Robin Hood and the King

Reverse Robin Hood
According to legend, Robin Hood robbed the wealthy and distributed booty to the poor. Robin Hood in reverse (RHR) works differently. This method is favored by kleptocrats and oligarchs and seeks to enhance the holdings of the wealthiest at the expense of the most impoverished. Let’s talk about the tax bill now approaching the Senate. Read to the end where I unveil its poison pill.

Like the tax bill of 1917, this one also holds out the promise that money will trickle down to those who can use it more. And also like that bill, it puts more money in the hands of those who don’t really need it.

The big difference this time around is that the national debt has ballooned since 2017. This time lawmakers are looking at offsets. They’re considering cuts in programs for people who need them to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

For years Republicans have complained about taxes while the government spent. Somebody needs to pay to run the government but magical thinkers believe that tax cuts pay for themselves by invoking some vague and implausible principal. It never happens.

Meanwhile the government continues to borrow as the cost of doing so is becoming unwieldy. Moody’s recently downgraded the country’s credit worthiness. This hurts our nations’s reputation and increases our borrowing costs.

During Eisenhower’s days the highest marginal tax rate was 91 percent. It’s much less now. If the wealthy could tolerate high taxes back then, why can’t they help lower the deficit now? Our current lawmakers will never willingly ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.

The King
The tax bill contains a clause which reads: “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued.”

This is intended to prevent federal courts from from imposing consequences for contempt of court on top government officials. It would give Donald Trump king-like immunity for violating the Constitution. Though perhaps it's unreasonable to suggest that a twice impeached convicted felon would ever think about violating the Constitution.

If you don’t like how things are going contact your Congress person and Senator.

Two quick reads

Merge and Disciple: Two Short Novels (From Crosstown to Oblivion) Kindle Edition
Walter Mosley
Fiction 243 pages
Tor Books, 2012

Like Jumpnauts, these two short novels are concerned with what might occur if humans encountered an awarness greater than their own. In all three works the consequences are planet changing but the stories themselves are very different.

Walter Mosley is best known for his crime and detective fiction. His heroes, Easy Rawlins, King Oliver, and others walk the thin edge that separates morality from immorality. Mosley heroes are driven by moral considerations and behavior, and that’s just as true for the protagonists in Merge and Disciple. These two works, are science fiction in the best sense, but they also waft a bit of eau de detective noir. Mosley’s characters passage between mundane and enhanced consciousness is tempered with violence, pain and uncertainty. Fair warning: graphic sexual scenes may be disturbing to those more used to traditional vanilla science fiction.

Mosley writes in contemporary style, but  with sufficient lyricality to lift his prose above the commonplace. In his book, This Year You Write Your Novel, he stresses that those wanting to write prose fiction should first become familiar with poetry. “Of all writing, the discipline in poetry is the most demanding. You have to learn how to distill what you mean into the most economic and at the same time the most elegant and accurate language.” Mosley has the skills to use words with economy, fitness and purpose.

From Merge: “You killed me,” I said with no emotion, vibration, or intention. “That’s like a table complaining about being dusted,” she said, “a sheet worrying about being hung out to dry.”

From Disciple: Nothing is as it seems, friend Hogarth. Nothing in the world that human beings believe in is really what exists. There was no primal atom, no Big Bang. There is no space as such. Life is not unique. There is no Not God.

Uniformity, inequity and exclusivity

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On a recent weekend, Elon Musk’s henchmen made an "unprecedented and breathtakingly broad incursion into, and accessing of, closely held U.S. government systems and data involving millions of Americans." Donald Trump is kicking doors down fast and it seems no one cares or does much about it. 

I've shared my views with Congressmen and Senators on a good few occasions. But recently  when a friend asked me to contact my representatives I was reluctant to do so. These days I feel like no one is listening, or if they're listening, they're failing to act.  I asked why should I bother to contact my representatives when they won't listen? In the end, I made the calls. An intern for one of my representatives assured me that she was listening. But I fear other people's representatives are not. They like what the administration does and so do their constituents.

Trump ignores rules and foregoes established procedures and lawmakers don't challenge him. He attempts to revoke birthright citizenship, is brutal with immigrants, and claims that merit should substitute for diversity, equity and inclusion. In his world, merit is something white men have and sometimes loan to white women. In his world, non-white candidates only get hired when standards are purposely lowered, never because of merit.

Trump has banned all reference to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in government agencies and ended DEI initiatives.  Several sources have suggested that DEI training may not always achieve its ends. In 2016, the Harvard Business Review reported that some DEI efforts have actually worsened workplace equality. Those who voluntarily engage in diversity training shift their views, while those who feel forced into training may harden their views against it. Engaging workers to promote diversity works well, while coercing them to do so worsens workplace equity.

So does that mean we should do away with DEI entirely? I don't think so. One can't change a person who doesn't want to change, but other people seek out self-improvement, and a best means of self-improvement is learning and challenging one's biases. The current effort to do away with DEI really promotes a hidden message. That message is that a certain group of people — white men — has traditionally held the most power in the USA and should continue to do so —  especially if it keeps others from enjoying the same comforts and privileges.

This message ignores that American values represent those of a conglomerate of peoples and cultures. An America that becomes uniform, inequitable and exclusive is not an America in which most Americans will thrive. It's not the America I want. Do you?