Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXII. Weary

Checking out.

I already posted this on another thread, but I'm seriously thinking of just stopping doing this, the blog that is, for a couple of weeks.

And I might not.  

Part of the reason for this is that I'm at a peak of disgust over certain things.  I'm really tired people of people being willfully blind and lying.  I posted a thread on our companion blog, Courthouses of the West, which touches on this a bit.

It's not  like this is a new thing in the world. . . but something about this era.

The Washington Post ran a Veteran's Day article on a guy who is a veteran who significantly helped get the 9/11 conspiracy theories rolling with a film for the gullible.  Even in the comments' section there were some who posted, even though the vet has recanted, who believe the theories principally because they want to. I'm sick of people being like that.

And there's a pile of people like that anymore, those willfully believing wild things.  I don't mean simply differences in opinion, but stuff that's demonstratively false that they're choosing to believe on just about any topic you can think of.

Something is really in the air right now, and it's hard to define what caused it.  Something needs to address it too. The problem is that once things get badly out of whack, getting them back in line seemingly requires something dramatic.

Or not.  I suppose if this blog demonstrates anything is that big weird events happen in which a lot of people are deluded by something, but then things seemingly straighten back out.  Let's hope and pray that occurs.

What I should do is work on my book.

An armed movie tragedy

When I first started this edition, the tragedy on the movie set of Rust had just occured.

Edward Peters

@canonlaw

·

22h

The reporting is instantly biased, of course. If something really fires real bullets, it’s a “gun” not a “prop”. Doesn’t matter what it’s intended USE was, it IS a gun. Heck, Baldwin actually used it at the time as a toy. That doesn’t make it a “toy gun”, it was a gun.

Fr. Joseph Krupp

@Joeinblack

·

12h

The tragedy is that a woman with a promising future is dead. The good news is, apparently her death is an excellent chance for us all to vomit our politics & opinions everywhere.

I think both of the comments above are quite right, and I don't think they're contrary to each other in any fashion.  That is, I don't think that Fr. Krupp's comment is aimed at comments such as that made by Mr. Peters. 

Fr. Krupp has a really good point, and it basically had occurred to me already.  I don't know that it's particularly unique to our times, but everyone who thinks they have a point to make will come out on Twitter and Facebook and the like with a series of comments, a lot of which will be really dumb.

Let's start with some obvious statements.

First of all, Mr. Baldwin did nothing that's morally blameworthy.  Somebody screwed up, for sure, but under the facts and circumstances as we know them, it wasn't him.  This is an awful tragedy, but its not one that you can put personal blame on the actor for.  It's purely an accident.  Indeed, it's at least the third such similar, but not identical, accident of a similar type of which I'm aware of in the movie industry, the first being the death of Jon-Eric Hexum back in the 80s, who was killed when the plastic from a blank round struck him on the temple, and the other being the death of Brandon Lee, who was killed when a portion of a previously shot live round, which was apparently stuck in the barrel, dislodged when a blank round was fired. 

And, of course, deaths on movie sets from other causes are hardly unknown.

Okay, so what happened.  

Well Baldwin was working on the filming of the movie Rust, which I'd not previously heard of, and I'd guess most of the readers here haven't either.  According to the Internet Moview Database, the film's is summarized as follows:

A 13 year-old boy, left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880's Kansas, goes on the run with his long estranged grandfather after he's sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher.

I have to say there's an element of strange irony at work here, in that the film is about an accidental killing.

Of note, Baldwin is a co-author of the screenplay and this appears to be very much a project that he's been involved with from its inception.

There apparently had been complaints during the filming by people working on it regarding safety, including the safety of the firearms used in it.  During filming, Baldwin was handed a "cold" firearm, likely a handgun, and it turned out to be loaded with live rounds.  Therefore, when the pistil discharged, it killed Halyna Hutchins, who was down muzzle of it.

So what can we learn, if anything, about this.

Maybe, quite frankly, nothing whatsoever.

Well, not quite that little.

One thing that we can learn is that the firearms weren't being properly handled.

Accidental deaths from firearms in the United States has declined remarkably over the years, and they're actually quite rare now.   In 2019 the total number of deaths from firearms was 39,707, of which a little over 14,000 were homicides.  In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, there were 19,300, which has been reported as a dramatic rise, but really basically isn't.  With a huge section of the population idle, at home, and out of work, we could have expected that.

Suicide accounted for 60% of deaths by firearm in 2019.  I don't know what it was in 2020, but looking at the figures, we'd expect it to have gone up some but it might not have much, if at all. Contrary to all the dire warnings, suicide rates went down 5% in 2020, which is also probably due to COVID 19.  Lots of people didn't have to go to their crappy jobs for much of that year and were likely happier at home.  The pandemic reportedly boosted the level of all sorts of other personal vice, but the much predicted wave of suicide just didn't happen.

Which says a lot about how people view their work.

While I don't have the statistics, accidental deaths from firearms has also really declined over the years.  We used to hear about "hunting accidents", and a few happen every year, but quite frankly hunters are likely more at risk driving to the game fields than in them.  Wyoming had one such accident this year, which was tragic, and frankly looking at it, it involved a lack of gun safety, but this is also pretty rare anymore.

Indeed, the US isn't anywhere near as violent as the news media would suggestion.  There were a little over 20,000 murders total in the US in 2020.  Interestingly, crime was overall down in the country (again, the pandemic. . . ) and violent crime went up in cities, but not in rural areas.

None of which seems to have been reported very well, but all of which is true.

Which gets me to the next thing.  

I truly don't grasp how this could have happened.  Most people who are really familiar with firearms check to see if they're loaded the second they're handed one, save perhaps in a store where they're new.  Most hunters compulsively check to see if their own arms are loaded once they get them out of the safe, and then they do it again once they put them away.  Even as a soldier, when handed a rifle, I checked to see if it was loaded, even though if it was in the arms room it shouldn't have been.

The other lesson is this.  As Ed Peters notes, these movie guns were real guns.  They were guns being used as props, not "prop guns".  There's obviously a large difference.

Which makes me wonder how many guns movie studios own.  Or maybe they don't own them, but rent them from a supplier.

In the wake of the terrible accident, this question is being asked:

Why are real guns still used on film sets? In wake of 'Rust' shooting, their future is in question

It's probably a legitimate question, although I hate to think what that might mean.  We already have the example of the absurd John Wick series, which I've watched as a guilty pleasure, glamorizing armed violence in a weird ballet like  way.  Yes, its completely absurd, but its an absurdity that very realistic CGI has given us.

And It's hard not to assume faked CGI violence becoming the norm doesn't make it all the more appealing to some people.

Something else on this, there have actually been meme's pop up making fun of Baldwin. That's sick.

Image

While we're on the Baldwin tragedy, we should add something about image.

It's no doubt copyrighted by the "armorer" from the movie set Hanna Gutierrez-Reed, age 24, has had a publicity photograph appear in articles in which she's posing in a sultry dreamy eyed manner with two revolvers crossed against her chest and leather bandoliers of ammunition.

There's no reason, I'd note, that a 24 year old couldn't do this job perfectly competently.  I was dutied as an armorer for a time in my National Guard unit before I went to basic training, and I was 18 years old at the time and perfectly competent to do it.  That's not the point.

The point is that this is really the wrong image.

First of all, every young woman in the movie industry doesn't have to look like she's auditioning for a photo spread in the now out of publication Playboy magazine.  And mixing firearm messages and sex messages is flat out weird.  Firearms in recent years have already had unfortunate associations made in magazines promoting the concept that just going about your daily business is as risky as delivering a message to the opposition in Damascus.  Not hardly.  And the introduction of sexy women in the same role that they used to play in tool catalogs (and maybe still do) has come about also.  The dough eyed look with guns . . . stop it.

An armorer, in my view, probably ought to look like a grumpy technician who doesn't bother to wash his clothes and who generally holds most of the world in contempt.

And that person shouldn't have youthful Goth photos that can show up in British tabloids.

It's Ain't All Black and White

I saw this post on Reddit about the recent Wyoming Special Legislative Session:

'Angry old white men nearly done wasting limited taxpayer resources to pointlessly yell at clouds . . . again'

To start off with, I've been pretty critical of the Special Session, mostly as it appeared at first that it was going to enact legislation that was Unconstitutional due to the Supremacy Clause through votes that violated the legislators oaths of office.  As it was, however, I was pleasantly surprised when the legislature didn't enact something unconstitutional

I'll note, however, that the concept that the legislature unilaterally of its own isolated volition put itself into session is wrong. Governor Gordon got it rolling in the first place when he indicated he was going to do it, and then never acted on it.  And the right-wing populist members of the legislature, which turns out to be a minority, was acting in compliance with the views of its constituents, whom are also probably a minority.  There's a lesson in that.

But what is really miffing me is the now constant insertion by the Woke of the term "white" into anything they deem lacking.  At this point I wouldn't be surprised to see people angry over traffic accidents noting that the drivers were "white".

Not every member of the Wyoming legislature is white.  Granted, the minority members are largely Democrats, but there are members of minorities in the legislature. And they aren't all "men" either.  Nor are they all old. There's some surprisingly young members, including one of the most populist members, Chuck Gray.  Gray is far from old, even if he is a while male.  He's a 2012 graduate of the Wharton School of Business, which would mean that he's probably about 31 years old.  It's really the older members of the legislature that kept this session from going full bore populist radical.

Moreover, while I've been critical of the American gerontocracy, it proved to be the more seasoned, and therefore older, Republicans in the legislature who really tempered what it was doing, as noted.  

I just posted on this elsewhere, but the "white" thing is really becoming a left wing cliché said mostly by white upper middle class dinks and sinks.* Say it often enough and you'll really piss off what amounts just regular folks.  "White" doesn't really exist as an ethnicity anyway, and lumping everyone who puts "Caucasian" down on the form at the DMV together in one category is stupid.  Beyond that, its racist, inaccurate, and arrogant.

What's also ignorant is assuming that the legislature, whatever you think of it, must be made up of "angry old men" because it must be.  The angry men and women in Wyoming politics seem to be younger, FWIW, than older, and they aren't all men.

D'uh

Harvard professors warn that war-torn countries will miss global vaccine goals in 2022

So reads a headline.  

Wars have always been associated with the spread of disease. Why would this one be any different?

Where the capitalist and socialist meet

Bernie Sanders Calls U.S. 'International Embarrassment' for Not Offering New Moms Paid Leave

Paid family leave means that the employer pays for the leave, which means that the cost is passed on to the consumer, as in the American economy we now have, there's not that much slack to absorb such things.  So everyone ends up paying for the leave, whether they have children or not.

Bernie might  need to actually get a regular job for a while so he knows how these things actually work.

One of the really interesting aspects, by the way, of how these supposedly kind-hearted social welfare programs work is to shift the paying to somebody else while tethering the benefitted person to their work.  It's interesting.

Paid family leave is paid for by employers.  Basically, what Bernie is doing is walking into offices across the land, opening up the till, and taking some money from it so that somebody can pay for somebody else's "paid family leave".  The employer has to make that up, of course, so what he does is raise prices or. . . .lay somebody off.  You don't have to give leave, after all, to people who aren't there.

In Bernie's world none of these connections exist as progressives secretly believe that all employers are sitting on giant piles of cash.  

Not hardly.

The flip side is also interesting, however.  The thought is that this act of kindness at a metaphorical gunpoint means that workers are super happy and now aren't faced with all sorts of difficult struggles.  In reality, a lot of female employees would rather be home with their children, but prior economic acts of kindness have wrecked that and they have to be at work.  Yes, extraction of cash from their employers by operation of law means they get some time home, but they're going to have to come back, and the net impact of the law is to make that all the more certain.

A better and more just kindness would be to have an economy in which families can be supported by one paycheck, but economic policies of the last few decades have made that pretty much impossible for most families  Part of that also would be to really require those responsible for bringing children into the world pay for them.

But, no, we're going down a path here that actually is a socialist one of sorts, but mixed into a capitalist system. We're going to tax everyone so people with newborns can have leave, and then they can drop them off in subsidized, i.e., taxpayer supported, daycare, so we can get women, and for that matter men, who'd rather stay home with their kids back at their desks, darn it.

The big shift.

Somewhat related to this, there's lots of news about inflation, which is very scary, but at the same time there's lots of news that employees aren't coming back to work.  Not only that, people are quitting work everywhere.  Some are calling it the Great Resignation.

Indeed, this is pretty surprising in lots of ways, as its not the youngest employees doing it. According to the Harvard Business Review:

Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021. While turnover is typically highest among younger employees, our study found that over the last year, resignations actually decreased for workers in the 20 to 25 age range (likely due to a combination of their greater financial uncertainty and reduced demand for entry-level workers). Interestingly, resignation rates also fell for those in the 60 to 70 age group, while employees in the 25 to 30 and 45+ age groups experienced slightly higher resignation rates than in 2020 (but not as significant an increase as that of the 30-45 group).

If you work in an office, you're seeing this.

There's something distributist and agrarian in this story somewhere.

Well apparently you really don't know what communism is.

Wiesters

@CalebWiest

·

16h

So my wife found out today that if she doesn’t get the jab within the next 2 months she will possibly lose her job. She is 24 weeks pregnant and will definitely not be getting it before delivery. If that’s not communism I don’t know what is #LetsGoBrandon

It must be a legacy of the Cold War or something, but Americans are incredibly free in stating something is "Communist" or "Socialist" if they don't like it.  I wouldn't be too surprised if some people claimed hurricanes were Communists.

A vaccine mandate of any kind, public or private, isn't Communist.

Communism is the economic theory advanced by Karl "I'm sitting on my ass in the British Library" Marx. The theory was that everything of every kind ought to be owned by the government, and the government would be run by 19th Century workers, as technology had advanced as far as it was ever going to go and that was the end state of technology.  Once the workers had shot everyone who had money, and everything was owned in common, including wives, universal bliss would break out.

Marx was an economic idiot whose family turned into a disaster, but he didn't write much about epidemiology or vaccinations.

Like vaccine mandates or not, they've been around as long as vaccinations have existed.  George Washington at some point in the Revolution reversed the policy of the Continental Army and started requiring troops to be vaccinated. . . with live vaccines, as it were, for Small Pox.

So, truly, Wiester doesn't know what Communism is.

This could be reduced to a joke level, but this is now so common it's actually an American social problem.  here in Wyoming we hear bitching all the time about "socialism" but we're pretty darned keen on Federal government funding of the roads and airports, which is. . . Socialism. We have a state captive Workers Compensation system also, which is. . gasp. . Socialism.  

Truth be known, our free market economy, which isn't purely free market by any means, has always had some elements of socialism in it, none of which have anything whatsoever to do with vaccination mandates.  I guess free vaccines could be regarded as a social welfare policy, but not socialism.

Big Bird and Ted Cruz

The popularity of Ted Cruz frankly escapes me, but perhaps that's because I'm cynical to start with, but in the current climate, it's stuff like this that causes certain things to constantly have a certain weird tinge to them.

Cruz was a central figure in the "stolen election" post insurrection episode, so he's also a central character in the movement inside the GOP that is fanning the flames of a lie that's creating to a dangerous erosion in democratic values in the country.  

Not that there weren't roots in the left, which is being missed.

Since the 1970s at least the American left promoted rule by the courts, as it couldn't get what it wanted at the ballot box.  It was hugely comfortable with that, and in fact became completely acclimated to it. That helped create a conspiratorial atmosphere on the right that the courts were in league with "elitist" elements which were out to recreate society, and frankly there was pretty good evidence that was true.  

Disenfranchise one element, and it becomes a dangerous fanciful minded one.  If we look back on Russia, for example, leading up to the Revolution and during it, we have to wonder how people were led to believe such moronic slop as dished out by the Bolsheviks. Well, decades of repression by the Imperial household and the Russian elites set them up for it.  We're seeing something similar now.  That, as addressed here earlier, gave us Trump, and Trump is clearly now anti-democratic, so the irony turns full circle.  His supporters don't see it that way, however, as they've learned to regard the left as illegitimate.

The left isn't illegitimate, and it remains democratic, but it has an anti-democratic legacy that it hasn't dealt with and right now it really can't.  A person can't worry about having left matches around when the house is on fire.  Things are really a mess.

If a person was a mediator over the national psyche, you'd probably send the entire country out for counselling.  You'd have to get the right to admit the election wasn't stolen and that Trump is more than a little weird.  You'd have to get Republican lead legislatures to quit trying to rig votes, and you'd also have to get the right to admit that it hasn't won the popular vote for the Oval Office in over 20 years, and for a reason.  

The left would have to admit that a lot of people in the country are pretty conservative and that it's fallen prey to some deeply weird beliefs itself that are contrary to science.  Indeed, both political sides are picking and choosing the science they like and disregarding the science they don't like.

Frankly, the country could use about two more middle oriented political parties.

But people also have to quit listening to really self-serving figures, and I'd put Ted in that category.  A friend of mine who knows him and likes him says he's a "nice guy", but I mean come on, picking on Big Bird? 

Footnotes

*Double Income No Kids and Single No Kids.

Thursday November 13, 1941. The HMS Ark Royal Torpedoed

I have this on our companion blog for this date in 1941:

Today In Wyoming's History: November 13, 1941

1941  The United States Congress amends the Neutrality Act of 1935 to allow American merchant ships access to war zones.

This is a bit confusing as it's otherwise been noted here already, but I think that's explained by the two separate houses working on the legislation prior to this date.   This is the correct date.

The HMS Ark Royal, was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-81. She'd sink the following day.

While the torpedo strike by a U-boat was hardly the fault of the captain, he was tried and found guilty of two counts of negligence by a British naval board for failing to adequately control the damage, although it noted that he was primarily concerned with the safety of the crew.  He would go on to significant later service.

The Lieutenant

The Lieutenant ('A Troubled Image')

Gene Rodenberry before that Star Trek.

Laramie Audubon: White-tailed Ptarmigan

Interesting item:

Laramie Audubon: White-tailed Ptarmigan: One of only a few species that breeds exclusively in the alpine tundra, the White-tailed Ptarmigan ( Lagopus leucura ) is a highly sought af...

I wish they'd try introducing them into other areas that might provide suitable habitate. 

The Lieutenant ('The War Called Peace')

And the middle name Tiberius appears. . . hmmmm.

Saturday November 12, 1921. The Washington Naval Conference Commences.

On this day in history the momentous Washington Naval Conference, a global conference aimed at reducing arms and the threat of another major war, commenced in Washington D. C.  President Harding delivered a speech, which of course wasn't the only one delivered.

Harding's speech stated:

Gentlemen of the Conference, the United States welcomes you with unselfish hands. We harbor no fears; we have no sordid ends to serve; we suspect no enemy; we contemplate or apprehend no conquest. Content with what we have, we seek nothing which is another’s. We only wish to do with you that finer, nobler thing which no nation can do alone. 

We wish to sit with you at the table of international understanding and good will. In good conscience we are eager to meet you frankly, and invite and offer cooperation. The world demands a sober contemplation of the existing order and the realization that there can be no cure without sacrifice, not by one of us, but by all of us. 

I do not mean surrendered rights, or narrowed freedom, or denied aspirations, or ignored national necessities. Our republic would no more ask for these than it would give. No pride need be humbled, no nationality submerged, but I would have a mergence of minds committing all of us to less preparation for war and more enjoyment of fortunate peace. 

The higher hopes come of the spirit of our coming together. It is but just to recognize varying needs and peculiar positions. Nothing can be accomplished in disregard of national apprehensions. Rather, we should act together to remove the causes of apprehensions. This is not to be done in intrigue. Greater assurance is found in the exchange of simple honesty and directness among men resolved to accomplish as becomes leaders among nations, when civilization itself has come to its crucial test. 

It is not to be challenged that government fails when the excess of its cost robs the people of the way to happiness and the opportunity to achieve. If the finer sentiments were not urging, the cold, hard facts of excessive cost and the eloquence of economics would urge us to reduce our armaments. If the concept of a better order does not appeal, then let us ponder the burden and the blight of continued competition. 

It is not to be denied that the world has swung along throughout the ages without heeding this call from the kindlier hearts of men. But the same world never before was so tragically brought to realization of the utter futility of passion’s sway when reason and conscience and fellowship point a nobler way. 

I can speak officially only for our United States. Our hundred millions frankly want less of armament and none of war. Wholly free from guile, sure in our own minds that we harbor no unworthy designs, we accredit the world with the same good intent. So I welcome you, not alone in good will and high purpose, but with high faith. 

We are met for a service to mankind. In all simplicity, in all honesty and all honor, there may be written here the avowals of world conscience refined by the consuming fires of war, and made more sensitive by the anxious aftermath. I hope for that understanding which will emphasize the guarantees of peace, and for commitments to less burdens and a better order which will tranquilize the world. In such an accomplishment there will be added glory to your flags and ours, and the rejoicing of mankind will make the transcending music of all succeeding time.

Lots of hopes were pinned on the efforts of the dignitaries as the memory of the Great War was fresh in mind, and the fear of a second one was quite real.

In Washington, D. C. things were light up for the first night following the conference.

The first air-to-air refueling was conducted when an Army Air Corps officer negotiated going from one JN4 to another carrying a five gallon can of aviation fuel to refuel the second aircraft above Long Beach, California.  Obviously, this was more in the nature of a stunt rather than being anything useful.

Wednesday November 12, 1941. Cold

On t his day in 1941, the Red Army launched a counterattack in northern Russia at Volkhov.

The day was most remarkable for its weather.  The temperature dropped down to 10F and the Red Army deployed ski troops for the first time in the war.

King George VI opened a new session of Parliament.

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part V. The Inflation Edition.

Inflation is now at a 30 year high.

Sears, 1979.

Throughout the entire Biden Administration there's been warnings about this in no small part as the COVID-19 relief packages that were coming forth in his administration, heirs to the ones that had already come out in the Trump administration, were hitting just as it seemed that the crisis was more or less over. As it turned out, the pandemic wasn't over, but the public tolerance for stay at home orders was, so the official response to them went to mask and vaccination mandates instead.  The public had basically decided it was time for everyone else to go back to work.

And by everyone else, I meant that.

A lot of people haven't gone back to work and have been able to avoid doing so due to the economic support for staying at home.  They've gotten used to it, and they've realized that the capitalist industrial economic model pretty much sucks for a lot of average people.  It turns out people liked the way that the world used to be way, way back, although they haven't really fully figured out what way way back was actually like yet.  

The problem is that the modern economy doesn't have room for everyone to do that, or indeed for hardly anyone to do that, so people aren't going back to work. That's creating a labor shortage. That's causing prices to rise.

Added to that, COVID 19, as we all know, caused a shipping backlog that hasn't been worked out. That was caused, in part, by a decades long policy of shipping jobs that Americans working as lawyers, accountants, and upper white collar corporate officers didn't figure Americans wanted, or should have.  Now they're overseas, which means the products these jobs result in are sent here in container ships, almost all of which come in through one single American port, the Port of Los Angeles, which is stupid.

When things get here, they're then in part shipped by trucks, but truck driving is a lousy job and even before COVID there was a shortage of truck drivers.  Now there's a massive one as during COVID they didn't need to be on the road and a lot of them aren't going back.

Of course, the sane thing to do would be to ship more stuff by rail, but a century long subsidization of the trucking industry through public highway construction has made that difficult.

Nifty.

Now we're going to have a massive infrastructure expenditure that we still haven't really figured out, but what we can surmise is that lots of money is going to be spent to build and rebuild stuff, which means a lot of workers will need to be employed doing that, when we have a labor shortage.

More inflation.

Here's what the White House says that bill will do:

Today, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness. For far too long, Washington policymakers have celebrated “infrastructure week” without ever agreeing to build infrastructure. The President promised to work across the aisle to deliver results and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. After the President put forward his plan to do exactly that and then negotiated a deal with Members of Congress from both parties, this historic legislation is moving to his desk for signature.

This Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will rebuild America’s roads, bridges and rails, expand access to clean drinking water, ensure every American has access to high-speed internet, tackle the climate crisis, advance environmental justice, and invest in communities that have too often been left behind. The legislation will help ease inflationary pressures and strengthen supply chains by making long overdue improvements for our nation’s ports, airports, rail, and roads. It will drive the creation of good-paying union jobs and grow the economy sustainably and equitably so that everyone gets ahead for decades to come. Combined with the President’s Build Back Framework, it will add on average 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years.

This historic legislation will:                               

Deliver clean water to all American families and eliminate the nation’s lead service lines. Currently, up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers lack safe drinking water. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will invest $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water for households, businesses, schools, and child care centers all across the country. From rural towns to struggling cities, the legislation will invest in water infrastructure and eliminate lead service pipes, including in Tribal Nations and disadvantaged communities that need it most.

Ensure every American has access to reliable high-speed internet. Broadband internet is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school learning, health care, and to stay connected. Yet, by one definition, more than 30 million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds – a particular problem in rural communities throughout the country. And, according to the latest OECD data, among 35 countries studied, the United States has the second highest broadband costs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will deliver $65 billion to help ensure that every American has access to reliable high-speed internet through a historic investment in broadband infrastructure deployment. The legislation will also help lower prices for internet service and help close the digital divide, so that more Americans can afford internet access.

Repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users. In the United States, 1 in 5 miles of highways and major roads, and 45,000 bridges, are in poor condition. The legislation will reauthorize surface transportation programs for five years and invest $110 billion in additional funding to repair our roads and bridges and support major, transformational projects. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal makes the single largest investment in repairing and reconstructing our nation’s bridges since the construction of the interstate highway system. It will rebuild the most economically significant bridges in the country as well as thousands of smaller bridges. The legislation also includes the first ever Safe Streets and Roads for All program to support projects to reduce traffic fatalities, which claimed more than 20,000 lives in the first half of 2021.

Improve transportation options for millions of Americans and reduce greenhouse emissions through the largest investment in public transit in U.S. history. America’s public transit infrastructure is inadequate – with a multibillion-dollar repair backlog, representing more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations, and thousands of miles of track, signals, and power systems in need of replacement. Communities of color are twice as likely to take public transportation and many of these communities lack sufficient public transit options. The transportation sector in the United States is now the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation includes $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit, in addition to continuing the existing transit programs for five years as part of surface transportation reauthorization.  In total, the new investments and reauthorization in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal provide $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years — the largest Federal investment in public transit in history. The legislation will expand public transit options across every state in the country, replace thousands of deficient transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles, and improve accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Upgrade our nation’s airports and ports to strengthen our supply chains and prevent disruptions that have caused inflation. This will improve U.S. competitiveness, create more and better jobs at these hubs, and reduce emissions. Decades of neglect and underinvestment in our infrastructure have left the links in our goods movement supply chains struggling to keep up with our strong economic recovery from the pandemic. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will make the fundamental changes that are long overdue for our nation’s ports and airports so this will not happen again. The United States built modern aviation, but our airports lag far behind our competitors. According to some rankings, no U.S. airports rank in the top 25 of airports worldwide. Our ports and waterways need repair and reimagination too. The legislation invests $17 billion in port infrastructure and waterways and $25 billion in airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon technologies. Modern, resilient, and sustainable port, airport, and freight infrastructure will strengthen our supply chains and support U.S. competitiveness by removing bottlenecks and expediting commerce and reduce the environmental impact on neighboring communities.

Make the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak. U.S. passenger rail lags behind the rest of the world in reliability, speed, and coverage. China already has 22,000 miles of high-speed rail, and is planning to double that by 2035. The legislation positions rail to play a central role in our transportation and economic future, investing $66 billion in additional rail funding to eliminate the Amtrak maintenance backlog, modernize the Northeast Corridor, and bring world-class rail service to areas outside the northeast and mid-Atlantic. This is the largest investment in passenger rail since Amtrak’s creation, 50 years ago and will create safe, efficient, and climate-friendly alternatives for moving people and freight.

Build a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers. U.S. market share of plug-in EV sales is only one-third the size of the Chinese EV market. That needs to change. The legislation will invest $7.5 billion to build out a national network of EV chargers in the United States. This is a critical step in the President’s strategy to fight the climate crisis and it will create good U.S. manufacturing jobs. The legislation will provide funding for deployment of EV chargers along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel and within communities to provide convenient charging where people live, work, and shop. This investment will support the President’s goal of building a nationwide network of 500,000 EV chargers to accelerate the adoption of EVs, reduce emissions, improve air quality, and create good-paying jobs across the country.

Upgrade our power infrastructure to deliver clean, reliable energy across the country and deploy cutting-edge energy technology to achieve a zero-emissions future. According to the Department of Energy, power outages cost the U.S. economy up to $70 billion annually. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal’s more than $65 billion investment includes the largest investment in clean energy transmission and grid in American history. It will upgrade our power infrastructure, by building thousands of miles of new, resilient transmission lines to facilitate the expansion of renewables and clean energy, while lowering costs. And it will fund new programs to support the development, demonstration, and deployment of cutting-edge clean energy technologies to accelerate our transition to a zero-emission economy. 

Make our infrastructure resilient against the impacts of climate change, cyber-attacks, and extreme weather events. Millions of Americans feel the effects of climate change each year when their roads wash out, power goes down, or schools get flooded. Last year alone, the United States faced 22 extreme weather and climate-related disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each – a cumulative price tag of nearly $100 billion. People of color are more likely to live in areas most vulnerable to flooding and other climate change-related weather events. The legislation makes our communities safer and our infrastructure more resilient to the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks, with an investment of over $50 billion to protect against droughts, heat, floods and wildfires, in addition to a major investment in weatherization. The legislation is the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural systems in American history.

Deliver the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history by cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaiming abandoned mines, and capping orphaned oil and gas wells. In thousands of rural and urban communities around the country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and energy sites are now idle – sources of blight and pollution. Proximity to a Superfund site can lead to elevated levels of lead in children’s blood. The bill will invest $21 billion clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned oil and gas wells. These projects will remediate environmental harms, address the legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities, create good-paying union jobs, and advance long overdue environmental justice This investment will benefit communities of color as, it has been found that 26% of Black Americans and 29% of Hispanic Americans live within 3 miles of a Superfund site, a higher percentage than for Americans overall.

Part of what this does is stuff that industry could do all on its own.  High-speed internet?  Not a government problem.  Roads?  Local problem.  Clean water?  Mostly a local problem.

Why then don't local governments take care of this?  Because they can't really deficit spend, that's why.

Now, like everyone else, there are something  in something like this that I like, because I like them.  And there are things that need to be done. Granted.  But without taking on the larger societal issues that already exists, and which this may make worse. . . well. . . 

More inflation.

Which means for people on a fixed income. . .well they're getting poorer.  People who want to buy something like a house. . . well they're dreams are postponed.  And people who are thinking about retiring. . .they likely won't.

Related threads:

Supply Chain Disruption and Other Economic Problems

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part IV

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part III

Eating the Seed Corn

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part II

The 2021 Wyoming Legislature, Part I

If you aren't worried about American democracy, you should be.

It could be on the verge of ending.

Biden's Election Was Legitimate. Republicans Have Convinced Supporters It Wasn't.

Foothill Agrarian: The Emblem on the Wall.

This entry from one of the blogs we follow here is well worth reading:

Foothill Agrarian: The Emblem on the Wall:   On the wall of the FFA classroom at Placer High School hangs an FFA emblem, made entirely of vegetable seeds. It’s a remarkable piece of w...

I just started following this blog, but in reading it, while there are certainly some differences between my experience and his, and  my world and his, there are a remarkable number of similarities and many of the sentiments expressed on it find reflection in various posts here.

And here's one.

I've split the rural/town divide my entire life.  I'm a rural person, but I've always had a town address.  Had it been possible to simply become a rancher in the early 1980s, when I graduated from high school, I would have done that, no matter what it meant.  I.e., while a friend of mine claims that I'm so intellectual I could only have found a career as a lawyer or a priest, in his German view, that's not really so.  I would happily have spent my days around cattle, horses, cats and dogs if I could have.  Being born in 1963 meant that wasn't possible, just as it would have been impossible had I been born in 53, 43, or probably even 33.  Realistically, it's probably only my grandparents who last lived in a world where that was a realistic option, i.e., to go from a city street to full-time employment in agriculture.  I've made it part way there however, and indeed but for the more realistic economic concerns of my spouse, maybe I would be full time there.

Anyhow, my father was the first member of his family to go to university, let alone obtain an advance degree.  Of his three siblings, two more attended university, but I think he's the only one that obtained a degree.  An uncle ended up in the Army before he completed his studies and then had a long career as a fireman, a job he loved.  One sister was married fairly early after high school and another did attend university, but I don't think she graduated, although I don't know.

They were all highly intelligent.  Indeed, their father, who left school at age 13, helped them with their calculus homework when they were in high school.  I didn't take calculus until I was in university and I found it extremely difficult.  I can't imagine how smart you have to be to pick it up on your own.

My mother was not a high school graduate, or the Quebec equivalent of it, but she did obtain an associates degree in the 1970s. Her schooling was cut short by the Great Depression.  Both of her parents, however, were university graduates, with that status being very unusual for a woman such as her mother at the time.

The point, well I'm not sure if there is one other than to note that all of these people were really sharp.  On my father's side, they were very sharp people associated with the cattle and sheep industry, which my father was to until that was cut short by my grandfather's death.

I guess that's all background to something noted in the linked in article.

When I was growing up, the rural/town divide was there, but the lines were very blurred compared to what they now are.  Many of us kinds in town were quite feral, so to speak.  I.e, being a town kid meant, if you were male, that you were probably at least somewhat of a hunter and/or fisherman.  But things worked the other way around too.  Of my father's friends, quite a few of the men were ranchers or had come from ranches and farms before they went into professional jobs in town.  A doctor or lawyer was as likely to have grown up on a farm or ranch than in a city, and to retain rural interests.

Ranchers in my region have always been pretty conservative.  They haven't always been 100% Republican.  Part of that has to do with the way that the parties have evolved, but as an example, a ranching member of my wife's family was such a Democrat that he always voted a straight Democratic ticket, no matter what.  The point is that as late as the 80s, at least, a diversity of views existed beyond the city limits.  For that matter, a diversity of views existed within the city limits. 

Political party diversity has all but died in my state, starting for some reason with the Clinton Administration.  Up until that time the Democratic Party here was a minority party, but a strong one.  At one point in the 70s our Senator and Congressman were Democrats.  We had an entire string of Democratic Governors, having had one up until fairly recently.  Something started to fall apart during the Clinton Administration, however.

Anyhow, conservatism has always been strong in the rural areas outside of town. And its expressed itself a couple of times in huge divides between agriculturalist and everyone else, including other people, that resulted in near political uprisings by the regular folks.  All of these have involved efforts by ranchers and farmers to take over, in some fashion, the public lands or wildlife.  This is massively unpopular with average Wyomingites and it's been put down, as noted, a couple of times, but that hasn't stopped our Congressman from supporting it or Sen. Barrasso from getting it inserted into the 2016 GOP Platform.

What's become really remarkable, however, is the absolute elimination of diversity of views in the countryside.

Now, in fairness, diversity of views has been much reduced inside of town as well.  It's still there, but it's much more likely to show up in the break room or in closed door office conversations than openly.  It does occur, however.  Indeed, one of the things I've noted about Rep. Harshman's recent off color remarks about Rep. Gray is how many people, if they know you, will now say "he said what we were all thinking".  I'm really pretty surprised by it.

We vaccinate cattle.

Eh?

Now, that's not a sudden non sequitur.

I note that as the resistance towards COVID 19 vaccination was an epic level out in the prairie.  Not so much anymore, but it took some people dying in order to change that.  And even now, at a recent gathering, I was hesitant to mention that yes, I'm vaccinated.

Now, in town there are people who will subject you to a blistering lecture about being vaccinated.  But they're a minority.  Most of the people who are avoiding vaccination on a whatever basis will at least cite individual rights as part of their view and that people shouldn't be required to get vaccinated on that basis. That's an entirely separate topic, but in some rural quarters the opposition to vaccination was really so strong that you just avoided the topic if you could.

As noted, that changed when people started getting really sick and some died.  A lot of the hold outs started getting vaccinated at that time.  It baffles me a bit, however, as we vaccinate our cattle and horses, and nobody seems to think it inconsistent to vaccinate them, and not ourselves.

But then there's politics.

Ever since the election of President Obama there's been a turn towards polarization in politics that's had a disturbing corrupted aspect to it.  And coming up with it there started to be a set of beliefs that oddly you had to subscribe to.  Indeed, the one real sharp distinction, I think, at this point between conservationist who are sportsmen, and agriculturalist, is that conservationist have adopted the mantra that "you are entitled to your own beliefs, but nobody is entitled to their own facts".

Like it or not, you really aren't entitled to your own beliefs. That's an American bromide, but it's completely false. The truth, and much truth can be objectively determined, dictates what you are entitled to believe.  This is true of the physical and the metaphysical, and therefore it not only dictates what you have to believe about physics and science, but religion and philosophy.

Now, as Shakespeare noted, human knowledge is quite limited, and can be much in error, which provided the basis for the quote from Hamlet that:

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

In that quote, it should be noted, the bard was referencing "philosophy" as science, the two being a combined discipline at the time.  And what it also doesn't mean is the left wing position that somehow science and religion are diametrically opposed to one another.  They are not.  Indeed, I'm a Mass attending, Confession going, Catholic, and I have a degree in the hard sciences and there's no conflict at all, something that every Catholic agreed upon until very recently.

So what's my point?

Somehow, in the last twenty years or so, people went from being in camps to nearly being in cults, politically.  That is usually the end stage for a democracy.  When members of the opposite party become the enemy, in your mind, you become the enemy of democracy yourself.  And we're darned near there.

There are now those in the local GOP, and more than a few, who are at the point where the only thing they can see is whether or not you agree with Trump populism or not.  Whenever a Republican legislature shows an inclination to ponder or debate, if he's not right in line with Trump populism, he's criticized simply on that basis alone on a basis that shows no inclination to thought.  To depart from the line is to question, apparently, something held to be dogma.  One Republican figure at the time of the last election seriously backed a proposal to boot Republicans who didn't unyieldingly adhere to the official platform out of the party.  The leadership of the party more or less officially takes the position that the January 6 insurrection didn't happen and is pretty close to maintaining that the election was stolen, which is simply untrue.  

That's not the point of this post.  But this is.  Nobody, in any occupation, should take their beliefs from a political party unthinkingly.  But people out in the sticks should do that least of all.  The political parties didn't come up with their platforms at a branding or at a lunch break during the harvest.

What everyone should do is to have reality inform their political beliefs.  You can believe what you want to, in other words, as long as it isn't contrary to nature, science and reality.

And, we might add, as long as it isn't contrary to the true principals of your Faith.  Faith is supposed to inform your world view.  Your politics doesn't inform your faith.

But, for a lot of people, it seems like it does.

Anyhow, some points to ponder.

For those out in the sticks, there's a lot more of them, than us.  When people tell us that the election was stolen, we ought to consider that we're a tiny minority and that what natural and obvious in our political views probably doesn't seem that way at all to most people. The amazing thing isn't that so many liberal politicians are elected the US. . . the amazing thing is that any conservative ones are.

In other words, you might not have wanted Biden to be elected, but the fact of the matter is that Trump only was President in the first place because of the Electoral College.  He lost the popular vote twice.  Most Americans don't want him as President.  The surprising thing was that he ever was, not that he lost, and he did lose, in 2020.

Most politicians aren't ranchers or farmers and there's a lot of money in politics and it didn't come from us.  People don't invest money in something and not expect to get a return.  Being a member of a conservative political party, therefore, is one thing, but buying off on everything it says about everything else, including science and industry, is something a person shouldn't do without really thinking it over.

Neither political party is the Agricultural Party, or the Rural Party, or the Agrarian Party, and frankly they don't really have that much interest in the topic at the national level.

Just because agriculture is an industry doesn't mean that what's good for other industries is good for it.  Far from it.

Science is science and you can't ignore science as you don't like what it means for you personally.  You don't get, for example, to smoke cancer free because you like smoking.  

Agriculture has much more in common with conservationist movements than any other movement out in the wider American landscape. The two should be allied, not at each others throats.

We should be adaptable, and there are a lot of things we may have to be adapting too.  Ironically, unless you are Amish or eccentric, almost everything you are doing today features some sort of adaption that your grandparents or even parents made in the first place.

Moving forward sometimes means moving back.

A final Republic of China/People's Republic of China Showdown? Can the People's Republic of China pull it off? Part III

Well, they'd certainly have to fight to do it.

So, what would renewed fighting between the old contestants of the Chinese Civil War look like?

That would depend, of course, on whether the US entered the contest or not.

The principal tactical problem faced by the PRC in taking Taiwan by force would be the 100 miles that lie between mainland China and Taiwan.  Crossing that distance with an assault force would be a major military undertaking that could not be concealed.

Indeed, in order to do it the PRC would need to amass troops in the coastal areas in location that they could embark upon assault or troop craft.  The build up would likewise be quite noticeable and its well within the range of Taiwanese missiles.  Indeed, with recent acquisitions, Taiwan can strike targets dep inside of the PRC.

And crossing the straights under those circumstances would not be easy.  Taiwan would be alert to a Chinese buildup and be ready to strike any invasion fleet.  It's well-equipped with armaments, including anti shipping missiles, that would make such a crossing difficult at best, and potentially impossible.  It could well be a bloody and embarrassing Chinese failure.

Because of that, it could only really occur if China struck in a surprise fashion in something resembling the Japanese attacks on Port Arthur, Manchuria, in 1905 or Pearl Harbor in 1941.  That could be done.

Now, for those not familiar with the Port Arthur, it was a sudden attack on that location on the opening night of the Russo Japanese War. The Russians simply weren't prepared for it.  That attack basically set the stage for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 36 years later.  The gist of it was to declare war and then attack.

The PRC would not declare war, as doing that 1) makes no sense if you regard territory as belonging to a rebel providence and; 2) it seems to have become passé.  But what they would have to do is engage in a massive pre invasion build up.  Following that, however, what they could do is blanket Taiwan with a sudden missile strike to eliminate as much of its military capacity to strike back as possible.  And it has massive assets with which to do that.

The thought there would be to devastate the Taiwanese capacity to interdict or destroy an invasion fleet and give it the six to ten hours it would need to be able to put an invasion force on the ground, in Taiwan.

Of course, after having done that, it'd have to fight the Taiwanese Army, on its own ground. The modern Nationalist Chinese Army is really good, and it would at least outnumber the Chinese invaders.  It wouldn't be an easy task.  And it would likewise require a massive Red Chinese air operation to suppress and interfere with a Nationalist effort to drive the Red Chinese off the beaches.

Could they pull it off?

Well. . .maybe.

They have the missile capacity to attempt it, there's no doubt about that.  And the sizse of their navy is massive.  They presently have a 450 ship navy, about 100 more ships than the United States now has.  And in terms of regional capacity, they'd dwarf anyone else.

Of course, the anyone else is the United States, and the PRC would have to take that into account.  In any instance of a big build up, the US Navy would be likely to appear in the region as at threat. . . or a bluff.  But would the Red Chinese abstain from hitting the U.S. Navy?

It might, if it felt that the U.S. Navy could be brushed aside or that it wouldn't act, but that would be a real gamble.  If significant US assets were in the region, the picture for China becomes complicated.  You could hit Taiwan, for example, but still end up leaving significant forces that could hit China back or stop its invasion fleet in the straits.  I.e., it might not do much good to devastate Taiwanese capacity if, when the ships enter the strait, they're met with U.S. submarines and aircraft from aircraft carriers.  Maybe you'd gamble that the risk would be worth it, but maybe you'd end up losing 10% to 20% of an invasion fleet, put troops on the ground to face the Nationalist Army but end up tangling with the U.S. Navy above Taiwan, and have things tilt just enough that the Nationalist push them back and you end up being unable to pull trapped troops off the beach.  Indeed, it'd be risky in that scenario to leave ships in the straits.

That could be addressed by hitting the U.S. Navy in the same Pearl Harbor style attack.

That would bring the US into the war from the onset, but maybe its worth the risk, if you are the PRC.  The U.S. Navy is unlikely to strike China first, and with missiles, the PRC might be able to take out so much American naval power that there would be no way for the surface Navy to be effective to counter an invasion.  The US in such an instance might end up being much like it was in 1941 and early 1942, a big naval power with sufficient losses and problems such that it couldn't really react.  And the Red Chinese, militarily, wouldn't need much time to carry out their plans.

It still might now work, however. The US has a huge navy, albeit not as large as China's, but its stationed all over the globe. In the build up to a war, much of it would be pulled into the Pacific, but not all of it.  The result would be that not all of it could be destroyed in one big strike, even though a lot of it would be initially useless in such a war.

And countering US submarines would be difficult at best, and probably couldn't really be done.  

Still, enough American naval power could be destroyed or distracted such that it could be an American military disaster and allow the Red Chinese to pull this off.

Or, it could be an expensive American military event but one which didn't knock the U.S. Navy out of action, which would provoke a massive American military response.  And the Chinese would have to plan for that.  That response might, moreover, come anywhere in China, and along its very long coast.

Indeed, for that reason, a careful Chinese planner might hit American ground and air assets in South Korea, an event that would probably provoke the North Koreans into invading the South.  If that didn't work, the Chinese might then have to deal with an American ground presence that was advancing north, towards the Chinese border, and an unsinkable air base in the form of South Korea.

All of which might cause the Red Chinese to threaten to go nuclear if the US counterstrike was too large, which might not deter the US from a large counterstrike at all, as the Chinese are at least as vulnerable to an American nuclear strike as we are to theirs.

So it would appear to be excessively risky.

I think they'll try it.

That would come only after a set of threats, such as is now going on, followed by an ultimatum, which hasn't happened yet.  

Within the next decade, my guess is that it will.

My further guess is that the Chinese will actually try to pull this off without striking the US. They launch a huge prolonged missile strike on Taiwan that will in fact be fairly effective, but not as effective as they hope.  The Taiwanese will hit back in kind, with that being more effective than the Chinese are prepared for.  The US will join in nearly immediately.

Following that, they'll put their ships into the strait and push toward the island. They'll incur losses right away and already be somewhat in disarray.  The U.S. Navy will interdict, probably most effectively with submarines, but also with aircraft.  At that point, the Chinese will launch a second missile strike at the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Navy will take serious losses.  The U.S. will deploy some ground forces at this point to Taiwan, but they'll be small by necessity.  The Chinese will abstain from hitting U.S. forces in South Korea or Japan.

My further guess is that the invasion will fail, but it will be a close run thing.

A final Republic of China/People's Republic of China Showdown? Weighing the costs and benefits from a Red Chinese prospective. Part II

A final Republic of China/People's Republic of China Showdown? Part I.