering to and even espousing the false ideas and words of leaders who are concerned only for their own agendas.