Looking into the New Year

Note: Google is making it extremely difficult for me to log into this blog. It appears that Google allows a person to have only one account, which means that I would have to reveal my identity. I have resisted doing so. If you find nothing new posted here in 2014, you might need to use a search engine to find out where Republican Climate has gone.

My postings on this blog have been sporadic, but I want to let you know it is not dead. I have, during the past year, lost some of my initial enthusiasm. I am no less alarmed by what the Republicans are doing. But I have little faith that what the Democrats are doing will help us out of the crisis. The choice, it seems to me, is between evil Republicans and inept Democrats. This will be as true in 2014 as it was in 2013.

Usually, when we humans attempt to predict what will happen in the coming year, we try to understand the past year. But if we have learned anything from the past year, it is that our future will follow a largely arbitrary trajectory. Was there any progress on rebuilding our economy or on preventing global warming or on enhancing science literacy? It doesn’t matter, because for any reason or for no reason the Republican-led House of Representatives, and the Senate over which Republicans wield the constant threat of filibuster, can simply decide to cause our economy to collapse. The Republicans actually started the process in October, taking us a few hours into government default, just to prove to us that they could. They want us to remember that they have the knife to our throats. Therefore, to use just this example, default is not something that might occur as a result of deficit spending or of depleted resources or of not taking care of long-term environmental problems, but something that Republican extremists in Congress can impose arbitrarily. How can one possibly plan ahead for that?

Therefore, many people look ahead into 2014 with a numb astigmatism. We know that some emergency will come along, but we cannot guess what it will be. We must remain tensely vigilant, ready for anything, and as far as we know, we have to remain under these stressful conditions forever. We will not be able to see the emergency until it arrives. It was bad enough to have nearly insurmountable long-term problems, and to be prepared for the actions of crazy dictators and extremists, but now we also have to consider our own unpredictable government.

All you have to do to see this vision of a future filled with unpredictable emergencies is to go to the movies. My family and I went to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The main thing that happened in this movie was that the good people (humans, elves, and dwarves) slashed and impaled orcs. The orcs looked like half-decomposed monsters. The special effects were good, but after about the six hundredth orc was killed, I was pretty much satiated, even though the movie was only half over.

I believe that The Hobbit, as well as several 2014 movies whose previews we saw, reflect the kind of conflict that many people anticipate for the immediate future. After all, studios do not make expensive movies unless market research shows that millions of people will be attracted to them. And not necessarily to enjoy them. People sometimes go to movies to deal with the demons inside their minds. Specifically, in these movies:

·        The conflicts consist of totally unpredictable attacks. Gandalf could sense that something evil was emerging from under the earth, but no further prediction was possible. You cannot anticipate these conflicts.

·        The foes are incomprehensibly evil. They seem motivated primarily by their love for evil, which makes them even more unpredictable. And they are all alike. The orcs all look nearly alike and have the same voice and the same feelings. You cannot negotiate with them collectively nor can you find even one of them who is not totally evil and with whom you might be able to reason.

·        The governments are totally dysfunctional. The elves cared only about their walled kingdom, and the humans dwelling beside the lake had an inept and hedonistic king. The only possibility of salvation was from little militia groups (in this case, a little band of dwarves) taking matters into their own hands.

·        The response can be only to slash the evil foes early, often, and perhaps forever. There is no time to negotiate or understand; if you hesitate for even a moment before slashing, you will be dead.

It occurred to me that this is the kind of future that the moviegoers anticipated for 2014. Our government will not deal with or perhaps even admit any predictable long-term issues such as global warming or gun violence or immigration, and are likely to create new and unpredictable conflicts; we cannot trust our government to deal with any emergencies that come along, even those that they themselves create; and the only possible response is to remain stressed-out, ready to instantly respond to emergencies by extreme and perhaps violent measures, on our own. We know we have to get and keep our own personal finances in shape, because we cannot individually succeed if we do not; but we cannot know whether personal financial wisdom will keep us alive in a chaotic economy. Over the long term, many people actually expect a dystopia, a grim future in which there is no altruistic society but in which each individual, or each little band of people, has to look out for himself or itself. If our popular entertainment is any guide, a lot of people actually expect to descend into a future of chaos.

Few people will openly admit this. Financial and policy prognosticators make it sound like we know where we are going and how to get there. That’s their job. And both parties in Congress wants us to think that they have suddenly become good people. They want us to think that the budget deal worked out by Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray is the beginning of a Congressional lovefest during which Republicans and Democrats will become comrades. But, as indicated by the kinds of movies we will be seeing in 2014, deep down we anticipate that the future is an incoherent mass of emergencies for which we cannot prepare.

Republican Climate of Intimidation, Part One. A Sick Joke.

When Bill Clinton was president, Republicans disliked him strongly enough that they finally impeached him. But this was nothing like the raw fury and insult that they throw against Barack Obama, even though Obama is less liberal than Clinton was. The Republicans have kept up a constant barrage of name-calling against Obama. They call him a socialist, even though he is much less so than Clinton was. Clinton’s health care plan was a big quasi-socialist bureaucracy. Not so Obama’s. Why do they hate Obama more than they hated Clinton?

I suspect it has something to do with race. I am not saying all, or most, Republicans are racist. But I draw this tentative conclusion based on a consideration of some of the things Obama’s attackers say about him. The Tea Partiers, for a long time, kept up a constant stream of attacks on Obama’s citizenship, even after he released his birth certificate. Today, most Republicans have dropped the issue as a matter of fact. But they keep it alive by joking about it, thus contributing to a climate of intimidation without having to actually prove their point. They use humor as a back door to slip in false claims. Now, political humor has a long tradition, and I engage in it myself (watch here for the upcoming announcement of my new YouTube political humor channel). The problem is that political humor should be used, as I hope I use it, to alert people to problems, rather than to inject destructive and false misinformation into public discourse.

Just yesterday (August 24), Mitt Romney was in Michigan and said, “I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital. I was born in Harper Hospital. No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

A Romney aide said that Romney was not questioning Obama’s American citizenship. He was just joking, apparently. But what kind of joke is it?

Romney is from Michigan, which is right next to Canada. How can you tell, just by looking, that Romney is not a frostback undocumented Canadian? Because he is white, no one is really concerned about his citizenship. But people of color often have their citizenship questioned. Despite the attacks on Obama, this does not often happen to black people. But in Arizona it is legal to challenge the citizenship of anyone who looks like a Mexican. This has to include Native Americans, since many Mexicans have a high quantum of Native American genes (Nahuatl, Zapotec, etc.). What would a Native American say, in Arizona, if asked to show his green card? Would he say, “My ancestors came here 14,000 years ago and you are asking me to show you my green card?” Citizenship status is not indicated on driver’s licenses or credit cards or anything else that people usually carry with them. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, who enthusiastically investigates the citizenship status of all people who look Mexican, announced in July that his investigators found evidence to prove Obama was not an American citizen. Even though no taxpayer money was apparently used in this investigation, one wonders what authority Maricopa County has over the determination of the president’s citizenship. They do not, and the only reason for it is to contribute to a climate of intimidation. It is no longer just fringe Tea Partiers who do this; Romney has joined the circus. Romney looks like an American; Obama and Hispanics and Native Americans do not, from a viewpoint that used to be fringe within the Republican Party but is becoming more mainstream.

Many Native Americans did not have United States citizenship until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. This was a long time after freed slaves obtained the right of citizenship. Even then some states prevented the implementation of this law. The last state to grant Native American citizenship was Utah, in 1956. Before 1924, Native Americans could become citizens of the USA only by giving up tribal affiliation, or joining the armed forces, or assimilating in other ways. My grandfather, who is listed on the Cherokee citizen rolls of the early twentieth century, was extremely proud to have the right to vote. Back then, it was necessary to pay a poll tax in order to vote. He could not, so he would work on road crew for free for a couple of days in election years. He was so proud of his right to vote that he proclaimed that he would not tell anyone, even his family, whom he had voted for, because he rejoiced in the right to a secret ballot. Nobody in our family now remembers whether or not he was born an American citizen, as some Cherokees were. I remember my Mom telling me this story, and as a result I recognize that the right to vote is a precious gift rather than a right to simply take for granted.

Today all Americans, of whatever ethnicity, have full citizenship rights. But some Americans have to keep proving over and over that they really are Americans. How many times does Obama have to keep proving his American citizenship before Republicans will quit attacking him, if only in the form of jokes? And when will a law enforcement official ask Mitt Romney to prove his American citizenship?

If you consider the essays at this blog to be valuable and interesting, please forward the link to people you know who could benefit from them.

It’s Official: Republicans Reject Altruism

I now bring you late-breaking news about altruism. (By late-breaking I mean less than a week old. I usually get month or year old news to you.)

President Barack Obama made a statement that sounds like a completely non-controversial, common sense description of altruism as it plays out in our communities and in our nation. Here is the original quote. Obama was talking to small business owners: “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

I cannot imagine that anyone would object to this. Businesses do not teach their employees how to read and write and add and subtract. Some businesses build their own private roads, but those roads connect to highways that are built by counties, states, and the federal government. If you’ve got a business, you did not build the schools and roads. (I plan to operate a small business myself soon, so I can say soon that Obama’s statement reflects the common sense beliefs of a small business owner.) Businesses and families can thrive only within stable communities, bound together by altruism, which is facilitated by reasonable regulations and reasonable taxes.

Altruism, as I have written in my books and other blogs, is doing well by doing good. One animal (such as a human) does good things to and for another animal of the same species, and both of the animals prosper as a result. There are innumerable examples of altruism, confirmed by observation and (thanks to people like Martin Nowak) mathematics. It is one of the clearest components of evolutionary theory. And it is intuitively obvious to all of us.

Mitt Romney, however, had to attack Barack Obama for this statement. Obama clarified that he meant that if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build the schools, roads, and bridges. On August 13, Romney attacked even more vigorously, saying that this context was even worse than the original statement. Perhaps Romney, and therefore the mainstream of the Republican Party, envision a future in which America consists of individuals who do not help one another out but just fight and struggle with one another for dominance. Gated communities that are entirely self-contained? I cannot believe that Republicans are stupid enough to believe this. I suspect that Romney simply attacks anything Obama says without even thinking about it. If Obama said the sky is blue, Romney would say that this is Obama’s Democratic bias, and that the sky is really Republican red. Long ago John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself,” and until now pretty much everyone accepted this as true. Welcome to the Republican vision of what America should be like. Or not; as I said, I think Mitt spoke without thinking.

Mitt Romney is not the only one to speak without thinking. When Joe Biden said, this week, that the Republicans want to put people (he was speaking to a largely black audience) back in chains, he easily won the Stupidest Statement Award. Where did Obama find this clown anyway? Biden is the same one who emailed all of Obama’s supporters and said that if Obama did not win the election it was their fault for not giving more money. As one of those followers, I emailed my response: that this was an offensive statement. But while Joe Biden is destroying altruism by clownish incompetence, it appears that Republicans are destroying it deliberately.

If Mitt Romney makes a big deal about attacking Obama on the issue (previously, non-issue) of altruism, I can only wonder if he has any ideas of his own. Perhaps American businesses can prosper by investing their money in overseas banks the way he does? If Romney makes the rich richer, will this automatically lift up the middle class? The rich have been getting richer, and the middle class has been getting poorer (especially by debt burden). Raising up the rich has not raised up the middle class in recent years, and there is no reason to expect that it would in the future.

This is just one more example of Republicans taking on what should be a non-partisan topic—something confirmed by science—and attacking it. Evolution, global warming, stem cells, and now altruism. As a biology instructor, what can I do? Do I need to ask the Republican Party whether carbon atoms really exist before I teach about molecular structure? The Bible does not, after all, say that carbon atoms exist. I can only hope that this example is extreme; but I would never have guessed that altruism would be treated as a dangerous theory either.

Good luck to all of you altruists.

Welcome to the Republican Climate!

Welcome to the Republican Climate! The Republican Party has created a climate of hostility, intimidation, misinformation, and hypocrisy. The entries in this blog will document many examples in which the Republican Party has poisoned the social world in which we live. In addition, they have totally prevented any meaningful action from being taken on controlling climate change, that is, the physical climate.

I could also welcome you by saying, Welcome to the Republican Utopia! They had eight years of George W. Bush presidency to create the kind of country they wanted, almost without opposition for the first six of those years. During that time, they created the negative climate that I will describe in these blog entries. Today, however, the Republican Party wants you to forget that there ever was a Bush-Cheney Administration that used false information to start a war that put us a trillion dollars further in debt. Now they want us to think that they are the party of spending money carefully rather than starting wars just for the hell of it. They want us to think that, in 2009, the Republican Party was totally reborn and has no history. But all of the significant aspects of the Republican Climate of the Bush Administration continue. I will document those ongoing abuses, with only historical references to Bush-Cheney.

You want to know what a Republican utopia would look like? It would be a world in which everybody has to carry guns to protect themselves from everyone else, in which the middle class and poor live in debt and pollution while the very rich live in safe, walled compounds with private guards and pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. The very rich, who will be almost the sole beneficiaries of Republican policy, have most of their money in overseas accounts and, in the event that the economy of America (or any other country) should collapse, they will still be rich. They have nothing to lose if America collapses from its contamination by the Republican Climate.

And they may very soon have a chance to make their utopian vision a reality.

The Republican Climate has a veneer of Christianity, but underneath that veneer we will discover that the Republican Party actually hates everything that Jesus said and did.

Moreover, I do not wish to present the Democratic Party as being a bastion of goodness. If your comments are critical of the Democratic Party, I may often agree with them. I am disappointed with them, but alarmed by the Republicans. In our political system, it is a choice between incompetent mules and destructive, hate-filled elephants. God spare us. I choose incompetence over destructiveness.

I know, furthermore, that there are many individually nice Republicans. Millions, I suspect. I know a few. But these reasonable Republicans have allowed the hate-mongers to take over their party.

The Republican Party did not used to be this way. This is a point made by former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma. He finds the Republican Party of today almost unrecognizable in comparison to the Republican Party of earlier decades. I encourage you to read Mickey Edwards's writings for The Atlantic, and his new book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.