I am not the 99%

Well, of course technically I am part of the 99% since it is derived from wealth, and I am not in the top 1%.  However, by this metric so is Eric Cantor, the Republican House Majority Leader with income at about two-thirds the cut-off and assets at just under the cut off  (about a million in disposable assets).  I would be surprised if anyone demonstrating in the streets would say that they and Eric Cantor are part of the same group.

So, if there is more to it than wealth what does "we are the 99%" mean?  As far as I can tell it means that those with lots of money (and really it isn't the top 1%, more like the top .1%, 300,000 people) largely make their money by not working but simply getting return on investments, are not taxed at a fair amount, and have too much influence in government.  The other side of this is that the rest of the people, those who do the work, are suffering because of this system and are helpless to fix it.  I would even go so far as to say that those claiming to be the 99% believe the entire system to be broken.

Well, in polling, 60% of Americans show some basic level of support for these notions.  I find this hardly surprising since I can't think of any time in history when people haven't felt like the rich are too rich and they should give some of their money to us.  The amazing thing is that 40% of Americans are not supportive of these concepts.  So, "We are the 99%" are, at the maximum, speaking for 60% of the population.

I am in the 60%.  I am broadly supportive of a small level of wealth redistribution from those who make their money from asset investment to society at large.  Mostly I think the income from investments should simply be classed as income, just like income from getting a paycheck.  At present this investment income is taxed at 10%, while wages at this level are taxed at 35% of income.  I would happy to split the difference and have income at the highest level be around 25% (this would increase taxes substantially since the very richest make their money from investments).  I am supportive of this redistribution because wealth disparity results in a number of social ills, from health to crime.  I think investment in infrastructure and social services improve the economy and actually pay for themselves over time.  The US economy has actually grown faster with higher tax rates.  I also think it a tragedy that there are people who don't have shelter, or food, or other necessities.

However, I don't the problem is that the rich are very, very rich.  If the richest are a hundred times richer than you or a billion times richer than you it doesn't really effect how rich you are, or your life in general.  I don't even think the problem is so much that there aren't enough taxes.  The US spends the fourth amount of money for education per child in the world.  It spends twice as much on health care per capita as anywhere else.  Property taxes are high.  The government has plenty of money, it just uses it less than efficiently.  If the US had a single payer health plan, invested in preventative social services, cut the military budget in half, increased the age for social security, invested in job creating infrastructure projects, and used best practices for education the US would be transformed into a competitive, healthy, vibrant and compassionate society.  All without raising a dime more in income.

So, I am not interested in fairness, I am interested in the health of society, and taking care of those in need. 

So, I have some sympathy for the "We are the 99%" people, but I also disagree with a fair amount of the movement.  I don't think Americans are really suffering.  I am in somewhere about the 40th percentile.  My household makes more money than average and we have more than average in assets.  We are in the upper end of the middle class (the thing that is supposed to have disappeared).  We have a beautiful house, two cars, health care, are safe, entertained, can travel the world, and buy amazing things.  As far as I am concerned we are filthy, stinking, grossly rich.  I am often actually embarrassed by how rich we are.  We are essentially an average working family (thanks honey) financially.  Such families, when adjusted for inflation, have doubled their incomes in the last thirty years.

You may say I am ignoring those at the bottom.  This is, in fact, a near universal when I raise these fact-based points with those supporting the "We are the 99%".  generally it is claimed that I don't know what it is like out there.  Of course, my not knowing what it is like is nonsense.  I have been hungry, without housing, without income or assets at times in my life.  At my poorest I was sleeping on a back porch and possessed a car I could not fill with fuel, $2.58 and half a loaf of bread.  That was coincidentally the summer I mentioned in my last post about being happy.  Also my last job was literally working with the poorest of the poor.  I know better what constitutes poverty in America than anyone I know.

Given my bona fides on poverty I can then go through the facts.  What I consider poverty is homelessness and hunger and health care.  If you have access to basic health care, your own shelter, clothes to deal with the weather, food on your plate, running potable water, heating, and electricity, in my eyes you are not poor.  This is a mild idea of what poverty looks like.  In the US .6% of the population is homeless at some time in a year.  That's not homeless throughout the year, that's at some time. This includes staying in a shelter.  Yep, you can be homeless in the USA while sleeping in a bed inside a heated building. 99.4% of the US population in a year will not experience a single night without shelter, running water, electricity, etc..  That's not suffering, that's flourishing.

It is reported quite widely that one in six families in America go hungry.  This is the actual list of what constitutes "hunger".  The worst of these groups (very low food security) is about 1% of the population, and of these the worst case described is one in five don't eat for a whole day in three months.  What 49 million go hungry actually means is that at some point about .6% of the population are hungry against their will sometimes.  Nobody starves in the USA.  Nobody.  This isn't poverty, that was college for me.

It is an absolute, ridiculous, shameful fact that one in six Americans do not have health insurance.  This kills people, about twenty thousand a year.  However, US law requires any emergency room in the country to treat anyone who walks through the door with a medical emergency.  If you have no health insurance and have a heart attack a hospital will spend $100,000 or more in treating you.  You will be saddled with that debt, and that is stupid and unnecessary, but you will probably live.  In the USA you will not die of intestinal parasites, malaria, tuberculosis, influenza, malnutrition, and almost all the major killers of people around the world.  Those without health insurance in the USA have better health care than more than a third of the world.

A statistic that is often brought up is that 14% of Americans are unemployed.  That's relatively bad for the USA.  Lots of people are worried, stressed, anxious and afraid as a result.  However, only a tiny fraction of these people face real poverty.  The "poor" in the USA generally do not face poverty.

From my point of view, this "broken system" has been remarkably successful in meeting the needs of its citizens.  If you had to roll the dice to randomly grow up in another country no rational American would take that risk.  Americans keep getting richer, safer, and healthier.  The "poverty line" in the USA is the average income of Portugal.  This system, with its corporate cronies, fixed election system, disparate wealth, rigged financial system, sociopathic financial traders (and it has all of that) has done well by the vast majority of Americans.

Then there is the complaint that the average people don't have a voice, are not participants in the system.  The government is elected by those people.  It is often said that money controls what people think, who is elected, and what then happens.  If you believe this you believe that the average person in the street is incapable of understanding what is going on, thinking for themselves, or making rational decisions at the ballot box.  If this is true, do you really want them deciding the fate of the country?  Those responsible for the government are those who elect them.

To be truthful there is one thing that really bothers me about the "We are the 99%" people.  It is not that they are protesting, it's not that they are angry (although I think that is a shame for them), it's not even that they are largely wrong, it's that they claim to speak for me.  They are not speaking for me, and it is a lie to say that they are.  It's as much a lie as to say that I am a part of Pat Robertson's "Silent Majority".  It is as much a lie as when any politician says anything starting with, "Americans believe..."

If you lie about what I believe you can fuck right off.

Is It This Easy?

I could have titled this post 'Walking in the Wind" or 'Beautiful Dawn" since it was inspired directly by my dawn walk this morning.  It was blustery as The Face of Evil and I walked through dead trees by the bayou, the sky lightening in the colors of the dutch masters.  I felt my spine tickling, a smile on my face, just joy.

I have described feeling like this before.  In fact, I have described feeling more intensely wonderful than this.  A feeling that I have shared with my sister, that life is so delicious that you feel sad that most people never experience it.  This is not the best I have ever felt, but I have felt basically like this for weeks and months, without interruption.  My wife has been confused by this constant cheerfulness, she doesn't know what to do with this, who is this person?  The last time I felt this consistently happy, for this length of time, was the summer of 1997, the summer I moved to Portland.

The reason for this is simply a magic pill.  For the last fifteen years my brain had been subject to wild chemical variations, beyond my control, and the chemicals in your brain are what your happiness is.  Your outside environment only has an effect on your happiness to the extent that it changes the chemicals in your brain.  I have been taking this medication since July, and I have felt great.

This has led me to the question, "Is it really this easy to be happy if you aren't ill?"  I see so much complaining, so much energy put into describing all the reasons that people can be unhappy.  I am happy, I think life is special and great, and all that has happened is that my brain is consistent and stable.  It just seems to me that this should be the case for everyone who is in a similar situation.  By the way, this isn't a criticism of people who are dealing with an illness, mental illness is a real thing, a painful thing, something largely beyond the control of the victim.

The answer to my question is somewhat equivocal.  On one hand it is not this easy for most people to be happy.  Most people do not put happiness as a high priority.  This sounds fundamentally wrong, but I am certain that most people put their priorities into prestige, wealth, looks, and reputation.  I think if asked most people would say that these things lead to happiness, that if someone becomes rich, with high status, good looks and a reputation of wisdom they will be as happy as they can be.  While these can help, they aren't the root of happiness.  Why do people concentrate on these things?  Because their brains are consistent.  If you don't experience random misery then you don't appreciate your own mental situation.  If you never experience ecstatic joy then you don't know how good life can be.  Under those circumstances it seems silly to believe that you can alter your mental state to be consistently more happy.  If something seems silly it is difficult to be motivated to do it.  The best example of this is that meditation is a scientifically proven method to reduce worry, increase compassion, and increase your awareness of the world around you.  It requires no equipment and you can start doing it in fifteen minutes a day.  I have told everyone I know this, shown them the proof for it, and I know of only one person who has then taken it up (to great effect).

To maximize happiness it is necessary to "know thyself", it is necessary to understand what happiness actually is, and it is necessary to put consistent effort into learning the skills to be happy.  Happiness comes from establishing a mental state that notices where you are, appreciates where you are, and only worries about things you can change (and then changes them).  I have been fighting deep misery for more twenty years, suicidal misery just about every year at some point.  Also every year I have experienced amazing joy, albeit far less often.  As a result my understanding of what produces happiness has been higher than most people.  this has given me far more motivation to study happiness, and then far more motivation to practice what I have learned.  I have learned skills to make depression bearable because otherwise much of my life would have been unbearable.  Now that I am not depressed I have not forgotten those skills, indeed these skills have largely been ingrained as habits.  This makes me happier, it makes me happy.  It is no harder for anyone else to learn these skills, practice those skills, and become happier on a consistent basis.

Optimism, compassion, calmness, awareness of what you have, all can be learned through simple practices.  They make you happier, they make your life better.  It is that easy.  You just have to choose to do them.  I wonder why people don't?

Questions That Don't Need To Be Asked.

Sam Harris, the neuroscientist and philosopher most famous for his strident opposition to religion, has a blog.  recently he has been talking about the mystery of consciousness.  This mystery he sums up as "that there should be 'something that it is like'"  I think it can be put more clearly that all the machinery of our brains has inputs, outputs, inner communication and so on, but it is very hard to work out why there should be some sense that there is an I that is aware at some level that there is going on.  He believes that this problem is intractable, that why there is a "sense of I" will never be worked out even if we understand completely how the brain works.

There are many other people who ask themselves what is their purpose in life.  Why am I here?  What should I do?  What is the point of this existence?  The answers that come from science, that we are here through a very long natural process based on complex chemical interactions and the survival of self-replicating chemical structures, are often considered to be unsatisfactory.

Usually people who consider these questions extend them into the Universe at large.  Why is there anything at all?  Why is that a tree and not a hedgehog?

For me, these questions all have a fundamental flaw.  They are questions prompted by the brain to produce answers that satisfy the biases of the human brain.  The human brain is biased to see patterns, meanings, stories, and actors (an entity causing something to happen).  I have talked about all of these before.

Each of these questions are 'Why?" questions.  "Why?" is a question that asks the purpose or reason for something, and the fact that there is the same word for both of these definitions is highly instructive.  This conflation of purpose and reason is absolutely at the heart of humanity, and at the edges of intellectual thought can become quite problematic.  In fact, even the word, "Reason" is a conflation of several independent ideas (how things came to be, the purpose for something coming to be, a description of a method of thinking).

Why are we here?  The reason we are here can be stated with a fair amount of assurance for it being true is "why" means the same thing as "how it came to pass".  How it came to pass that we are here, while enormously complex is a story science can generally tell.  We can answer the question.  It is a good question to ask because we can explore the evidence and come up with an answer. 

However, if the question means "what is the purpose of us being here" we have greater difficulty.  With "how it came to pass" we are going off vast amounts of data, essentially all the data there is, that the way things were in the past give cause to the way things are presently, and out present will cause the future.  From this we can assume that there is a way that things came to be, there is a how, which is merely a description.  The Laws of Nature are not actually laws, they are descriptions of how things happen.

With questions about the purpose of things we have greater difficulty because we don't have vast amounts of data that there is a purpose of all things.  When human beings make a decision to do something there is generally a purpose.  I go to the store to buy food so that I can eat and not be hungry, which is unpleasant.  What is the purpose of the vast vacuum of space, the bit with nothing in it?  Surely a purpose requires a goal, and a goal requires a plan, and a plan requires someone to make the plan.  Who made the plan for vast areas of nothing?  it seems to me quite reasonable to think that some things have a purpose, and that these things derive their purpose from someone deciding what their purpose is.  Purpose is given to things from an outside source, it isn't inherent in things.

That there is not even the beginning of a consensus on whether there is a being outside the universe, on what such a being might want, how we might be connected to that desire, how me might bring it about, or what most of the Universe is for, seems excellent evidence that the assumption that there is a purpose is at least highly questionable.  Asking, "Why are we here?" without meaning, "How did it come to pass that we are here?" seems to me to making an enormous assumption, that there is a purpose.  A scientist operating according to science should at least have some evidence that there is a thing about which there are things you can discover.  A scientist would never investigate the properties of a thing for which there is no evidence.  "Why is there...." is simply a question that shouldn't be asked without the knowledge of a someone involved who might have a purpose.  Why is this a rock, not a tree?  Because then it wouldn't be a rock, the question inherently makes no sense.  How did it become to be a rock? leads to a whole chain of causality that can be investigated.

We ask these "Why?" questions because of our biases.  We think in terms of patterns, plans, intention.  We automatically assign intention "A tree struggles towards the light so that it can receive the energy of the sun" when actually under the circumstances a tree simply must grow or not because of its nature.  A tree doesn't try to grow for a purpose.  Even though we know that this is true (the tree simply doesn't have the intellectual apparatus to try or struggle or have a goal) it is very hard to think of it in another way.

Essentially there are two directions from which human beings can approach a question.  We can come from the direction of ourselves, our minds, and look for the pattern, meaning, and purpose of an event.  We can come from the direction of describing the event and then seeing if this event has pattern, meaning, and purpose. 

I think this is the problem that Sam Harris has in his idea of a mystery about consciousness.  He starts from the idea that consciousness is a special thing, unlike everything else, essentially that it is entirely purpose.  It is the thing that is "Why?" rather than "How?"  Consciousness is what searches for purpose, and meaning.  The mistake that is made is mistaking the thing that looks for "Why?" as therefore requiring an answer to "Why?" for its existence. 

I think consciousness is simply what happens when matter is arranged in the way it is in the human (and other animals) brain.  Why is their consciousness, a sense that there is an I experiencing things?  Because it would be impossible for there not to be under the circumstances.  Why does a rock fall?  Because a rock and the Earth have mass, and mass is the inherent quality of things that attract each other.  A rock falls because it is a rock, and a rock is a thing that falls.  A human brain has consciousness because it is a human brain, and a human brain is a thing with consciousness.  There is no mystery beyond the human invention of a mystery.  The answer is intractable because the question has been constructed about something that doesn't exist.  It makes as much sense as asking 'What are the dreams of the color yellow?"

How did it come to be that human brains have consciousness?  I think it is because consciousness is simply a rather messy method of providing a feedback loop for improving the chance of survival and reproduction.  A consciousness is something that is aware of being a creature.  It is aware of the environment, of the past, can make predictions about the future, can test theories about the future, and change the way that creature goes about doing things.  Evolutionarily this is enormously useful, that the creature with the most developed consciousness is now the most successful creature on the planet speaks to this.

Just because you can frame a question, or wonder about something, it doesn't mean that there is an answer to the question, or that the something is real.  Sometimes, even though you can ask a question, there are questions that don't need to be asked because they don't make sense to ask.

Education.

On ESPN, the cable sports network, there is a show at the moment called Rise Up.  It is a show where a high school is picked (almost always a school in a deprived inner city) and the network arrives, examines the sports facilities and then does an "extreme makeover" of the facilities, leaving them in an astonishing state.  The high school is left with running tracks, a full weight room, brand new equipment, one had a climbing wall.  It really is amazing stuff.  What is consistently said from teachers and the show is that poor, run down equipment engenders a sense of low self-esteem, that going to a ratty school means that children don't care, and this effects their expectations and results in their schooling.

The first part of the show consists of an earnest woman (who really needs to eat a cheeseburger) touring the facilities with a look of concern on her emaciated face.  My reaction to this "before" section has consistently been, "What nice stuff they have."  All of these high schools, specifically chosen for their degraded state, are nicer than the school I attended.

I went to Bishop Wordsworth's Church of England Grammar School For Boys.  This was part of the old fashioned system in England in which an examination was given to children at the age of ten to determine which school they would attend for at least the next five years.  The top 25% went to my school, the other went to a different school.  Since this was old-fashioned the local council had decided to break the system by sending most of the funding to the other school and letting my school starve. 

My home room was a twenty-five year old temporary building on breeze blocks (cinder blocks in the USA).  I did not have a text book less than five years old at any point while I was there.  Institutional paint from decades ago peeled off the walls.  There was no piece of sports equipment from within the last decade.  However, the educational achievement at this school is among the best in the UK.  When I went to the University of Michigan I found that I was about two years ahead in terms of what I knew (and how to think) than most students.  U-M is a really good school.

Looking at the record of US students (and UK students are actually worse in some respects) against other countries we find the US lagging behind in basic skills, the three 'R's.  By my count the US is seventeenth on that list despite spending the fourth most amount of money of any country.  However, US students score the highest on self-confidence of any country.  One of the primary goals in US education is being met, ahead of the money spent on the problem, American pupils are self-confident.  However, this does not seem to translate into education success.

During my schooling I cannot remember receiving any positive statement about my performance, character, work ethic, basically anything at any time.  This is from both my teachers and parents over thirteen years.  I remember telling my father once that about my good grades and his reply, "You should be getting all A's on everything."  Now, as far as I can tell, all A's in US high schools is relatively easy, with correct test scores somewhere in the upper 90% range.  In my school, and in the public examinations at the time, an A was somewhere in the 80% range, and few students, even good students got them.  Passing grade was around 50%.  Remember, I knew more arriving in college than my American peers.  Self-esteem wasn't encouraged to achieve success, success was assumed, was difficult, and you were not ever going to get everything right.

So, Americans spend lots of money, work on self-esteem, encourage their students, have good facilities, and have relatively poor results.  My school had no money, worked to reduce self-esteem, expected good results and had no encouragement, had awful facilities and achieved great results.  What is the difference?  The difference is that I was taught by good teachers who demanded success and discipline, in an environment where it was assumed that you were there to learn.  I'm sure it also helped that the students had been pre-selected based on prior achievement.

This means that I am entirely unsurprised at the findings of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that teachers are by far the most important factor in the education of children.  Furthermore, teachers in the USA have not been effectively taught how to teach, or been measured on the effectiveness of their teaching.  In the USA more money is spent on education than most wealthy countries but less on teachers.  Teachers also spend more time teaching than most countries.  I think a cursory look around at the news will tell you to what regard teachers in the USA are held.  So, lower pay for more work and less respect with poor instruction and poor measurement means you get a lower quality of applicant, with less skills, poorer improvement, and motivation to perform.

The Left think education should be improved by greater investment in schools, fee-form education emphasizing a love for learning and led by the initiative of children.  They hate tests. The Right think teachers are lazy, good-for-nothings, who are paid too much for what they do.  Both are wrong.  There is no need for more money in US education.  It should simply be redistributed in educating, measuring, and paying teachers who should be treated as respected professionals.  These teachers should spend less time teaching and more time improving themselves and preparing their classes.  You should be able to teach a high level of reading, writing and maths to kids by the age of ten.  Seriously.

The rest of the time children should be playing, outside.  You don't need hours of repetition on the same subject or problem.  You need to do it enough to get it, be retaught in a different manner if you don't understand and then tested later to see if you retain it.  Hours of similar math problems, or compulsory reading, or page after page of essay writing are done simply to fill the hours of schooling.  There is an obesity epidemic among children, even a promotion by the National Football League to get children to play a full hour hour a day.  An hour?  How about six hours?  It is supposed to be fun being a child.  Homework is useless and not fun.  All you need to do to supervise children playing is one adult who can watch it.

Sometimes it really is as simple as it seems.  Respect and pay teachers and you will get good applicants.  teach good applicants and you will get good teachers.  Good teachers mean educated students.  Educated students make good employees.  Good employees make a good economy.  A good economy produces good revenue.  Good revenue produces good services.

Words and the Modern World

In England at the moment a professional soccer player has accused another professional soccer player of racially abusing him.  The player making the accusation is a french black man.  The person being accused is an Uruguayan white man.  In the United States I am not sure if those terms are correct.  Those who were once negroes, then coloreds, then blacks, are as far as I know now labeled African Americans.  This makes it difficult to define which group a French man of somewhat African descent might be called, particularly if any of his family had lived somewhere other than France or Africa in the intervening period.

The word that is suggested was used is the deeply offensive "Nigger."  Of course, the accusers first language is French, in which that word would be "Negre", equally offensive.  The accuser also speaks some english having lived there for some time.  The accused speaks primarily Spanish, with almost no English as he has lived there for barely six months.  In Spanish the word would be "Negro" which means "Black" in Spanish, but can also be considered a racist descriptor of a, hmmm, black (?) person.

To unfortunately complicate the situation the use of the word, "Negro" towards someone has different meanings depending on the country of origin.  In Spain or Mexico it is deeply offensive.  However, in Uruguay, Venezuela, and Argentina the word is used as a term of endearment regardless of race.  A mother might well call her little white boy "un negro pequeno."  It is also used between close friends and so on.

So what we have is a French black man, who couldn't be called that in the USA but can in England, being offended because someone said something in Spanish that in many places would be considered a deeply offensive racist remark, but isn't in the place where the speaker came from.

This is a complicated issue, that involves intent, meaning, legal ramifications, language, and culture.  The most widespread area where a discussion that could elucidate and educate people's understanding of the issue would be in forums and commentaries on-line.  I have found out that any mention of the word, "Negro" on any forum will have the message removed, and all follow ups removed too.  This is regardless of the meaning of the word, or whether its use is intended to educate or denigrate.  Even further, any comment about whether it is appropriate to delete the message is also deleted.

So, a complex issue about offense taken involving race and culture cannot be commented on if at any point you talk about the offense and involve words about race or culture.  Fear of the offense of racism taken to the point where it cannot be explained that it might not be racism in the first place.  Ah, the modern world.

Material Things

In the Pyrenees, sheep farmers moved with the seasons.  In the winters they lived in the valleys with their sheep in small fields or pens, fed on hay reaped in the autumn.  As spring turned towards summer they moved up the mountains to high pastures to take advantage of the growing grass and to save the resources in the valley.  In the time before motorized vehicles it was too far to walk up the mountain each day and return in the evening to sleep in their houses in the valley.  As a result the farmers built little cottages high up in the mountains in which to stay, in Scotland these are called "crofter's cottages."

Today there are cars and trucks which make the ascent and descent quick and convenient.  As a result the farmers live down in the valleys all year round with their families and the comforts of the modern world.  But the cottages still remain, in various states of disrepair.  Being from a time before the modern world these cottages don't have electricity, or sewage, or really anything that we take for granted.  Heat comes from a fire.

There is someone I know who lives in one of these places, a 47 year old man, someone who has wandered the world, drifting from one place to another, but this is now his home base.  He makes his living by busking, or picking grapes, or other odd jobs here and there.  He cannot drive and makes his way around Europe by walking, hitch-hiking, or public transport.  I have never heard him complain that he hasn't enough, and he's happier and healthier than most of the people I know.  This man is my brother Peter.

He has spent a considerable time in India, wandering around with a backpack.  He has told me of returning to London after such a trip and seeing the beggars on the streets (there is no shortage of these) and feeling the urge to laugh at them.  Why?  "Because they didn't even know what being poor was," he said.  After having seen the truly destitute on the streets of India, living skeletons starving to death or dying from disease, these comparatively plump people with access to shelter, daily food, and potable water, were rich in his eyes.

As for myself, for several years I worked in a building in downtown Portland that was available for those with "very low income."  Practically this ranged from a low of zero income to a high of about $300 a week.  In my capacity there I helped hungry people find food, those without furniture to find a bed, those without money to pay for their electricity and heating.  It was a horribly depressing place to be, and perhaps some time I will write the list of things I saw there that have damaged me.  Suffice it to say that entering the building fills me with dread, my heart rate rises, and I have an animal urge to flee.  However, nobody starved, nobody died of exposure, nobody died of dysentery, or cholera, etc..

All around me in the USA at the moment I hear cries of anguish against the terrible plight affecting the poor, and even the middle class.  A few days ago I heard some one say, "You can't live on $35,000 these days."  I have heard tragic stories of people committing suicide because they have lost everything.  There are people around the country publicly demonstrating to get their fair share.  I have heard people complaining that they won't be able to own a house, or keep the house in which they presently live, in disbelief that this would be allowed to happen.  I have heard the story of a retired veteran who was a teacher for forty years (and therefore gets social security, a pension, and free health care) complain that he has to live in an apartment and struggles to pay the bills (on what must be about $25,000 a year).

People say it isn't fair for them to be poor like this.  That the rich have taken it away from them.

Well, the truth is that the poorest people in the USA, in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression make as much money when you adjust for inflation as they did in 1979.  before the downturn they made about 11% more than they used to.  This does not include any technological improvements (most people on welfare in the USA these days have a color tv with cable and a cell phone, the objects of only the rich in 1979).  In fact, over this period, all sections of the US population have become wealthier.  The middle class have become about 1/5th wealthier in the last thirty years.  While it is usually mocked and derided, it is actually true that "A rising tide lifts all boats."

The US has one of the highest average incomes in the world.  In fact the standard by which Americans are designated as poor is about the same as the average income in Portugal, and higher than the average income in Costa Rica.  These are not third world countries, these are stable democracies with school systems, health systems, roads, bridges etc..  While it is deplorable that there are homeless people in the US the highest estimates for the number of homeless is 1 in 600, 1/6th of one percent.  The poor of the United States are rich compared with the rest of the world.

What then are people complaining about?  People are complaining that they have not had "their fair share of the pie", and a very, very large pie it is.  It is absolutely true that the better off you are the greater your increase in wealth.  It is absolutely true that the wealth disparity in the US (and the UK) is growing.  It is absolutely true that this is not as good for the future of the US as a more equitable distribution of wealth.  It is absolutely true that I think the wealthy should be taxed more and that money spent on improved services.  But the truth of it is that rich people are complaining vociferously that they are not rich enough while the fabulously wealthy try to hold on to their fabulous wealth.  In the US the class warfare is between the rich and the very, very, very rich.

Why then are people complaining with such anguish?  The first reason is that most Americans are literally entirely unaware of what real poverty is.  It was a repeated theme of my work in that building that those who had lost their money through bad luck or illness were in literal disbelief at how few services there were for the poor, and this being a place with food, shelter, furniture, bathrooms, and electricity.  Most Americans have never seen a family living in a corrugated iron shack, eating the same meager meal every day and washing their two sets of clothing in river water.  Actually living like that is literally unimaginable.  Most Americans think that living in an old apartment with ratty carpets, peeling paint, shopping in bulk at Costco, and driving a fifteen year old car which is difficult to keep full of gas, is really poor.

The second reason is that people have forgotten the lessons that every single one of us is taught from an early age, and then repeated over and over again.  The best things in life are free.  Love is what really matters.  You can't buy happiness.  Be grateful for what you have.  These things are true!  I mean that, they really are true.  Has any material thing ever come close to making you as happy as a friend? 

It is a good thing to wish that the world was a fairer place, a kinder place, a safer place, a more beautiful place.  It is an even better thing to work to make it so.  It is an absolute tragedy to make yourself miserable as a consequence.  It is possible to be like my brother, high on a mountain, owning very little but a love for life.

Recycling Ideas

Over the last twenty-four hours I have had a discussion that some of you may have noticed on facebook.  This discussion is essentially about the meaning of the word "socialism."  His meaning (in this case) when boiled down to the basics is that a meaning of socialism is traffic lights and public roads, because right wing pundits have equated some government programs as "socialism" and therefore if they really understood what they were talking about ALL government programs would therefore be "socialist."  My position is that socialism means what it says it means in dictionaries, encyclopedias, in classrooms, and what socialist mean when they call themselves socialist.

This frustrates me, because I think the meaning of words matters.  If words don't have a precise meaning then it is impossible to have a precise conversation.  I understand that the meaning of words changes over time because the meaning of a word is what people think it means.  However, I do think that at any one time there must be an agreement of what a word means in order to actually communicate. That's why we have dictionaries and encyclopedias etc.. 

 The alternative to having a consensus on the meaning of words is best described through the lens of the Theory of Evolution.  There is a precise meaning for those words, available in dictionaries, encyclopedias, from scientists, and in classrooms.  However, in the effort against the belief of evolution people distort the meanings of the words.  "It's only a theory, just a guess.  They don't really know if it's true."  Well, a Theory backed up by vast amounts of evidence and never falsified is as close to a fact as there is in the world.  'Evolution says that we came about from just luck, even for one bacteria to become another bacteria is so unlikely that it is less than one chance in a bigger number than all the atoms in the universe."  Evolution is precisely the theory that describes how change happens in life in a non-random manner.  "Nobody has ever seen a monkey become a cat."  This is true, but evolution doesn't say this is so.  These are "straw man" arguments, arguing against a position that nobody holds (see the first paragraph for another example).  However, if there are not actual, real meanings for words it is impossible for there to be a straw man argument.  Each person is able to define what the other person says regardless of what they mean.

The biggest problem for me is when there is already a word that means what people want to change a word to mean.  In this case there are the words, "government programs" which everyone understands.  Changing "socialism" to mean "government programs" means you have eliminated a word with real and useful meaning from the vocabulary.

Now, I know my frustration is counter-productive.  I know that in an argument, if the person does not immediately take an interest in your position and try to come to a consensus on what the argument is about or disagrees twice, then it is impossible to change that person's mind.  What is important to people is whether they fit into a group, and maintaining their reputation as never being wrong.
 
So, I should go back to working towards a dream, not involving myself in fruitless arguing but immersing myself in mindfulness, in living a good life, in bettering myself and remaining optimistic.  I should work to make these things true habits.

I may manage this for a while, but I am pretty sure I'll be back to this again, equally frustrated again.  We are who we are.