Which Banana Republic?

I read an article in the New York Times about the riots and unrest due to the vast income disparities that have left so many discontented and disenfranchised.  A nation with a billionaire President and a 1% elite who strongly feel that any call for any kind of taxation upon them is Socialism.  No, no, relax, it's Chile.  I don't know why you all took a moment to look out your window.

The advertisement on the same page of the New York Times was from the Banana Republic.  You can ponder the full irony of that particularly chose brand name at your leisure.  The smart among you already see the underlayer of that, the still smarter the many layers.  It was a rich vein of irony the New York Times ad editor mined when he did that.  Not since an oven company sponsored a TV special on the Holocaust has such a mass of irony been dug out to be thrown up for such brazen display.

The ad featured, as such ads always do, the Fortunate Ones.  The ones that supposedly are the average John and Jane Doe of the United States.

They were outside their country cottage, in outfits that you may confidently assume exceed the average week's earning power of the class of Americans so poor that they honestly think $15 an hour is a lofty goal to be dreamed of.

Take a look at the picture.  Yes, I know, they look like cheesy actors in some Scifi movie, where they've come from a distant future of Prosperity and Abundance and are slumming about visiting in our dark time.

That's how they look even to those who actually get $15 per hour, which still works out to less than $30,000 per year.  Like time travellers from a utopian future of ease and plenty.  And it's definitely how they look to those who can only dream or protest that they should get $15 per hour, instead of the $8 or $9 which is the best too many Americans can hope for.

But that's not how they look to Banana Republic's demographic.  Those who are pulling in - even if both husband and wife must work to achieve it - that $75,000 per year that sociologists say is the base to have security and happiness in this nation.  A sum more than twice as much as what our workers are asking to have as minimum wage.  And ten times as much as the actual minimum wage is.

Remember this, the next time you see some Repubican/Conservative talking head, politico or "analyst" asking foolishly rhetorical questions like, "Well, if we're going to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour, why not $1,000?"

The reason is because when there is a cooperative venture between workers and owners, there should be limits on how much each get.  I would not advocate a $1,000 per hour minimum wage while the owner had to receive food stamps.  But nor do I advocate this policy of the unlimited profits for the owner, with his two yachts and a private plane, while the workers must walk to work each day as they cannot afford car or cab or even bus to get to their posts.  Or count themselves as blessed with a bus pass or beater car.

You may wonder, what touched off the riots in Chile?  Oh, they'll have plenty of folks allegedly wiser than I to tell you what the proximate cause of the riots were.  But your buddy the Amicable Anarchist (me) knows what the real cause was.

The insufferable arrogance of the 1% and the 19% below them who enjoy aligning themselves with the elite.  The arrogance of the ones who can even rent a country house for the weekend daring to pretend in their clothing and three day shadows that they are some how "workingmen" and daring to offer anecdotes about how they started at the "bottom".

Which in their top 20% world means their Dad had them work in the mailroom of his company for a token period of time before bumping him up to management.  Or that they actually had a part time gig one summer during their tenure at a private college that your kid isn't connected enough to clean toilets at.

No, in Chile, they've apparently, for the moment, had enough of such insufferable arrogance, though no doubt our own nation will "aid" Chile in keeping control.  How far the dispossed there will go with their frustration, who can tell, but I guarantee the uppers will attempt to be a bit more respectful for a bit in the hopes of the pent up outrage dying down.  Well, that and fire hoses and tear gas.  Yes, still speaking of Chile, which I assure you will be no less thorough in putting down such uprsings down then our own government would be.

And Chile - and the rest of us - will be treated to all the soothing and calmative propaganda railing against violence and desctruction.

And then it will be back to normal.  Where the 1% elite of Chile retain control over 28% of the wealth of that nation.

And things will of course, where controls are tighter and government propaganda better, stay the same here.  Except that here, the 1% of the people in the U.S. control 42.5% of the nation's wealth, the 19% control 32.5% more, and then the rest of us in the "bottom" 80% get to squabble over the last 25%.

Yeah, you read that right.  No nation on Earth has our income disparity.  No nation on Earth exceeds Chile's massive income inequality except for the United States of America.  A nation so used to that now that a liberal newspaper sees no irony in having a clothing ad from the "Banana Republic" sponsoring an article about how maybe we might draw parallels. 

Well, actually, it will change here.  You see, it will be changing to be even more unequal.  As it has since Unions were smashed and crushed into submission in the eighties.  As it has since all the exceptions and loopholes in the tax code let billionaires like our President pay zero in income tax for over a decade while you must cut a check to the IRS because you're so "wealthy" that you pulled in a whopping $35,000 last year.

Pity.  If you hadn't had to write that tax check, you might have been able to afford a Banana Republic outfit for your wife.  So she could have something to wear while you drove your 10 year old car past the country house you'll never even stay a weekend in.

You of the "bottom 80%" who make do on only 25% of the nation's wealth, and are told you are Socialists and Communists for daring to imagine that you could own a bit more - like maybe even as much more as those suffering in Chile do.

The Last Swing

When I was in third grade, it was the nineteen seventies. In social studies, there was a picture in the book, a black and white sketch.

It showed the last tree on Earth, a swing hanging from it, and a long line of children waiting to swing on it. This was said to be because of the failure of our government ot regulate big businesses, and the coming Ice Age that would soon be upon us.

Our teacher, Mrs. Yates, was a fervent Democrat - and ask yourselves why we in the third grade should have ever needed to know that.

She also gravely informed us that none of us would ever be able to drive a car, because by the time we were old enough, all the oil and gas on Earth would be gone. Because, you guessed it, government wasn't saving us from big business.

Later in High School, while I was learning to drive on a car that ran on gasoline that the world still had in abundance, equally fervent and politically motivated teachers told us all about global warming, and how the government's failure to regulate big business would have the Earth a foodless cinder before our kids could grow up.

What are the lessons that I learned from all that, now that I'm all grown up, a fifty year old armchair anarchist, who's politics, if translated into normal terms, would be considered "left-leaning libertarian"?

1. Teachers do not need to express their political opinions in school.

2. The reason the same type of teachers are now railing about "climate change" is because they finally learned that they don't have a clue "what" change is coming, just that they're very sure "that" a change is coming.

3. The scientists they cite probably are right, this time at least, just like Peter was telling the truth the last time he cried "Wolf!"

4. And that while I believe climate change is coming, I cannot give too much grief to conservatives who deny it, because I know they were raised on the same politically motivated lies I was raised on.

LIberals, please note that since the current "solutions" offered are the same - more taxes and more regulations - that it's natural for some to dare to imagine that such is really the only point to the repeated cries of "Tiger...no Lion! No, bear! No, wolf!"

Liberals, please realize that if your only solution is "Let's do everything to make tech and industry more expensive, thus as less people can afford to use it, Earth will be saved!", that's going to be a tough sell.

This may surprise you, but poor people can't afford $40,000 hybrid cars, and organic foods and solar panels that cost more than their rented homes. And the poor know this. And they know that you who speak the loudest about it can afford it.

And they aren't willing to live even worse off so you can feel warm and cozy about Mother Earth. A "Mother Earth", by the way, who is not a "mother", not even sentient, and thus could care less whether "she" is a frozen ball, a burnt out husk, or anything else.

Now, all that said, there are two lessons for the conservative republicans.

1. Peter was actually telling the truth the last time.

2. You're just parroting the BS soundbites of Corporate America, who unsurprisingly, do not wish to be taxed and regulated more whether it is false...or real.

Final lesson for all:

Ultimately, climate change can only be cured by more tech. Any other "solution" is going to result in some given percentage of poor people dying. Because when you make energy more expensive, the pain accumulates at the bottom.

The rich can afford the hybrid car. You can afford a higher utility bill..but it hurts a bit.

The food bank for the poor can't afford another refrigerator.

And the village clinic overseas closes for not being able to Go Green.

You think everyone "doing their part" means "belt tightening in a good cause". It really means "sacrificing the weak" because we'd rather use governmental force now then trust in advances in tech later.