The War Between the States Never Ended
So, What Are We Going to Do About It?
Wade Davis, author of one of my favorite non-fiction books, One River, which I consumed more than read, writes much more to the point than I ever could, and his article in Rolling Stone titled The Unraveling of America is a must read. You should go and read the article for yourself but, in the meantime, I am going to highlight a few paragraphs.
In regards to the enormous discrepancy between the handling of COVID in the United States and virtually anywhere else but, in this particular instance, Canada. . .
When American friends ask for an explanation, I encourage them to reflect on the last time they bought groceries at their neighborhood Safeway. In the U.S. there is almost always a racial, economic, cultural, and educational chasm between the consumer and the check-out staff that is difficult if not impossible to bridge. In Canada, the experience is quite different. One interacts if not as peers, certainly as members of a wider community. The reason for this is very simple. The checkout person may not share your level of affluence, but they know that you know that they are getting a living wage because of the unions.
And they know that you know that their kids and yours most probably go to the same neighborhood public school.
Third, and most essential, they know that you know that if their children get sick, they will get exactly the same level of medical care not only of your children but of those of the prime minister.
These three strands woven together become the fabric of Canadian social democracy.
Asked what he thought of Western civilization, Mahatma Gandhi famously replied, “I think that would be a good idea.”
Is this sort of social democracy too much to ask?
Health care should be a human right. The overall health of its citizens should certainly be the highest priority of a society. I think we would be amazed at what that step alone would accomplish. It would ameliorate many of society’s ills.
People joke that conservatives care about children from conception to birth and then once the child lands on terra firma they are on their own. But, it’s not a joke.
You’d think that because kids have no say in who their parents will be - meth heads, Walmart clerks or Oprah Winfrey - that conservatives could, at the very least, agree that children should receive universal health care. They never chose to be poor. But, no! That’s a bridge too far. A slope too slippery.
Instead we remain in the fight of our political lives to retain the Affordable Care Act which is not all that affordable and, in some states, not even accessible. We also remain in the fight of our political lives to retain the pre-existing condition aspect of the law. The U.S. health care system that is not a system is horrific enough as it is but, if insurance companies and the president’s cadre of lawyers get their way, they’ll return to denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
And, as I am typing this and thinking about the state the country is in, and still humming Hamilton show tunes in my head just as John Race said I would and remembering the “siege” in downtown Portland hit 70 days last night, it starts to make sense how America got to be so fucked up.
The War Between the States never ended.
You know, I never thought about how much money Southern plantation owners saved by not having to pay wages. No wonder there were so many millionaires in the South! No wonder they fought so valiantly to defend that ‘peculiar institution’.
As of today, the Federal Minimum Wage is $7.25 an hour. You want to hazard a guess as to which states abide by the Federal Minimum Wage and not create their own higher minimum wage? I think you can guess. If you don’t want to do the math, that comes to $290 a week. So, around $14,400 a year.
Some people might call these ‘slave wages’. But, you would be forgetting that slaves got no wages whatsoever.
The War Between the States never ended.
This is why the convergence of the import of Black Lives Matter, a pandemic and the election of a man whom former KKK Grand Wizard, David Duke, and alt-right spokesman, Richard Spencer, praised and dedicated white nationalists work for INSIDE the halls of government make this moment in our history so fraught. We’ve been living in a Potemkin village and the facades are crumbling.
There are - and have always been - people viciously opposed to egalitarianism because they don’t like ‘Others’. They don’t care to share. They wear their racism on their sleeve although they will often couch it in terms that make it hard to recognize.
So, why do conservatives vote against Civil Rights? Why do they vote against raising the minimum wage? Why do they vote against Voting Rights? Why do they vote against programs like CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance)? Why do they seek harsh justice on relatively minor crimes while acting like they’re having their teeth pulled when it comes to cracking down on white collar crime? Why was weed part of the War on Drugs to begin with? Why is everything being privatized - even prisons?
With this administration’s reign of power it has become more clear than it has ever been before as to the ‘why’ of those questions.
The War Between the States never ended.
For many years, those on the conservative right in the United States have invoked a nostalgia for the 1950s, and an America that never was, but has to be presumed to have existed to rationalize their sense of loss and abandonment, their fear of change, their bitter resentments and lingering contempt for the social movements of the 1960s, a time of new aspirations for women, gays, and people of color. In truth, at least in economic terms, the country of the 1950s resembled Denmark as much as the America of today. Marginal tax rates for the wealthy were 90 percent. The salaries of CEOs were, on average, just 20 times that of their mid-management employees.
Today three American men - and their families - have more wealth than 160 million Americans. And, that would be peachy keen, or at least more acceptable, if anything like the three strands of the fabric of a social democracy like Canada’s existed in the Untied States of America. Health care, living wages and and a solid education.
But those strands as Wade notes in his article no longer exist in America, if they ever did. Not for all.
However, due to the convergence I mentioned earlier, we may be living in the times of real change.
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Did you know that Dolly Parton has a Number One bestselling hit in every decade of her professional career? Don’t quote me on this, but I don’t believe any other performer can make that claim. Now that these rap-loving twins have gone viral with the video of them listening to Phil Collins, here they are listening to Dolly Parton’s Jolene:
Also, this is BEST joyous dog video I have ever seen! I’m sure most of you have seen it by now, but if you have not. . . . . .Enjoy!
I don't know about Pam, but it was the twins who had me laughing and crying. Followed by their listening to Neil Young's Old Man, but then I had to stop any further digging until Cindy returns from her walk. As to the war between the states: so true and right in front of our eyes all these years. Also like the reminder of our selective nostalgia for the 1950s.
That is the best! I was laughing and crying all at once.