La connerie?

Vu dans une émission récente de Thalassa, l’agréable sériede télévisionfrançaisecentrée sur la mer, comme son nom l’indique: Le calvaire de la petite République de Kiribati dans le Pacifique dont le sol-même est en train de disparaitre sous les flots. Le président de Kiribati essaie même de convaincre la totalité de la population de fuir àl’étranger. Il veut que la nation s’auto-detruise!

Le coupable dans cette tragédie, selon Thalassa? Le réchauffement global! Est-il vraiment possible que les Français soient si cons?

Woman’s Mind; The Mysteries of “Occupy;” the Libertarian Side of the Movement; Syrians

My wife of more years than she cares to remember just told me calmly that I had “low standards” in “women and in food.” It seems that she thinks I could have done better than her. Makes me think because, by and large, I trust that woman’s judgment. Got to take a second look at myself. As far as the food is concerned, she had a conflict of interest when she made the statement. Recently, she bought some expensive rice than I am not allowed to eat because, she says I “would not appreciate it.”

I keep learning about those fascinating creatures. It’s never boring, not ever or not yet! Feminists will maintain with a straight face that this kind of stuff never happens, that it’s all in my mind. Normal women, on the other hand, don’t even raise an eyebrow at this kind of story. “Been there, done it,” their impassiveness seems to say. (And, contrasting feminists with normal women was not a slip of the tongue. I barely ever have those. If you follow my musings, you will realize that I am coldly calculating.)

I keep an eye on the “Occupy Santa Cruz “ street site. (See my posting on this: “Occupy Wall Street, and Santa Cruz, and Democrat Electoral Desperation,” from October 11) I noticed today that there were three times more people there at 11 AM than at 10 AM. Why would that be? As a far as I know this differential showing corresponds to no major work schedule.

Another source of puzzlement: There are more “Occupy” tents than there are ever occupiers present on the site where all the signs are stored or shown. Some of the tents can shelter more than one person. How can this be? Do some tent dwellers go to their job in the morning and come back in the evening to demonstrate against inequality and against the corporations by sleeping in a tent? Too many unanswered questions.

My faraway friend, Kay Day, a prolific conservative columnist and blogger and a woman I admire greatly, recently published a piece fairly sympathetic to the “Occupy” movement. (http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/on-the-ground-at-ows-new-york-no-formal-leadership-is-the-point) First, I am not completely surprised and second, I have some comments.

I am not surprised because the movement does have an anarchist flavor and the word “anarchist” means about the same as the word “libertarian” but with a different connotation. People who call themselves “anarchists” tend to have vague ideas about the sources of government oppression they denounce. They have trouble imagining that the government (technically the “state” ) is inherently oppressive. Libertarians are often anarchists who understand the market idea. Scratch a libertarian and you will often find a former anarchist; educate an anarchist and you will frequently get a libertarian; scratch an anarchist and I have no idea what you will find. And the movement itself has an anarchist form. It’s probably true that, as I write, it has no leaders.

Kay interviews a young media woman, “M” who is herself part of the movement in New York City. The young woman describes what she sees in terms that would also turn me in the movement’s favor. I don’t believe “M” distorts anything, nor does she need to. What she reports I would probably also observe if I were on the ground. Rather, I suspect that “M”’s mind contains the typical mixture of sophistication and naivety one usually finds in young people with semi-advanced degrees from good universities: They know enough to gather facts selectively in order to build a coherent story but their conventionalism finally shows through. In this case, “M” pointed out to Kay that “media typically interview or profile white males although this constituency is ‘far from the majority of the group.’” There is zero evidence that either part of the statement is true, of course. And in New York City, specifically, if reporters are biased I would bet that it is by interviewing females preferentially (and any hapless black female within reach, fifty times a day until she is forced to go home to escape the harassment).

This is not to deny the anarchistic and potentially libertarian potential of the movement. My objection is this: Any group, however diffuse, however little of a group it is, that denounces the political process while demanding change that is both radical and quick is ripe for capture by various forms of fascism.

I thought MoveOn was a fascist organization serving candidate Obama’s campaign. It turns out he probably did not need it to win victory. This time, however, things look frankly bad for candidate Obama. He might need a big push. At this late date, it is striking that there are still no media reports of anyone in the “Occupy “ movement, anyone at all, blaming the president for anything, including for stubbornly high unemployment

Speaking of fascism, the Syrian peaceful revolution continues. Conservative lovers of freedom are not giving those brave people the credit they deserve. At this point, given the size of the Syrian population, it’s as if Americans had lost 55,000 lives to a dictator’s campaign of assassinations.

Post-Arab Spring: Next?

Many Libertarians and conservatives, and not a few liberals, are expressing intense concern about the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The preliminary results of the first post-Spring elections, in Tunisia, deepen their concern. An “Islamist ” party prevailed easily in what everyone agrees were fair elections. I would prefer a market-oriented democratic party favoring separation of religion and state had won. Unfortunately, Tunisian history and thirty years of tyranny did not produced conditions propitious to those views. The reality is that the dictatorship persecuted the Islamists and that they resisted bravely and effectively. Of course, the average democratically inclined first-time Tunisian voter was appreciative. What else would you expect? The leadership of the winning Islamist party insist loudly it’s a moderate party with no intention of turning back the clock on such things as women’s rights, for example. Why not believe them for a while? I, for one, with my origins, am deeply aware of the fact that the parties that rolled back the progress of communism in Europe post-WWII and who presided over an expansion of both prosperity and individual liberties called themselves “Christian Democrats.” An overt religious affiliation in a country that is largely religious is not the worst thing possible. What’s the alternative, anyway? Do you want to call for a return to dictatorship? Will you begin missing Saddam Hussein, or even the small corrupt despot Ben Ali of Tunisia?

A Good Book

I just finished a good book, The Free World. It’s a novel about a Russian-speaking Jewish family originally from the Soviet Ukraine but lately living in Latvia (also in the Soviet Union). The story captures them in 1978, in a period of their lives when they are nowhere that is, in limbo in Rome. They are awaiting in that city, where they have no emotional or historical ties, their emigration to a final destination that has not been determined. It could be Israel, or the US, or Canada. One of their acquaintances even departs for Australia.

The book has the features of all good novels. Its characters quickly come to matter to the reader; he remains attached to them to the end, and he regrets having to let them go; he misses them afterwards. The back-and-forth in the lives of this family cover the whole Soviet era, from the February Revolution to the novel’s present and the back-and-forth work. This reader, at any rate, never felt lost, or disoriented or left behind. The author, who deals with events that took place when he was three, is brilliant at describing the psychological and, especially, the social dislocation of emigration. Unlike many novelists who try the topic, he does it without melodrama and without excessive sentimentalism. I especially admire the fact that this novel seems to me to be both very Jewish and completely universal. Let me specify that I am not Russian, not Ukrainian, not Jewish, and certainly not Latvian (but I know where Latvia is).

Bezmozgis, David. 2011. The Free World. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.New York.

Dr J. Is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

A couple of days ago, in my posting: “Well Done, Mr Obama,”

(http://factsmatter.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/well-done-mr-obama/)

I got carried away, I have to confess. Imprudently, I offered to bet that the total cost of the American participation in the Libyan clean-up was probably “less than 1/1000 of 1% of US GDP.”

Richard Allan, a sometimes reader and vigilant critic, soon pointed out how far off my guess was. He called on what is presented as a Pentagon estimate published in ABC News under the by-line of George Stephanopoulos

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/03/cost-of-libya-intervention-600-million-for-first-week-pentagon-says/

Let me say right away that I have no reason to reject this source but neither do I endorse it. (I have not looked into it deeply enough.) At any rate, according to this source the American cost for the first week alone was $600 million. The US GDP in the past two or three years stood around $14 followed by twelve zeros. Unless I screwed up again because of so many zeros and no enough space on the back of the envelop I am using, I am very wrong and Mr Allan is more than right. In fact, I am wrong by a factor of 4 multiplied by something like the number of weeks adjusted for the fact that we probably spend less in following weeks than in the first week.

Anyway you look at it, if someone had had the gonads to bet, I would have radically lost the best: The total cost of American intervention in Libya is much more than 1/1000 of 1% of GDP.

In fact every week, that our participation lasted my share of its cost must have been as high as the price of a mediocre, medium size-coffee. ( $600 million/300 million Americans.) Believe me, I am deeply ashamed of my mistake!

I thank Mr Allan for teaching me a valuable lesson.

Well Done, Mr Obama!

I don’t argue with success. President Obama initiated and led a successful operation to get rid of another tyrant who also had American blood on his hands. He did it without losing a single American life. Whatever the cost in treasury was small in the broader scheme of things. It was a good investment. I think it’s fine to borrow a little money to deal with a rabid dog, however small the dog. Incidentally, my guess would be that the cost was less than 1/1000 of 1% of GDP. Want to bet?

I wonder what Libertarian pacifists have to say about the whole thing. I am going to ask them. One of the things they will probably argue (just guessing) is that there are many rabid dogs in the world, too many for us to deal with. Yes, I don’t mind borrowing money to deter all of them if need be. Tranquility is priceless.

There are several benefits to the Libyan/NATO victory for this country. (That’s Libyan blood and courage and NATO arms, including our own.)

First, rogues and political murderers everywhere are given a chance to suppose that if you kill Americans, we will get you afterwards, even if it takes twenty years.

Two, Arabs and oppressed people everywhere are figuring that we mean it when we say we like democracy for everyone. We did not always mean it. We do now that communism look like an antique instead of a superpower with the largest army and the most tanks in the world.

Three, this Obama international victory will cost him dearly in the next election. A fraction – I don’t know how large – of the people who voted for him the first time around oppose all American military interventions. For years, they have explicitly preferred a native butcher to an American liberator. Given how tight the election is likely to be, his victory in Libya might be the cause of President Obama’s fall.

If I were he, I would consider resigning this morning, like leaving the ocean after a really good wave.

Update on “Occupy Wall Street, and Santa Cruz….”, Obama Won the Western GOP Debate

I walked by the courthouse steps around 10 this morning. That’s where the “Occupy” crowd “occupy” Santa Cruz. The signs there still outnumber the people present but the ratio is changing. It’s not that there are more demonstrators but that some of the signs have been retired. This morning, the ratio was about 20/40 (40 signs). I am sure it means something but I have no idea what. There was one sign I really liked: It said, “Nixon is a ….” It made me suddenly feel young. Would I make this up?

My assessment of the Western GOP debate: Obama won! (I cribbed that from a caller on the Rush Limbaugh show before I had a chance to think of it. He was probably an easterner, had three hours of wakefulness on me.)

Making a left-liberal like Anderson Cooper the moderator was a really bad decision. Of course, he had to trivialize the debate. I am not saying he wanted to but there is no way he could have avoided it. The liberal mind is inherently trivial. There is not reason to expect it to acquire seriousness of purpose just because it’s dealing with Republican politicians. The reverse is true. When they think of conservatism, left-liberals’ minds fall into the crudest of stereotypes or else, they go blank. Anderson was on automatic during the debate. There is no question on my mind.

Congresswoman Bachman is out. Her heart is in the right place. She has the right instincts. But she is too ignorant and it shows. Even Pres. Obama could see through her if he had to.

Gov. Perry is so shallow it’s embarrassing. Again, he came unprepared; again, he brought a knife to a gunfight. He was not even prepared for the obvious questions about immigration. Then he got into a puny junior-high fight with Romney. Perry is out and everyone knows it. He was a flash-in-the-pan magnified by our desperate wishes.

Congressman Ron Paul was his equal intelligent self. He will always get 20% of the Republican vote; he will never get 25% of he Republican vote. His Libertarians march in locksteps. They are out of touch with other conservives because of their rigid isolationism. Even if they were right (they are not) hey would be wrong to be right in this crowd. Plus, Ron Paul is personally uptight, like an old teacher who has been saying the same simple things year after year and is sick and tired of the repetition.

Newt’s presence in the debate was welcome. He kept forcing back the discussion to useful, important, tangible issues, against Cooper’s steering. Gingrich will not be a candidate. He has too much personal baggage. I don’t know if he knows it but everyone else does.

Herman Cain looks better and better. He was lackluster in the debate because he was not given much material by Cooper. Also, he is a rational man; he has not digested the idea that you can take any question thrown at you and give it an answer to another question not even related to the questions asked. This lack of elementary skills is why I have expressed skepticism before on his candidacy: Mr Cain has all the high intellectual aptitudes but few of the low practical skills. To be a politician, you must also not be afraid to appear stupid. Mr Cain is still afraid.

Mr Cain’s appeal in the field of candidates is two-pronged: First, he is likable. Thats’ simply because he is straightforward, not twisted. You sense he would make a good neighbor. Second, he is the only candidate who says: Here is the problem and here is what I will do about it. His 9/9/9 plan left many perplexed precisely because it sounded so simple in the description but so obscure in its consequences. Today (10/19/11) it received a ringing endorsement in the Wall Street Journal by no less than Arthur Laffer, the best popularizer of supply-side economics.

I don’t care if Gov. Romney once hired an illegal to mow his lawn. Don’t fricking waste my time! I don’t care about Mitt Romney’s religion. Anderson Cooper had to try to focus on an unfortunate remark made by a minor pastor with a big mouth because that flattered his liberal worldview (right-wing bigot against right-wing bigot). Not only do I not care personally about Romney’s religion, (they are all cults.) but I believe most Americans don’t care much more than I do. And I think Romney would confound Barak Obama in a debate. I have other issues with Romney, not as a candidate, but as president.

The first issue is that he has never really explained well or apologized for his Mass. health care plan. That’s a biggie given that the first job facing conservatives is to dismantle Obamacare. The second is that he sort of believes in global warming. I am concerned because this is the most intelligent tool collectivists have devised in fifty years to make us less free. If he does not recognize this fact, he does not have a conservative mind. Finally, I wonder why, after five debates, I still don’t know anything about Romney’s basic ideas about out to deal with the rest of the world.

Here is what I fear will happen: I will end up voting for Romney because he will be the lesser of two evils. But then, almost anyone would be, including Hillary Clinton. Gee, I hope I am completely wrong!

Exploring Irrationality: Clusters

With great trepidation, I want to use this blog to do something that may be verging on the obscene. Don’t worry though, I does not involve my disrobing on-line, at least, not yet.

Let me explain: I style myself a strict rationalist. I have spend much of my life fighting and trying to destroy superstitions. Since I have lived in Santa Cruz, California, for more than ten years, I have been busy. Tech. note: Santa Cruz is where half digested vulgar Marxism meets endlessly with New Age beliefs, diet and exotic health practices. It’s also a major center for the cult of Gaiia. (“Gaiia” is the poetic name for that contrary bitch, Mother Nature.) I think facts matter and the people whose influence I fight every hour of the day when I am not sleeping think only beliefs and intentions matter. They are further sure that beautiful beliefs are more real than facts and that they trump facts (if any).

So, here I go: I have to speak about something I cannot quite explain and that has been puzzling me all my adult life and perhaps before. And it’s a little bit shameful:

Events that have little importance in my life and that I encounter rarely tend strongly to happen in clusters. Two interrelated examples below. Let me tell you right away: what’s below is both perplexing and fairly unimportant.

EX1: I go to the beach with my grand-daughter who is three. It’s the same beach where we have gone fifty times this past summer. There is small concrete space there in front of a coffee shop and in front of a restaurant. That nice day, the space is jammed. I need to go to the restroom inside quickly. I scan the small crowd for a likely person or persons to whom to entrust my grand-daughter for a very few minutes. My eyes rest on a nice, hearty older couple. I ask them. They say yes with an accent I recognize as German. They confirm they are German tourists.

There is no story, so far. Let me point out that Germans play no part in my current life, haven’t for a long time. I have not set foot in Germany for more than ten years. I have no links there; I have only one German friend who shows up once a year. (I do have an old story though entitled: “The Germans and Me.” Feel free to ask for it. It’s rather charming, if I say so myself!)

I come back from the restroom and thank the hale German couple and they leave the area. I sit at a table and engage my grand-daughter in a philosophical conversation. We are interrupted by an older lady, in her sixties with a little blond girl in tow. The old lady says, “ I hope we are not disturbing you but my grand-daughter wanted to meet yours.” My grand-daughter has great charisma. (What do you expect?)

The lady and I chat. She has an accent. I ask her where she is from. She says she was born and raised near Munich. That’s three Germans in about five minutes. More than in the five years preceding.

Soon, it ‘s time to go home. My grand-daughter is like I have been all my life: She never really wants to leave the beach. She lingers on, dancing around a sun dial that’s in the same concrete area near the steps to a restaurant. As she dances, she shouts numbers out loud as if she knew how to count. An attractive woman in her thirties is sitting by herself on the steps. She is smiling at my grand-daughter. Of course, I am confused and I think she is smiling at me. It’s not as absurd as it sounds. I am wearing shorts and I have good legs. I am also wearing, that day, my old straw hat with a broad brim that makes me look rakish. And a lot of women have ridiculous erotic attractions, thanks God. So, you never know.

I start a conversation with the woman. Of course, I am flirting a little. After a while, I notice an accent. I ask her if she is Czech. I often ask that question because Czechs are always amazed that you know of the existence of their country. She says she is German, from near Hamburg. Then her handsome husband arrives, accompanied by their three beautiful children. I ask him not to kill me or take me prisoner. (It’s hardwired; nothing I can do.) He agrees graciously. Third set of Germans in fifteen minutes!

I know what you are thinking: All the Germans are from the same bus or they are drawn to the beach by the same event. They are not. There is no bus and there is no event. When the old lady wanders by, I introduce her to the family with the attractive woman. They did not know each other before me.

It’s all a coincidence or, is it? It’s definitely an unexpected cluster. Here is another one.

EX2: The day after the encounter with the three sets of Germans, I am re-reading and editing a story of mine that features cranberries in a minor way. Trust me when I say that cranberries don’t play a big part in my life. I sample the over-sugared but sour cranberry jelly at Thanksgiving like everyone else. Since I don’t drink cocktails, I have no use for cranberry juice.

Cranberries were in my story only to illustrate a point, a small point. Pay attention; it’s one of these non-story stories. You might miss it.

At a small dinner, two years earlier, I had offered a bet to a professional French translator of English who was a French person. I bet her she did not know how to translate “cranberry” into French. I was sure of myself because the French know nothing of cranberries. It turns out I lost and for a stupid reason: French Canadians know everything about cranberries and the translator worked with French Canadian clients often. Anyway, my 20 dollars went to Doctors Without Borders, I learned a lesson and my story continued under its own power, well away from cranberries, jellied, pressed or fresh.

The day before the encounter with the multiple sets of Germans at the beach, I had picked up a new novel at the library. I had chosen it superficially, on the basis of its dust jacket alone. It’s written by someone with a Russian name and most of it takes place in Russia. Nevertheless, it’s translated from the German. I was not aware of that fact when I checked out the book. In would not have picked it if I had known. In general, I dislike translations. They are seldom good enough for me.

On page four of the novel that I began reading the very evening of the German encounter, about an hour after re-reading an editing my old story, there is a tiny scene that features cranberry tea.

This is all unimportant. I realize and meaningless to boot. Cranberries did no play a role in my life. They still don’t but they entered my consciousness, albeit on a tiny scale, twice in one single day, after being completely absent, I think, for months. There is a cluster there.

Plus, if you paid attention, you might have noticed that the two illustrative clusters in this story might form a super-cluster through the word “German.”

There is a twist to the facts of this second cluster. A Russian friend of mine had read my story containing the translation episode. He had told me something I had dismissed at the time, nearly two years ago. He said that I was wrong to assume there were no cranberries in Europe. He asserted they grew wild in Russia. I had dismissed his assertion because, although he is an intelligent and cultured guy, he is only an engineer. There was a high likelihood he did not know cranberries, from blueberries, from loganberries, and even from gooseberries.

It turns out the Russian was right (or the translator from German was also making a mistake). I experienced this book encounter almost as some malicious attempt by unknown, playful but slightly sinister forces to force me to take a renewed interest in something I deeply don’t care about: cranberries.

What do you think? How about yours?

US Military Leaves Iraq

It seems decided by default that there will be no American military presence in Iraq after December 31st. That’s what Libertarians wanted. I am waiting to hear them celebrate their victory. I, for one thing it’s bad for the US and for the preservation of democracy. The Middle-East remains a bad neighborhood. It’s useful to have military platforms there, even with few troops to guard them. The new situation will be bad for Iraq too, much worse, in fact. For another thing, that large country still does not have an air force. Saddam ordered it to Iran in 2003. The Iranians never returned the planes. No kidding! The Kuwaitis next door do have a small but modern air force. I wonder if the Kuwaitis, remembering the 1990s, will try to take over Iraq from the air. And, of course, the democratic (genuinely democratic) Iraqi government we erected at great American cost will soon have no choice. They will be forced by the large well-armed religious madman next door to ask, “How high?”

Occupy Wall Street; Don’t Attack Grandma: The New Class Struggle

Behind the verbal incoherence, behind the posturing, behind the bad children’s tantrum, behind the trash, behind the grotesque self-regard of those who would borrow $120,000 to earn a degree in “German Studies,” there may be legitimate resentment in the “Occupy” movement. It’s true that it’s difficult to get from the demonstrators an answer to a straight question that does not make you laugh or cry, or both. However, you may not have to await their answer to understand.

To the extent that you can trust television cameras at all, they seem to show largely demonstrators between their mid-twenties and their mid-thirties. That would be people born between 1975 and 1985. Those cohorts had only known ease and prosperity until 2008. They were brought up by easy-going parents who sent them, or allowed them to attend schools that nurtured self-indulgence more than intellectual curiosity. I have two children near the younger edge of these age groups. I am guilty too. When they were playing soccer, they never heard anything from coaches except “Good try.” I remember clearly one little kid ( not one of mine, God forbid!) garnering this very accolade after he had marked a goal against his own team. (Would I make this up?) These American cohorts were not in any way prepared for a world where jobs are difficult to get because companies are not hiring and where the jobs you get don’t pay well because companies don’t have to pay well since they won’t invest in you for the long term because there is no long term they can see.

How about the timing of the “Occupy” movement? This is always a difficult question but one that it’s necessary to try and answer. Here is one thing I know about causation: Constants don’t cause sudden change. “Greed” in Wall Street or elsewhere has not caused the crisis because greed has not surged under Pres. Obama. (It would be really interesting if it had but there is absolutely no evidence in support, and no reason to speculate, I am afraid!) Here is what’s new that might function as a cause. For the first time in my memory, there has been -in the past year – public talk about “entitlements.” There have been discussions about what to do concerning Medicare and the Social Security retirement programs. I repeat, this is the first time in my long memory. A taboo has been lifted. While those generations seem badly informed, some of the discussion of entitlement must have reached some of them and then propagated quickly through the Internet. Here is what some of them may have heard and understood:

When we are employed, even at minimum wage, a percentage of our earnings goes to support old people who don’t work. Some of the geezers bring in $2500 each month thanks to me, more than I am earning working full time. The same idle old people earn more than do those of us who have been employed and are now unemployed for some unknown duration. Many of these old people seem hale, hearty, happy. They look like they will be around, sucking our blood, for a long time. I am going to have to carry them for most of my life. The geezers will go on smoking pot in the house they own while I will never be able to buy a house. And it gets worse: I heard all my youth that when my time comes, there will be nothing left for me of Social Security or only crumbs.

Same thing with Medicare. Those old guys don’t worry about their medical care because I pay for it while I cannot afford any medical insurance myself. My job does not offer it and I cannot afford the premiums. That’s not for me and not for my children.

Medicare too will be long gone by the time I qualify. Either Obamacare will survive and the country will be bled white. Or the Republicans will kill it and conservative forces will put retirement age at 75 or even 80. Either way, I will have gotten screwed.

So, we may be witnessing the beginning of a class struggle, one that Marx never thought about. (Marx was a kind of distracted guy: He missed the importance of both the publicly held corporation and of social security programs, the first of the latter available in Prussia while Marx was still going strong.) This would be a struggle between age classes rather than between economic classes. It would make sense because the former, unlike the latter, can be defined neatly. It’s not clear if a lawyer or a social worker, is a “proletarian” or not today but we know well when the retirement part of Social Security is supposed to run out of money. This provides a neat divide between exploiters and exploited classes. And the idea of “exploitation” makes rather more sense in the context of age class than in the traditional sense of economic class. The ones’ benefits are directly taken from the others, after all. No tortuous reasoning about “surplus value” needed! In fact, for the Baby Boom generation SS retirement benefits were pretty much, or largely, earned, Medicare was partly funded by themselves only, prescription drugs benefits, not at all. (We owe the latter to the munificence of G. W. Bush, I remind you.)

The main defect of this explanation is that it seems that none of the participants seems to invoke it. And, I agree that it’s a problem! But, look: Admitting all this would force one straightforwardly to attack Grandma. The relevant generation of Americans does not have the intestinal fortitude such a move would require. Instead, it’s easier to deflect their collective anger to social actors that seem distant and about which they know nothing: “The Corporations.”

Technical note: I can testify that five years ago, no sophomore in an expensive university where I taught near Silicone Valley knew what a publicly held corporation was. That’s zero. I taught in the business school and I made it my task to explain. There was not resistance. Students were quite interested. They had never been told anything except that corporations were evil. Students would sometimes spontaneously express their surprise at how “fair” the corporate stocks system seemed to be once you understood it. There is no reason to believe the situation has improved since I retired.

Students in the school of Arts and Sciences I believe never received even an elementary explanation. There is worse. If I had a chance to take money off my former colleagues from that school (except those in Economics), I would plunge without hesitation into a bet with them involving a simple definition of the word “corporation.” If I were allowed to bet with all of them, at once, I am certain I would make easy money overall. Reflect on this: I am willing to risk my hard-earned Social Security retirement benefit on the proposition that the average English professor does not know what corporations are. He just knows he hates them and he transmits his hatred to his semi-educated brood, many of whom are “occupying “ something or other right now.