Storm Clouds

It is supposed to be the holiday season, a time for joy and family and relaxing. I hope everyone is enjoy this time of year in safe and fun manner, but while we share time with those we love, the storm clouds are gathering around the world. How long until they burst? 

Across the globe, people are simultaneously turning the wrong direction, toward the false promises of national greatness that history shows us time and time again lead to ruin, more often than not through violence. As the myriad forces of fascism rally troops to their banners in places all around the world, it becomes only a matter of time until the right spark hits the powder, and we are engulfed in the darkness. 

Sadly, the election here in America may have sealed the world's fate. Not since the end of WWII has the world needed American leadership so much in such dark times, and yet instead of choosing morality and reason, we opted for the same irrational hatred as others before us, and now the stage is set for conflict. The storm clouds have gathered. And the rain will come. 

Here's How the System is Rigged

Donald Trump likes to talk about the system being rigged, and he's right. So right, in fact, that there is no better example of it than Don himself. 

Don started with $100,000,000. 

Don has gone bankrupt five times, but uses tax laws, accounting loopholes, and other means built into the system for the walthy to avoid actually losing his money. 

Don says only stupid people pay taxes.

Don sits in a position from where, when he is broke and desperate for money, he can run for president just for publicity.

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Don doesn't have to pay for media coverage because the press hangs on his every word, lapping up the vitriol. 

Don will lose the presidency in historic fashion and then write a book or make a show about the campaign, making him millions. 

The system is rigged alright. It's rigged for rich people like Donald Trump to exploit us with tales of how rigged the system is. 

An Apology to Black America

I feel as though I am in no position to apologize to black Americans , my fellow citizens, my brothers and sisters. And yet, for whatever it is worth, I am so sorry. I am sorry for how and why you came here. I am sorry for how you were treated, and that your labor built a country that works so well for me. I am sorry that we haven't truly ended slavery, merely reshaped it. I am sorry that you are shot in the back to keep me "safe." I am sorry that my apology is just that, and cannot do more to change things.

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But I promise you I will stand with you and fight for something better.

A Prediction on Guns

Ptolemy looks at the inane American attitude towards guns, and predicts that - without change - the NRA's worst fears will ultimately come true, and Americans will take back our freedom to live safely by restricting guns or ridding ourselves of the 2nd Amendment altogehter. 

We the people have spoken very clearly on this issue, we want smart gun regulations. We don't want to fear for our lives in movie theaters, at schools, while out to eat, or just walking down the street. And we overwhelmingly feel this way. 
 

Despite this, the NRA - whose power is waning - has used its leverage to make sure that what the people demand has not happened. We're already pissed about the culture of fear and murder the NRA espouses, how much longer until we stand up for ourselves and our right to live safely? 

Because that is the path that 2nd Amendment intrasignence has put us on, and the NRA and it's small handful of maniacal supporters who drive the organization like the extreme right drives the GOP seem determined to make sure that America ultimately ends up gun free. 

On Strength

From the nation-state perspective, strength, in 2016 can only be maintained through relationships and resources accquired from outside the area of sovreignty. It is, in fact, impossible to be strong in today's globabl structure without being engaged. There is no strength in isolation, only the perception of safety. There is too much to be gained from outside for those who hide within to ever truly be strong vis-a-vis competitor nations that capitalize on the advantages of an interconnected world. 

Mein Drumpf

The real difference between Mein Kampf and Mein Drumpf is that Hitler was forced to write from the obscurity of prison, while Trump gets to release one chapter of vitriol at a time on live telivision to an audience and media who cannot shed our fascination with how low he will sink.

Ptolemy's Political Predictions

My two political predictions, both of which I'm fairly confident in:

1. History will be kind to Obama. He's not perfect - in my opinion he wasted a once in a generation opportunity in the Middle East - but his domestic policies are strong, pushed America forward, and made life better for many. He has also done a ton to promote the rights of the historically oppressed. America will miss Obama, but build on the foundation he laid.

2. Whether she wins or loses, Americans (as a whole, many of us already feel this way) will be embarrassed by their treatment of Hillary Clinton. Objectively, most of the hatred of Clinton has nothing substantive behind it, but in the court of public opinion facts are not on trial, and so not having any isn't necessarily a bad thing. Still, it doesn't take much diligence to see that there is almost nothing but loud and frequent voices propping up the idea that Clinton is a walking manifestation of political corruption. Won't be long at all before the rest of the country catches on and is appalled by how we could treat a woman so horribly because, well because she's a woman...

Only time will tell, but I'm very confident.

Fiddling While Syria Burns

For years Ptolemy has been calling for intervention to end the humanitarian crisis that has engulfed Syria, other parts of the Middle East, and is increasingly destabilizing Europe. The world has somewhat conveniently ignored the humanitarian crisis, even as the fight against ISIL has escalated. But the death toll is mounting, and we are on the sidelines, and perhaps evening pulling for the wrong team. America cannot pretend to lead when the plight of others cannot budge us to action. 

What is Good Judgement?

I keep hearing about how great Bernie Sanders' judgement is, generally because he - very wisely - did not vote to go to war in Iraq. One example, does not good judgment make, and if we credit Bernie for his judgment in 2003, why are we not slamming him for it today? Why is no one calling Bernie's judgement on $15 national minimum wage what it is: a job killer for most states, and a boon to only a few. Why does no one question his judgement on voting for the crime bill that Hillary is slammed for supporting? Why is no one calling Bernie's judgement on climate change naive?

The truth is that Bernie's "judgment' is less and less impressive each time he speaks. He is naive to the interests of other stakeholders, and he simultaneously rails against "regime change" (even when the people suffering under such regimes are the ones leading the procees) while paternalistically assuming that if he talks tough to "big oil" that the interests of oil exporters and impoverished people worldwide will suddenly evaporate and that everyone else will fall in line. The world is just waiting for the US to take on "big oil," and we'll have fixed climate change...?

This is good judgment? No, this is the fantastical realm of fools. 

Villanova, Kobe, and the Warriors

It's rare that I talk about sports, but I do love basketball, and man what a ride it has been the last few weeks. From Villanova's exciting and/or heartbreaking buzzer-beating win over UNC in the NCAA tournament, to Kobe's 60-point performance in his final game, to the Warrior's new NBA record for wins in a season: 73, the last few weeks of basketball have been a thrilling reminder of why and how sports capture our imagination and play such an important role in our culture. 

So here's to you, Nova, Kobe, and GSW. Jobs well done all around. Thanks for a season of basketball for the ages, and thanks for playing your part - literally and figurately - to make sports something magical. 

The Myth of Colorblindness

Occassionally I hear people proudly talking about their colorblindness. I don't see your black, brown, purple, or even white skin. I just see you. 

No you don't. You see their skin color, and likely, perhaps despite yourself, you made some automatic associations - not necessarily bad ones - because of it.

Don't feign colorblindness. Your dog is colorblind, and even he still sees black and white. Stop pretending not to see color, and instead learn to look past it. After all, it is literally only skin deep. 

Private Business, Public Economy

I'm quite tired of hearing people say that their private business can't serve gay customers as such a "lifestyle" choice offends their religious sensibilities. Running a business, even a privately-owned business, is still an inherently public endeavor. Growth predicated on new costumers, making denying service to any identity group a losing proposition. Furthermore, limiting clientele through the enforcement of arbitrary biases represents only one side of the business equation. The era of the cottage industry has long since passed. Even locally-owned pizza shops in Indiana don't grow their own tomatoes, produce their own parmesan, and raise their own hogs to make that delicious sausage. Even smaller economic ecosystems are often extraordinarily complex. Does the mom and pop record shop take Visa and Mastercard? 

The notion that allowing private business owners to discimrinate against clientele because of sexual preference or any other identifying factor represents a childish misunderstanding of the complexities of our economy. Masking such bigotry as religious freedom is a failure to understand the fundamental disconnect and incompatibility between the public economic sphere and the private religious sphere. 

It stands to reason that refusing to serve gay clients violates the same core religious beliefs as working with a gay supplier, and therefore unless a business is willing to certify that its supply-chain is free of homosexual interference at every point, it has no right to deny service to gay clients. Furthermore, since any business which can prove its supply chain is free of gay influence can now deny service to gay customers, so too can any privately-owned business deny service to any individual so long as they have confirmed that at no point during the acquistion of resources, production of good, shipping and packaging, and sale of product did anyone associated with that individual's identity group have any contact with or undue influence on this process. 

With such rigorous scrutiny to protect the integrity of our private religious beliefs in the public economic forum, it's quite easy to imagine the entire economy grinding to an immediate halt, and yet this is essentially what defenders of religious freedom are suggesting when they advocate their right to deny service to gay people. 

Watching History Happen

For over a year, Ptolemy has been advocating for a Kurdish state, but has watched sadly as the US and our Western Allies stayed on the sidelines waffling on what to do about the quagmire in Iraq and Syria. 

Now the Kurds are pursuing autonomy on their own, as everyone knew the would. Is it too late for the US to involved ourselves in the process, and help build the foundation for a safer, more stable, and more prosperous Middle East? Americans were rightly weary about foreign engagement after Iraq and Afghanistan but being a world leader requires taking action at times, and we ceded the initiative, and now we're left to wonder if it's too late to help, or if the region will spiral further out of control and suck us back in against our will. 

Theological Musings

I'm not a religious person, but I like to imagine heaven. In my version, whatever good could have or did exist in each of us gels harmoniously and becomes the wind that fills humanity's sails and pushes us forward.

From Fascism to Fascism

How sadly ironic that the generation that defeated fascism abroad spawned the generation that embraced it at home.

How Lucky We Are

As scary as Don the Doofus is to sane and rational Americans, his candidacy should also make us realize how lucky we are to live in a country where we don't suffer under authoritarian rule. We can call Trump what he is - a biggoted dumbass - without fear of reprecussion. We can react so negatively and adversely because of how stark a departure he is from the norm here in America. He may be similar to Putin or Mussolini, but we are lucky enough to make those comparisons through the lens of others' history, not our own. 

The prospects of a Trump presidency should scare anyone who truly values freedom, but at least we live in a nation where we are haunted by the scary specter of an autocrat, and not a real dictator. 

#justtryingtofindthesilverlining

Teddy and Trump

Teddy Roosevelt: Speak softly and carry a big stick

Donald Trump: Yell bellicosely and litigate frequently 

What Color Neon is The Invisible Hand?

The Leap Year has Ptolemy thinking funny thoughts, like for example, if Adam's Smith Invisible Hand were an ad in neon lights, which color light would it be? 

1. Yellow
2. Green
3. Blue

4. None of the above, the Invisible Hand is an internet ad customized by google

Joke too Far

At this point it doesn't matter if he wins, Trump has already exposed fundamental weaknesses in our democracy, ones that we must fix if we care at all about the freedoms we hold so dear. 

He's neither a Republican nor a conservative. His prior, more liberal positions have been well-documented, and he can't even figure out how he feels about Obamacare even though he's in the thick of a primary with voters who have spent the last seven years hating everything about the ACA. And yet the GOP base is eating him up, why? 

It's certainly not because of his policy ideas, since he doesn't have any. Well that's not totally fair, he's got "something great" to replace Obamacare, it may or may not include the individual mandate. He also going to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, financed, of course, by Mexico. It's brilliant if you don't bother to think about it al all. 

What Trump has in lieu of ideas is vitriol, and he has it for anyone at any time. His only real idea is predicated on people with different color skin being bad, scary, evil, and an existential threat to our nation. 

And this man is for real. He's won two primaries. He looks very poised to continue winning. He has a legitimate chance to become the next president of the United States! 

The bombast was funny for a week, maybe two, but Trump stopped being entertaining long ago. There's nothing at all appealing about him. He's not intelligent. He can't articulate his current opinions nor can he explain how or why he's made such stark shifts in his thinking. He speaks, acts, and bullies like a 4th grader. And he's got an inferiority complex that would would make even the most awkward 7th grader cringe. There are no redeeming qualities. None. And again, this man has a legitimate chance to be the next president. 

If this is the state of American democracy: that we can be led around by a charlatan who offerrs us inexplicable inconsistencies at best and - more frequently - bombastic, paranoid hatred suggests that we are indeed in dire straits. America has experienced spasms of political xenophobia, but Trump is not George Wallace nor is he Strom Thurmond. He may very well be president, and even if not, he is likely to represent one of America's major political parties. At least Ronald Reagan had the decency to use racially-coded language instead of explicit slurs, and the strength to stand up for freedom and tearing down walls. 

Trump's success to date is scary. The similarities to fascism have been well documented, and that they are so broadly appealing is a terrifying prospect to those of us who truly care about freedom and democracy. 

Irony Is

The strictest Constitutional defenders, always keen to attack the president for not obeying the law of the land, are now so quick to call on him to totally ignore his Constitutional duties. That's irony...or maybe hypocrisy. 

Not a Bern, but a Long Simmer

Bernie Sanders has already done America a favor by shifting the future to the left. Millennials, unafraid of Cold War spooks and rhetoric, and disdainful of the fallacy of supply-sided economics needed someone to pull us from the firm grasp of this economic mythology, and Bernie Sanders is that someone. America tomorow will be better because Bernie Sanders ran for president today. 

It's not the immediate Bern, but the slow simmer that will revolutionize America. 

Right to Extinction

If the federal government's regulations to help ward off human extinction are unconstitutional, we may need to pause and reevaluate the whole purpose of having rights.

DEAR BERNIE SANDERS' SUPPORTERS

Dear Bernie Sanders' supporters,

I still love your fella. I really do, but y'all gotta stop hating Hillary. I don't know why this happens - maybe b/c Hillary is still considered front runner? - but I know few, if any Hillary supporters who are anti-Bernie, but not a day goes by when I don't read something about how Hillary is toxic waste written not by the GOP, but by a Bernie supporter.

Debate is good and healthy. The clash of ideas is important, but y'all are doing the GOP Super PACs' job for them trashing her as I see it being done. Need I remind you that if you're really in it with Bernie for the long haul that you need him to win a general election too, and while many of us Hillary supporters won't gravitate to the GOP under any circumstances, you need folks to show up on election day and vote for your guy, not sit on the couch. So in other words, maybe tone it down a bit with the whole Hillary is the anti-Christ rhetoric.

It may also be worth pointing out that some guy named Bloomberg is still considering a run, particularly if Bernie gets the nomination. I'm not going to ask Bernie people to place their values aside and vote for Hillary to avert a Bloomberg candidacy, but I am going to tell you that if Bloomberg runs as a third party candidate against Bernie and whomever that all he needs to do is win NY and one or two other blue NE states to make sure that neither Bernie nor Hillary lives in the White House for the next four years. So if all your anti-Hillary rhetoric turns into even two-three states for Bloomberg, well that's simply a self-inflicted wound, and even worse, one less roadblock for President elect Cruz...ewwwwwwww

POOR FRIEDRICH ENGELS

Why does Marx get all the credit for Communism? I literally co-authored the book. Blame me too! 

FORECASTING NEW HAMPSHIRE

Tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary which means tonight's forecast calls for robo-calls, tweets, and some really awful Super Bowl commmericals. Stay away from your technology and your neighbors' lawn signs tonight folks. 

GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE

Being a citizen is both a privilege and an obligation. This means there are times when we ought to rightfully ask what we can do for our country. It also means there are times when we ought to rightfully ask what our country can do for us; like simplifying the tax code so it doesn't take average citizens two days of their time, $200 of their money, and two years off their life in stress just to complete this basic function of citizenship.