The Shameful Legacy of British Colonial Exits

The war in Gaza is now in its 11^th week after the murder of 1200 Israelis.  In their understandable yet ever more insatiable lust for vengeance, the Israelis have wreaked incredible havoc and devastation and killed fifteen times as many innocent Palestinians.  And the potential long-term consequences across the world loom ominously in the future.  This is yet another example of the British Empire’s pathetic legacy of colonial exits and hubris.

 

The state of Israel and the occupied territories together are the former Mandatory Palestine, a British protectorate defined by the new League of Nations after WWI that was in place from 1920 to 1948.  The British and French, still envisaging themselves as global empires, overcame the League’s Wilsonian ideal of self-determination and carved up the former Ottoman empire for their own financial and strategic needs.

 

The WWI allies had coveted both Arab and Jewish support, the first for on-the-ground battle support, the second for financial support.  They made promises to both about postwar rewards.  For the Jews, the promise was for a ‘home’ in the holy land (the Balfour Declaration).  For the Arabs it was independence after the departure of the hated Ottomans, who had ruled over them for centuries (the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence).

 

The Jews, who had been a tiny minority in Palestine up through WWI, began to immigrate in large numbers to Palestine as part of the Zionist Movement.  WW2 and the holocaust, as well as a US-imposed limit on Jewish immigration, resulted in huge numbers of Jewish refugees who made their way to Palestine through illegal and legal channels.  Arab and Jewish uprisings against the British in the 30’s and 40’s created an untenable situation for the British, who were also struggling to maintain other parts of their empire.

 

The British imperial arrogance began to rapidly fray at the edges, and they saw the writing on the wall in both India and Palestine.  Jewish terrorist attacks on British military and civilians in the mid 1940’s and the impossible task of maintaining order in Palestine accelerated their exit plans.  

 

The newly formed United Nations, strongly influenced by Great Britain and the USA, issued a Partition Plan in 1947 that divided Mandatory Palestine into two distinct areas administered by Jews and Arabs.  The plan, which heavily favored the minority Jews, was not accepted by the Arabs.  It had no timeline or detailed steps.  It was merely a recommendation.  

The British, rather than use their diplomatic and military resources to modify and shepherd some form of mutually-acceptable shared governance, essentially stole away in the middle of the night in April and May of 1948, knowing that war would ensue and that they were abandoning the area to eternal conflict.  The ensuing declaration of Israeli independence and the Arab-Israeli war of 1947-49 set the stage for the irreconcilable situation we have today.

 

A few thousand miles away, in what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the British made another extremely sloppy and tragic exit, dividing the area into two nations – Hindu majority and Muslim majority - in 1947.  Again, the British departed quickly and without making adequate efforts to guide the newly formed states into some sort of peaceful transformation.  The result was horrific – the desperate migration of between 14 and 20 million people and over one million deaths from violence, hunger and disease.

 

There are no doubt multiple other examples of British colonial exits that resulted in massive disruption and decades-long conflict that continue to this day.  And Great Britain is not the only culprit.  France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and, of course, the United States (our Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan exits to name a few), all have grim legacies of their imperial misdeeds.  

  

Why There is No Right or Wrong in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

The Hamas attacks of October 7^th and the ensuing siege and invasion of Gaza have created stark divisions in opinion across the world.  The USA, with its long history of Israeli military assistance and unconditional support, is seen by much of the developing world as hypocritical and having a double standard.  Those nations believe that Jewish influence in the USA is a major determinant of policy.  Even the European nations, who generally follow the American lead in such matters, have begun to strongly oppose the continuing bombardment and isolation of Gaza.

 

The debate about how Israel should respond to the attacks is fraught, as accusations of antisemitism and islamophobia inhibit freedom of expression.  The weight of history is so powerful that civil discourse is almost impossible.

 

I would like to try to frame the basic conflict between Israel and Palestine in terms of the two opposing narratives.  I believe both have merit, which is why there is little hope for a peaceful solution in either the near or long term.

 

The Palestinian narrative goes something like this:  

 

There were only about 24,000 Jews (< 1% of the population) in Palestine at the beginning of the 20^thcentury.  The Zionist movement started a mass migration with funds from wealthy Jews, and the British turned a blind eye to illegal immigration throughout the period of the Mandatory Palestine (from the end of WW1 up to the UN resolution in 1947).  The British and other WW1 allies had promised Jews and Arabs independence to gain their support during WW1.  

 

The UN resolution that recommended partitioning Palestine was made without Arab or Palestine agreement and was influenced primarily by the British. The USA used its economic power to coerce nations into voting for the resolution.  The UN had no authority to actually implement those recommendations and the recommendations were in violation of the stated UN position that all such decisions should be guided by self-determination of the populations.  

 

The partition gave a much greater percentage of Palestine to the Jews than their percentage of population (which had already been artificially increased by hyper immigration) would justify.  The Arab/Israeli war of 1948-49 resulted in Israel taking over 70% of Palestinian land, much of which had been vacated by expelled or fleeing Palestinians (over 700k) during the war.  The 1967 war, in which Israel did a pre-emptive strike on Arab nations, resulted in all of the West Bank and Gaza coming under Israeli control with an additional displacement of 500k Palestinians. Israel began settling those territories, a clear indication of their long-term goal of colonizing all of former Palestine.

 

The most important concept for Palestinians in the conflict is a ‘right of return’ for all Palestinian refugees.  This right has never been offered by Israel.  The increasingly right wing tilt of the Israeli government and expansion of settlements, as well as the financially-motivated neglect of  Palestinian rights by other oil-rich Arab nations created the conditions under which a terrorist group like Hamas was the only remaining Palestinian champion.  Terrorist acts are historically the only recourse for an oppressed people in an asymmetric military struggle.

 

The Israeli narrative goes something like this:  

 

The Jewish diaspora has suffered untold centuries of oppression, pogroms and, ultimately, an incomprehensible genocide during WW2.  The history of worldwide antisemitism, genocide and displacement justified the creation of a state for Jewish people in their historical homeland.  The UN, the post-WW2 body tasked with creating conditions for a more peaceful world, passed a resolution for creating such a state and a majority of nations approved it.  

 

Since its declaration of independence, Israel has been attacked or threatened with attack on numerous occasions by other Arab nations and by terrorist groups financed by Iran and other bad actors.  The lands that Israel has occupied, settled or put under military control are critical and strategic areas that have the potential to threaten Israel’s very existence and/or its citizens.

 

Israel has made significant efforts to negotiate with the Palestinians, even offering to create a two-state solution with the great majority of the West Bank and Gaza.  The Palestinians have refused to negotiate in good faith.  Moreover, it is difficult to imagine the disparate Palestinian contingents lining up behind and faithfully observing any agreement.

 

Israel’s responses to Palestinian terror attacks and intifadas are legitimate self-defense and are as measured as possible given the dense concentration of people in Gaza and the West Bank and the use of civilian shields for terrorist operations.

 

In my view both of these narratives have merit and deserve careful consideration.  And sadly, they are almost impossible to reconcile.  The Jews deserved a homeland after the horrors of WW2 genocide but the Palestinians didn’t deserve to lose their homeland in the process.  Like so many tragedies in the history of humankind, there is ultimately no good guy or bad guy.  And like so many conflicts, the future is unlikely to offer a peaceful resolution.  And even more sadly, the consequences of this conflict are likely to manifest themselves in even more horrible events in the years to come.

 

 

Henry Kissinger and the Great Man of History Nonsense

 Henry Kissinger finally died at 100.  As expected, a veritable deluge of fawning accolades and breathless wonder at his role in world affairs ensued.  And the sycophancy didn’t stop there.  His celebrity status and long career among the world glitterati was portrayed in depth, including some efforts to paint him as a bit of a Casanova, which beggars belief, but as he once said – power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

As a pleasant surprise, the media onslaught also included numerous pieces assailing his legacy and castigating him for his role in some of the most horrific events of the late twentieth century, including the politically-motivated delays in ending the Vietnam War, the Cambodian genocide, the Pakistan/Bangladesh genocide, the crimes of Pinochet’s Chile and a host of other historical mass murders.

 

I am not an expert on Kissinger, nor do I wish to be.  But his life seems to me a perfect example of the way that power and celebrity status are acquired and how we rush to admire and marvel at those who wield great influence in our world, extolling in rapturous praise the few salutary things they accomplish while excusing or simply not mentioning the hideous results of many of their decisions or actions.

 

And the irony of it all is that the good things they were involved in would probably have occurred regardless of who was in that position because of the historical forces at play, whereas often the horrible things would not have happened if they had not intervened and manipulated events in such an arrogant manner.

 

Take Kissinger’s most revered diplomatic triumphs – the opening of China and the subsequent isolation of the Soviet Union.  Was that really a brilliant strategic move on Kissinger’s part or simply an historic inevitability that occurred because all of the right pieces were in place and Kissinger was simply the only one in a position to move everything forward?

 

Key figures of powerful nations fall in love with the superman personas that they acquire once in their positions.  They become intoxicated in the rarified air of grand strategies and the Great Game, as the British called their battle for world domination with the Russian Empire in the 19^th century.  They forget that they are really silly little men who by various quirks of fate have been given far too much power.  And by wielding that power in capricious and arrogant ways, they often cause much more death and destruction and long-term consequences than they have the capacity to comprehend.

 

I will take Robert McNamara over Henry Kissinger a hundred times.  At least he had the moral strength and humility to question his actions and acknowledge his mistakes.  His career was also an example of ‘Great Game’ hubris, but his intellectual honesty eventually forced him to reckon with the consequences of his tenure as Secretary of Defense and apologize.  He faced great scorn for this honesty.  I applaud him.

 

The Great Man Theory was proposed in the 19^th century as a way to explain the history of the world in terms of the acts of so-called great man.  The theory’s postulate is that the world moves forward due to these great men and that the rest of us are more or less meaningless pawns with only a supporting role (perhaps a slight over-simplification . . . ) .  At the time, Napoleon was a popular example of the Great Man.  Leo Tolstoy did a rather thorough job of debunking the myth of that particular great man in his novel War and Peace, but the general idolization of famous men continued and seems to grow more fervid with each new generation.

 

Our fascination with fame and power has been heightened by the ubiquity of modern Internet media focusing on celebrities.  It reaches a rather telling level of absurdity with the public adoration of British royalty.  Here are people whose only claim to fame is having been born into the royal family – a purely genetic lottery win - yet we gush and fawn over them shamelessly.  

 

Celebrity breeds more celebrity, and power more power.   It seems that there is a critical mass of renown that, once reached, becomes a launching pad for endless new endeavors and positions of influence.  The famous and powerful form a spirited club of mutual admiration that results in them showering opportunities, awards, power and wealth on one another in waves of self-promoting largesse and quid pro quo.

 

Kissinger was reported by some to be the life of every party and a ‘brilliant conversationalist’, though I have read more than a few contemporaries describe him as a colossal bore who would never shut up.  People are so enchanted and beguiled by anyone who has even the slightest fame or power.  They laugh heartily at every attempted clever remark, nod in over-awed agreement at every stated opinion and generally revel in being in the company of such a potentate.

 

For some reason, human beings want badly to believe that there is something special about the people that populate the halls of power and have dominion over so many lives and events.  After a lifetime of observation, I do believe they are endowed with one spectacular attribute: vanity.

 

 

The Coalitions That Make Authoritarianism Inevitable

These days I vacillate between a deep fear that an ever more likely second Trump presidency will usher in a catastrophic change in American society and a more optimistic belief that our institutions are strong enough to withstand the assault that Trump’s authoritarianism will no doubt bring.

For the last eight years I have struggled to comprehend how people can fail to see how flawed and dangerous Trump is.  But he is polling higher than ever in Republican primary polls (60%) and it is important to understand who supports him and why.  What is the coalition that makes Trump’s path to the presidency not only possible, but close to inevitable?

 

The first group is the social conservatives, led by Christian evangelicals and Catholic and Mormon conservatives.  These people are horrified by what they feel is the rapid decline of morality in American society and they attribute this to lower church attendance, liberal educational institutions and cultural degradation in films, TV, music and literature.  They represent about one third of the Republicans likely to vote for Trump.  They believe that Trump is the only candidate, and many would say divinely ordained, who can stem this tide of cultural and religious degradation.

 

The second group is the group that interprets the years since the pandemic as an economic failure caused by democratic policies.  This is the classic ‘vote your pocketbook’ group, but one that has been indoctrinated in the conservative mantras of lower taxes, fewer entitlements, less government and less regulation.  They blame the Biden administration for the post-pandemic inflation and the current economic malaise, even though the USA is clearly less impacted than any other developed nation.  This group has an increasingly troubling percentage of blue-collar workers who no longer see the democratic party as their champion.

 

The third group is the ‘never vote democratic’ group, a traditional republican group that may not be enthusiastic about Trump, but will nevertheless vote for him, knowing that he will protect their economic status and power, and mistakenly believing that he can be controlled.

 

A fourth group is a group defined by their disenchantment, a group that has seen no improvement in their quality of life in the past 3 or 4 years and is willing to vote for Trump out of desperation.  This group may bring in Hispanic and African-American voters that would normally have voted democratic.

 

The final group is a group that is panicked about world affairs – the China threat, the Russian threat, immigration and other somewhat abstract yet foreboding dangers on the horizon.  In uncertain times, a ‘strongman’ can appear to be an asset to those with a weak comprehension of history.

 

The current moment in human history has many parallels to the 1930’s – economic malaise, political turmoil, cultural change and uncertainty.  Democracy and consensual government can appear to be incapable of meeting the challenges of a troubled period.  Paralysis of democratic institutions may appear to beckon a stronger hand at the wheel.  But the consequences of moving toward authoritarian rule and a black-and-white interpretation of problems are inevitably much more pernicious than the illness they set out to cure.

Name-Calling and the Pitfalls of Revenge

People love to label things, and they also love to generalize.  When passions run high, there is a rash of heated name-calling and sloganeering.  The current war scenario in the Middle East is creating just this type of environment.

In my view there is no credible way to justify glorifying what Hamas did.  Indiscriminate violence targeting civilians and children is morally bankrupt no matter what the cause or conditions.  While it is true that terrorist events have been utilized by subjugated and oppressed people throughout the ages, these horrible acts must never be glorified.  

 

The world was deeply moved and rightfully horrified by the Hamas massacres.  The initial responses were almost universally sympathetic to the grief and anguish that Israel experienced.  Tragically, there were no good options for an Israeli response that would satisfy an understandably enraged constituency without killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians.  So Israel did what every nation seems destined to do in such a time – overreact and end up disproportionately killing those ‘on the side’ of the enemy.

 

The Jewish history weighs heavily here.  Even the slightest appearance of weakness or lack of resolve is anathema to the Jewish state.  And in the past, most of the Western world has been supportive of this hyper-vigilance and aggressive action.

 

But as the situation in Gaza has deteriorated to a cataclysmic state and the civilian deaths have grown to five times the casualties in Israel, the support has begun to waver in some areas.  Few deny Israel’s right to punish Hamas, but many find it hard to condone a punishment that is visited on a helpless and desperate population.

 

Now, two weeks after the massacres, a significant part of the world has begun to express support for the Palestinian people.  That does not always mean that people condone what Hamas did, but many believe that Israel at least partly brought this onto itself by the many years of neglect of further peace efforts and the continual extension of West Bank settlements and stranglehold on Gaza.

 

Is this response anti-Israel or antisemitic?  The fact that Israel is a Jewish state makes the distinction hard to discern.  When people are angry and vengeful, they use whatever nasty descriptions of an enemy that they can find.  Every war American has fought has seen our propaganda and public expression go into high gear slandering every aspect of the enemy – race, cultural stereotypes, physical attributes.

 

Jewish leaders who speak of the massacre in terms of antisemitism, modern day pogroms and holocaust comparisons are at risk of crying wolf too often.  Israel is undeniably the most powerful and sophisticated state in the Middle East, and the only one with a nuclear capability.  The world will cry for the innocents killed, but they will not buy the idea of a victimized, vulnerable Israel. 

 

Even with its current extreme right government, Israel is by far the most democratic and stable country in the region.  America is right to unconditionally support its existence and its right to defend itself.  However, we have also turned a blind eye to the underlying problems that years of political neglect have created in the region.  As Israel’s strongest ally, we had the opportunity to influence a course correction in Israeli policy and we failed.  We put our money (literally) on the economically-motivated détente with more friendly regional regimes and failed to see the potential for the socio-political landmines along that path.

 

Israel has only to look at the post 9/11 debacle that the USA raced into to get a sense of what awaits them if they forge ahead now without careful consideration of the likely consequences.  There are no easy alternatives, but the road they are on now is not likely to lead to a good place.

The Danger of Stifling Debate

The merciless carnage unleashed by Hamas has put Israel onto a wartime footing and also initiated a rush to stifle any debate in the USA on the topic.  Groups who have voiced support for the Palestinian cause, regardless of whether they condemn the Hamas massacres, have faced censure, ostracism and even more punitive consequences (job loss?) for merely voicing their opinions.

Any time there is a dramatic and tragic act of violence there is a bloodlust that takes hold and seeks to force all opinions and voices into a single chorus of revenge.  This is understandable. It is, quite frankly, the same thing that drives the other side in their celebration of the murder of innocents.  Once the dogs of war are let loose, there is no humanity, no rationality, no mercy, no kindness.

 

In WW2, we dropped napalm on Tokyo and gleefully cheered the mass murder of over 100,000 people, mostly civilians.  War has no conscience.

 

Palestinians, and for that matter much of the Arab world, have simmered with rage over the disproportionate killing of their people in comparison to the deaths of Israelis over the last 50 years – about a 10 to 1 ratio by most accounts.  Their hatred and bloodlust are kept fresh by Hamas and other groups by calculated means such as the most recent massacres.  To those people, Israel and Palestine have always been at war and no one is innocent.  And now, Israel will slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinians who they deem to be unfortunate collateral damage in their bloodlust to eliminate Hamas, the relatives and friends of whom will harbor lifelong desires for revenge. And so it goes.

 

Is there ever any way to end this cycle of hate and violence?  It will certainly not end if there is no debate allowed on the key issues.  One may argue that debate can come later, once Hamas is eliminated, but that is a tragic fallacy.  We made that mistake after 9/11 and paid for it over the last 20 years in endless, futile wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Sober thinking and open discussion about long term solutions is critical at the outset.  It is noteworthy that Haaretz, the respected left-leaning news organization in Israel, has been more outspokenly analytic and critical in its appraisal of the situation than most American politicians and media.  We do ourselves an injustice and we jeopardize the future by limiting debate and labeling other opinions traitorous or unacceptable.

 

I don’t know what the answer is for the present conflict.  There must certainly be significant consequences for Hamas.  But if anyone thinks that invading Gaza with the attendant massacre of ten times the number of innocents killed in Israel will do anything but create more violence in the future, they are most likely delusional.

My Family Dinner in East Berlin, 1975

I studied at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet) for 2/3 of my junior year.  It was a great experience in so many ways.  My girlfriend Elke’s grandparents and aunt lived in Bonn and I became very close to them, eating Sunday Mittagessen (midday meal) with them almost every week.  I was also able to visit several of Elke’s family friends who lived in cities nearby.

Elke’s parents had left Germany just before her birth in 1954.  Her father had been a Luftwaffe pilot during the war and was fortunate to have survived.  He then completed a doctorate in physics and was recruited by Lockheed to come to the US.  They retained most of their German customs. Visiting them had made a big impact on me, inspiring me to energetically pursue mastery of the German language.  

 

They also had friends who had remained in East Germany.  In January of 1975 the foreign exchange student group (primarily American and French students) at Bonn had a week-long field trip to Berlin.  I took that opportunity to contact one of those friends who lived in East Berlin and they invited me to visit them and share dinner one evening.

 

I had already crossed over into East Berlin a couple times with the other students.  The Ostzone (east zone) held a fascination for us.  It was dramatically different – drab and colorless, with an impressive number of humorless police roaming the streets.  But it was also somehow intriguing in its austerity.

 

I traveled on the S-Bahn past the border control and out beyond the East Berlin city limits into the suburbs where the family lived.  I found the house, situated in a fairly nice neighborhood with well-tended landscaping and window flower pots, and rang the bell.  From within I heard a child cry out “Es ist der Ami” (it’s the American!).  It struck me that the children had probably never met an American.

 

The family had a boy and a girl, ages 11 and 8.  They greeted me happily at the door along with the mother.  After introductions we all sat together and talked about our worlds.  The kids were especially curious and very friendly.  They were very charming and cute.

 

As the time approached for the father to arrive home, the mother moved to the kitchen to prepare the meal.  The kids showed me their toys and we watched West German cartoons – apparently the East German ones were boring (probably too pedantic and moralizing).  

 

The little boy ran off to do some things and the little girl showed me her stamp collection.  She had divided the collection into capitalist countries and socialist countries.  Interestingly, Yugoslavia was placed in the capitalist group.  As we finished looking through the book, she moved closer to me and said conspiratorially, “Weiss Du, Ich bin nicht so sehr Kommunist” (you know, I’m not all that communist).  That knocked me out!  I understood that she was trying to endear herself to this very intriguing stranger from another world and I was totally charmed.

 

The father arrived and he was also very welcoming and outgoing.  We all sat down again to talk and we had some before-dinner drinks and appetizers that all came from the Eastern bloc.  I was fascinated!

 

Both of the parents were chemists, perhaps even with doctorates, and worked in some sort of a chemical plant.  They were happy with their work.  As the alcohol took effect, we began to explore some of the differences between my world and theirs, and this continued through the dinner and late into the evening.

 

The meal was excellent, as almost all family meals were in my time in Germany.  The parents spoke some English but preferred speaking in German, and this also allowed the kids to participate until they had to go to bed.  I hugged them and felt very sad, knowing that I would probably never see them again.

 

Once the kids were gone, we began speaking even more candidly.  They were proud of the accomplishments of their nation, especially in providing more equal opportunities and reducing inequality.  No one was homeless, there was little crime.  But they confessed to being very frustrated with the lack of freedom to express their thoughts and to travel.  They were not overly impressed with the consumer society of the west, but they were eager for the DDR to continue to improve living standards.

 

The evening I spent with them profoundly moved me.  We shared our thoughts honestly and with as little prejudice as possible in people of two completely different societies.  I found them incredibly warm and compelling and was very sad when the time came for my departure.

 

It was mandatory to get back over the border before midnight.  I’m not sure what would have happened if I were late, but I did not want to find out.  The father walked me to the S-Bahn.  As we neared the station, he asked me to be careful talking about our discussions with other people.  I understood and promised to do so.  It had been a night I will never forget.

 

 

 

 

Gaza and the Bitter Fruit of Israel's Palestinian Policies

The surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas last week are heart wrenching – civilian massacres, innocents taken hostage and random missile attacks meant to harm indiscriminately.  Hamas is a hard-liner extremist organization that will only ever contribute to the cycle of violence in the region.

But in our justifiable rush to condemn the actions of Hamas, we must not neglect to tell the other side of the story – the years of brutal repression of the Palestinians, the ever-increasing illegal settlement of formerly Palestinian lands in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the inhumane air, land and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007.

 

Any efforts to create a just peace between Israel and Palestine ceased with the advent of the Netanyahu era.  The increasingly fundamentalist Jewish government that has flourished under his rule has no intention of ever ceding an acre of land or making any effort to negotiate a lasting peace. 

 

Many in the USA are aghast at how the Gaza attacks were celebrated throughout the Arab peninsula and in many other countries.  The knee-jerk reaction is to attribute this to antisemitism.  To be sure, there is still plenty of antisemitism in the world.  But the line between antisemitism and anti-Israel/Zionist policies is a difficult one to draw.  Israel has done itself no favors in the last 30 years with its policies of occupation, settlement and disproportionate responses to Palestinian violence.  A simple tally of Israeli dead vs Palestinian dead is clear evidence that Israel has expanded the biblical eye for an eye to 100 eyes for an eye.

 

One can argue that Israel has done what it had to do to survive.  But there were more visionary Israelis in the past who had a much different approach to finding a lasting peace.  The most remarkable of them was murdered by an ultra-religious Jewish assassin.

 

The attitudes in the USA reflect our typical jingoistic response to any violent act.  ‘Murder them all’!  The same people who weep as they view murdered Israeli families will punch the air when they see air strikes that murder ten times as many Palestinian civilians.  By the end of this war, there will certainly be 10 or 100 dead Palestinians for every Israeli lost.  

 

There is no ‘justification’ for what Hamas did.  But refusing to recognize the historically ironic (the formerly oppressed become the oppressors) brutality of the Netanyahu regime against the Palestinian people will just lead to more heartache and tragedy down the road.

Is Increasing Inequality Inevitable?

I believe that human societies naturally trend toward larger economic inequality because of obvious feedback mechanisms that favor higher income and wealthy families.  Only revolution or other cataclysmic events seem to reverse this trend.  And those events are a high price to pay.

Some of the feedback mechanisms that increase inequality are:

• The growth of investment value 
• The double income multiplier (the wealthy marrying the wealthy)
• Education inequality (private schools, tutoring, college/exam prep)
• Legacy college admission
• Hiring through networks, friendships
• Investment opportunities through friendships, network

The wealthier one is, the more weight these feedback mechanisms have.

 

One school of thought argues that economic inequality is a necessary component of economic progress and is at least partly attributable to the differences in human nature and behavior – ambition, talent, intelligence, work ethic, addictions, delinquency, etc.  The argument extends even to postulate that overall economic growth is accelerated (all boats rising . . .) by large income inequalities, as job and company creation, investment and innovation depend on large net-worth individuals or families. It theorizes that there is ultimately a net positive effect of large inequalities.

 

A strong counter argument to this school of thought can be seen in the poor economic development of developing countries in Latin America and Africa.  Large inequalities exist and there are many high net-worth individuals, but economic woes persist and even worsen in many cases.  These nations also often have rampant corruption and a lack of judicial and political stability, societal defects at least partially due to their history of colonial rule and exploitation.  These problems assist in entrenching inequality.

 

The fact that something occurs naturally does not imply that it is good.  The naturally occurring increase in inequality is certainly impacted by human behavioral traits of both the rich (self-interest, selfishness, opportunism, greed, vanity) and the poor (poor life choices, poor work ethic).  But I would argue that the positive feedback mechanisms listed above accelerate and magnify the ‘natural’ tendencies.  There will always be inequality based on differences in human behavior and potential, but the ever-growing, hyperbolic inequality we see today is a result of factors that have nothing to do with hard work and talent.

 

The Pew Charitable Trust conducted a survey in 2019 (pre-pandemic) to better understand the prevailing views on economic inequality.  They found that a majority (61%) of Americans felt there was ‘too much economic inequality’.  But as one might expect, there were significant differences between the left and the right – that figure of 61% was composed of 41% of the right and 78% of the left.

 

It is likely that the 39% who don’t believe there is too much inequality (and this includes 22% of those on the left!) think that a certain amount of inequality is inevitable and even desirable in an economy.  There were also predictably variable views on what causes inequality, with right-leaning respondents choosing personal factors much more than left-leaning.

 

If one looks at the history of global economic inequality it is clear that it is a very stubborn and unyielding aspect of human development.  Thomas Piketty, the French economist, has written two very well-researched (and long!) books on this topic.  What I find particularly interesting in his data is that the last hundred and fifty years or so have seen the rise and then fairly sudden moderation of inequality in the industrial world over several different time periods.

 

Unfortunately, this moderation has generally come after cataclysmic events – world wars, revolution, or the depression.  And it has at least partially been the result of major changes in the taxation of income and wealth that became necessary to pay off national debt.  Other factors such as education, labor union strength, and social benefits play a role as well.

 

All of the above-mentioned factors rely on the political will to initiate changes to reduce inequality, a political will that is naturally weakened as more power and influence accrue to the wealthy.

 

The Pew survey found that 84% of respondents felt that taxes should be raised for the wealthy, including a surprising 65% of right-leaning ones.  But only 14% felt that their taxes should be raised.

 

If these numbers are valid, then there is at least hope for some sort of future income and/or wealth tax that could impact economic inequality.  But for this to happen there must be a much stronger groundswell of concern to overcome the reluctance of conservative legislators, who are probably part of that 16% that don’t believe in raising taxes on the wealthy (i.e. themselves).

 

We face a plethora of challenges in this world – climate change, immigration and refuge, regional and global conflicts, and political instability to name a few.  Economic inequality is not generally at the top of that list for most people (the Pew survey says only 42% consider it a major priority), but to me it is a symptom of an increasingly sick society that will be less resilient in facing other crises.  We neglect it at our peril.

A Journey of Faith, Reason, Logic, Belief and Doubt

Christians often talk about a faith journey.  It has been a staple of Christian group interactions for one person to speak about how they were raised in the church and the various phases of faith and belief they went through.  These ‘witnessings’ are understandably often quite emotional and powerful for both the person testifying and the audience, as one’s core beliefs about religion and spirituality are inextricably bound to one’s self-image, self-worth and deep longing for meaning.

I have had a journey too, but I would characterize it as a combination of faith, reason and logic, with doubt as a driving force.  I went through an early childhood of Episcopal church attendance, which ended in the middle of my 6^th grade year as my family moved to California and we ceased going to church.  My interest in matters of church and spirituality was minimal throughout high school and college, though I had short involvements with Young Life, a Christian youth movement that recruited high school students, and with a soccer teammate in college who attempted to ‘bring me to Christ’.  

 

After my short Naval career ended and I went to grad school, I began to visit church again on my own in Boston and I ultimately became very intrigued by Christian theology.  When I married my wife, Karen, who had grown up as a Methodist Minister’s daughter and was totally committed to Christian social justice, my infatuation with Christianity accelerated.  We became very involved in our church and I read widely in Christian literature.  I even spent a long weekend at a Christian retreat known as Walk to Emmaus (named for the walk Jesus took post-resurrection, revealing himself to several disciples) and wrote a long essay proclaiming my beliefs.

 

This period of my life was very exciting and passionate as I explored my ‘faith’ within communities of very avid Christians.  I was almost totally convinced that this faith in Christ and the tenets of Christian theology were the ultimate truth about our existence and purpose.  Karen and I left our careers to join a Christian ministry, Habitat for Humanity, and immersed ourselves totally in this world.

 

But even in the midst of this most passionate embrace of Christianity, there were questions that I posed to myself that slowly began to undermine the fervor of my belief.  These were questions about the exclusive nature of Christianity – “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me”, and the obvious contradiction of a loving God and the eternal damnation of non-Christians.

 

I was able to reconcile my ardent faith with these apparent inconsistencies by use of the oft-employed explanation that ‘in God all things are possible’ and that how He judges the world is a mystery that we will neither solve nor understand.  We must have faith.  This seemed reasonable at the time.

 

But then, as my experience in the world and my knowledge of people, power and history expanded, other doubts began to nibble at the edges of my belief.  Closer readings of the New Testament identified multiple inconsistencies that only a blind acceptance of the text being directly God-given and inerrant could explain.  I read several scholarly analyses of biblical history that explained how Christian doctrine had been established and how the texts were copied hundreds of times over the centuries.  

 

The mere fact that the gospels and letters were written multiple decades after events occurred and were clearly written with specific audiences and goals in mind calls into question their accuracy.  The biblical rehash of themes that had already occurred in multiple other religions and mythologies (virgin birth, sacrifice, resurrection, etc.) seemed to be more in line with the long history of human desire to understand our existence and the tendency for humans to appropriate this desire to create structures for obedience and control than a revelation of divine truth.

 

But the most difficult thing for me to ignore was the long list of illogical aspects of religious belief.  The paradox of creation versus evolution; the incongruence of ‘God’s plan’ and free will (not to mention the sheer leap of faith necessary to imagine a God listening to prayers, deciding where and when to act, allowing huge injustices to occur, etc.); the idea of souls being inserted into humans who sometimes die after a few days, months or years – before they are even cognitive beings; the idea of heaven and how our eternal reward will juggle family, friends across our lives and sustain us for eternity in a blissful state; the occurrence of miraculous events over two thousand years ago in an age of ignorance and superstition versus the lack of religious miracles today.

 

These questions and doubts made it much more difficult for me to fully envelop myself in Christian faith.  I loved the sense of community and the emotional highs that spiritual liturgy and music provided, but found my own beliefs becoming ever more abstract and uncertain.  I felt like a hypocrite and a charlatan as I mouthed the doxology and articles of faith.

 

Religion recognizes doubts and questions, but it insists that one can overcome them with faith, that ‘substance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen’.  Yet things hoped for and unseen can take almost any form.  How can one choose to have a very specific faith when so much evidence contradicts that faith and so much uncertainty and mystery enshrouds all matters outside our physical and material experience?  Even our physical world continues to defy full understanding as quantum physics and cosmology evolve.

 

It is tempting to disparage religious belief as simplistic and many intellectuals, scientists and atheists energetically ridicule religion.  Humans can be very arrogant and vicious, and there is a lot of ego and vanity at play in the battle between so-called believers and non-believers.  It is a sad testament to the inevitable potential for conflict in all human affairs.

 

My own journey continues.  I have accepted the doubt, the mystery and the uncertainty, though I cannot say I am at peace with it.  I claim neither belief nor disbelief.  I search for insights without expecting resolution. I continue to love the idea of a soul or spirit, the hope of existing beyond my physical death, the vague image of some sort of loving force in the universe, whether pantheistic or deistic.  But I will not pretend to know or even to have ‘faith’.  This is not a comfortable state of mind, but it is an honest one and I cannot imagine any other way to live.

Oppenheimer and the Absurdity of Moral Distinctions in War

The 3-hour long film Oppenheimer was generally an interesting portrayal of Robert Oppenheimer and the invention of nuclear weaponry.  It took the typical Hollywood liberties – tossing in gratuitous nude scenes with Oppenheimer’s lover and lots of silly gee whiz science moments and clever repartee that probably never occurred – but it did a good job of exposing the paranoid idiocy of 1950’s anticommunist hysteria and the moral conundrum that faced the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project.

 

The McCarthy era and the shameful slander and penalties that it perpetrated on so many Americans has been the topic of several movies and there is not a lot more to say about it.  People who pursued social change in good faith through socialist and communist organizations should never have been persecuted unless they had actively advocated or engaged in violent revolution.

 

But the questions of morality that surrounded the Manhattan Project and subsequent weapons programs are more complex and less easily navigated.  In fact, I would argue that war and weapons quickly ascend to a level of moral absurdity that makes any rational conclusion unobtainable.

 

The Manhattan Project was launched at the instigation of several leading scientists (Einstein being the most notable) who were concerned that the Nazis might develop a nuclear bomb.  The conviction that the allies must ‘beat’ the Nazis to the bomb seemed logical to these scientists and to the bureaucrats and military leaders who went on to fund and initiate the project. 

 

But ‘beating the Nazis to the bomb’ implied that it would be used on Germany if the war was ongoing, regardless of whether the Germans were close to having their own bomb or not, to ensure that the Nazis would not be successful in their own pursuit.  So, from the very beginning the Manhattan Project was based on the inescapably absurd moral calculus of ‘lesser evil’, a calculation that lies at the heart of every modern war decision.  

 

The ’lesser evil’ proposition justifies an action by the hypothesis that in the long-term fewer people will be killed (and usually that means fewer on ‘our’ side) by undertaking that action than by other tactical activities.

 

The decision to use a weapon on a civilian population, whether in response to an enemy’s strike or as a strategy to ‘break the will’ of the enemy by killing women and children, is mass murder no matter what the rationale.  It may seem logical in time of war, but that is only because wartime has already suspended all morality and put all decision making on an impossibly absurd amoral footing.  Comparing one set of deaths with another is a fool’s errand.  There is simply no satisfactory answer.

 

Many of the Manhattan Project scientists protested the use of the bomb on Japan.  The argument that fewer lives would be lost by dropping two atomic bombs and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians did not seem morally legitimate even if the calculations made sense. This must have left a bitter aftertaste once the exultation of the successful trinity test faded and the nightmarish news came in from Japan.

 

 It seemed that Oppenheimer, upon confronting this dilemma and the ensuing debates about the development of the hydrogen bomb, became acutely aware of the moral absurdity of their accomplishment and the inevitable arms race that it would engender.  The long-term likelihood of a nuclear holocaust, which today once again begins to loom over our bitterly divided world, reminded him of the earlier fear that the fission chain reaction would set off an atmospheric reaction, ending the world.

 

There is no right and wrong in war, no moral path to seek in the murder of innocents.  I think Oppenheimer realized this at the end.  He thought and felt too deeply to avoid the doubts or to find solace in rationalizations.  And because of that he is all the more sympathetic as a human being. 

Is Human Creativity Really Different From AI?

 It is clear that chatGPT and other generative forms of artificial intelligence have catapulted into the general public’s consciousness and created a mixture of fear, glee and unlimited pontificating.  The usual suspects who leap onto technology bandwagons are, of course, leading the charge.  They have dumped crypto and found a new, even sexier infatuation.

 

The prospect of generative AI saturating our society with fake news, deep fake videos and photos and other chaos-creating content is disturbing, to say the least.  One doubts that there is any means to stem that onslaught and the task of distinguishing truth from lie will grow progressively more challenging. 

 

But in addition to that inevitable scourge, there is the somewhat dispiriting prospect of people using chatbots to do most if not all of their creative work – writing emails, letters and essays; creating videos or photo albums; coming up with poems, songs and melodies.  One can only imagine the nightmare for school teachers and professors in trying to assess the capabilities of their students.  Or perhaps the only skill necessary or assessed in the future will be the ability to guide the generative AI to whatever end product one desires?

 

We are reassured by some pundits that human creativity will not be in jeopardy because we are uniquely capable of innovation and modes of thought that computers cannot replicate.  But is this really true?  AI learns from data that it consumes.  Don’t humans do the same?  Isn’t our entire life a consumption of data?  We use the books we read, the music we heard, the conversations we had, the movies and series we watched to construct new thoughts, new ideas, and these are the sources for all our creative output.

 

It is true that there are subtleties to human thought and feeling that are more difficult to imagine being mastered by AI – irony, humor, sarcasm, empathy, sorrow, ecstasy, to name a few.  But these are also acquired over years of training and interaction.  A newborn has no empathy, no irony, no sarcasm.  Would it be so difficult for a computer to likewise be introduced to all of these and become conversant with them?

 

Most of us would like to believe that there is some aspect of the human brain or ‘spirit’, something beyond the purely material realm, that gives us our ‘humanity’ and our moral and ethical compass.  But others are at peace with the idea that human beings are simply incredibly complex and beautiful machines.

 

I suspect that the next few years will bring us the rather depressing realization that human creativity is not all that amazing after all.  We will find that a chatbot can come up with a catchy tune and lyric that rivals the Beatles or Cole Porter, or a novel that would make F. Scott Fitzgerald envious.

 

But then again, maybe after all is said and done, we will find that there is that certain ineffable genius of human creativity that is missing in the deluge of content created by generative AI.  And we may find ourselves all the poorer for having allowed it to dominate our world.  Who can say?

Some Thoughts on Immigration and Its Downside

An academic study released in 2019 found that the children of poor immigrants succeeded in climbing the income ladder much better than the children of poor native-born parents.  This was not only true for immigrants from India, Asia and Europe, but also for those from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, countries former President Trump labelled ‘shithole’ countries.

The authors theorized that the tendency for these immigrants to live in areas where there are more employment opportunities as well as their willingness to move wherever new opportunities arise might explain some of this difference.  There is also the fact that in some cases, the immigrant parents take jobs at a lower level than they had in their mother country and are not really at a comparable socioeconomic level to the poor in our country.  This may significantly impact the probability of success for their children.

 

In addition to the so-called poor immigrants who achieve social mobility you also have a significant number of immigrants who arrive in the USA as students or skilled workers to fill jobs that might not otherwise be filled.  This is especially true in areas of technology and science.

 

The USA has always prided itself on attracting the best and brightest from across the world.  Our universities eagerly pursue bright international students who are willing to pay the tuition or who are particularly capable, and most of those will stay and work in the USA.  They are also more likely to pursue postgraduate education than native born students and then progress into academia. A whopping 22% of post-secondary education teachers are immigrants!

 

In a world that is beginning to experience population decline in most industrialized nations, immigration is a method to counteract this trend and sustain economic growth.  However, this solution for the so-called first world comes at what certainly must be a high cost for the non-industrialized countries. 

 

For not only are these nations losing their best aspiring students and skilled workers to the lure of the industrialized world, but it is highly probable that the poor emigrants that flee these countries are in most cases a highly motivated and industrious group that constitute a major loss for the mother country as well.  Is it any surprise that many countries remain impoverished and in a failed state when their most valuable resource is being siphoned off?

 

Worldwide competition for people may contribute to innovation and economic prowess in the winning countries, but it also exacerbates many of the problems that plague our increasingly globalized world.  There was a time when the USA could remain blissfully unaffected by the chaos and deprivation outside its borders, but that time is past.  If we cannot find a way to help developing nations retain their best, brightest and most motivated then we will all ultimately suffer.

Memorial Day - Placing a Value on Death?

In the USA we have two federal holidays dedicated to the military – Memorial Day and Veterans Day.  The former specifically honors those who have lost their lives in the wars of our nation, while the latter is a general recognition of all veterans, though still heavily focused on those who died.

The wars of my generation – Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan – have been almost universally acknowledged as tragic mistakes and failures.  The loved ones of those who lost their lives (or were horribly maimed) in those conflicts probably find little solace in the idea of a higher cause.  There was no victory, no great achievement, no noble sacrifice.  They must wrestle with the notion that their sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers died for nothing, for no reason at all.

 

I would offer a counter argument, that any sacrifice of a life in good faith, regardless of the outcome, should be honored.  The fireman who rushes into a building to save a child and is killed should be honored even if the child dies or was no longer in the building.  It is the act and intention that counts, not the outcome.

 

But every attempt to place some sort of value on a death must ultimately seem a pitiful effort in the face of the horrible injustice of an early death.  The teenager who dies in a car crash, the child who succumbs to cancer, the young adult who overdoses, the kid who is murdered in a drive-by fusillade, the school children massacred in a mass shooting – the incomprehensible tragedy of it all haunts us.

 

Death, even in old age, unleashes a barrage of painful implications – the loss of a loved one and the horrific realization that one will never see them again; the potent reminder of our mortality and the rapid falling of the sand in our own hourglass; the question of life’s meaning and the troubling enigma of our existence.   And these thoughts are ever so much more poignant and relentless when the death is a youthful one.

 

Yes, time does partially heal the wounds.  And yes, we are resilient creatures who carry on even in the face of all of our doubts and fears.  And yes, there is joy to be had in this life no matter what hardships and tragedies confront us.  But death, and especially the death of the young, is never easily rationalized, and it remains a confounding aspect of our lives and rattles our faith and our spirit.  Attempting to place a value on a death is to a great extent a self-delusion, and I wonder whether it offers any real consolation.

 

AI and Genetic Engineering - Twin Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

The tsunami of fawning and fearful AI articles in the media over the last few months is breathtaking.  It might lead one to wonder whether chatbots are auto-generating all of these articles as part of an evil ploy to create widespread panic and prepare the world for AI’s takeover!  

The hyperbole reminds me of the hysteria that has frequently accompanied news events associated with genetic engineering.  These two technology frontiers are flip sides of the same coin – changing the basic nature and scope of humanity.  They are simultaneously thrilling and terrifying, harbingers of a very uncertain but intriguing future world.

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a topic of discussion for several decades.  And like much of technology jargon, it is a very broad term that people overuse to either make themselves seem knowledgeable or, in this case, to sell content to a public hungry for apocalyptic rumors and new things to obsess about.

 

So, what is AI?  Wikipedia defines it as:  intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by humans or by other animals.

 

On the one hand, one can argue that all computer applications, and even many mechanical or electrical machines, are exhibiting artificial intelligence, in that they are independently performing tasks that mimic human tasks or behavior.  This type of artificial intelligence is confined to specific tasks and limited by the set of instructions that a human being has programmed into the computer. The tasks can be quite complicated, but they are constrained to act in a previously defined manner.

 

But when computer scientists talk about AI, they are more likely talking about systems and software that can ‘learn’ to perform a task rather than just perform the task.  These learning systems rely on massive amounts of data to adapt their capabilities, just as we humans require years of training to learn to understand, speak, move, and reason.  How closely these machine learning algorithms mimic our own brains is difficult to say, as we are still in early days of understanding the human brain’s inner workings.

 

The point of these machine learning systems is to enable computerized systems to perform tasks that would be impossible for previous pre-programmed systems – for example, recognizing objects or faces, driving cars, or creating unique content or images.  The learning systems are essentially writing their own code, or at least adapting it as they go through a process of trial and error.

 

The ability for learning systems to adapt and change has both advantages and disadvantages.  The advantage is obvious – that they can accomplish far more than their earlier fixed-program brethren.  The disadvantage, and the thing that provokes understandable fear and hysteria in the media and even among many of the pioneers in this technology, is that once these programs are unconstrained, there is the possibility that they will do unexpected and even unwanted things.  The danger is that we will lose control of how their software grows and how they ultimately behave.

 

This unpredictability is not a big problem in an AI-driven autonomous vacuum cleaner, but it could be a problem in autonomous vehicles, drones, robotic soldiers, and yes, even content generating applications like chatgpt.

 

AI is ultimately seeking to aid or replace human intelligence with a potentially unbounded and unregulated alternative intelligence.  Genetic engineering, on the other hand, offers the capability to change the human vessel itself.  Though currently held somewhat in check by international agreements, the capability to edit gene sequences and alter genomes tempts us to both repair and optimize human beings with all of the inherent uncertainties and risks.  As in all technological advancement, there is potential for both good and evil, and for a whole plethora of unintended consequences.

 

Can future AI and genetic engineering efforts be regulated in such a way as to put controls or curbs in place and ensure that no harmful consequences ensue?  This is the difficult challenge that faces the world today. The genies are already out of the bottle.  If we lose control of them, or even more sadly, employ them indiscriminately in a mad arms race for power and global dominance, then the apocalypse may be just around the corner.

 

The Poverty Duet

The USA has been the most powerful nation on earth for at least 80 years.  As the only nation to exit WW2 with a booming economy and intact infrastructure, the USA became the world’s department store, economic engine and bank.  The malaise of the depression was finally over, and the poverty rate in the country, which had soared in the 1930’s during the Great Depression, swiftly declined through the war years and into the 50’s and 60’s.  

When Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964 as part of his Great Society legislative agenda, the poverty level was at about 19%.  Many believed that the country could indeed ‘conquer’ poverty and render it obsolete.  By the time Johnson left office in 1969, the poverty rate was about 12%.  It has stubbornly remained between 12 and 15% ever since, through both republican and democratic presidencies and various permutations of congressional majority. 

 

Conservatives and liberals have endlessly debated the surprising intractability of poverty in the world’s richest nation.  The debate has become a predictable duet, albeit an atonal one without harmony or grace.  Neither statistics nor data nor studies succeed in convincing the opposing sides to alter their religiously held convictions.

 

Here are what I perceive to be some of the opposing tenets of both the conservative and liberal points of view:

 

It is telling, and ironic, that the first bars of the poverty duet can be heard in the critique by both sides of the definition of poverty itself!

 

C: The number of citizens that live in true poverty is much less than the census bureau calculates because of food stamps, subsidized housing, Medicaid and other entitlements that are not considered in the poverty threshold.  Is it poverty when 64% of people defined as impoverished have Internet and 78% have air conditioning?

L:  The number of impoverished people is significantly higher than calculated because of the high costs of housing, healthcare and transportation as well as the debts that occur from unexpected events such as job loss, health crises or car repair, for example.

 

C:  Poverty can only be reduced by economic growth and job production.  Welfare programs are counter-productive and create dependencies and encourage poor behavior.

L:  Trickle-down economics is a failure.  Enlightened government efforts to provide aid, childcare subsidies and job-training/education, and lift wages are necessary to reduce poverty.

 

C:  Wealth and income inequality concerns are attempts to create class warfare and envy.  Further taxing the rich will have a negative effect on investment and economic growth.

L:  Grotesque wealth inequality is not healthy.  Income and estate taxes on the super wealthy can subsidize infrastructure improvements, education, childcare and other means to reduce poverty and improve outcomes for the poor.  The rich will still have plenty of money to invest or build new companies.

 

C:  Effort and ability determine success and economic status.  There are no longer structural or systemic barriers making it more difficult for racial or ethnic groups to succeed.

L:  The legacies of racism and bias against immigrants or non-whites are still present even if outright discriminatory practices have generally been eradicated.  Federal, state and local governments must be proactive in removing these barriers.

 

C:  Prior efforts to reduce poverty through welfare have encouraged single parent families and absent fathers with the resultant avalanche of crime, gangs, drugs and incarceration.

L:  The disastrous tough-on-crime stances and war on drugs, with the resultant extreme levels of incarceration, have created a vicious cycle of addiction, incarceration, crime and unemployment.

 

C:  A focus on racism, identity and historical flaws of the USA creates division and pessimism, and distracts people from the task of improving their lives and prospects through hard work and education.

L:  America must confront its past in order to learn from it and correct the remaining structural inequities.

 

C:  Any attempt to increase wages through mandatory minimum wage laws will harm businesses and end up causing increased unemployment and recessional pressure.

L:  Minimum wage laws increase the spending power of the poor and will actually accelerate business growth (the Henry Ford example) rather than hamper it.

 

These are just a few of the verses, but the duet goes on and on.  Poverty, like so much of the conservative/liberal divide, is a complex topic with plenty of room for interpretation of statistics and theorizing.  There are some nations who have come close to creating a society with little or no poverty – the Scandinavian nations come to mind.  But even in those somewhat homogeneous nations there is a significant portion (3-7%) of the population that is considered to be at a poverty level, though the definition of poverty in all nations is relative and hard to compare.

 

The world will never be perfect, and inherent in human nature are all sorts of troubling contradictions.  There is likely a certain percentage of people whose habits and behavioral traits doom them to poverty and even homelessness.  There is only so much one can do to improve their lives.  However, a truly civilized society should be absolutely determined to provide all hard-working and earnest citizens with enough infrastructure (education, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, Internet) and safety nets (nutrition programs, temporary assistance during crisis, Medicaid, etc.) to create a dignified and fulfilling human existence.  

This should be the part of the song where the duet rises to a harmonious chorus.