To the Editor:
If there is a guiding thread through the maze of incoherence and distraction created by the ascendency of Donald Trump to the Presidency, it points to a plan that America be governed not on democratic principles but as an autocratic fascist oligarchy. With a Cabinet filled with retired generals, CEOs, and billionaires, it is no wonder the President so admires Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs. Further, the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United cleared the way for the unlimited power of wealth to influence American politics, which sits well with the Libertarian/Republican desire for a limited, deregulated “small government”. This is a government not of the People but one by and for a wealthy elite.
Robert Porath
Author Archives: rporath
The Dung Beetle Congress
To the Editor:
The Republican Party’s Repeal and Replace Obamacare efforts are rooted firmly in Social Darwinism, aka, the survival of only the fittest, as well as the Calvinist belief that being wealthy implied being in God’s favor, and the economic elitism of Ayn Rand. If you are poor, disabled, or otherwise unfortunate in life, your medical care is of no concern to the powers that be. Watching the slow determined slog of their attempts to push a bill to fruition through the halls of Congress brings to mind the image of a dung beetle resolutely rolling a ball of dung to its nesting place. One has to admire the dedicated and seemingly cheerful labor it applies to its task. That its prized possession has value to no one but itself is clearly not the beetle’s concern.
Robert Porath
Education
To the Editor:
Up until Ronald Reagan was elected Governor, public education through college was free for any citizen of California. One could call it socialist education, an entitlement program that benefited anyone wishing to become better educated. As the “Question Authority” and Free Speech movements and the anti-Viet Nam war protests grew on college campuses, the Conservative sentiment became “education is not for the masses” and must be relegated to a select few, easily manageable and fully buying into the status quo and America’s self-image, and the push has been to render higher education increasingly more expensive and privatized. What better way to ensure compliant behavior is there than to have everyone indebted to the financial industries? There is a lot of braggadocio about the “freedoms” inherent in capitalism, but being constantly indentured, be it to a bank or, for that matter, to “must-have” telecommunication services, does not seem much like true freedom. The great irony is that the emphasis on the monetary value of education, in reality, only cheapens its true value, both to an individual and to society at large. Call it socialism, if you must, but like healthcare and retirement planning, education should not be placed so heavily under the thumb of for-profit institutions.
– RP
Elderly Care in America
Dustin Hoffman’s film Quartet besides being a gentle gem of acting and film-making, should also be seen in contrast to the state and status of the elderly in America. A Home for Retired Musicians is, of course, a completely unique institution and who wouldn’t like to live out their last days on a bucolic country estate in England, surrounded by people of like interests still engaged in and sharing of their passions, but we must not ignore the grim reality of old age institutions here which, for the most part, resemble dormitories for minimum security prison hospitals . Eldercare in America is in a great conundrum: the Senate is the most elderly branch of government, but with its members having generous retirement plans and substantial accumulated wealth, it tends not to be a personally high-priority issue; and the younger House of Representatives generally thinks only one term to the next, and both political parties seem content to ascribe the misnomer “entitlement” to any federally administered, non-profit insurance program for retired people. So where are we aging boomers to turn?
In the film, the Home for Retired Musicians appears to be maintained by a combination of charitable giving and government subsidy (Maggie Smith’s character, despite having been an operatic diva, is there essentially “on the dole”), but it also operates somewhat like a working, almost “tribal”, commune with classes, lessons, and concerts to supplement its survival. However, while marijuana use seems on the comeback trail (drug use as the curer of all ails never left), one thing we boomers learned in in our hippie days is that communal living and finding tribal compatibility are next to impossible, some might even call it “downright unAmerican”. Classical musicians are unique in that, despite rivalries and jealousies, they embrace both the value of collaborative work and a strong sense of self. For the rest of us, the future is more a toss-up. Perhaps in time, all the new communication technology will change how the next generation relates to one another, but today a distinct worry is that our tendency to individualism, independence, and newness will leave us ultimately isolated, alone,and forgotten.
The Super Bowl? More like Commercial Bowl.
To the Editor:
I think it important to note that the word “football” does not appear in the title “The Super Bowl” and, judging from the amount of post-game commentary over “winners and losers”, this media extravaganza could more realistically be called the Commercial Bowl. Further, with either CBS advertising itself or the NFL targetting parents and young athletes to counter recent negative revelations of brain injury from the sport, the official 60 minutes of playing time actually amounts to less than 40 that are commercial-free, and real-time action, from the snap of the ball to the end of the play, is less than 20. I timed the 2nd half at 9 minutes and I suspect that the Go Daddy commercial prompted as much visceral and glandular response as Jacoby Jones’ kickoff return (and lasted longer). So is it really “football” that we are watching?
– RP
On Reading
To the Editor –
I always celebrate the confluences and serendipity of books and life. I’ve been reading Anthony Burgess’ fictional biography of Christopher Marlowe, A Dead Man in Deptford, not an easy read as, ever the linguist, he writes in, I presume, a passable Elizabethan English. He also does not sugarcoat what life was like then nor gloss over the intrigues of the Court (what we would call “politics” today) and the dangerous ground theater trod in its earliest days.
And so today we have a volatile mixture of politics and religion, the general populace walking around armed (with guns, not daggers and swords) for protection, and the recovery of the body of Richard II, written into history (by the victors, Shakespeare’s patrons) as villianous. Isn’t it all somewhat wondrous.
– RP
The Power of the Gun
To the Editor:
Again following a mass shooting, gun sales are on the rise. As a warning it should be noted that the death of Vincent Van Gogh, long thought to be a suicide, could be considered an accidental shooting, that he carried along a gun hoping to frighten away a group of children who were harassing him as he tried to paint in the fields around Arles, and that in a scuffle he was shot in the stomach, certainly not a likely target in suicide. In either case, the simple presence of a gun had a fatal consequence. This negative potential should never be underestimated. The tragedy of Van Gogh is that at the peak of his artistic powers, creating paintings that are still so vibrant and alive today, his life was ended by the power of a gun. The tragedy of America is that the power of the gun is so accepted as positive.
– RP
Double Think
To the Editor:
Considering the ease and frequency with which the Romney/Ryan ticket is able to tell bald-faced lies, one has to wonder at their level of self-awareness that they are openly lying. With Paul Ryan, there is a sense that he tends to be a compulsive liar and that his level of Double-Think, his ability to hold equally in mind totally opposing ideas, is fairly impenetrable. On the other hand, Mitt Romney seems fully aware of his lies and that he is committed to say whatever he has to in order to achieve his aims, essentially that his ends justify his means, not a bad way to become a multi-millionaire. I suppose one could puzzle a bit over which form of lying is worse. Double-Think runs strong through today’s American psyche, but, in Romney’s case, it should be pointed out that one’s means generally become one’s ends.
RP
Dirty Harry
To the Editor:
The story has it that Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic swimmer and everyone’s favorite Tarzan portrayer, would frequently rock the halls of the nursing home he spent his last years in with his signature Tarzan yell (well echoed for another generation by comedienne Carol Burnett). Clint Eastwood’s later years, likewise, should equally be a real hoot, although he definitely should not be allowed to have firearms.
RP
Confusion Rules
To the Editor:
How can it be that every deficit-complaining, Romney/Ryan, Tea Party supporter fails to see that every unpaid-for, deficit-creating policy, be it Medicare Part B, the Bush tax cuts, the “off-budget” wars, and banking deregulation and bailouts, were Republican initiatives? And how can they, after the still rumbling international bank debacle, want more deregulation and less government without seeing that it is corporations and the financial industries that are writing federal legislation and the tax codes, that these are the forces behind “the government” they so dislike and distrust? Do they not see that all the millions pouring into Conservative candidates are there in the hope of preserving the favorable status of the tax structure for the very wealthy and for a Supreme Court that consistently rules in the favor of wealth and corporate power over the rights and well-being of the public and the common man?
– RP
Notes from the Provinces 