Remember diseconomies of scale?

Today I find myself pondering how it is that we’ve gone from trying to repress civil rights marches and sit-ins to honoring the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. with a federal holiday to electing creatures such as Sarah Huckabee Sanders and trying to ban the study of critical race theory, all in my lifetime. Cultural whiplash anyone? Alternative facts for sale?

This democracy is facing a number of very significant existential issues while we have state legislatures assigning priority to preventing women from showing bare arms and one House of Congress working to cut Social Security and Medicare payments to seniors who have paid taxes into those programs during their working lives at a tax rate that’s probably higher than the aggregate rate paid by many corporations and billionaires. Meanwhile, Democrats are working to limit the ability of Republicans to further gerrymander districts and repress voting rights. Defending existing rights, even if successful, isn’t progress. Are we approaching a stage at which voting isn’t enough? Some governments are even suppressing public comments.

Are you ready to vote?

Photo by J. Harrington

I remember many times seeing certain politicians opening televised addresses by referring to “My fellow citizens....” As often as not, my reaction was that I wasn’t a fellow citizen-fellow traveler. My recollection, such as it is, is that the states are supposed to function as test cases within a broadly defined federal framework, so that we could determine how democracy works better under some circumstances. According to the History Channel:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Those so-called “reserved” powers include all authority and functions of local and state governments, policing, education, the regulation of trade within a state, the running of elections and many more.

The world in which we are living is vastly different than the world in which the Constitution was drafted and ratified. Many issues we face couldn’t be envisioned by the founders, foremost among them, as I see it, is the creation of a global economy and the almost unconstrained powers found in multinational corporations. I believe that leaves us with two basic premises to restart from. The first was stated some decades ago by Pogo, aided by Walt Kelly: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The second is becoming more evident by the month and is articulated by David Whyte in his book: “Ecocide – Kill The Corporation Before It Kills Us”

I believe there is much good being accomplished in the world these days, almost exclusively by smaller, more humane entities, most non-profit whether by design or not. Alternatively, consider the recent example of the Fairview / UMN health systems. Corporate giantism is often far from an answer. Plus, there’s the perspective raised by Naomi Klein in her books, especially “The Shock Doctrine.” 

If there is a helpful exposition of the meaning of the phrase “or to the people.” I’d like to read it, It seems as though it might be able to support a popular uprising against all the megapowers that are supporting the 1% that’s sucking up most of the benefits of improved productivity these days. 

Freedom

By Jill McDonough

I talk to the students in jail about freedom, how in America

we obsess over it, write it over flags on T-shirts, spread

it around under eagles. It has something to do with guns

and fireworks, Harley-Davidsons, New Hampshire, living free

until you’re dead. I tell the students I think the people

fetishizing freedom don’t mean it. That they really mean

look over here, away from all the slavery

we did, away from all the jail! I tell them they

are the experts, ask them to write what freedom means:

privacy is freedom and if  you feel held back, afraid

to do something, you’re not completely free.   No fear

of  loss. No fear of  hunger, no fear of  pain.   A body

to call my own, a voice driven by my own mind.

The security of a dry, warm place to sleep.   To own

my own time left here.   Being able to hold my son

at night.   Showering in private.   Freedom to me

is having the choice to walk away from a fight. Freedom

a work in progress. Everyday freedom, the real work for us all.

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