Lex Anteinternet: Some Labor Day Reflections.

Lex Anteinternet: Some Labor Day Reflections.: 

Some Labor Day Reflections.

Yesterday, I made some observations on Denver, and today I'm doing the same on Labor Day, 2024.

Of course, it's immediately notable that I'm making these the day after Labor Day, which was a day I didn't get off.  I worked a full day. 

I was the only one in the office.

Labor Day dates back to the mid 1800s as an alternative to the more radical observance that takes place in many countries on May 1.  Still, nonetheless, early on, and for a long time, there was a fair amount of radicalism associated with it during that period when American labor organizations were on the rise. The day itself being a widely recognized day off is due to organized strikes on the day that started occurring during the 1930s, to the day as sort of a "last day of summer holiday" is fairly new.

Even now, when people think of it, they often think of the day in terms of the sort of burly industrial workers illustrated by Leyendecker and Rockwell in the 20s through the 40s.  Otherwise, they sort of blandly associate it with celebrating work in general, which gets to the nature of work in general, something we sort of touched on yesterday with this entry;

Deep Breath

A Labor Day homily.

Sadly, I'm working on Labor Day.

Early on, Labor Day was something that acknowledged a sort of worthy heavy work.  There are, in spite of what people may think, plenty of Americans that still are engaged in that sort of employment, although its s shadow of the number that once did.  Wyoming has a lot of people who do, because of the extractive industries, which are in trouble.  Ironically, therefore, its notable that Wyoming is an epicenter of anti union feelings, when generally those engaged in heavy labor are pro union. There's no good explanation for that.

When Labor Day became a big deal it pitted organized labor against capital, with it being acknowledged by both sides that if things went too far one way or another, it would likely result in a massive labor reaction that would veer towards socialism, or worse, communism.  Real communism has never been a society wide strong movement in the United States, in spite of the current stupid commentary by those on the political far right side of the aisle accusing anyone they don't like, and any program they don't like, of being communistic.  But radical economics did hae influence inside of unions, and communists were a factor in some of them, which was well known. As nobody really wanted what that might mean, compromise gave us the post war economic world of the 50s and 60s, which were sort of a golden age for American economics.

One of the unfortunate byproducts of the Cold War era, however, was the exportation of jobs overseas, which brought us the economic regime we have today, in part.  The advance of technology brought us the other part.  Today we find the American economy is massively dominated by capital in a way it hasn't been for a century, and its not a good thing at all.  The will to do anything about it, or even understand it, seems to be wholly lacking.  As a result of that, while an increasing number of Americans slave away at meaningless jobs in cubicles, and the former shopkeeper class now works at Walmart, we have the absolutely bizarre spectacle of two Titans of Capital, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, spewing out populist rhetoric.  Populism, of course, always gets co-opted, but the working and middle class falling for rhetoric from the extremely wealthy is not only bizarre, its' downright dumb.

Indeed, in the modern American economy, having your own is increasingly difficult.  Entire former occupations that were once local have been totally taken over by large corporations while agriculture has fallen to the rich in terms of land ownership, making entry into either field impossible.  Fewer and fewer "my own" occupations exist, and those that do are under siege.  

One of those is the law, of course.  Lawyers, because of the nature of their work, still tend to own their practices, as to medical professionals of all types. The latter are falling into large corporate entities, however, and the move towards taking down state borders in the practice is causing the consolidation of certain types of practice in the former.

Not that "having your own" in the professions is necessarily a sort of Garden of Eden either, however.

Recently, interestingly, there's been a big movement in which young people are returning to the trades.  That strikes me as a good thing, and perhaps the trades are finally getting the due they deserve.  Ever since World War Two there's been the concept that absolutely everyone had to achieve white collar employment, which demeaned blue collar employment, and which put a lot of people in occupations and jobs they didn't care for.  I suspect the small farm movement reflects that too.

Indeed, on my first day of practicing law as a lawyer over thirty years ago the long time office manager, who must have been having sort of a bad day, made a comment like "you might just end up wishing you had become a farmer".  I remember thinking to myself even then that if that had been an option, that's exactly what I would have become.  It wasn't, and it never has been for me, in the full time occupation sort of way.

Oh well.

And so we lost the garden to labor in, but we can make things better than they are.  And we could do that by taking a much more distributist approach to things.  Which seems nowhere near close to happening, a populist uprising notwithstanding.

Lex Anteinternet: New Years Resolutions for Other People

Lex Anteinternet: New Years Resolutions for Other People: 

New Years Resolutions for Other People

I don't do this every year, and usually when I have, it's been tongue in cheek.

This will try to be, partially, but this one is more serious than most.  Indeed, for the most part, there's no jest in this at all, and I'm going to do it in a different format, partially for that reason.

Donald Trump need to retire and go away.

Based on something I read the other day, in his personal life he nearly has. As the limelight fades away, he's spending a lot of his time at a nearby golf course he owns, rather than at Mar-a-Lago.  

Even Theodore Roosevelt, the Old Lion, reached a point where he really didn't care about politics anymore, and that included his very last run for office.  The fire had gone out.  It'd dangerous to compare Roosevelt, who was a highly admirable man, to Trump, who isn't, but that seems to be happening. 

Reportedly Trump's favorite film is Sunset Boulevard, which I've never seen, but which is reportedly a masterpiece about a fading silent film movie star. Trump, according to the article I read, will rarely pay any attention to anything, including films, but he loves Sunset Boulevard and will sit through it even after having seen it a zillion times.

That tells us something.

Gracefully fading away is hard to do.  Truman did it, I'd note.  Jimmy Carter seems to have done it.  Douglas MacArthur did it, and the odds were against it.

Of course, Trump's problem is that he's disgraced himself and soiled his legacy.

Anyhow, he really ought to simply keep making that golf course trip and leave everyone alone, for the good of the country, and for the good of what little dignity he has left.

I noticed this morning that Elsie Stefanik is taking all sorts of flak due to a Washington Post expose.  There's a lesson to be learned here, but it's probably too late for her to benefit from it. She could still learn from it.

Elon Musk needs to go back to South Africa, and whatever immigration loophole that was exploited to allow him to come in to the country and take up U.S. citizenship needs to be examined.

I can't think of a single qualification that Musk may have legally met to enter this country permanently. Somebody ought to look into that, and if he really didn't meet it, his citizenship should be revoked as a fraud and whatever person assisted this process looked into. And I feel the same way for all of the entertainment figures that hang around in this country as well.  Go back.

Whatever weird, weird, loophole in our immigration system let Musk come in needs to be fixed.  South Africa can use him. Go home, Elon.

Harriet Hageman and Chuck Gray won their elections, fair and square, but based upon the lie that something was wrong with the last election.

Now that they're in office, they have a lot to make up for, given that.

One thing they both can do is stop feeding the bogus rage machine.   The other thing they ought to do is to admit that times are changing and the concept of hanging on to the 1970s economy, which we've only had in this state for the last 50 years, not forever, is dying.  

Hageman, also, who is no dummy, ought to do some serious introspection before raising her right hand, once again, and swearing to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.  She's done that at least once, and yet she was willing, although not at first, to boost a lie in favor of somebody who was willing to, and is stilling willing to, usurp that same Constitution.  Gray probably has taken a similar oath upon becoming a legislature, but I don't know him, and I frankly hold him to a lesser standard.

Hageman when a large number of her fellow bar members reminded her of her duty to tell the truth advanced a really wild fantasy regarding that.  If she believed that, she needs to spend about a week in the hills, perhaps with Thoreau, or perhaps with the Book of Tobit.  It'd do her good.

The Grand Old Party in Wyoming needs a serious shake up, I'd note, but it's not going to happen. The Democratic Party of Wyoming needs one as well. At this point, that's only going to come through Independents, I'm afraid.  My Resolution, therefore, is for them.  I hope, and hope they resolve, to take over the state's politics.  The Democrats have become so mired in left wing goofiness, there's nearly no saving them.

Interestingly, the Libertarian Party, nationally, recently seems to have taken a step to the middle.  Maybe there's hope for them yet.

There's a huge percentage of the country that need to resolve that science is not its enemy, and Newsmax is not the place to get the news.  If the news just fuels your preformed beliefs and, simultaneously, makes you mad, you need to get your news somewhere else.  Actually, what you need to do, is get the news.

Vladimir Putin needs to go to confession, and then go to a monastery.  I'm not joking.  Russia needs to join the modern, democratic, world.  The Russian Orthodox Church needs to end its schism with the rest of the Orthodox, and the Eastern Orthodox need to end their schism with Rome. This has gone on too long.  The German Catholic Bishops, for their part, need to end their drift into wherever they are going.

Something needs to be done regarding the condition giving rise to an epic level of attempted migration into the United States.  If conditions in Central America are that bad, we need to figure out why, and do something about it immediately.

In large part, in many ways, we all need to look forward, by looking back.  Being perpetually angry doesn't serve any interest at all.  Pretending it's 1973 won't either.  Turning to grifters, caudillos, snake oil salesmen, and those selling anger won't work.

We all know that.  It's doing something about it that seemingly is difficult.  But once we get moving, momentum is a force until itself.

Speaking of 1973, left wing American economists like Robert Reich need to realize that they continually espouse another economic option, and then pull back to the current one.  They're basically in the position of being a concerned stranger walking up to a desperate drunk in a bar, giving him a temperance lecture, and then suggesting he switch to beer.  That's not going to cut it in an economy that truly needs adjusting.

On a minor notes, would people on Twitter stop using this stupid cartoon for points they're trying to make:

There are all sorts of version of this, and they're all hideous and bad.  Whatever you think you are trying to prove this way, you are not.

An addendum.

Let's start 2023 with some basic consensus on proved things.  If we do, we'll have a productive year.  

If we don't, it suggests that we really prefer blinding ourselves to truth and arguing for sport/self-satisfaction.

And that would certainly merit a sense of pessimism.

Okay, first of all, some lingering political things.

Donald Trump lost the election.  Believe whatever you want about who should have one, whether the electoral college makes any sense, whether we're a republic or democracy (as if the two are mutually exclusive), but he lost.

There's no point in arguing otherwise, unless you just like arguing, much like the fellow I know who insists the Women's NBA "isn't a sport".  Why, well because a 50-year-old overweight guy who couldn't play basketball against a junior high team can safely take that position for self-satisfaction.  Same here.  Trump lost, and arguing that he won at this point is really just insisting the opposite isn't true.

Vaccinations are safe.  We really don't need to argue about this anymore, but we really don't need to be arguing about vaccinations in general.

Note that I didn't limit this to the COVID-19 vaccination.  People out there who don't vaccinate their kids for things we haven't seen for years, only to have the kids get ill, are acting criminally.  If there's one thing we have COVID-19 to thank for, and I don't believe it is, it's that it shut people up like Jenny McCarthy on this topic.

Let's resolve to follow the science on stuff, no matter how scary that may be, or how much that impacts our self interests, or our narcissistic desires.  If that leads to "you know, what I want isn't okay", or "my own impulses aren't ordered", well, so be it.

Let's also resolve that the end point of being a human isn't to be a consumer.

Let's completely skip altering our natures this year. Whether that's dying our hair some color it isn't, or inflating our boobs, or changing our gender, or whatever.  

Feel that you really want to be in touch with who you really are?  Well, be who you really are, and that starts with the body nature gave you and all that means.

Face the basic fact that you are going to die.  Hopefully not soon, but you will. And that's okay, as long as you are in the right place when you die. Eating the All Kale Diet won't stop it.  Don't accelerate it, please, we need you around, but we need you who you are, and as part of us, as we really are.

Don't be mean.  I've come to realize that there are certain people who revel in being mean.  Don't be one of them.  Don't take joy in other's suffering, or inflict it in them.  Meanness, I'd note, is often masked in arrogance, or self-righteousness, or even ignorance.  

Don't follow the mean, either. If somebody seems perpetually pissed off, there's something wrong in that.

Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.

St. Philip Neri.

Mehr mensch sein.

Lex Anteinternet: 2021 Thanksgiving Reflections

Lex Anteinternet: 2021 Thanksgiving Reflections: 

2021 Thanksgiving Reflections

In some prior years I've put up a Thanksgiving Day post. Some years, I don't.

There's a lot of hubris in writing a blog, a principal part of that being the thoughts that 1) you have anything meaningful to say; and 2) anyone cares to read it.  In large part, probably neither of those are true, so no blogger should feel compelled to write an entry.  Still, some years. . . 

So started off the Thanksgiving Day post last year.   The one that was entitled:

2020 Thanksgiving Reflections.

The comment about hubris is exactly correct.  Lots of bloggers put up posts like this, but frankly, there's no guaranty that anyone reads them or cares what you have to say about anything.

Moreover, this blog has zillions of posts as it often has more than one daily.  Indeed, that's the case for today.  There are a lot of Thanksgiving posts up for November 25, 2021.  People might wonder how much time is actually devoted to this blog (not much), as that would be misleading.  I should invest the small amount of time that goes into this into my slow moving novel, as it would read like War And Peace by now.

Well, anyhow, I wasn't particularly inclined to do this post this year, but given as there was one for the exceedingly odd year of 2020, and 2021 turned out to be a followup to it in oddness, I thought I would.  Which leads me to this.  

So much of what I wrote last year is even more the case now, that I was tempted to repeat a pile of it.  As repeating an essay in its entirety just burdens the reader, who probably doesn't read it, I'm going to forego it, however.

I think the essay was a good one, and I'd suggest linking back in and reading it, perhaps prior to completing this one, assuming anyone is going to do so.

Since November 26, 2020, when I wrote that gloomy essay, a lot has happened.  

It was already the case, of course, that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 Presidential Election. It wasn't clear to me, however, the extent to which he'd go on to full deny losing it, and the extent to which a large section of the American public would buy into that.  Indeed, I was shocked just a month later when I heard for the first time somebody that I knew really well express the stolen election line.  Just a little over a month following Thanksgiving the former Presidents acolytes would attempt to put him back in power while a full scale attempt at a coup was being engaged in by the former President's political minions and operatives.  It failed, but only barely so.

Had it succeeded, I don't know that it would have succeeded, as odd as that may seem to state.  The majority of Americans, and it was a majority for a second time, who voted against Donald Trump would not have accepted him as President, and it would have gone right to the United States Supreme Court.  Predicting the Court is always difficult, but its first instinct is self-preservation, and I think it would have struck the effort down.

I also think there would have been violence, and I think that American democracy would have been damaged for generations.  I'm not entirely certain that had the Supreme Court not have declared Trump's election invalid, that there wouldn't have been a violent removal.  Advocates of force to cause something to occur frequently forget that the invitation of force often causes, in the human world, a greater, opposite, reaction.  

We can all be thankful, therefore, that this scenario did not play out.

We can be worried, however, about what may develop going forward.

The US is now already on the list of countries, according to an international group, that has been backsliding on democracy as there's a large section of the Republican Party that actually believes what Trump has been saying. Trump remains the head of the GOP and will run again, assuming that his advanced old age doesn't catch up with him first. And also assuming that due process of law does not.

That's an open question.  Mitch McConnell made it clear, during Trump's impeachment proceedings, that he was guilty of sedition.  He hasn't been charged.  It's not impossible that he shall not be.  If he is, and I'd lay even money on it, that will create its own firestorm, reminding us once again why it is important to strike while the iron is hot, something that our society, led by it is by the ancient, increasingly has a very difficult time doing.

It might prove to be necessary, however, for this to occur in order for the Republican Party to overcome the direction it seems to be headed.  Elements of it clearly want to.

Part of where it's headed in Wyoming is a dedicated effort to eject a Congressman whom conservatives loved prior to her deciding to stand her ground on principals.  It's shocking. We don't know where this is headed yet, but there's reason to believe it will fail, and a reckoning may be coming inside the state itself.

Anyhow, as Americans head towards their Thanksgiving Day meals, there's less reason to be calm about the fate of the nation than there has been at any point since the Civil War.  But there's some hope that we've started to very slowly round a corner.

And that's not all.  Last year at this time COVID 19 vaccinations had not started.  Now over half the eligible population in the country has been vaccinated, and the vaccines now extend down to childhood ages.  There's real hope that the Pandemic may be beat, but there's still a bizarre politicization of the virus that continues to haunt the nation.  And that's certainly something to be thankful for.

As part of this, this past week a person I knew, but I can't really say that I was friends with, died of COVID 19.

I haven't asked the details, but I was shocked as I was aware that the person passing was younger than I.  I was somewhat surprised to learn that the person wasn't that much younger, 54 years of age, as I would have guessed it was a decade or so.

I didn't ask the details, but I know that the person was almost surely not vaccinated, and I know why.  That makes this a death that surely could have been avoided.

At one time I wondered, along with people like Fr. Dwight Longnecker, if the Pandemic would cause a big reassessment of some things.  I still wonder that, although I'm less hopeful about that than I had been.  Some reassessment is going on, however, as the press has been reporting that the country is in the midst of the Great Resignation, an event reflecting people walking off from their jobs, post COVID lockdowns, and refusing to return to them.  While people are worried about that, I'm hopeful, even though it's hoping against hope, that this reflects a reconsideration of the Industrial economy we've bought off on for so long, and maybe a bit of a wandering back to a Chestertonesque one.

Closer to home, I suppose, it's been a very odd year and perhaps one of turmoil.  As I've noted elsewhere, I never did stay at home during the pandemic, but I was often the only one at work.  As part of that, during part of that time frame my two college age kids were back home, confined to Zoom U.  This past semester that has not been true, so my wife and I, who went from empty nesters to full housers went back to empty nesters.  It was somewhat disorienting. 

Also disorienting was watching the law evolve during the time period. Zoom came in and like the detective in Brecht's Maßnehmen Gegen Die Macht, it's grown fat and won't leave.  Doing in person depositions now is almost a thing of the past, it seems, although some older lawyers, such as myself, are bucking the trend.  Some younger ones basically don't leave their houses anymore.  The legal world is in transition and, at age 58, I don't like that.

Something that I also don't really quite like is the realization that I'm past the point where there's any point in my pondering the judiciary, which I used to do.  Oddly, I saw a comment from a figure associated with the judicial appointments expressing concern the other day about the lack of applicants.  Part of that is that those like myself, of which there were quite a few, who had lots of experience in the civil law were basically not welcome as applicants, so we quit applying.  In the meantime it seems that most younger lawyers have decided to eschew the courtroom.  Indeed, I received comments from a lawyer I tried a case against about being baffled on being in the process as it just doesn't happen much.  It still happens for me, however, and more than once last year.  I'm feeling like Crazy Horse, in being an acknowledged anachronism, fighting on.

As that anachronism, this past year I've worked heavily and that keeps up.  This Fall has been the worst hunting season, a season I highly value, since I was a law student.  I just haven't been getting out, and keeping up at work is why, or so I believe.

This past year something that's been a shock to see is the friends of my children all getting married, which means that my children are of that age.  Indeed, they both have fairly long term girlfriends/boyfriends at this point, all of which causes some angst for a parent.  All I'm really concerned about, at the end of the day, is metaphysical final destinations, and I think it's easy to get diverted on that trip.  Life offers a lot of stopping off points and compromises, some of which can be hard to get back on the train from.

In the meantime, however, that train and the changes to the scenery it brings roll on, and that can be a shock for those watching the passengers.  2022, just coming up, promises big changes here in the smaller nest.

Well, perhaps it's time to set all these things aside.  We're a year past an insurrection, and there's some hope that we may be putting it behind us. We're well into a final cycle of vaccinations, and there's hope that the Pandemic may be starting to get behind us. And its clear we're rethinking a lot of things as a society.  

All of that is something to be thankful for.   And perhaps more pacific pastures are on the horizon, even if there are a lot of breaks to struggle through to get to them.

2020 Thanksgiving Reflections.

Thanksgiving Reflections

A Thanksgiving Passing

Lex Anteinternet: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving