Tag Archives: the establishment

Pandemics in Pictures

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It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  These days we have thousands of words — often contradictory — about The Pandemic.  A few pictures might help. Pictured above is Jimi Hendrix at the Woodstock Music Festival August 1969.  The Hong Kong Flu 1968 – 1969 raged on as life went on.

Unprecedented Pandemic?

The Coronavirus Disease 2019, commonly known as COVID-19, was first noted December 2019.  As of September 2, 2020, estimates indicate 25.7 million inflections and 857,000 deaths worldwide.  The virus responsible for COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2), the newest in a large family of coronaviruses. 

COVID-19 is indeed a pandemic. Pandemics, regardless of severity, spread quickly worldwide, as opposed to epidemics which are more local (think Ebola). But is COVID-19 “unprecedented?”

Here is a picture of some of the worst worldwide influenza pandemics. The Asian Flu lasted about one year (February 1957 to around March 1958), and killed 1.5 to 2 million people. The Hong Kong Flu also lasted around one year, and killed 1 million people.

The next picture includes characteristics like how fast a virus spreads and severity of symptoms. COVID-19 spreads easier than other similar viruses, but proportion with mild illness is high.

Or Unprecedented Overreaction With Devastating Results?

Past pandemics did not see the widespread lockdown we are experiencing with COVID-19. Therefore, past pandemics did not see the unprecedented economic meltdown we are experiencing today. Measured by GDP, the 2008 U.S. Great Recession pales in comparison. Here is a picture from Tradingeconomics.com

As of August 2020, numerous U.S. companies filed for bankruptcy protection amid lockdowns, including big brands such as Brooks Brothers, Cirque du Soleil, and Neiman Marcus. How many Mom & Pop stores that tend to hire lower-income folks have closed is hard to say.

Woodstock Anyone?

An event that characterized the 1960s was the Woodstock Music Festival. An audience of about 400,000 gathered on a dairy farm in New York state August 15-18, 1969, to watch music notables of the time like Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.

Although “fact checkers” like Reuters went out of their way to explain why it is “misleading” to say Woodstock took place in the middle of the Hong Kong Flu pandemic — the event was between waves of the flu — the fact remains that Woodstock was in 1969, and the Hong Kong Flu pandemic was in 1968-1969.

Life is Making Choices

The 1960s were the days of fighting the establishment. Those were the days when young people demanded withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and troops were withdrawn. They were the days when women burned their bras in public, and rights were won. Individualism — otherwise known as “do your own thing” — reigned. In retrospect, Woodstock belonged in 1969.

Today we tow the line. We wear masks. We make our children wear masks. We are OK with going without medical checkups and teeth cleanings. We are OK with lockdowns that put our employers out of business and our families on public assistance. We do not fight back as the establishment dooms our children to sub-par education.

Life means choices.

In Defense of Chaos

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Ohio Governor and former presidential candidate John Kasich’s interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on September 5th should make one wonder whether he is apprehensive about Donald Trump’s governing style, or he is a sore loser.  Perhaps the Governor’s droning on about the chaos in the White House that, in the Governor’s view, is preventing things from “getting done” might be an indication of the latter – how could Trump, of reality TV, win the presidency over an established long-time politician?

One could point that maybe some in the electorate are seeing through established long-time politicians, and one could point to the uncontrollably agitated behavior of the anti-Trump resistance as an indication that a lot is getting done – none of which desired by The Establishment.  Also, one could point that the challenges not being solved that the Governor ascribes to Trump’s chaotic style have been around for decades, unsolved by previous Presidents.

By the way, never mind Governor Kasich’s statement in the Cuomo interview that Senator John McCain was “put to death,” since we have no idea what he meant by that.

Trump 2Now for the Subject at Hand:  Chaos

Governor Kasich and many other Establishment folk excoriate Trump’s chaotic governing style.  Do such critics understand the nature of the word “chaos?”  Here are two examples of this complex and interesting word as it could relate to President Donald Trump’s governing style.

*  Mythology

Chaos was – most Greek cosmologies tell us – the very first of all, the origin of everything, the empty, unfathomable space at the beginning of time … Chaos was the primal feature of the universe, a shadowy realm of mass and energy from which much of what is powerful (and mostly negative and dark) in the world would stem forth in later genealogies.  Chaos, Greek Mythology

The scenario in 2016 featured a $19.57 trillion national debt, a moribund manufacturing sector that wiped out the earnings potential of a vast portion of U.S. workers, 21.3% of the U.S. population in some form of public assistance, and a gargantuan bureaucracy supported by more taxes than taxpayers would like.

To fix such scenario, one would need a clean slate, dismantling much of the entrenched status quo.  What better way to accomplish such an objective than through chaos – the origin of everything, negative and dark to any opposing force.

*  Business Structures

Organizations are focused on structure and design. Charts are drawn to illustrate who is accountable to whom or who plays what role and when … They build models of organizational practice and policy with hope that this atomizing yields better information on how to improve the organization’s functioning. However, chaos theory implies that this is unnecessary, even harmful.

As the global economy and technology continue to change the way business is conducted on a daily basis, evidence of chaos is clearly visible. While businesses could once succeed as “non-adaptive,” controlling institutions with permanently-installed hierarchical structures, modern corporations must be able to restructure as markets expand and technology evolves.  Chaos Theory

In other words, the order and structure cherished by today’s Establishment is useless in today’s chaotic world, unless the uselessness is beneficial in perpetration of The Establishment.

Results

The bottom line of any undertaking are results.  Are policies promised during Trump’s campaign being accomplished?  Most unbiased observers — as well as CNN interviewer Chris Cuomo, who spoke with Governor Kasich — would say “yes.”  Unfortunately, such results are most worrisome to the Trump opposition. And thus, the misinterpretation of the word “chaos.”

Chaos is the non-linear way to restructure the status quo, available to any political persuasion.  Remember, for example, the chaos generated by anti Vietnam War demonstrators, or by civil rights workers?  Chaos was the most effective way of making their vision of the world a reality.

The Socialist Establishment Threat

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The Establishment and its supporters are not at all happy with current events in Washington DC. The discontent is not a partisan issue, since the Capitol is populated mostly by Establishment folk regardless of party affiliation.

Establishment folk like their constituents to be taken care of, be free of risk, remain docile and unquestioning. Any questioning would place front and center the unsustainable national debt, fiat currency, endless wars, gargantuan bureaucracy, and a populace dependent on public assistance and/or public services. Questioning might bring to mind the list of societies that disintegrated under the weight of those same events – from the Roman Empire to Venezuela.

So what appears to be different lately? The difference could be summarized by a couple of memes. One meme implies that government holds the responsibility for an individual’s well being; that government’s job is to do whatever it takes to provide all manner of services, since all services are rights. The other meme implies that government exists only to protect everyone’s life, liberty and property; everything else is each individual’s responsibility.

Border Wall 3

To be sure, today’s Washington DC is a very long way from returning to the nation the Founding Fathers intended. The military-crony capitalism-welfare state is still here. The national debt is still a distant blur in Congress’ collective mind. The Establishment folk are still sucking up gobs of tax money in salaries and benefits while they prance around “resisting.” It remains to be seen whether the corporation tax cut will result in more jobs or more bonuses. It remains to be seen if the economy grows sufficiently to make up for the tax cuts.

But progress can be seen in the slow shrinkage of the bureaucracy through attrition, efforts to awaken the nation’s dormant manufacturing, and promises in speeches of jobs not public-assistance.  Let’s hope it is not too late for this nation to escape the fate of Rome.  Let’s hope we are are able to fix what we broke, and not make debt and dependency our legacy to our grandchildren.